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HomeMy WebLinkAboutNatural Resources Advisory Board - Minutes - 02/04/2004MINUTES CITY OF FORT COLLINS NATURAL RESOURCES ADVISORY BOARD REGULAR MEETING 281 N. COLLEGE February 04,2004 For Reference: Nate Donovan, NRAB Chair - 472-1599 Eric Hamrick, Council Liaison - 225-2343 John Stokes, Staff Liaison - 221-6263 Board Members Present Glen Colton, Nate Donovan, Randy Fischer, Clint Skutchan, Ryan Staychock, Joann Thomas Board Members Absent Gerry Hart, Linda Knowlton, Arvind Panjabi Staff Present Natural Resources Dent: Edith Felchle, Liz Skelton, Mark Sears, John Stokes Guests Doug Hutchinson, Julie Metzger, Jalyssa Miller, John Stevenson The meeting was called to order at 5:55 p.m. Review and Approval of Minutes With the following changes, the minutes of the January 7, 2004 meeting were unanimously approved: Page 7, 15`h bullet from the top (Staychock): o The sentence "I agree with Linda...", add: "that there is potential for impacts on the natural area." o The sentence "Looking south... property", add: "proposed for development." o Strike the third sentence. Replace with: I think development over the mining area is a good use for that property. Page 8, 11`h bullet from top (Staychock): o The sentence "I agree...", add: "it is along way to town." o The sentence "But, at the same time ... dollars", add: "spent by visitors." o The sentence "We are going to see...", change to: "We are going to see that development come; that surrounds the proposed truck stop." 0 Throughout document: change Thompson to Thomas. Natural Resources Advisory Board February 4, 2004 Page 2of12 • Page 7, 171h bullet from top (Sears): o First sentence should be attributed to Linda Knowlton. • Page 9, last bullet (Sears): o "This looks even better now that I see it on a map" should be attributed to Nate Donovan. Running Deer Natural Area Conservation Easement Edith Felchle informed the board about the proposed Running Deer Natural Area Conservation Easement related to the grant from Great Outdoors Colorado (GOCO) and asked the board for a recommendation to Council on the issue. • Thomas: What does it mean that the holder of the conservation easement has legal access to the site? • Felchle: Legal access is determined as access from a public thoroughfare. The property that the grant is on (and therefore the property covered by the conservation easement) doesn't go out to Prospect. But, we own land adjacent to it that does. • Donovan: So the area of the conservation easement doesn't extend over to the Welcome Center? The access from that end... • Felchle: No. It doesn't extend out to the public thoroughfare. • Fischer: Did the Natural Areas Committee get to look at this? • Colton: Yes, there were no issues. • Stokes: For those of you who were not at the Natural Areas Committee meeting, I wanted to congratulate Edith for work on this project and the GOCO grant. This has been going on for many years and it's brought about 1.5 million to the City and 5.9 million to other conservation partners. When I used to work for Nature Conservancy, I can tell you it is an enormous endeavor to go through. We were all greatly relieved when Tom Shoemaker & Edith agreed to be the point person for getting the grant approved. Edith has done a great job. We are 1.5 million dollars richer and this is the last transaction in a series of transactions. I wanted to make sure everyone knew how hard Edith worked to get this together. This summer we are going to have a celebration for everybody involved. • Felchle: The celebration we are aiming for is June, which is GOCO's trails month. We are looking for something where all partners can be involved in one big celebration. • Skutchan: I'm having a hard time wrapping my mind around what portion we are talking about? • Felchle: What portion of the Legacy Grant or what portion the Legacy Grant covers? • Skutchan: The area that doesn't have access. • Felchle: Oh, why we need the access easement. • Donovan: Does the conservation easement cover all of Running Deer or just part? • Felchle: No, just part. Running Deer is a combination of several purchases. This covers one purchase with some exceptions. (indicating on map) Running Natural Resources Advisory Board February 4, 2004 Page 3 of 12 Deer is this whole thing. The part that the grant covers is the green. The part that is covered by this particular purchase is also the purple area, but that is the part that is leased out to Hageman Earth Cycle, so that can't be included. As well as the part over here; that is a haul road to the mining so GOCO said they can't grant money to that. The green part GOCO said was OK. The yellow part is the MBI property. • Skutchan: Where is the Visitors Center? • Felchle: ( indicates on map) Over here. • Donovan: Don't we own a portion that goes from the Visitors Center to the green portion, along the south side of Hageman's lease property? • Sears: That wasn't included because of the mine. We own all of that. • Donovan: So the boundaries are larger than the colored portion? • Sears: Yes. • Donovan: Is GOCO and the land trust aware of the proposed rest area and the impact that may have on the conservation values? • Felchle: They are aware, and there have been discussions. In the brief Management Plan, there is reference to it, as far as not knowing about what access we will need to have if CDOT puts in the rest area. • Skutchan: Is that something that there will be certain stipulations in there that we should watch closely? I know we had concerns with buffering issues. Are their requirements more restricted than what we were already talking about? • Felchle: There is nothing in the conservation easement that will limit what will go next door. • Skutchan: Are they going to add on any additional stipulations to the type of project that they have, that we should be thinking of? • Felchle: No. • Donovan: If GOCO is aware and they agree to the terms, then I guess we are OK. I had some points on page 4 of the conservation easement. Under #5: Land Management Plan, it says in the second sentence: "Management Plan shall be updated no less than every 5 years". It seems to me that that should say: "Management Plan shall be updated at least every 5 years". So that it could be updated more frequently if you want to. • Felchle: I think a word that Carrie has added is "no less frequently". Would that accomplish what you are saying? • Donovan: No, that would do the same thing. The City would want the flexibility to update the Management Plan more frequently if they wanted to, but they have to at least every 5 years. You would be prohibited from updating it in the 4`h year. • Colton: No less frequently means it has to be at least every... • Donovan: No, those are two separate things. • Stokes: Nate, I see your point. What it is saying is we have to update it minimally every 5 years. • Felchle: It is saying at least every 5 years. • Stokes: It doesn't prohibit us from updating it every 3 years if you wanted to. 0 Felchle: But we have to at least every 5 years. m Natural Resources Advisory Board February 4, 2004 Page 4of12 • Donovan: I understand that's a standard point. To me it doesn't read that well. Under #7: Grantees Approval, "Grantee shall grant or withhold its approval in writing within 55 days...", there is nothing that says "if grantee does not respond within 55 days then the request is deemed approved." If they get behind, you are held in limbo. • Felchle: That has been in others. Randy Fischer made the following motion: That we recommend Council approval of the conservation and access easement for the Running Deer Natural Area. • Donovan: We should say "Council grant approval". • Fischer: OK. • Staychock: On the Management Plan, "flooding of the site...", is there any examples of what type of flooding has damaged the individual property? • Sears: There is a small pond there now, and the outlet is a culvert under that road. The beavers plugged up that culvert and raised elevation of the pond 8-10 ft. If we had not unplugged it, it would have washed out the road and the pond. The motion passed unanimously. Fossil Creek Reservoir Regional Open Space Mark Sears informed the board on the proposed Larimer County sublease and amendment to the current lease with North Poudre Irrigation Company, and asked the board for a recommendation to Council on the issue. • Staychock: The amendment to the lease and sublease are specifically for the 150 ft on the map? • Sears: The amendment allows us to sublease any or all of the lease, with the provision that the North Poudre Irrigation Company gets to approve the sublease. The original lease precluded that. We presented them with the sublease today at their board meeting and they approved that. From the Irrigation Company's standpoint, we are all approved, from the County standpoint, the only thing that has not been confirmed yet is what the compensation will be, and from our end, we are happy with all of the language seen in front of you. • Staychock: This Operations Plan is from the City? • Sears: Originally, yes. We presented that to North Poudre Irrigation Company to show them how we would manage the land that we are leasing from them. That's been amended to include the County's role as well as City's role in management. • Staychock: I got the impression that we were going to hand over services to Latimer County, but that's not right, the City will still have a role? What I got from Mark was that the sublease would allow Latimer County Open Lands to Natural Resources Advisory Board February 4, 2004 Page 5 of 12 manage a portion of the reservoir. When I read this plan, it said the City will do this and that. We are not giving all maintenance over to Larimer County? • Sears: I haven't calculated what that 150 fit strip is in acres, but my guess is about 10-15 out of 810. They are not taking over much. It is mostly water so there is not much to manage. We are trying to restore that fringe of property about 50ft wide above the high water mark all the way around the reservoir. It has 8 miles of shoreline. We do enforcement. That is our biggest expense; we patrol it frequently. • Staychock: That is mentioned in here: about once a day. • Sears: That will help when the County is out there every day; we might not have to go out. • Fischer: Have we discussed compensation with Open Lands yet? • Sears: I've requested $5,000 per year. That is not based on a mathematical formula; I just thought it was a legitimate number. Our hopes would be that the County commissioners would make good on the IGA, in which they would jointly lease the reservoir with us and they would manage it. Someday they would split the $44,000 per year we are paying now. • Skutchan: Would they just bring it back up? • Sears: Legally, the County commissioners would have to take some kind of action to honor IGA that is already in place. We would have to amend the lease with North Poudre Irrigation to be co -held. • Fischer: Have we discussed that with the County at this time? • Sears: With K-Lynn, yes. I don't think she mentioned that to the other commissioners. • Skutchan: You expect them to sign off on this $5,000; is this a stepping stone towards that? • Sears: That's what K-Lynn and I thought. If we end up leasing the reservoir and managing until perpetuity, that is fine too. We have discussed and suggested to the County that we manage the Fossil Creek Open Space. They said no. We own the conservation casement on the north side of the reservoir, and we own the 25 acres on the southwest corner. It may just always make sense for us to manage the reservoir. It's more the principle of the fact that they didn't live up to the IGA. • Skutchan: What if they say no to the $5,000? • Sears: I'm OK with no compensation at all. In reality, it is less in our management cost and we are partners in the project anyways. • Donovan: They have a valid sublease. You need some consideration that is more than just a token. • Fischer: I feel $5,000 is a token; that it is worth more. I will support the $5,000 if we work out something where they pay part of the lease. • Sears: If you want to make that recommendation to Council, that is OK. That is what will go to Council. They may or may not approve it. • Donovan: The lease on the entire surface rights is $40,000 or $44,000 per year? • Sears: It started at $40,000 and goes up 4% per year for the next 5 years and then it is reevaluated. It is a 19-year lease altogether. Natural Resources Advisory Board February 4, 2004 Page 6 of 12 • Donovan: So soon, it will be less than 10%? • Sears: Yes, lease says $5,000 but it goes up at 4% per year. Glenn Colton made the following motion: That we recommend approval of the Fossil Creek Reservoir sublease. The motion passed unanimously. Indian Creek Natural Area Project Mark Sears informed the board on the Indian Creek joint project with the County and asked the board for a recommendation to Council. • Donovan: I thought GOCO insisted that a land conservation entity be the holder of the conservation easement; that they didn't feel like public entities were a land conservation entity. They are OK with the Citytl • Sears: Yes, it was going to be the City of Loveland. • Skutchan: Where is Indian Creek? • Sears: (indicates on map) Indian Creek is what allows us to have a trail linked all the way from Devil's Backbone through Indian Creek, across Rim Rock, and into Horsetooth Mountain Park, which connects to Lory State Park. Their plan is to do the Management Plan this year, construct the trail next year and have that trail open in 2006. That also includes building an underpass under County Road 38E. Where that occurs, the road is already elevated. It won't be cheap, and they are going to try to GOCO grant that as well. • Fischer: When the County received the grant, did our portion decrease by that much? • Sears: No, it stayed at 75%. • Fischer: Isn't there a prohibition about owning and managing a conservation? • Sears: We won't have any title to the land. • Stokes: The value of the easement is 75%. It completely eliminates development. This appeared to staff as a nice way to consolidate our partnership, and not have another party involved. That has created some problems in other areas with multi -ownership. • Skutchan: What's the upside of Loveland being involved? • Sears: They have a feeling of ownership in that property. It would be nice if they could have real ownership, because it serves Loveland residents more than Fort Collins'. • Colton: Who is paying for the management? • Sears: Indian Creek will be managed by the County. The trail construction and ongoing operation maintenance will be at County expense. The reason the County didn't put in more is, quite frankly, they were out of money. • Skutchan: Loveland's budget is next to nothing for acquisition of open space. • Sears: Their share of the County tax is fairly small; less than a million. • Skutchan: They used their own money for Hidden Valley? • Sears: Yes, I believe they used their County sales tax for that. Natural Resources Advisory Board February 4, 2004 Page 7 of 12 • Skutchan: If we lock into this now, does that prohibit involvement in the future? If Loveland had an open space sales tax in the future, would they consider sharing? • Sears: There is nothing to preclude that. Ryan Staychock made the following motion: That we recommend adoption of the amended IGA with concern to the Indian Creek property and the deed of conservation easement. • Skutchan: I will be supporting this. I like the idea of trails. I have some concerns over the perception of us funding what could be seen as a larger benefit to the Loveland area. I understand the complications; but I still worry about the perception of it. It is a good purchase. I hope that in the future Loveland could be more active in open space acquisitions. Then we would give more thought to being involved in these types of projects. • Donovan: We could always come in later. The County and City are always changing ownership interests. • Colton: I share your concern. A possible positive is that Loveland feels we have been taking their sales tax for years, and this is something that we can say: "We help benefit you as well." • Stokes: They were part of the Poudre-Big Thompson Legacy Grant. We have partnered on a lot of stuff. • Skutchan: When they do have more resources, there should be pressure. They are well on their way to getting a great deal of sales tax. • Donovan: The motion should say: "the amended and restated IGA." • Staychock: OK. The motion passed unanimously. Culver Natural Area Mark Sears informed the board on the Culver property purchase and conservation easement and asked the board for a recommendation to Council. • Staychock: They need the easement by the end of March? • Sears: Yes. It needs to be accepted prior to the end of March. • Staychock: They requested $200,000? Is there any way that we could grant the money and not give it to them until mid-2006? • Sears: I suppose. • Staychock: I'm just thinking of when the tax goes in and trying to keep City dollars here for a bit. • Stokes: Is this on grant agreement? Are they matching GOCO money with our money? • Sears: They have already paid. The $200,000 doesn't have any bearing on the GOCO grant itself. The County is closely managing cash flow, because they are at the bottom. They are really anticipating our $200,000 to do other contracts. It is a point well taken though. Natural Resources Advisory Board February 4, 2004 Page 8 of 12 • Fischer: Since we are holding the conservation easement, are we then participating in management and monitoring? • Sears: Our obligation is to do an annual monitoring and submit a report to GOCO. • Fischer: Do we have a responsibility to develop the Management Plan? • Sears: The County is responsible for the development, but we have to approve it. • Fischer: It is mutual then? • Donovan: When GOCO gives a grant, don't they have approval as well? • Fischer: Do you meet with K-Lynn and staff when they develop the plan? • Sears: Yes, in fact we met with them last week to talk about Indian Creek and their process for developing the Management Plan. • Fischer: We will get to see that before it is finalized? • Sears: Yes. • Fischer: In the past, they made the statement that our comments didn't matter because it was already finalized. I don't want to see that happen again. We want to have meaningful input. • Sears: What was that on? • Fischer: One of the stages of Fossil Creek. You can help to make sure we get to see those before, so we have meaningful input. My concern is public access on the Culver property. It has some outstanding wildlife values that could be impacted by the wrong type of access. The value of the conservation easement is well in excess of $200,000. • Sears: hi Horsetooth Mountain Park, the user -ship is approximately 90% Ft. Collins residents. This one is more of a benefit to Fort Collins residents. • Donovan: I have the same concerns about public access on Culver. If there is public access, it would be via Horsetooth Mountain Park. If it were via the southern -side of the property, there is adjacent landowner's property that would be impacted. I also had some comments on #8, page 5: "Grantees Approval". The City wouldn't want the burden of the approval being deemed approved if they didn't respond within 60 days. On the Land Management Plan that is on page 3, #4: this is the wording I was looking for in the Running Deer Natural Area: "shall be updated at least every 5 years". Randy Fischer made the following recommendation: That we recommend to Council to participate in the purchase and hold the conservation easement on the Culver property. The motion passed unanimously. Natural Areas Land Acquisition Funding, John Stokes This item was held for worksession discussion. Monthly Feedback • Skutchan: The involvement of the NRAB in the development process; I would like to see that in study session. Natural Resources Advisory Board February 4, 2004 Page 9of12 • Fischer: Worksession of this board? • Skutchan: Yes. • Stokes: Why don't we do that in March or April? • Donovan: Let's put it on March 17`h. • Stokes: At the Natural Areas Committee meeting, Linda asked if we could have a training session with the board about a couple things. That the City Attorney speaks to the board about reviewing real estate transactions, and a `Conservation 101'. If you are interested in that, maybe we can put together an hour-long training session. • Skutchan: Can we include what the board's responsibilities and limitations are? • Stokes: We ought to give you all a charter of board, especially for our new members. It is a broad charter, and it's the board's responsibility to interpret it. • Fischer: It is important, our bylaws are different than a lot of other boards. We are advisors to Council and staff. • Donovan: Maybe we could do a `Role of NRAB in Real Estate 101'. • Stokes: We will get together with staff to see our schedules. It should be May 17`h, or earlier. • Fischer: I would suggest the 18`h worksession because of new members. • Stokes: There is printed material we could put together. • Fischer: Would Steve Ryder come too? • Stokes: Yes. • Stokes: The City Managers Office called and wanted to know if the annual report is ready? • Donovan: In the next few days. • Stokes: Carla Smith says she needs it to Council tomorrow. • Stokes: I received an email from Felix Lee; he is putting together an International Residential Code Task Force group on February 11` . On the I Vh from 1:00 PM to 4:00 PM, they are meeting to discuss any new Council discussion. He would like a representative from this board there. If there is anyone who wants to attend let me know. It is here in Conference Room A. More than one person is welcome. • Skutchan: 1 would like to make sure that it is not stated that anything is the consensus of the board. The recommendation wasn't unanimous. I voted against the radon, and for the energy code. But, specifically on the radon issue, and if it comes up, the moisture/mold issue. • Fischer: It wasn't unanimous, but it was the majority... • Skutchan: That's fine. I just don't want it getting out that everybody on the board was OK with it, because I wasn't. Committee Reports • Sears: Natural Areas Committee talked about the four items that Edith and I covered. • Donovan: On those, you don't need anything other than a recommendation, right? • Sears: Right. If you want to send more information, you can. Natural Resources Advisory Board February 4, 2004 Page 10 of 12 Council Six Month Planning Calendar • Colton: John, what is going on with the City Plan and why it is moving at a snail's pace? • Stokes: I think they gave a document to Council that has all the elements of plan that has disagreement. It is color coded with board recommendations, the original version, staff recommendations, and asked Council what they want to do. I think Council must be going through that. You might call your Council members. • Colton: There are rewrites to Natural Areas policy? • Stokes: We went through all of that, there are some improvements and we separated some stuff. Is it perfect? No. I haven't had time to do another read - through. We are getting close. • Colton: The Open Space Natural Areas needs to be rewritten. There are some places where Natural Areas put in one recommendation and Parks did another, and they took Parks' wording. • Stokes: We made changes to some of that. • Skutchan: Is that something we will need to look at again? • Donovan: The March P meeting would be good. • Stokes: I don't know the status of our opportunity to make changes. I would get latest version and go through it again. • Donovan: Is that something we want to do March P? • Skutchan: If they have study session, should we do that before or after? • Stokes: Before. • Donovan: If there was something, we could get recommendations in before the study session. • Skutchan: How many more study sessions are there? • Colton: I will talk to a Council member. • Skutchan: They had an 181h month original timeframe? • Colton: Yes, it was supposed to be last October. • Donovan: We will put on March 3 ". • Stokes: My sense is that it is a coin toss. We could make some things better; but is it worth it? The language is so parsed that I don't think anything in there will cause us problems. • Skutchan: What is your timeline on looking at it, John? • Stokes: Why don't I look and recommend the areas that need work? Or, I could bring the whole Natural Areas section. • Colton: On the river part, Parks was putting in more `Park -like' stuff. That is one area to keep an eye on. • Donovan: Can we get the full section in our packets? Then we can deal with the sections that you think need work. • Stokes: That works. • Colton: Did recycling get heard last night? • Stokes: It didn't make it. We were there until 1:OOAM. The haulers were concerned about a couple of things. We can make changes to the code to make them feel better. The language in PAYT is no different from the language that Natural Resources Advisory Board February 4, 2004 Page 11 of 12 any business who pays sales -tax has to agree to. We are not asking them to be treated differently than any other business. The other issue was that the haulers feel that if we unitized the rate to HOAs, and they don't implement PAYT, we should go after the HOA. We don't have anything in the code that lets us do that. There are 100s of HOAs. We have been reluctant to do that. Steve said we could develope language like that to direct HOAs to implement PAYT; they couldn't avoid PAYT. I haven't talked to Steve, but we will get back to him. We are back on the agenda for March 16th, and the second reading is March 301h'. Last night there was no resolution. If we were less tired, we would have asked them to vote. There were some modifications they would want to talk about anyways. • Fischer: Some members do advocate going after the HOA, rather than the haulers. I can't imagine when the HOA people hear that we will try to do this. There are 6 haulers, versus 100s of HOAs, plus the real estate development community. If you think it was difficult with the haulers... We couldn't get a decent nuisance order because property managers said the same thing haulers are saying now. • Stokes: I will report back. • Fischer: We should have the Solid Waste Committee. It was canceled today. Maybe sometime this month we can get together near the end of month. • Stokes: Susie was working on it already today. We will report back. • Stokes: The Land Conservation Master Plan is on the April 20th meeting. We've taken the chapter to session, and got no feedback, they were all happy with it. Now, we are taking the whole thing to Council on the April 20th meeting. • Donovan: It looks like the Natural Areas buffer is on April 13th. We had better look at that. • Donovan: OK, Land Use Code, maybe on April 7th9 • Fischer: It should be before that. • Donovan: Maybe March P; will you be ready? • Stokes: I'm not sure, we can hold the date. • Donovan: I don't see on here that the NRAB is up for review by Council in 2004. Should we get started on talking about the NRAB and AQAB merging? Or should we wait until the Land Conservation Board is formed? • Stokes: We should talk in the summer. I would still like to talk about that. • Fischer: I thought there was no support before? • Donovan: Yes, that was the case. • Fischer: What is the status of new board? • Stokes: We will start putting that together this summer. It is on the back burner right now. We are slammed. I would like to talk about whether we want three boards, or two boards. I am concerned about having three boards and the amount of staff time dealing with getting them ready. I would like to revisit combining the NRAB and AQAB. I wasn't here when Michele first put it forward. • Colton: What responsibilities would the new board have? • Stokes: The new board will be very focused on real estate, management plans, and the Natural Areas program. Whereas now, this board does that plus everything else. Natural Resources Advisory Board February 4, 2004 Page 12 of 12 Fischer: It might end up being same amount for staff, since we have two meetings for the NRAB, already. I would look forward to going to a more environmental - type board. It would be less work for board members. Stokes: That is a good way to look at it. • Fischer: I would rather we look at that sooner than later. I think we are missing opportunities and not giving attention to some Natural Resources issues in the City. What has happened now to the Sustainability thing — it has evaporated. We can't let that happen. I would like regular updates on the Sustainability Management System. • Stokes: There hasn't been much to update on. We had to start over, because the Sustainability Initiative created consternation within the City. We had to do handholding to get people comfortable with our work plan. We've finally gotten those wrinkles ironed out, and we are starting back up again just last week. Maybe in a couple of weeks we can come back in. Randy Fischer made the following motion: That we adjourn to worksession for the purpose of discussing the Natural Areas Land Acquisition Funding. The motion passed unanimously. Meeting adjourned 7.45 PM Future Agenda Items: February 18: March 3: Nothing Scheduled March 17: Northern Integrated Supply Project, NoColoWater Conservancy District Submitted by Liz Skelton