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HomeMy WebLinkAboutTransportation Board - Minutes - 11/17/2004MEETING MINUTES of the TRANSPORTATION BOARD November 17, 2004 5:45 p.m. City of Fort Collins -Municipal Building Community Room 215 N. Mason Street FOR REFERENCE: CHAIR: Bruce Henderson VICE CHAIR: Heather Trantham STAFF LIAISON: Don Bachman ADMIN SUPPORT: Cynthia Cass BOARD MEMBERS PRESENT: Dan Gould Neil Grigg Bruce Henderson Tim Johnson Brent Thordarson Ray Moe Christophe Ricord Gary Thomas CITY STAFF: David Averill Don Bachman Cynthia Cass Tom Frazier Mark Jackson Kyle Lambrecht John Lang Cam McNair Kathleen Reavis Pete Wray 898-4625 206-4255 224-6049 224-6058 ABSENT: Heather Trantham OTHERS IN ATTENDANCE: Kurt Kastein — Council Liaison APPROVED Regular Meeting Minutes Page 2 of 14 Transportation Board November 17. 2004 1. CALL TO ORDER The meeting was called to order by Chair Henderson at 5.55 p.m. 12. AGENDA REVIEW I An additional item was added to ACTION ITEMS: Reconsideration of an old memo to the City Manager, dated March 8, 2004 regarding Capital Improvement Projects. Chair Henderson would like to board to decide: Due to the current work going on with Building on Basics (BOB), should the Board revise this memo and resend an updated version of it or not? 3. PUBLIC COMMENT None. 4. APPROVAL OF MINUTES (OCTOBER 2004) There was a motion and a second to approve the minutes of October 20, 2004 as presented The question was called and the motion carried by a unanimous vote, 8-0. 5. COUNCIL LIAISON REPORT Kurt Kastein stated that he is just here to see how things are going and really has no report. He did state that the Clerk's office is still accepting applications for the Board and hope to get enough to fill all the vacancies. 6. DISCUSSIONANFORMATIONAL ITEMS a. US287 BIKE LANE PROJECT UPDATE — Reavis and Lambrecht Reavis introduced Kyle Lambrecht from Engineering who is working with her on this project. Reavis stated that the City is working in conjunction with the Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT) on this particular project which is to develop a designated bikeway along US 287 (South College Avenue) from Harmony Road (SH 68) to Carpenter Road (CR 32). The project includes developing a conceptual Vision Plan for the full length of the corridor which reflects the design alternatives analysis process and recommendations for preferred alternatives to accommodate cyclists of various experience levels and provide connectivity to the area's on -street bike land and off -road multi -use trail system. The project will also include developing a recommended Project Prioritization List for constriction phases. There will be an active public involvement process, including potentially affected interests such as area property/business owners and residents, bike advocacy groups, multiple City departments, the Transportation Board, City Council, Larimer County, CDOT and the Federal Highway Administration. The next open house is scheduled for Dec 1 from 5-7 p.m. at the Harmony Library. APPROVED Regular Meeting Minutes Transportation Board November 17, 2004 Page 3 of 14 7. ACTION ITEMS a. NORTHSIDE NEIGHBORHOOD PLANS — Wray and Averill Wray gave some background information on the project and said that the focus of tonight's presentation will be the key transportation related issues. After going over each of the issues via Power Point presentation, Wray opened the floor to questions and said that ultimately, staff is requesting that the Board forward a recommendation to City Council for the adoption of the Northside Neighborhoods Plan as an element of City Plan. There was a short period of questions/answers that included information on the public outreach process and the feelings of the residents about the plan. There were some problems at one point, but Jackson stated that he feels completely comfortable that the majority now support it. The other topic of discussion centered around some of the wording in the Plan about funding. In the end, the Board unanimously supported approval of the plan by City Council. It was agreed that there should be two modifications: Last paragraph on page 4-12, replace the statement "...with the balance to be funded from the City's Capital Improvements budget" with the statement ",,, with the balance to be funded by any capital funding sources available to the city, including Special Districts". Table on page 6-4 — replace the action on row T-c "Promote the Lemay AveNine Drive improvements as a Building on Basics priority for the 2005 ballot" with "Funding for the Lemay AveNine Drive improvements should consider all funding sources available to the city, including Special Districts". There was a motion and a second to approve the plan subject to changing the wording as stated above. There was a second and the motion carried unanimously, 8-0. b. ADOPTION OF 2005 BOARD WORK PLAN - All Chair Henderson stated that most of the work was done at the October meeting and since no one had any changes to the document, which was sent out to all members for review and comment, the current document is the one up for adoption. At the January meeting, there should be five new board members and the meeting should be structured around the plan. The board can review it, talk about and deal with some of the "how" parts of the plan i.e. how do we go out and accomplish some of these things? There was a motion by Grigg to approve the 1005 Work Plan as presented There was a second by Thomas. The motion carried by a unanimous vote, 8-0. APPROVED Regular Meeting Minutes Transportation Board November 17, 2004 Page 4 of 14 Grigg and Johnson commented that the new members should get copies of the Master Transportation Plan at the January meeting. It was noted that Chair Henderson and Grigg need copies as well. Jackson will make them available on CDs. c. RESURRECTING THE MARCH 8, 2004 CAPITAL IMPROVEMENT MEMO Chair Henderson stated that in light of the recent work on BOB, and the fact that it is going to Council soon, he wondered if the board would want to consider sending another memo to them. There was a discussion about the list of priorities attached to the memo. Grigg: We need to be careful not to micromanage. This is too complicated for us to pick every $500,000 project. You need to leave some discretion to professional staff to manage this. There does need to be a balance; the voters do need to know what they are voting for. Ricord: If you look at successful Cl efforts for the last 25 years, I think you'll see that the ones that succeeded have been very specific. Henderson: Maybe the guideline is that all the major projects are identified. The question I have would be, does that go as far as intersection improvements? Johnson: I think that the major exception to what you're saying Christophe, comes from the Natural Areas Plan. They can't specify anything they're going to buy because they don't know what's going to become available. And that was passed overwhelmingly. Ricord: That's not a good correlation — apples and oranges. Johnson: I know it's a different element and with regard to the Ped Plan, it's true we passed that last time without naming any ped projects whatsoever. I think if we identify the first couple of projects that are to go in each area that might be helpful with flexibility out at the tail end so the voters know that for instance Harmony from College to Seneca is going to be dealt with. That's a given. Thomas: When we were out doing the tax initiative and going door to door, I heard over and over again from people that they don't trust the City. Ricord: I'm not in any way saying that the City shouldn't be trusted. Johnson: Can we do something of a hybrid where we identify a couple of the big projects? Bachman: There is some time. You'll have a chance at your December meeting, after the Study Session, to tweak the projects. APPROVED Regular Meeting Minutes Transportation Board November 17, 2004 Page 5 of 14 Johnson: I wonder if instead of giving them this highly specific list, maybe we could give some rough lump amounts for the bikes and peds and maybe name some things for bicycles and then put together the amount for streets and intersections and name 24 specifics and keep it more simple. Grigg: What appeals to me is to have 2-3 alternative packages to look at and choose in December. I think we might like one of them and I'm not confident we can come up with that tonight. Moe: I might suggest you include a map showing where the projects are, so that a person can see that no matter where they were going, there was a project that they would benefit by. I recall that the last time, the northeast part of the city didn't have a lot of stuff in it, I'm just thinking that people are going to vote to their benefit. A map with lots of projects sprinkled around might sell it. Henderson: Maybe everyone is fine just sending it in as is. However, with what their job is now, they need to get really specific and focus in on what they're going to ask the voters for. The letter is good; it gives them our values and concepts and that sort of thing. The essential thing is the list of projects. I wonder if we resent this letter, if the appropriate thing would be to add a paragraph in the beginning that essentially summarized the essence of the discussion that we just had, which is that we think this does need to appeal to all the voters in the city and one way to do that is to as specific as possible in project selection and we think that means that they need to identify all the big projects and certainly there is some room for a "lump sum" of other projects there, and the other part we talked about is we want to make sure that we maximize the investment in transportation items. Ricord: I think that's fine. Thordarson: I support that 100%. I think that's exactly what we should do. Ricord: And if we need to tweak it, we can do that next month. Johnson: If we submit a list like this one, somewhere around the $30M mark we should have a separation line and around the $50M mark have another one so that it makes it easier to read. Henderson: Someone suggested that we come to the next meeting with a repackaging of this that we could look at in two or three different ways, that would be helpful and make it more simple. We could talk about this for hours. How about if everyone go back and think about it and we make this an agenda item for next month. APPROVED Regular Meeting Minutes Transportation Board November 17, 2004 Page 6 of 14 Johnson: So one thought was to resubmit this and just to say at the end that at our December meeting we'll try to refine our thinking in response to your work session. So that way we get a reminder in. We let them know we did the work and this is our thinking at this point, but we're still in the game and are working on it. Ricord: They need to see it again. Henderson: Do you want me to add a paragraph at the beginning that addresses the importance of identification of specific projects versus general lists? Johnson: No, let's talk about that next time. Bachman: If you want to have this in their packets for their Nov 30 meeting, we need to have it Friday. Henderson: I have it in my laptop, so it'll be easy. All we're saying is that I'm going to add one sentence to the bottom that says: we are going to refine our list at our December meeting in response to the results of your Study Session. You can expect another list in December. Thomas: I would open it with a sentence explaining why you're sending it again. There was a motion by Johnson to resend this letter. There was a second by Thomas. The motion carried unanimously, 8 — 0. 8. REPORTS a. DEVELOPMENT REVIEW PROCESS -BOARDS & COMMISSIONS - T. Vosburg Tom Vosburg stated that staff went to Council a couple of weeks ago and basically Council talked about the fact that there's been some interest expressed that some Boards and Commissions have their role expanded to include some kind of limited involvement in the Development Review process. We outlined a couple of different administrative models that can be used to support or provide that kind of board involvement. There are options 1 — 4 outlined in the Agenda Item Summary that was included in your packets. Option 5 is no change from existing practice. Vosburg explained that staff will be going to council on December 19 with an ordinance that will give them some options but basically would implement their intent that we expand the role for certain boards and commissions to be involved and then we'll give them a couple of options for the administrative model. There's one significant dimension of the discussion that has not been nailed down yet. We did not get clear direction from Council — that is the scope of boards and commission to include. APPROVED Regular Meeting Minutes Transportation Board November 17, 2004 Page 7 of 14 Background: There's been talk in previous years and I think you're aware of the work that the consultant for the City, named Paul Zucker, did on our Development Review process. In the Zucker report, there was a reference that it may be appropriate to allow the Air Quality and Natural Resources Advisory Boards to have a limited role in development review, so those two boards were called out specifically. If you think about the rationale for why those two boards would be involved, that same kind of rationale could be expanded to include a couple of different boards, but basically boards that have some sort of role with the physical development of the city. When we took this discussion to P & Z for their input, there was a minority of P & Z members who felt that it was a good idea and they cited that they thought it would be good to hear from the NRAB, the Transportation Board, Affordable Housing Board, and Landmark Preservation Committee. So there is this open question about which boards should this apply to and which shouldn't. It seems very clear that the NRAB would be included. The Zucker report talked about including the AQAB, but the Land Use Code contains no project specific air quality standards so even if they would like to be involved, there is no way they could be involved. I'm here tonight because the Transportation Board has also been talked about in other discussions wondering if they should be included. We need input from the board as to what extent does this board think is appropriate and is there any interest in being included? Thomas: One of the things floating around the city about this whole question is whether this is really a proxy for delaying or obstructing development. Vosburg: I think that there are different perspectives on Council — some members see that if this was properly administered and conducted with the right spirit, that it need not delay the process significantly, particularly if the board's involvement is early in the process and is civil and genuine. I think what people are afraid of is that there is the potential that it could, like depending on how much controversy it generates, clearly it could create a situation where it slows things down. Again it depends on the spirit in which the comments are offered, the nature of them and how they are received and how council deals with it. I think that there are some council members who believe in broader public involvement in the Development Review Process (DRP) and those have suggested we include board. There are others that are very concerned about the potential for disrupting the predictability and the administration of the process. Ricord: I can only speak for the transportation board in terms of its involvement with the DRP, but I believe strongly in representative government and I think that our role in terms of budget and finance, and you know what the City's condition is with that, think that the board and a lot of the action the board takes is very relevant to the DRP. I think that when it comes to APPROVED Regular Meeting Minutes Transportation Board November 17, 2004 Page 8 of 14 public input, a lot of times the public feels disenfranchised because they don't get to have an involvement other than to show up at a P & Z meeting or a council session to provide input. I would support the majority of council in that the Transportation Board would have input when it's appropriate. Vosburg: I guess I would be looking to the board to make a recommendation to council. I would be happy to have a discussion, but I think you guys are in a position to choose to either make a recommendation or not. So, please talk amongst yourselves, not to me. Henderson: How would things be different than they are today? We are involved in the process today. We look at any project that is going to result in a change to the Master Street Plan for example. Ricord: That's not the same thing as development review. Henderson: That's what I'm asking. What would be the difference? What would we see that we don't see today? Ricord: I think it's hugely more focused on that specific project. Moe: Other Transportation boards that do have that purview, as an example, the traffic impact study would be provided to each of us and would describe how many trips are generated, where they are going, assumptions, intersection impacts, etc. As a review board, we would then look over all the data and find that those are inadequate for example. Grigg: Those are now staff functions, right? Vosburg: Yes. Moe: But staff would still provide a staff review in a memo to the Transportation Board saying that according to their review it looks like they did a good job, we think they need xyz, or whatever. Vosburg: Ray, is it your experience that there are some communities where the Transportation Board is involved in that? Moe: Absolutely. Vosburg: Have you been involved with any of those communities? Moe: I've been in front of them. APPROVED Regular Meeting Minutes Transportation Board November 17.2004 Page 9 of 14 Grigg: I offer a motion just for the purpose of stimulating discussion, but since this is such an open ended subject, my motion would be: The Transportation Board expresses interest in being involved in the development review process for major projects that would have significant impact and where we can make a positive contribution. Thomas: Would you accept a friendly amendment that says: Provided that we do not become an obstacle to the timely process? Grigg: Yeah, I feel the same way. I guess that we could say: without impeding the development process. Ricord: You said earlier that you foresaw that board's involvement wouldn't necessarily ... (inaudible). Bachman: Project development is going to go at a certain pace. You all meet once a month. You would need a period of a week and a half before that to really get it together, so if this board continues to meet on the same schedule, then what would happen is that whatever projects meet the criteria, we would have to insert that into the review process. If it's going to be based upon a TIS and recommendations that come out of it, there are only certain places in this review process that we can put things before you. It's likely that there would be cases where .... (inaudible) Henderson: So what's a typical timeline of a major project today from the point that a TIS is done til it would need approval otherwise it's going to slow up the progress of the project? McNair: The way the process is running now, projects going before the P & Z Board are at a 50% design stage. The TIS that you're referring to might be a preliminary study or it might be a final TIS. The early part of the review process, to get to P & Z happens pretty quickly. When we get those things for review, our staff has to turn comments around in 2-3 weeks. If we were to insert a Transportation Board meeting in the midst of that and any other boards too, then it would definitely add time to that process. Vosburg: One important point is that Cam has just defaulted to is either Option 2 or 3; those middle ones that envision a pretty formal review in the midst of the formal review process. If it's going to work at all without lengthening the process, it would be option 1, which given the frequency that you meet is probably the one that makes the most sense. We would probably fire off at the same time we would notify the neighborhood that is affected by the project, we would also notify appropriate boards to let them know that there is this project under review. If the board were interested in it, under APPROVED Regular Meeting Minutes Transportation Board November 17, 2004 Page 10 of 14 your own volition, NOT aided by staff, you would show up at the neighborhood meeting. Then if you wanted to follow up, you could go to the Planning department and let them know you need more information about this, just like the neighbors do. Then with your own volition, you'd write a memo amongst yourselves, submit it and say, "We're the Transportation Board and this is what we're doing." That's the neighborhood group model. In option 4, it would be either staff or the applicant who would, at their discretion, come for informal review where there might not even be a vote. The idea there, would be, "Hey, we're troubled by this thing, what do you think?" It then gets kicked around, there's a loose discussion and then it goes back. Ricord: Where is the NRAB on this? Vosburg: They were okay on #4, except that they wanted to have the ability that if the majority of the board had heard about a project and was worried about it, that they could call it up and ask for it to be brought to them for review even if the staff or the applicant didn't do it at their own discretion. They also wanted to reserve the right that if the staff or the applicant didn't choose to follow or incorporate their advice, they could still write their own memo directly to the decision maker. Grigg: Given all this discussion, I'd like to modify my motion. It would now be: The Transportation Board expresses interest in being involved in development review process under an option which would not impede the development process. Ricord: Neil, would it work for you if we opted to support Option 4 because I think Option 4 would still uphold your concerns on the expedient process and would still allow the board some flexibility in becoming involved in giving advice. Grigg: I like #4 provided it doesn't slow it down. Henderson: So, do you want to modify that to say something like we want to become involved under Option 4 provided it does not impede the development review process? Grigg: Yes. Moe: My intuition is that if you pick any of these options, you're going to quickly find yourself into two meetings a month. Just think about what you're doing now as a board and how long our meetings go. Anytime you take on a new responsibility, you'll be meeting twice a month. APPROVED Regular Meeting Minutes Transportation Board November 17.2004 Page 11 of 14 Grigg: The reason I liked Option 4 is that we're going with staff discretion and I was assuming we wouldn't get that much action. If I thought we were going to have to meet twice a month, I wouldn't go that route. Ricord: Well, I'm not sure you'd have to meet twice a month, but I think you might have a little more homework. Grigg: Well, we would have to have some extra work if we took on an extra duty. Thomas: Why would the staff or the applicant bring something to us in this model? What's in it for them? Yosburg: I think it depends. This is the model we do at the Landmark Preservation Board. The applicant does sometimes initiate voluntary review. The Landmark Preservation Commission is a group of architects who have a lot of training in historic preservation and sometimes someone is doing a project because they own a historic house. They care about historic preservation but don't know a lot about it. Our staff doesn't have an architect on staff, so it may be with the LPC that they want some free architectural advice from some people who have expertise there. It's like a complimentary review. The NRAB has suggested that with their sensitivity to natural habitat and such, that they could offer a similar kind of resource and consulting about how a site plan might be adapted to be more sensitive to preserving wildlife corridors or something like that. Grigg: It seems to me that we have a couple of uncertainties in the discussion. Given that, I will withdraw my motion. Thomas: I join Ricord in liking as much input flowing into the City as possible. I guess I always viewed this kind of board as citizens. We pick up transportation expertise more than the average citizen because that's what this board is about, so I'm sympathetic to getting our input in the system, but I have to ask, what do they really want us to do? Yosburg: Staff recommended to council no change because staff was troubled by Us model as well. Staffs perspective, particularly with the advent of the Land Use Code and moving away from the LDGS which was very fuzzy, we've been trying to move towards a much clearer, consistent reproducible regulatory system that is standards driven. Bachman: The current practice is to bring the board items of substantial projects that might have impacts on the way you view policies you've adopted. You've adopted the Master Transportation Plan, Ped Plan, Bike Plan, those types of things where you're dealing with a policy matter. APPROVED Regular Meeting Minutes Transportation Board November 17, 2004 Page 12 of 14 Grigg: I move that the Transportation Board expresses its desire to continue to be involved the development review process using the model that it has been following where staff brings major issues to us. Thomas: How about adding an option to the motion? Would your motion include some way of self generating? Grigg: But, we do that now because we make requests to staff to bring certain things to us. Moe: I second the motion on theJloor. Ricord: The motion on the floor is to basically recommend option 5 and Moe is seconding that? Henderson: Correct. It wasn't stated as Option 5 in Grigg's motion, Neil are you comfortable with that? Grigg: Yes. Thomas: I could support #5, but would like mailings to know what's going on. Thordarson: How about this? We have a liaison appointed in our Work Plan. How about if we have a Liaison report at our monthly meeting? Just formalize it a bit more? Gould: We already have such full agendas. I like Option 1 in that it formalizes the notification process on what's happening. Vosburg: Another item to note is that with option 1 you would be granted the civil protection that if you went and said you were representing the Transportation Board at a public hearing, you could say that. Without it, you can't. Say you oppose the project and as a result the project failed, the developer incurred huge costs because of everything they've invested, they could theoretically bring legal action against an individual. They could sue you and the City would not be allowed to defend you. But if we say it is your responsibility to be involved in development review, if they sued you, we could defend you. The spirit of Option 1 is that you're doing it on your own volition and you're not going to bog the process down, etc. The question is what is it that you bring to the process that isn't there already and if there is a need for a watchdog role because you're concerned then go with option 1. If you think you have unique insights that would benefit the project, that you can freely give and you're really open to that philosophy... (tape ended here). APPROVED Regular Meeting Minutes Transportation Board November 17, 2004 Page 13 of 14 Henderson: Process check. We have a motion on thefloor which is Option S. Does someone want to amend that motion or shall we vote on it? I call the question on Option 5. The motion failed 2 — 5. Thomas: I would like to move that we adopt Option I as the recommendation of the Transportation Board There was a second by Ricord Discussion: Moe: I could go for #1 if I understood it a little more. To me it's kind of like 5. We continue to operate as a board like we do today, but you also get notification that there is upcoming land development projects that we're flagged and notified of We then have the choice to go to a neighborhood meeting, get input and as a board member I could come back to this group and give a report and add that it looks like a problem and we need to talk about it. At that time, the board could take action for or against the project etc? I like that style of # 1 as opposed to me going to that meeting and then going to the council and saying I represent the board — because I don't represent the board, I represent me no matter what you're saying. That's where I have a problem with option 1. Henderson: I think that in terms of the way this board operates, I think people would feel they could do what you outlined instead of going off and misusing the statement: "I represent the board." Moe: So if it's the way I described it first, then I'm okay with #1. Henderson: Neil has to leave and with him we'll lose our quorum. I call the question. The motion carried unanimously, 7— 0. Chair Henderson stated that the meeting is officially adjourned at this point (8:55 p.m.) due to lack of a quorum, but will still hear board member and staff reports. b. BOARD MEMBER REPORTS Ricord: Europe Trip. As you all know I recently got back from Europe and as always, it was a study in traffic and transportation systems. Europe, like America, is totally automobile dependent. I'm sorry to report that most people in Europe prefer the auto over everything else. They have a wonderful transit system that is widely used, but the auto still trumps everything else. Gould: North Carolina Trip. I myself just got back from Greensboro, North Carolina and it was an amazing study in mis-design, especially pedestrian facilities. At the convention, the major topic of discussion for folks having to come in from outlying hotels to ours, was their fear factor in trying to get across this major arterial to where the conference was. APPROVED Regular Meeting Minutes Transportation Board November 17, 2004 Page 14 of 14 Safety Issues. There were two were recent letters to the editor, one regarding an incident where two kids were hit in front of the Windsor High School and another about the Rocky Mountain High School situation. It's something I have seen close-up and personal and it is ugly. Maybe some of those could stand a look. See about the school and the design, mixing modes and such. Thordarson: Elizabeth. I did observe that the traffic signal at Elizabeth and City Park has been upgraded. Looks great. b. STAFF REPORTS Bachman: Next Agenda: ■ BOB 9. OTHER BUSINESS None. 10. ADJOURN As stated above, Chair Henderson adjourned the meeting at 8. SS p.m. due to lack of a quorum. Respectfully submitted, 4tyze� &v,-, Cynthia Cass Executive Administrative Assistant City of Fort Collins — Transportation Services