Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAboutNatural Resources Advisory Board - Minutes - 04/20/2005 (2)MINUTES CITY OF FORT COLLINS NATURAL RESOURCES ADVISORY BOARD Special Meeting 281 N. COLLEGE April 20, 2005 For Reference: Nate Donovan, NRAB Chair - 472-1599 TBA, Council Liaison - John Stokes, Staff Liaison - 221-6263 Board Members Present Linda Knowlton, Jerry Hart, Rob Petterson, Nate Donovan, Randy Fischer, Ryan Staychock, Joann Thomas, Glen Colton, Clint Skutchan Board Members Absent None Staff Present Natural Resources Dept: Terry Klahn, John Stokes Guests None Public Comments None Timnath Community Separator John Stokes showed a power point presentation that provided background information regarding the separator project, and outlined the questions he will be asking City Council on May 10, 2005. • Knowlton: When the study was going on we were not just talking about conservation easements. We talked about a number of different tools we would be using. We wouldn't want to limit it. I think staff should continue to implement the separator study, which was approved by Timnath and is part of our land conservation plan. • Stokes: The primary tool we use is conservation easements. We don't want to buy land. If we bought it we would put a conservation easement on it and try to sell it. • Donovan: At Coyote Ridge the water district wanted a water line diagonally across it. Did you agree to language that said they could do it anywhere, or just the perimeter? • Stokes: There are no provisions. We're not managing this for natural value, it's being acquired as a scenic amenity. Anything above ground would be problematic. We were very far apart on the language • Donovan: Was the closure of the conservation easement in the fall of 2004 well on its way, or almost closed before the resolution? • Stokes: Yes, it was well on its way. Natural Resources Advisory Board April 20, 2005 Page 2 of 6 • Knowlton: You need to make it clear Timnath has done a 180 degree change on this. • Stokes: The AIS will provide much more detail. • Knowlton: There's also the fact that Timnath accepted the separator study and incorporated it into their comprehensive plan. • Stokes: Its still in their comprehensive plan. • Knowlton: We had an agreement in there on density. What you need to get across to council is the huge shift they've made. • Donovan: I wonder if it would be helpful to make that point publicly, not just in the materials that Council gets. • Stokes: If we get interviewed we'll make that point. It's clear that Timnath has done a 180 degree turn. Stokes will provide a copy of the lawsuit to every member of the board. • Knowlton: These are related, but I wouldn't want to cloud the issue of the separator with the URA issue. • Stokes: It's related in the sense that we're trying to do a couple different things. Its not just about the community separator. We're trying to get Council abreast of the URA. The City of Fort Collins will be impacted. We're not sure what we should be doing as staff. • Knowlton: You might want to estimate the effect of County revenues to the City. • Stokes: We're asking Council if they want us to do more work. We're laying the groundwork. • Colton: Look at everything that's happening in Loveland. Fort Collins is not competing with Loveland because of the URA Loveland did. • Knowlton: The County has talked to Timnath about both of the issues. • Fischer: It wouldn't be a case of them increasing the density instead of lowering it. They've never raised the density in the separator area as far as I'm aware. You said they didn't want to lower the densities. We're not asking them to lower them, we're just asking them not to raise the density. • Stokes: When we buy conservation easements we're buying down those development rights. By sweeping this into their GMA and annexing it, then they could raise the densities. • Staychock: Is the whole area part of the URA? • Stokes: Not yet. It can become part of it. Anything in the GMA can swept into the URA. • Donovan: Have they designated a geographical designation? • Stokes: Their plan says they can sweep anything in the GMA into the URA. • Skutchan: Without an IGA, legally speaking, what are you putting yourself out there for if it gets nasty. What's your leg to stand on if you trudge forward with your plans, and they go forward with their plans? • Stokes: It doesn't really affect us. We can go ahead and buy land and conservation easements. We have the authority and ability to do that. There's no legal reason at all. We can buy land. We've made an investment. They've leap frogged us. If they come in and annex the land around us, the value of the land goes through the roof. We're talking to the landowners and they're weighing their options. Natural Resources Advisory Board April 20, 2005 Page 3 of 6 • Stokes: The programmatic risk is one of success. Did we waste $1.2 million? That's the question the City Manager's Office is worried about. If the values are skyrocketing out of sight, and we have development in the middle of the community separator what should we do? De we keep buying easements around that, or not? I was more optimistic about our ability to succeed a couple months ago than I am now. The developers smell money. • Knowlton: There's this lawsuit, the whole plan may not pan out. • Stokes: That's right. My perspective is lets keep talking to the land owners, lets keep our relationships with those folks. This could all evaporate tomorrow. • Skutchan: Have they expressed any indication as to if that were to fail, the lawsuit, what they would do? • Stokes: I don't know. • Skutchan: They would have to tax the people. • Fischer: They wouldn't have to tax. The URA basically requires them to tax people for things. The URA will eat up the tax money. What's wrong with impact fees? That's the way most responsible communities fund their infrastructure. • Stokes: They'd have to go to a different model. Things are so uncertain because of the lawsuit. It's going to take a while for all of this to shake out. It could be two years, or more, before a decision is rendered from the court. My sense from the County is they're ready to go to the mat on this. • Colton: What are the County's thoughts on the UGA? • Stokes: I understand that right now they have no desire to recognize the GMA. • Knowlton: I would like to see us recommend to Council that we continue to pursue the community separator implementation that we've been working on for the past two years. Not slow down. I'm glad we have Soapstone, but in a way, while we were doing Soapstone other things happened. I hope we didn't lose opportunities in the Timanth Separator. • Knowlton: I went back and found a memo from April 10, 2003. It was from Tom Vosburg to this group getting ready for a Council meeting on May 6, 2003. It recommends adoption of the separator study, and that a meaningful separator will require the purchase of land and conservation easements, that Fort Collins will need to be the lead, and we need to move quickly. I don't see that anything has changed. • Stokes: On thing I can suggest if that we get properties under option, and then have the right to exercise the option or not. We might want to bring some of that back to this group. Are we willing to cough up $50,000 an acre to make this separator work? That's big bucks. There's a tactical question related. This summer we'll show you our long term plan acquisition budget. It's pretty complex. Part of our motive is to manage expectations. People think we have $9 million a year to spend on land. We do not. Normally we'll spend between $4 and $6 million on land. One transaction a year can eat it up. We've got literally dozens of projects in our spreadsheet for our ten year plan. We'll only do a tiny fraction of those. We'll have to make hard decisions on how to allocate those resources. We'll have a lot of opportunities. We've got good projects in the pipeline. Natural Resources Advisory Board April 20, 2005 Page 4 of 6 • Skutchan: When you assess this as to if you can afford it, you have to look at the long term future. Are you going to be able to preserve that view shed? If that goes away, what are you working toward? • Hart: What happens if Council says not to pursue this? We're stuck with 160 acres. Can we sell back those conservation easements and get our money back? • Stokes: If someone would buy them from us. To actually extinguish the easement would be really messy. • Fischer: I would suggest something similar. If we do abandon the work in the separator we should demand that Timnath compensate us for the money we spent there. We acted in more than good faith, took the lead and implemented something they had agreed to. That would have to be an absolute drop dead requirement for us to back out of working on those easements. • Skutchan: Back to my question. • Stokes: An IGA would never have addressed that issue. Investing in the community separator is risky business. We don't know if we'll succeed. • Skutchan: What other value is there from the view shed? • Stokes: It depends on your point of view. • Knowlton: How do you think this lawsuit has affected the development pressures? • Stoeks: It helped mitigate the pressure. The developers are very wary right now. • Staychock: I say we should keep a good relationship, stay the course, and don't do anything arbitrary or capricious. • Stokes: Back to one of Clint's questions. If this chunk goes away, and these guys say we're annexing it in, I would like to come back and get some feedback from this group. Do you want us to keep working on this? • Fischer: Why don't we buy the land and develop it as a community separator. It seems like we're stuck in the mind set of looking at conservation easements. If they're being courted by fee simple purchases, why don't we do that? We have as much negotiating power. We could be the developer. • Stokes: That's exactly what we're doing on Bartran. • Staychock: If this LTRA thing goes through, and any of those pieces go away, I don't care about the community separator with Timnath any more. • Knowlton: I think the opposite. This lawsuit gives us an opportunity when the developers are uncertain. That makes it easier to do the things Randy is talking about. • Fischer: This whole thing is discouraging. For six years we been following adopted council policy. For one reason or another they never got done. We dragged out feet for too long. I'm not willing to abandon it yet. • Hart: I think the modified hang out policy is a good move. If council looks at the monetary cost they may say the costs to our community are way too high. There's a lot more to this than the question of if we should have the separator or not. There's a lot more that affects our community. The separator would have benefited Timnath. It's the attitude they had six months ago. • Colton: The City should study the impacts of the URA with the entire GMA. We should be a party to the law suit. We are being hurt, just like the County. Citizens Natural Resources Advisory Board April 20, 2005 Page 5 of 6 shouldn't be forced to go out and do the lawsuits when they have governments representing them. • Skutchan: My concern is that unless you are told to purchase that one property I'm pessimistic. Is this really serving as a community separator? What are you separating? • Stokes: My sense would be along the lines of Ryan. Stay the course, keep our relationships and see what happens. • Knowlton: Does Timnath want the City to sign an IGA with them? We need to remind the City not to enter into an IGA with Timnath until the lawsuit is settled. • Stokes: We could not recommend to you or council an IGA right now. We're not even close as to what should be in the IGA. Nate Donovan made the following motion: Move that the Natural Resources Board recommend to Council that the City continues the implementation of the adopted community separator plan of 2003, especially during the period of uncertainly with respect to Timnath's urban renewal authority, and that the City should not enter into an IGA with Timnath relating to the community separator area until these issues are resolved. We would encourage an IGA that honors that intention of the separator study. The motion was seconded by Randy Fischer. • Staychock: I would like to have the understanding that if a good deal came by you'd purchase it, but if it's extremely expensive you wouldn't. • Stokes: We would rather option it and come back to the board. • Donovan: Do we want to recommend that the City analyze the monetary and environmental impacts to Fort Collins of the recent actions taken by Timnath? • Fishcer: I would second that as well. The motion passed with 7 votes in favor, and one vote opposed (Clint Skutchan). Rob Petterson had already left the meeting prior to the vote. Budget Memo Randy Fischer distributed a draft memo and asked for recommendations. • Donovan: I thought it was a great memo. Randy will incorporate suggestion and changes to the memo and send it out. The goal is to have the memo to Dann Attebery by Monday, Apri125. Other Business Linda Knowlton requests a briefing to the board on the airport expansion study that is going on right now. It could have impacts on Fossil Creek, Duck Lake, and the whole area. John Stokes will see if Ron Phillips will be available to attend the next meeting. Ryan Staychock said he's heard that CDOT is telling people that the NRAB wants Carpenter Road to be a dirt road. That is not true. CDOT should not classify us as that type of entity. Natural Resources Advisory Board April 20, 2005 Page 6 of 6 Adjournment The meeting was adjourned at 7:30 p.m. Submitted by Terry Mahn Admin Support Supervisor