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HomeMy WebLinkAboutNatural Resources Advisory Board - Minutes - 10/20/2004MINUTES CITY OF FORT COLLINS NATURAL RESOURCES ADVISORY BOARD SPECIAL MEETING 281 N. COLLEGE October 20, 2004 For Reference: Nate Donovan, NRAB Chair - 472-1599 Eric Hamrick, Council Liaison - 225-2343 John Stokes, Staff Liaison - 221-6263 Board Members Present Joann Thomas, Linda Knowlton, Gerry Hart, Glen Colton, Nate Donovan, Randy Fischer, Ryan Staychock, Rob Petterson Board Members Absent Clint Skutchan Staff Present Natural Resources Dept: Mark Sears, Terry Klahn, John Stokes Guests Anne Hutchinson, Chamber of Commerce NRAB Role in Development Review, Nate Donovan Donovan said he wanted to discuss the proposed option that was the result of a committee meeting last week. • Donovan: We thought a modified option 4 would be the best way to go. • Knowlton: The issues we talked about the most, and made the most changes on regarded technical ability and expertise. We want to make it clear we don't want this board to be technical experts. We're also trying to get a handle of where in the review process our review would take place, and under what conditions. • Hart: I like the use of "authority" and the review being at conceptual review. Why did we say we'd look at issues with approval of four members? Why not a majority? • Donovan: It was modeled after City Council. Three members of Council can direct staff. • Hart: But, it could be that five members of the board don't want to do it. • Donovan: A majority of the board would be necessary to take some action, like advising staff. • Hart: In number ten, where you added the discretion of board. Is this if we don't like what staff did with our comments. Would we be suggesting the board can go to council? • Colton: Not Council, but P&Z. • Donovan: I thought it was important the board have some ability, in limited cases, to make our views be known if staff didn't take our recommendations. In 95% of the cases if staff thought our advice wasn't worth including it would be ok, but there Natural Resources Advisory Board October20, 2004 Page 2 of 6 might be in a small number of instances that we would feel at least P&Z should have the benefit of our advice. I did talk to Tom Vosburg late this afternoon. He had mentioned that he submitted everything for the Council packets this afternoon. The staff recommendation is based on the philosophical decision of if this board should have a quasi-judicial function added to it. We talked about Landmark Preservation functions. They are the final decision makers on designation. But, they also do what option 4 does, only to staff. They don't have any ability to go beyond. If staff rejects their recommendation that's the end of it. I thought if we are going to do this, it seems that there should be the possibility that we could make our views known to P&Z. Our views would also be reflected in the minutes. • Hart: I don't see where that gives us quasi-judicial. It's a recommendation from the advisory board. We're not making a decision. We're only forwarding the opinion of the board. • Donovan: Apparently staff thinks that doing something other than advising staff would be outside of our legislative policy function. When this started early last year it seemed to be fairly straightforward. If this was going to be done, it was to expand the board's authority to advise P&Z. • Fischer: I heard recently that the P&Z made a big deal out of saying they didn't want to see the minutes from this board. The argument that they can look at our minutes is not valid. As a matter of policy they're not going to look at our minutes. • Colton: Are you talking about legislative items? Up to this point we haven't had anything to give them? • Donovan: If we were going to do something like this it would be reasonable to put the excerpts of the board minutes in the package that goes to P&Z. • Donovan: Tom Vosburg said they added an option 5, of no change, and that's their recommendation. They're not going to support option 4, or any other option. • Fischer: I had a call from Tom on Friday. He said staff s recommendation is no change to the existing system. I thought about it over the weekend. It struck me as operating in bad faith on the part of staff to have developed this concept 4 that he brought to us. We had the expectation that he did that because he thought it was something that staff could live with. Then I get a call that said, by the way, we're not going to support these options. We've made dozens of valuable, reasonable arguments on why this is important. If we are granted this authority I think it would benefit the environment and the development community. The alternative is down the road there may be a huge train wreck over some development. The developer will be caught in the middle, it will create bad blood. Why is it that the developers are the only ones with authority to go before the board? It doesn't make sense. I think this would add transparency to the whole process. • Knowlton: It does display bad faith. It's pretty clear what happened when we started to discuss this. The development community doesn't want it, and they were able to pressure staff to not support it. • Colton: Citizens can show up and testify against things just like developers. The primary thing is getting issues out early that may not other wise be known. When In - Situ came in no one from the environmental side knew there would be big modifications to the buffers till the end. As a result we had a process and decision that Natural Resources Advisory Board October20, 2004 Page 3 of 6 took a lot of effort and time. We're trying to avoid having that happen. As far as the quasi-judicial thing, giving input is not quasi-judicial. • Knowlton: If staff makes the presentation to council and even uses that term, that will be very negative to Council. It's a red flag. • Donovan: If we make a recommendation we can emphasize that. • Staychock: If there's a recommendation tonight, who introduces it to Council? • Donovan: We would send a memo, it would have to be quick. • Staychock: Who's at the study session? • Donovan: There is no conversation, unless they invite us. • Staychock: Would staff be the ones giving their input? • Donovan: Yes, and I could be there, the chair and vice chair. If they invite us to come up we can talk, but if we're not invited the memo would be the only communication with them. • Staychock: If staff is the only one in the conversation, and they already told us they don't support it, there's probably no chance. • Colton: It's important to have the chair and co-chair there. Many times they do invite people to the table for input. In this case, it would be only fair to do that. • Stokes: The reason I'm being quiet is I haven't been involved in this. I haven't been in the loop on this project. I don't have anything to add that would illuminate things. • Donovan: I still have questions if this is a good thing. I don't fault Tom or other staff for coming up with the conclusion they did. But, I'm really disappointed. And I feel its bad faith on the part of the Northern Colorado Home Builders, and the Fort Collins Chamber of Commerce. We reached out and included them in the process. Comments at the focus group meeting were a knee jerk reaction to say "hell no". Even the Fort Collins Board of Realtors were amenable to talking about the pros and cons. The Home Builders and the Chamber of Commerce were negative from before that meeting. If you look at the tape of the meeting in April, 2003, which is probably gone now, you'd be appalled by the comments of David May. It was very unprofessional and makes me question the role the Chamber plays in the policy making of this community. I'm a business person, and I don't think the Chamber of Commerce represents my interest. I thought it was very poor in April, 2003, and I thought it was equally poor at the meeting two weeks ago. • Colton: I think it was David May who said it politicizes the process by having this board weigh in. This could be used as a tool to slow down or hinder development. I don't think people would use it as a tool to do that. We would use it as a tool to make sure the code is properly interpreted. To say that a board like the NRAB is politicizing the process, but that Chip Steiner, could speak and that's ok and not politicizing the process, is hypocritical. Maybe the DDA should not be able to speak. If its not appropriate for the boards, they why should a group like the DDA, a quasi - governmental board be able to weigh in? • Donovan: That should be part of our recommendation or communication with Council. • Fischer: We have a unique by-law for this board that may not be representative of other boards and commissions. We do advise Council, but there are four other points Natural Resources Advisory Board October20, 2004 Page 4 of 6 that are also listed under object and function that almost give us the authority right now to comment on things. We need some sort of formal recognition that this really isn't stepping outside the boundaries of our current existing by-laws. One of the main reasons I want to do this is to protect the board members from potential litigation. If the board members feel strongly about something that will happen on private property, I would like to have the authority to speak out. A new development proposal for Cooper Slough is coming through. It's going to be an issue and its coming up real soon. It's complicated by the fact that its in the county. There is an IGA. • Knowlton: I don't want to repeat what Nate said, but for the record I do want to say that I support everything he said wholeheartedly. • Donovan: We have a draft that Steve Roy came up with about a year and a half ago. It seems it might be simpler to propose a code change that gives the board the ability to provide advice to P&Z on specific development proposals. • Petterson: I don't know why you'd want to. Looking at this, it looks pretty good generally. I would like to know where the board sits on the merits of this proposal. If we're in favor of it, lets say so, put the package around it, and see what happens. We should focus on the substance and put the package together here. Randy Fischer made the following motion: Move that this board recommend to Council that modified Option 4 be adopted to give the Board authority to have a role in the development review process. Rob Petterson seconded the motion. • Donovan: Any specific comments ? • Fischer: The reason I support modified option 4 is it's the best option, and requires the least involvement by staff. I do think it has very little potential to slow projects down, and I think it accomplishes what we want to accomplish. We've put quite a bit of effort into this. When I heard that Tom wont be supportive, I thought, lets go down swinging. We could fall back to one of the other options, but staff s recommendation will be the same. We should recommend something we believe in and does what we want it to do. Who knows, maybe they'll surprise us, and be supportive. • Hart: The genesis was the Zucker report. Why does staff feel the recommendation in the report wasn't valid? It's because they don't want to do the work. • Staychock: I have about a 180 degree change on what I thought about this, after hearing what the Housing Board, and the Chamber of Commerce had to say. I'm more weary and cynical. I have to muddle through this again. • Donovan: At best, it's a concern or paranoia, that nothing good can come out of this. At worse, its taking the risk that a train wreck like In -Situ wont happen again. • Fischer; If you'd been at the committee meeting, you'd realize we made all of the arguments we could think of. They were reasonable and viable. They'd already made up their minds they didn't like this, and they're not going to listen to reason. They're not going to budge. Nothing we could say would sway them. The head of the Board of Realtors said he thought it was reasonable, and would be valuable to the community. David May sat through it and said, "I haven't heard anything that this is Natural Resources Advisory Board October20, 2004 Page 5 of 6 something that would have any benefit". I have the feeling the same thing is happening with staff. Every time we've met we've discussed the same issues. They don't want to be held responsible for not bringing something. We've reassured them that's a minor issue and something we could work through. They keep bringing it up again and again. It was brought up at P&Z on Friday. You think you're having a dialogue, but they keep bringing up the same issues over and over. It doesn't seem like they're listening. • Staychock: Which may be why Zucker said it's a good step. • Donovan: There was a P&Z worksession on this topic? • Fishcer: Tom was there, and kind of casually laid this out, and said, `By the way, the NRAB is working on this". It created a major stir. They hadn't been given any background. Now, P&Z is taking it up tonight at their meeting. • Staychock: That's a whole issue of process. • Coton: Maybe we should hear from the representative of the Chamber. • Hutchinson: This is your discussion. You need to discuss as an organization what you want to achieve, the same as we go through the discussion as to what we want to achieve. • Colton: What I heard David May say was he wanted to see a clear and beneficial impact to the environment, and that it would not slow a project down. • Donovan: It would be irresponsible for us to say this is going to work great, just as it was irresponsible for the lady from the HBA to say it would absolutely increase the time. • Donovan: I'd support a sunset in a year or two. If it wasn't working, it would go away. • Colton: Or, at least a review after a year. • Knowlton: Randy, would you accept a friendly amendment? • Fischer: I would accept monitor and review on an annual basis. I'm not sure it needs to be in the motion. • Knowlton: It needs to be part of our recommendation to Council. I think it would ease their minds. I think Zucker made this recommendation because of In -Situ. This process could have kept that from becoming a community issue. • Donovan: Is there support for a review or sunset? • Fischer: Does it merit an amendment to the motion? • Petterson: What constitutes review, and by whom? • Donovan: Council. • Petterson: So Council would take this up a year form now and review it? I'm supportive of that. • Donovan: Annual review will be added to the motion. Move that this board recommend to Council that modified Option 4 be adopted to give the Board authority to have a role in the development review process. The process is to be monitored and reviewed by Council in one year. Natural Resources Advisory Board October20, 2004 Page 6 of 6 Colton: Everyone is saying we're unfriendly to development, and the process takes too long. We brought in Zucker, and he made a host of recommendation including this one. Seventy percent of those were implemented with little or no discussion. Most were things staff could do to speed up the process. The majority are working, things are moving fast. I find it interesting, or disturbing, that one I thought might help, allowing other boards to comment, was not implemented and is the one that gets looked at closely. I feel like we need a predictable process. This is a good step. This adds balance without any detrimental impacts and some beneficial comments. The motion passed unanimously. Adjourn to Work Session The meeting was adjourned to a worksession at 7:00 p.m. Submitted by Terry Klahn Admin Support Supervisor