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HomeMy WebLinkAboutNatural Resources Advisory Board - Minutes - 10/06/2004MINUTES CITY OF FORT COLLINS NATURAL RESOURCES ADVISORY BOARD REGULAR MEETING 281 N. COLLEGE October 6, 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 Dot: Mark Sears, Terry Klahn Current Plannine: Cameron Glass Guests CSU students Approval of Minutes: The minutes of the September 1, 2004 meeting were unanimously approved as written. The minutes of the September 15, 2004 meeting were unanimously approved as written Development Review Training Process Cameron Gloss presented an overview of the current development review process. Tom Vosburg distributed and reviewed a matrix which provided different options relating to expanding the duties of Boards & Commissions. Discussion • Gloss: We're getting to a point where many projects are getting through in 4-6 months. That's pretty astounding. We were at a year or fifteen months before we made these changes. • Donovan: Do you see a big bunch at the two year time frame? What's the outside edge? • Gloss: Two years is about right. If it's not worked out in two years you wonder how viable it might be. • Hart: At what point have the overall concepts been laid out pretty well? Natural Resources Advisory Board October 6, 2004 Page 2 of 7 • Gloss: Most are early on. Natural Resource Department planners know the areas well. Issues often come up at conceptual review. Resources are often identified, but the level of impact isn't usually determined till closer to the application. • Colton: Could you explain the modification process? • Gloss: Our code is very prescriptive, including a set distance for buffers. There are ways to modify all of the standards in the code. • Colton: With the modification they don't have to be as far a long in the plan. • Fischer: Who is the hearing officer? • Gloss: It depends. I tend to take projects that are less controversial. We have an outside hearing officer, two of them. We reserve them for cases that are quite controversial, quite complex. We have three items in the next week where a hearing officer is coming in. • Donovan: Explain the 80% idea. • Gloss: We've made changes to the new standards. Where before if you got 80% of the buffer you could go through an alternative compliance. We've changed that with the new buffer habitat and resource protection standards. • Colton: What do you see as the difference between Option 2, and Option 4? They look similar to me. • Vosburg: Option 2 says the board acts like a staff review agency. Your comments are advising the board. In Option 4 you provide complimentary advice to staff. One of the problems we had in the old review system was we had staff making flip or undisciplined comments, without looking at the plan in depth. We would type the comments and send it to the developer. In Option 4 you will not be entering comments into the data base. It's less rigorous. • Vosburg: If this board is advising P&Z that rigor matters. If you're advising staff that's different. Option 4 would be staff direction. It's hard to say what the work load would be. Part of it would depend on the relationship between staff and the board. • Donovan: Even if we said "all projects", we could put parameters on it. • Vosburg: Maybe "any" instead of "all". • Petterson: With Option 2 we would have to respond in the two week time frame. • Vosburg: That would be critical, the time frame is critical. • Gloss: We get the comments directly to the applicant, they expect them that day. • Donovan: The time frame is the same in all of the options. • Vosburg: You're right. • Petterson: I assume the expectations are that all of the comments get in the first cycle. • Vosburg: We try to catch as many comments in the first cycle as possible. • Gloss: For the developers, the worst thing is the 1 lth hour comment. • Donovan: When would our comments be appropriate, after submittal, or after revisions? • Vosburg: It seems like conceptual review, before submittal would be best. • Gloss: That is an important distinction. It we wait till the application is submitted that could impact some projects. • Hart: You said you get enough information that we could take a pretty good shot early on? Natural Resources Advisory Board October 6, 2004 Page 3 of 7 • Gloss: If you can catch it at conceptual, it would give more time for formal comments. • Hart: What percentage of the projects will have an interest for this board? • Gloss: Probably a pretty small percentage. • Hart: When you get the proposal, staff should have a good sense if we'd be interested. • Fischer: Using In -Situ as an example, if we had seen it at conceptual review, would we have known there would be a conflict with the buffers at that point? • Gloss: Yes. • Staychock: What are your thoughts about this? • Gloss: I was surprised at Zucker's recommendation. At first he said the boards should stick with policy, and then he changed his mind. • Fischer: If we get a complimentary type review, would there be a problem with this board directing our chair to go to a P&Z hearing and reflect our comments. Would that be ok? • Vosburg: When staff presented the complimentary review at the study session recently to Council on LPC, they stressed the desire to separate staff authority to be commenting and being involved from the LPC advisory capacity. Those are pretty important distinctions. What you're talking about is to blur that distinction. The development community seemed so concerned with this group's involvement. Don't underestimate the power of standing and saying we have a problem. The LPC relationship works well, it's organic and trusting. There are unspoken rules and boundaries. My one fear of option 4 is if you have the ability to give advice you might be offended if staff doesn't take it. And, what if they don't like your advice, there's a potential for politicizing. I know that Randy is an environmental engineer, I know that Randy has technical advice we could take. I don't know about everyone on the board. • Fischer: At the focus group there was one person representing the Board of Realtors who thought this was a good idea. • Knowlton: What did you think of the meeting? • Donovan: I thought that the representative of the Home Builders Association was set on it costing more time and money. David May said he was hoping to hear it would save time and money, and be better for the environment. • Donovan: I don't want to give the impression that the board doesn't trust staff s expertise in making these decisions. But, I wonder if there's a way under Option 4, where the board could go to the decision maker. There might be rare times where staff doesn't endorse our comments, where there is a legitimate difference of opinion. I don't know how that would work. • Vosburg: We could give it some thought. If the board comments are given in a public meeting there would be minutes of what the board said. It's awkward if it's at the hearing and there's a difference between staff and the board. • Donovan: 1 agree with the point that it's late in the process. • Vosburg: To the thing about technical qualifications. With LPC it's different. We don't have a staff architect. We do have highly degreed people in NRD with pretty good technical expertise. It's not a requirement to have similar credentials on this board. When there's a difference, is it technical or political? Maybe as a community that's a risk we're willing to take. It's something to think about. I can see how a Natural Resources Advisory Board October 6, 2004 Page 4 of 7 complimentary review could apply here, but there are some differences from LPC. It's not an exact parallel universe. Those are some of the concerns. • Knowlton: Is this still on for the study session on the 26`h? • Vosburg: Yes. • Donovan: David May expressed concern more than once, that one person could put up a roadblock. I thought the board would be acting as a whole and there wouldn't be the opportunity for one member of the board to stop a project. I figured it would take a majority to do that. • Hart: There's nothing wrong with one member expressing a point of view. • Staychock: We can do that now. I agree with the expertise. When it comes to environmental issues a lot of it is centered on values, our value system, no matter what our technical expertise is. We need to look at how we judge one persons value system and what its worth. We have to look at that issue, and say sometimes, technology is not always right. It doesn't always trump someone's value system. • Colton: Are we making a recommendation? • Donovan: I wonder if it makes sense to make a recommendation and knock around the memo. We could develop something and we could vote on it at the mid -October meeting. • Fischer: I would prefer the latter. I don't want to have a meeting between now and the next meeting. • Knowlton: This is the place where a subcommittee could be useful. • Colton: The development community is focused on the process running as smoothly as possible. We want a good outcome for the community, not necessarily the fastest process. As for politicization, that goes both ways. There's a lot of pressure to bend standards to get in a project they feel is beneficial to the community. There are other concerns about other people influencing decisions. Things have to be balanced. • Donovan: I like having members on this board that have background or experience in natural resources. I'm not comfortable having to have an expertise to get on this board. If may not give us other experience that is valuable. • Colton: It's good to have a balance. I would rely on the judgment of those with the background, and their opinions and knowledge. • Hart: As individuals we may have a great deal of experience, but as a board we should be talking about the values of the community. We shouldn't have that conflict. Sauer Farm Lease, Mark Sears Sears said this is a pretty straightforward lease that has been in place for a number of years. Harry Sauer is the former owner of the property. We're trying to keep this in agriculture for as long as we can. The City's intention would be to restore it to short grass prairie in the future. The tenant doesn't pay any rent, and we pay toward the weed control. We have felt ok with that. The City of Loveland feels like Harry should pay a little something for the lease. They were able to negotiate the $2750 per year with Harry. Since they manage the site, they'll get the revenue. The lease is annually renewable unless someone objects. Harry does a good job, we never have any complaints. He's a good tenant and one we want to keep. Natural Resources Advisory Board October 6, 2004 Page 5 of 7 • Hart: Why don't we just leave him alone? • Sears: The City of Loveland has successfully negotiated this money. • Knowlton: Why does the City of Loveland want $2750 a year? • Sears: They felt they should be receiving rent. They were able to get a nominal amount, and that's fine. We didn't feel it was worth it? Rob Petterson made the following motion: Move that NRAB support this revised lease, noting our feeling that when the City of Fort Collins' lease comes up we don't see the need for this kind of additional revenue in this situation. The motion was seconded by Joann Thomas. • Knowlton: What does Harry Sauer have to say about this? • Sears: He was ok with it. The motion passed with seven votes in favor and one vote (Jerry Hart) opposed. SW Community Park: Possible Board Recommendation to Council, Nate Donovan Donovan said he put this on the agenda because he wanted to be able to trail on what happened at the P&R meeting last week. My understanding is that they were in favor of a new design concept — Concept 6. The Parks board last week recommended approval of Concept 6 with the condition that the dog park be moved in the vicinity of the basketball courts, in the Spring Creek corridor. Members from SWAN (South West Association Neighbors) were in attendance and granted permission to be involved in the discussion. SWAN: We're members of the neighborhood that surround this site. We organized because of concerns about this natural area. It's a unique area. Many of you are aware of Pineridge Open Space. Today there is nothing between Pineridge and the park. It's a big wildlife area. This is the southwest area of the City. It's a poor arterial because of roads. It's not an area you would pick to build sports activity centers. We started working with P&R staff to make them sensitive. Their agenda was building programmed sports facilities here. We wanted to make them aware of the inappropriateness of this. They've been in the design process formally since this Spring. This is the sixth iteration of the design. SWAN as a group is very supportive of this design. Donovan: Was there something else the Parks board conditioned their approval on? Knowlton: Am I understanding correctly that the P&R Board has endorsed moving the dog park? SWAN: We don't know. Natural Resources Advisory Board October 6, 2004 Page 6 of 7 • Donovan: My understanding is that P&R approved Concept 6 on the condition that the dog park and something else might be moved, and reserved their recommendation upon seeing a new draft. • Knowlton: Since the recreation center won't be built for twenty years, if ever, leave the dog park where it's at for now. • Petterson: Was there any discussion at the meeting of leaving the dog park where it is now? • Donovan: The discussion was they didn't want the future recreation center behind them. • Petterson: Even though this future recreation center wouldn't pose harm to the handicap children and be behind the school? • Petterson: As a board we have a couple questions. Assuming we're in the realm of Concept 6, what do we want to say about the dog park and recreation center, and, do we want to say Concept 6 is a swell idea, except for those issues? • Staychock: I think we need to think of the fences. Let's not get out of the scope of natural resources. • Donovan: One thing, what Linda brought up about the possibility of moving the dog park later, is that park planners go nuts in putting something one place and then moving it someplace else. That will be a tough hurdle to cross. Glen Colton made the following motion: Move that the NRAB approve Concept 6 as it is, or with the dog park where the future recreation center is, but we would be opposed to moving the dog park up where the basketball courts are. The motion was seconded by Ryan Staychock. • Hart: When this last came to the board, we made a recommendation that no activities occur west of the corridor, and we would want to forward that kind of suggestion also. We need to continue with that consistency. There's a lot to be said about leaving the dog park at its current location. I don't know how folks at Overland Trail feel about having another parking lot in their dead end. Some discussion of moving the basket ball courts down south should occur. • Colton: We had concerns of any more parking on the west side. Even this 130 is more than what we wanted. If you add the dog park, you'll have to add for the dog park people. Again, for reasons already stated for wildlife corridors and movement in this area, it doesn't make sense to move the dogs to that side, and adding additional traffic. • Donovan: There's a logical reason for the parking, for access to the soccer fields. • Hart: We should go on record as stating that we don't support the location of the recreation center that close to the natural area. • Colton: It's highly questionable there will ever be a recreation center. I agree with Linda, it should be taken out of the equation. • Sears: One thing to notice is this is a small scale of the drawing. The buffer along Spring Creek is fairly extensive. Even if the recreation center is built there it doesn't encroach on the wildlife corridor. Natural Resources Advisory Board October 6, 2004 Page 7 of 7 • Petterson: We should stay on record that it should be as minimal as possible. • Donovan: The reasons for no dog park in the corridor are the impact on wildlife, dogs off leash issue, and the need for additional parking and fences. • Petterson: Fundamentally I don't like Concept 6 because it's a wall of stuff. If you put in the dog park you have a physical boundary. In the test of the motion are folks amenable to expressing our reluctance to endorse Concept 6, or recognize that it is a compromise situation? • Knowlton: I would like to say we're happy, we think Concept 6 is the best one we've seen and we do support it with the exception. • Petterson: I wouldn't support the idea that we're happy with it, but I would reluctantly endorse it. I'm not suggesting that we take the position that we don't accept this, but the question is if you want to register a concern, this is not the ideal situation. • Hart: That would be consistent with past positions. • Petterson: The whole issue is of where things are, relative to the corridor. • Staychock: I seconded the motion because of the natural resource implications. Maybe we could move the parking lot north of the maintenance area. • Donovan: The size of the parking lot is what drove this. • Staychock: I understand. It we take a step up and down the corridor, on the other side of the park is a neighborhood. We need to be sensitive to what the wildlife has to go through. • Donovan: Maybe it's more of an issue of how the memo is drafted. • Hart: We've said in the past that we think this area would be better used a more natural area. We realize this is a developed park, and our concern is to keep it as natural as possible. We're concerned about wildlife movement and the impact on the natural area. We do support concept 6 because this is the best compromise at this point, but we're still concerned about it's effect, and hope the park staff will keep these concerns in mind. • Colton: Mention keeping the dog park where it is, moving the basketball court, and move the parking. • Sears: They've drawn on a one hundred foot buffer, there's very little encroachment. The recreation center is 200 feet away from the center of Spring Creek. It seems they've done a pretty good job of buffering and restoring Spring Creek. As you further the buffer widens out. You can only juggle things around a limited amount. The motion passed unanimously. Adjourn The meeting was adjourned at 8:40 p.m. Submitted by Terry Klahn Admin Support Supervisor -03.0�