HomeMy WebLinkAboutPlanning And Zoning Board - Minutes - 01/20/20000
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Chairperson Colton called the meeting to order at 6:35 p.m.
Roll Call: Bernth, Craig, Meyer, Gavaldon, Torgerson, Carpenter and Colton.
Staff Present: Blanchard, Eckman, Shepard, Bracke, Schlueter, Virata, Stringer,
McNair, Kreimeyer, Byrne, Wamhoff, Baker, Dodge and Dairies.
Agenda Review: Director of Current Planning Bob Blanchard reviewed the Consent
and Discussion Agendas:
Consent Agenda:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
Discussion:
11. #26-96D
Minutes of the September 17, December 17, 1998 and
November 4, 1999 Planing and Zoning Board Hearings.
Modifications of Conditions of Final Approval
Resolution PZ99-21 Easement Vacation
Resolution PZ99-22 Easement Vacation
Resolution PZ00-1 Easement Vacation
Resolution PZ00-2 Easement Vacation
Resolution PZ00-3 Easement Vacation
Resolution PZ00-4 Easement Vacation
Resolution PZ00-5 Easement Dedication
Resolution PZ00-6 Easement Dedication
Mulberry-Lemay Crossings, Lot One, Filing One, P.U.D. — Final
A Verbatim transcript is attached for the entire meeting.
The meeting adjourned at 11:15 P.M.
PLANNING & ZONING MEETING
January 20, 1999
MULBERRY/LEMAY CROSSING
LOT 1, FILING 1, FINAL PUD
Commission Members Present:
Glen Colton
Mikal Torgerson
Sally Craig
Dan Bernth
Jennifer Carpenter
Jerry Gavaldon
Judy Meyer
Staff Present:
Paul Eckman, City Attorney's Office
Bob Blanchard, Planning Department
Ted Shepard, Planning Department
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Fort Collins, Colorado 80524 Fax. (970) 482-1230
e-mail. meadors@reporterworks.com
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(Meeting convened at 6:30 p.m.)
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MR. COLTON: Good evening. Welcome to the
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January 20th meeting of the Fort Collins Planning and
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Zoning Board. Could we have roll call, please?
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THE CLERK: Bernth?
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MR. BERNTH: Here.
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THE CLERK: Carpenter?
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MS. CARPENTER: Here.
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THE CLERK: Torgerson?
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MR. TORGERSON: Here.
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THE CLERK: Meyer?
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MS. MEYER: Here.
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THE CLERK: Gavaldon?
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MR. GAVALDON: Here.
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THE CLERK: Craig?
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MS. CRAIG: Here.
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THE CLERK: Colton?
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MR. COLTON: Here.
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Bob, can we have the agenda review, please?
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MR. BLANCHARD: Good evening, Chairman Colton,
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Members of the Board. We had 11 items advertised for the
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agenda tonight. 10 of those are consent. I do need to
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make one change to Agenda Number 1 which is the minutes.
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We need to continue the October 21st and the November 18th
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sets of minutes till the next meeting.
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1 The discussion item, discussion agenda tonight
2 consists of one item which -- as I'm sure everyone here
3 realizes -- is the final application on the Mulberry/Lemay
4 Crossings, Lot 1, Filing 1,
Planned Unit
Development.
5 MR. COLTON: Thank
you. Okay.
At this time
6 we're going to see if there's anyone who wants to pull any
7 of the items off of the consent agenda. So the consent
8 agenda --
or
Items 1
through
10, with
the exception of the
9 minutes.
And
I just
wanted
to see if
anyone from the
10 audience or the Board wanted to have a hearing on any of
11 these items, if so, raise your hand.
12 Okay. I didn't think anybody would beinterested
13 in all those resolutions.
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MS.
CARPENTER: I have a conflict on Item 8.
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MR.
COLTON: Okay.
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MS.
CARPENTER: And I also have;a correction for
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the November
14th minutes. They were continued? ,The
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November 4th
minutes? I thought it was the October.
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THE
CLERK: No. Also the November 14th are
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continued to
the next meeting. So if.you have -a change,
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you can let me know.
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MS.
CARPENTER: Okay.
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MR.
COLTON: Okay. So what we'll do is separate
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out Item Number 8 so Jennifer can conflict out of that.
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So can we get
a motion on the other consent items, please?
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Jerry.
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MR.
GAVALDON: Mr. Chairman, I
move for approval
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of Items
1,
with the two -- with the two deletions, and 2,
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3, 4, 5,
6,
7, 9, and 10.
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MR.
COLTON: Do I have a second?
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MS.
CARPENTER: I'll second.
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MR.
COLTON: Thank you. Okay.
Any discussion?
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Can we have
roll call, please?
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THE
CLERK: Carpenter?
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MS.
CARPENTER: Yes.
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THE
CLERK: Bernth?
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MR.
BERNTH: Yes.
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THE
CLERK: Torgerson?
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MR.
TORGERSON: Yes.
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THE
CLERK: Meyer?
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MS.
MEYER: Yes.
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THE
CLERK: Gavaldon?
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MS.
GAVALDON: Yes.
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THE
CLERK: Craig?
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MS.
CRAIG: Yes.
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THE
CLERK: Colton?
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MR.
COLTON: Yes.
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Okay. Jennifer, you have that
conflict on Item
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Number 8.
So I guess maybe we could go
ahead and vote on
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that one
even with you here, probably.
And then -- okay.
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1 Do we have a motion on Number 8?
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MR. GAVALDON: Mr. Chairman, I move for
approval
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of Item Number 8 for
the consent agenda.
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MR. COLTON:
Okay. Do I have a second?
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MS. MEYER:
I'll second.
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MR. COLTON:
Okay. Any discussion on that item?
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Okay. Could we have
roll call, please?
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THE CLERK:
Torgerson?
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MR. TORGERSON: Yes.
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THE CLERK:
Meyer.
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MS. MEYER:
Yes.
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THE CLERK:
Gavaldon?
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MR. GAVALDON: Yes.
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THE CLERK:
Craig?
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MS CRAIG: Yes.
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THE CLERK:
Bernth?
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MR. BERNTH:
Yes.
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THE CLERK:
Colton?
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MR. COLTON:
Yes.
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Okay. So we
have a consent item agenda.
And so
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it will be time to move on to the Mulberry/Lemay
Crossing
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item. Jennifer, did
you have an announcement to
make?
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MS. CARPENTER:
I have a conflict.
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MR. COLTON:
Okay. Why don't you say it
to the
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audience. Say it so
the audience can hear.
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1 MS. CARPENTER: I have a conflict on the Lemay --
2 Mulberry/Lemay Crossing item.
3 MR. COLTON: Okay. So she's qoinq to excuse
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herself. Okay.
MR. GAVALDON: Mr. Chairman, I move that --
MR. ECKMAN: First, before a motion is made, I'd
like to explain the reason for this. I think there should
be some background.
The Planning and Zoning Board, like the City
Council, is authorized to go into executive session when
it is determined that the release of information to be
discussed will be contrary to the best interests of the
City and the matter to be discussed in executive session
pertains to one or more of the following subjects: One of
which is, meetings with the City attorney or other
attorneys representing the City regarding litigation or
potential litigation involving the City, and/or the manner
in which particular policies, practices, and regulations
of the City may be affected by existing or proposed
revisions of Federal, State, or Local Law.
There are two topics that I'm recommending that
we go into executive session regarding. One of them is --
pertains to legal issues as to the policies, practices,
and regulations of the City as they're affected by
Federal, State, and Local Law. And the other is that you
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1 have -- have not yet received, but will receive a letter
2 that threatens litigation against the City. And I believe
3 that that would be another justifiable reason to discuss
4 this in executive session. It takes a two-thirds vote to
5 go into executive session.
6 MR. COLTON: Okay. Could we have a motion on
7 that? And then we can have some discussion.
8 MR. GAVALDON: I move that we go into executive
9 session.
10 MR. COLTON: Is there any discussion of the Board
11 members? Okay.
12 MR. ECKMAN: Do we have a second?
13 MR. COLTON: Oh, can we have a second?
14 MS. MEYER: I'll second.
15 MR. COLTON: Okay. Any discussion? Could we
16 have roll call, please?
17 THE CLERK: Meyer?
18 MS. MEYER: Yes.
19 THE CLERK: Gavaldon?
20 MR. GAVALDON: Yes.
21 THE CLERK: Craig?
22 MS. CRAIG: Yes.
23 THE CLERK: Bernth?
24 MR. BERNTH: Yes.
25 THE CLERK: Torgerson?
t .
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MR. TORGERSON: Yes.
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THE CLERK: Colton?
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MR. COLTON: Yes. .
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Thanks a lot. And I hope we don't try your
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patience too much with this. We'll be back when we get
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this resolved.
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(Recess from 6:40 p.m. to 7:25 p.m.)
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MR. COLTON: Welcome back to the Planning and
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Zoning Hearing. Just had a few comments to start before
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we get going. We'd like to talk a little bit about the
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process we'll be following.
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first
And of all, the staff will be giving a
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brief report on the project. And the applicant will have
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30 minutes to give a presentation. And then if there's an
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organized group, they would get 30 minutes as well. So I
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guess I want to see if there's an organized group out
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there that will take 30 minutes. Okay.
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Not seeing any, what we would do then is proceed
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to input from the public. And what we'll be doing tonight
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is limiting that to 3 minutes per person. And there will
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be a little light up there which is green until 30 seconds
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left. And then it will turn yellow, and you have 30
.
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seconds left to complete. And then it will turn red, and
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you're done.
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As usual, we don't want any applause or any sort
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1 of outbursts of any type.
I don't want
to use this gavel
2 up here. And of course we
want to keep
discussion to the
3 relevant issues related to
the land use
of this area, not
4 other extraneous topics.
5 So -- oh, yes. And last time we had a hearing on
6 this, we went into the wee hours of the morning. As a
7 Board we decide we are not going to continue past 11:00
8 tonight. And if we get to that point and we're still
9 continuing, we will adjourn the meeting until 6:30 on
10 Monday, same place, here. And that won't be televised,
11 but it will be recorded for a later viewing. But that
12 meeting won't be televised because of the conflict with
13 something else, I believe.
14 Let's see.- Anything else I forgot? There's some
15 hope that we could take a brief break around -- between
16 8:00 and 8:30 to see the eclipse. Does the audience like
17 to do that? Okay. We'll see if we can do that for maybe
18 10 minutes or something. Does anybody know when it's
19 really going to be happening?
20 A CITIZEN: 8:35.
21 MR. COLTON: Okay. I've had anywhere from 8:30
22 to 9 something. So maybe we'll take about 8:30. That
23 will be about an hour anyway. Might be a good time to do
24 it, so . . .
25 Okay. Ted, would you like to take it away,
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• 1 please?
2 MR. SHEPARD: Yes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
3 This is a request for a final PUD for a 194,456
4 square -foot large retail establishment on 20.73 acres
5 located on the east side of Lemay Avenue between Lincoln
6 Avenue and Magnolia Street. This would be an extension of
7 Magnolia Street. Filing 1 is part of a larger regional
8 shopping center which consists of 42.98 acres.
9 The PUD includes the construction of two public
10 streets, the aforementioned Magnolia Street as well as
11 12th Street which will be a north/south street that
• 12 connects Lincoln to Mulberry.
13 The property is zoned C, Commercial. I've got
14 the ODP slide up there for you which was adopted by the
15 Planning and Zoning Board on March 24th of 1997. That
16 includes the entire 43-acre site.
17 We're expecting Filing 2 to come in sometime in
18 the near future. That would the area south of Magnolia
19 Street.
20 The preliminary PUD was approved on April 7th of
21 1999, on a basis of a vote that was initiated by the
22 citizens of Fort Collins. It was approved with the six
• 23 conditions that were contained in the staff report at that
24 time. Five of those conditions apply to Filing 1.
25 For your information, the final PUD was submitted
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1 in August of 1999. And that brings us to tonight's
2 consideration of the final PUD.
3 What I'd like to do is very briefly go over those
4 conditions of approval as we did at the work session. As
5 I mentioned, only five of the six apply. The first one
6 was that we get a lighting plan and water conservation
7 information on the landscaped plan. Indeed we got those.
8 As it turns out, the water will be provided by ELCO, not
9 the City of Fort Collins. The plan meets the water
10 conservation standards nonetheless.
11 The second condition of the approval was that we
12 get more details of the west elevation. Could you go to
13 the west elevation? We ask that the west elevation be
14 drawn and detailed in such a way that we could get the
15 exact architectural intent and that we get more details
16 along there. That's the connection to Buffalo Run. We
17 wanted a pedestrian -oriented kind of elevation there along
18 that facade. We feel that that has been provided. And we
19 can go into greater detail with that, if you'd like.
20 The other condition of approval was that we
21 mitigate outdoor advertising. As you know soda pop
22 machines have 24 square feet of illuminated signage. They
23 will all now be placed within a kiosk area, that will be
24 minimized, the glare off the pop machines. That will also
25 include any outdoor merchandising such as ATM's, ice
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machines, things of that nature.
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We have a condition of approval that the trucks
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turn off their engines and not idle. That condition of
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approval has been satisfied with two signs placed in the
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truck area. They're 20 feet minimum each.
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The last condition of the approval was that the
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applicant contain the necessary approvals for a final PUD
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at this stage of the game from CDOT, Colorado Department
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of Transportation. And our feeling is that those
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approvals have been granted and that condition has been
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satisfied.
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As we did at the work session, briefly, I will go
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over some of the elements of the site and landscaped plan
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that are different from preliminary, different in the fact
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that we have more detail. They're more refined. We feel
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we have a set of plans that we can send out an inspector
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and determine whether or not they've met the plans when
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evaluating a certificate of occupancy.
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This includes the highlights. Would be the
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outdoor seasonal sales area, which is just south of the
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garden center. This is 10,800 square feet. It's defined
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by a low decorative fence that matches the garden center
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itself. And it's got landscaping. It's got some -- six
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trees that will help mitigate that.
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We've got, as I mentioned, more detail on all the
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1 elevations which we feel is a further refinement to help
2 satisfy the -- well, better satisfy the big -box standards
3 and guidelines. There's more detail in the floor court.
4 There will be 12 trees in front of the store that -- a
5 combination of ornamental and deciduous trees.
6 We've got details on the landscaping in the
7 detention ponds for water quality purpose. Wetland plants
8 have been installed in those areas. The Lemay median is
9 now designed. We're going to have landscaping and
10 irrigation in the Lemay median.
11 We've got details on the Poudre River outfall,
12 which is the main outfall for this site in terms of what
13 happens with dissipation of velocity. Erosion control and
14 aesthetic concerns.
15 Those are the highlights. And I'm available to
16 answer more questions on the site plan, the landscaped
17 plan, the architecturals, some of those other things. At
18 this point I think I'll turn it over to Eric Bracke. And
19 then we're going to go down the row for some overview as
20 you requested at the work session. And we promise not to
21 take too much time.
22 MR. BRACKE: A new traffic study was submitted in
23 October of 199, analyzing -- I believe it was about 21
24 different intersections. The scope of the study is
25 basically the same. The results are generally the same.
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It was expanded at the Board's request to include some of
2
the outlying intersections, such as Riverside and
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Mulberry, Riverside and Lemay, also Vine -- also Vine and
4
Lemay. Sorry. Too much stuff up here.
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The -- for the Vine and Lemay intersection, the
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City has a project. It will be done next week. I'm
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changing the phasing on this project. The intersection
8
has nothing to do with this project. It will be done next
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week. The intersection currently operates at level of
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Service D. I can get it down to a level of Service B.
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Glen, you had asked specifically, what is the
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difference
with this particular crossing -- or this
13
project and the impact to the Vine and Lemay intersection?
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If that project went in today and all the traffic was
15
generated, it would still remain -- it would go from 10.7
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seconds per vehicle delay to 15. But it's still in a
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level of Service B.
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So for practical purposes, this development does
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not have a substantial impact on that intersection. It's
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the continued growth into the future, such as the
21
implementation of the Mountain Vista plan in particular
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and continued growth in the north that will eventually
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cause this intersection to fail. There's no room to put
24
in additional turn lanes or anything like that. But the
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Master Street Plan does show a realignment of Lemay into
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1 the future
2 In the year 2004, I can still get level of
3 Service B if this project was not approved. I can get
4 level of Service D with the project approved. So even in
5 the five-year future, the intersection still meets level
6 of service.
7 With the project the intersection will fail
8 probably somewhere near the year 2010. Without the
9 project it will fail, in being level of Service E, around
10 2015. However, according to the land development guidance
11 system, the existing system can handle this with the
12 modified signal improvements that we are doing there next
13 week, so.
14 The new traffic study also included the year 2004
15 as the five-year outlook. Those tables, tables 4, 5, and
16 6 of the traffic study were distributed to the Board
17 members for your review and has all the levels of service
18 for those intersections for the year 1999, 2004, and 2020.
19 You also asked about the VMT analysis that was
20 conducted. I would put a disclaimer on it, that the VMT
21 analysis is not part of the old existing guidelines for
22 doing traffic impact studies nor is it part of the LUC
23 ones, but it was something volunteered by the development.
24 They estimate approximately a .6 to 1.9 percent
25 reduction in VMT in the south part in the community
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because of the shopping opportunities in the north. The
process was reasonable. Whether or not that's the exact
number, no one really knows. But it does verify the fact
that much of our land use planning efforts have been to
place shopping opportunities near neighborhoods so people
don't have to drive all the way across town to do it. It
does substantiate that. So it's a reasonable analysis.
Whether those numbers are correct, I mean, none of us
really know that. But it does show there would be.a
reduction.
I think that's all I have.
MS. REAVIS: I just wanted to answer some of your
questions that came up regarding bicycle and pedestrian
issues at the work session. In your packet I provided a
map based on your request. That's what's on the overhead
indicating the existing bicycle lanes and sidewalks in the
area of the project.
Easier to move around a little bit. Basically
there are -- as you can see on the map, there's the
existing bike lanes in this area (indicating) that -- the
greater issue seems to be the sidewalks. There will be
sidewalks built as part of this project along the streets
that is adjacent to Mulberry and Lemay and on Magnolia.
There will still be a sidewalk missing along the portions
of Lemay, north of Lincoln and, also -- well, on Lemay,
17
1 north of Lincoln, also on Lincoln, west of Lemay.
2 I did want to clarify basically some of the
3 questions that had come up.- The City is working on a
4 separate project to provide sidewalks in those
5 neighborhoods. We have funding through the Building
6 Community Choices Funds to look at improving the sidewalk
7 and the connectivity in that area. So that would be a
8 separate project not specifically related to this project.
9 The other information that's in your packet, you
10 had asked about the trip distribution and the number of
11 pedestrians and the direction they would be traveling. We
12 basically look at trips for development, and we include
13 all types of trips. We don't separate out the number of
14 vehicles trips verses pedestrians trips or bicycle
15 trips.
16 Based on the traffic impact study for this
17 project, the majority of trips are traveling either south
18 on Lemay or west on Mulberry. There are existing
19 pedestrians and bicycle facilities south on Lemay from
20 this site. So that was taken care of.
21 The greater issue was the bike and pedestrian
22 facilities going west on Mulberry. And based on the
23 improvements that would be part of this project, we feel
24 that those have been addressed. For example, this project
25 would be contributing funds toward the improvement -- or
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• 1 construction of a bicycle and pedestrian bridge across the
2 Poudre River on Mulberry. And then we've received some
3 grant funding from the North Front Range Council to
4 provide sidewalk connection on Mulberry to connect between
5 Riverside and Lemay. So that pedestrian and bicycle
6 linkage issue to the west on Mulberry has been addressed
7 through combinations of sources.
8 So I'll just go ahead and leave it at that. I
9 think most of this information is covered in the
10 information in your packet, but I will be glad to answer
11 questions later.
• 12 MS. WAMHOFF: At the work session you had asked
13 to see what the improvements at Lemay and Lincoln would
14 be. And so we've provided a slide here that shows what
15 the improvements would be and what lanes would be put in
16 place.
17 Some of the colors are kind of hard to see, but
18 the blue shows the turn lanes. The purple shows the
19 through lanes. And the red shows the bike lanes that will
20 be put out. If you have any other questions on this
21 intersection or any others, I would be happy to answer
22 them.
• 23 MR. SHEPARD: Sheri, what you might want to
24 mention is what's new is the right -turn lane on eastbound
25 Lincoln to southbound Lemay.
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1 MS. WAMHOFF: Yes, it is.
2 MR. SHEPARD: That's what's new.
3 MR. GAVALDON: Ted, run that by again, please.
4 MR. SHEPARD: Besides lane widening and bike
5 lanes, the new feature to that intersection is on Lincoln.
6 It's an eastbound right -turn lane to go south on Lemay, as
7 well as civilization improvements, sidewalks, bike lanes,
8 etc.
9 MR. GAVALDON: Thank you.
10 MR. SCHLUETER: Technology. I'm going to briefly
11 discuss the drainage. This is a slide showing the Poudre
12 River floodplain. The dark blue is the floodway. The
13 green is the 500-year floodplain.
14 The site we're looking at is right here
15 (indicating). It's -- it's kind of cross -hatched, but you
16 can't probably see it back from where you're at. And the
17 Wal-Mart building itself is in the upper part which is not
18 in the 100-year floodplain.
19 Now this is an overall site view. The left side
20 is to the north. The bottom is Lemay. The right side is
21 Mulberry. The blue and the red lines that you see there
22 are the 100-year floodplain. From FEMA is the blue. The
23 red one is the master plan 100-year floodplain. And
24 actually that's existing. What we plan to do in the';
25 future is possibly build a levy which would remove the
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whole area from the floodplain.
The general drainage system -- I'll try to use
this arrow -- the drainage as it comes out of the Buffalo
Run development has .a detention pond in this area
(indicating). There's a pipe in here that picks it up,
brings it through a piping system down to this detention
pond. There's a detention pond here with a wetland bottom
in it to treat the water. And then that system is hooked
into another pipe that's coming down here to this other
detention pond, a bigger detention pond.
There's also a piping system along this side
(indicating), hooks into here, and brings that water also
down to this wetland detention pond. Then there's a --
right here, there's a box with a manual shut-off gate in
case the river is backing up and something happens to the
outfall end.
There's a 72-inch pipe under Mulberry. Right in
here we have to cross the waterline. So there's twin
481s. Then we go back to a single pipe, and eventually it
comes out as an 84-inch into the river.
And then there is a a flat gate on that so that
if the river gets higher than it, it backs -- it shuts it
off. So it cannot back into the site. And there's also a
grate over that to keep the trash out of it. And that's
basically the system.
21
1 If you have any questions, I'm here.
2 MR. SHEPARD: That concludes staff presentation.
3 MR. COLTON: Would anyone on the Board like to
4 ask questions now or wait until after? Okay.
5 Okay. Applicant's presentation, please? 30
6 minutes.
7 MR. GOLDBERG: Good evening, Chairman Colton,
8 ladies and gentlemen of the Board. My name is Mark
9 Goldberg. I am the developer of the project. The name of
10 my company is Goldberg Property Associates.
11 Everyone knows that there's been a long and
12 difficult process to get here tonight before you to
13 present our final PUD. From the annexation of this
14 property over five years ago through the overall
15 development plan that was approved in 1997, showing the
16 very same mixed -use concepts of the apartment building,
17 Buffalo Run, and the regional community shopping center
18 that includes the store that we're presenting tonight.
19 I've done everything in my power to create a
20 first-class project in the north part of Fort Collins
21 which was one of the original mandates of this property,
22 which for the first time in a major way starts to make
23 improvements in the north side of Fort Collins that have
24 long been a problem and long been overlooked.
25 We've attempted and we have met every City
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requirement. We've worked hard at this, and that has
2
allowed us to get staff's approval. I wouldn't move a
3
project forward until we did have the staff's approval.
4
This project has been reviewed exhaustively for
5
more than these five years and more so than any other
6
center of its kind in my 26 years of producing shopping
7
centers in Colorado and communities along the Front Range
8
and in several mountain communities.
9
We believe we bring before you a project which --
10
if judged by the standards applied consistently with other
11
LDGS projects -- meets in every respect the preliminary
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approval and meets or exceeds every other City
13
requirement.
14
My entire team is here tonight that's been
15
working on this project for five years. Lucia Liley, who
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has been with us from the very beginning from the start of
17
the annexation, will make the next part of the
18
presentation. Thank you very much.
19
MR. COLTON: Thank you.
20
MS. LILEY: Mr. Colton, Members of the Board,
21
Lucia Liley, 110 East Oak Street, Fort Collins.
22
We have gotten here tonight the different route,
.
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as Ted indicated. This preliminary PUD has been approved
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not by the Board or City Council, but by a vote of the
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citizens of this City. And that vote constitutes a full
23
1 preliminary PUD and includes all of the staff recommended
2 conditions in finding that the preliminary PUD meets all
3 of the LDGS requirements consistent with the staff finding
4 for you tonight that this project is consistent in the
5 opinions of all of the City reviewing and technical
6 staff.
7 So with this final PUD, we need to demonstrate to
8 you tonight that the project has met the applicable
9 conditions and that it is in substantial compliance with
10 the approved preliminary.
11 In addition to the staff report, which in some
12 detail dealt with the staff conditions, our architect a
13 little bit later in the presentation will deal with those
14 conditions talking about architectural detail. I wanted
15 to only comment on the fact that we have provided you some
16 additional information on the CDOT condition that included
17 all of the relevant material that showed the CDOT review
18 and approval, subject only to the final staff approval of
19 the actual utility plans.
20 The staff has evaluated in detail and given their
21 collective opinion that the project also substantially
22 complies with the approved preliminary PUD. We believe
23 that the documents that we have submitted and that you
24 will see tonight demonstrates that this is so. And that
25 the only changes of significance to the approved
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preliminary are changes which, in fact, enhance the
2
project. Some of those are changes within the project.
3
Some of those are simply changed conditions in the area.
4
Because we have a very limited time tonight for a
5
project of this scope, we clearly don't have the time to
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go through every component. We don't even have time to
7
talk about the key elements in detail. So as Mark said,
8
our entire project team is here, and we'll trust you to
9
ask questions if we don't cover the things that are of
10
interest to you.
11
Before we move to the technical presentation by
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our traffic engineer of the transportation issue, I want
13
to summarize for you what we think some of the key changes
14
have been that we ask you as Board members to consider as
15
you consider this project in its entirety.
16
During the preliminary discussion with the Board,
17
there was concern about the truck bypass issue on Vine and
18
what that did to the traffic analyses and what it
19
potentially did to the intersection. Well, as we know,
20
and there are some in the audience today who are
21
responsible for that, that issue is no longer here. It's
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been resolved, and it no longer clouds any of the traffic
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analyses that have been done.
24
There was also concern expressed that although a
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TransFort route was planned to come to this area sometime
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1 in the future, it didn't then exist. That TransFort route
2 now exists. We provided information to you showing Route
3 14 which is a new TransFort route which, in fact, now has
4 a stop at the Lincoln and Lemay intersection.
5 At the preliminary, it was not known and there
6 was some concern about how many of the public
7 improvements, streets, sidewalk trail connections, ped
8 crossings would be done with Lot 1, which is before you
9 tonight, and what would be done with Lot 2. We now know
10 that.
11 Lot 1 generates approximately two-thirds of the
12 total traffic. But 100 percent of all the public
13 improvements will go in with Lot 1, whether or not Lot 2
14 is ever approved.
15 The Mulberry pedestrian bridge, Kathleen Reavis
16 briefly addressed. You may remember, some of you, that
17 during the preliminary there was a lot of discussion. It
18 was never a requirement. It was never a condition. It is
19 not a condition of the approved preliminary. But Mark
20 Goldberg offered early on -- because it did provide an
21 additional and more direct connection to the west -- to
22 put a bridge on, which he had estimated would be about
23 $150,000.
24 After the election the staff said, "Are you still
25 willing to participate in that?" And Mark said, "Yes."
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• 1 And what we ultimately agreed upon, he would contribute
2 $200,000, and the remainder would be funded out of the
3 federal grant. And the construction would be this summer,
4 which would be consistent if this project is approved with
5 the construction of the project.
6 There were questions. And I think, Mr. Gavaldon,
7 you had a number of questions at the preliminary about
8 what capital monies would be available for pedestrian
9 improvements to the northeast and the Bava neighborhood
10 because we all know that there is a lack in that entire
11 area of sidewalk connections. And you wanted some
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additional information from the staff about what and when
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and how could that happen.
14
And what we now have is that at that time it
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was -- there was no real detail about funding and when it
16
would happen and what the priorities would be. What we
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are now advised by the Transportation Department, is that
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that whole area has a priority in the funding and
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particularly from the neighborhoods to a transit stop, in
20
other words, Lincoln and Lemay, where there is an existing
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transit stop. And that those will -- funding will likely
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commence in 2001 for those improvements.
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There's a new fire station, Fire Station Number
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12 at Highway 1 and Country Club Road which did not exist
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at the time of the preliminary. That's been added. In
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1 addition to Station Number 1, which is half a mile away,
2 and Station Number 6, which is a mile away, both of which
3 in PFA's opinion are within the acceptable five-minute
4 response time. But PFA goes on to say that with the
5 addition of the new station, service to this area is
6 improved because it is not separated from the north and
7 northeast by any railroad crossing. So it is unaffected
8 by railroad traffic. So you have that enhancement as
9 well.
10 And finally -- and this I think is maybe perhaps
11 the most crucial fact -- you need to look at what has
12 happened even just in the period between preliminary and
13 final approval with regard to residential growth in this
14 immediate area.
15 At the preliminary, there were a number of
16 projects in various stages of planning approval in this
17 immediate area. Today, in addition to the Bava neighbors,
18 Greenbriar, the Country Club, Lindenmeier, and all of the
19 well -established northern neighborhoods, there are five
20 significant multifamily and single-family projects which
21 all have final approval from the City of Fort Collins and
22 are now entering the construction phases. Three of those
23 are City -certified affordable housing projects. That
24 represents somewhat in excess of 2,000 dwelling units in
25 addition to those projects and the north area that are now
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in the planning process and were not when we came before
you.
The question might be, where are the commercial
services? Where is the discount shopping available to all
of this residential growth? If you have been out in this
particular area, you will note a significant lack of
any -- of any large-scale commercial services and a
complete lack of any discount services. And that's
particularly important when you're talking about a north
area with a disproportionately high level of lower income
folks.
It's largely because of that clear need for the
services that are afforded by this project that it has
had -- although it clearly has had its detractors, it has
also had a tremendous amount of public support, including
support from all of the Bava neighborhoods, including
support from every individual and business owner
immediately surrounding the site, and many, many others
included in the information we provided from the
preliminary hearing.
With those comments, I want to only echo and
reinforce a couple of points about storm water and then
we'll move on to our traffic engineer. The staff has
given you a lot of information on that. Again, we just
want to emphasize a couple of, things.
29
1 Despite the constant repetition of this as an
2 issue, I want to say one more time, Glen's already said
3 it, the floodplain is not an issue with Lot 1. There are
4 no structures in Lot 1 which are even within the
5 floodplain. There's no floodplain permit required for
6 that entire project. It's not an opinion. It's a fact
7 based on the FEMA maps which have been adopted by the City
8 of Fort Collins.
9 We hear a lot of discussion continuing about
10 fill. And I just wanted to say as we indicated at the
11 preliminary, this site is a flat cornfield. It has been
12 tilled, irrigated, and sprayed for many, many, years.
13 There are no unique topographical features. There are no
14 natural drainage features. The only fill that will be
15 brought into this site is the minimum amount of fill
16 necessary for one of two things, either to meet FEMA
17 required standards, which we have no choice but to meet,
18 or to drain the site because it's flat and you have to
19 bring in some fill to be able to drain the site. Beyond
20 that, there will be no fill brought onto the site.
21 The Poudre River outfall, you've seen the design
22 of that. That's a final PUD issue so we did not have the
23 design at the time of preliminary. The developer has
24 worked very diligently to satisfy both the storm water
25 concerns about hydrology but also Natural Resource
30
• 1 Department concerns about environmental issues. And, in
2 fact, after the preliminary the staff came back to us and
3 said, "Would you do an orchid study? Would you do a
4 Preble's jumping mouse study within the outfall area and
5 the entire construction area?" And those were done and no
6 problems were found and the reports are in the information
7 we supplied you.
8 Water quality. I just want to emphasize that the
9 treatment techniques being proposed here, to filter the
10 water before it enters the Poudre River, were not required
11 by the staff, were not required by the LDGS. They were
• 12 volunteered because they were believed to be based upon
13 the environmental consultants hired to be the best
14 technique to filter and clean water before it gets into
15 the river. And that, interestingly enough, has now been
16 endorsed and become a requirement under the new land use
17 code.
18 Stewart Environment Consultants did a
19 comprehensive report with the preliminary discussing all
20 aspects of water quality and the benefits provided by this
21 particular proposal. And we have additional copies of
22 that, if you would like to see any of that.
• 23 I think with those comments I'm going to turn
24 this over to Kathleen Krager, who is the project's traffic
25 engineer, to talk about the traffic study and
31
1 transportation issues. Thank you.
2 MS. KRAGER: Good evening, Members of the Board.
3 My name is Kathleen Krager. I'm a professional
4 transportation engineer with the firm of Krager and
5 Associates. And my address is 1390 Stewart Street,
6 Denver, Colorado.
7 It was my responsibility on this project to
8 conduct the traffic impact study. And that study was
9 required to meet the City guidelines, and -- which the
10 City has reviewed it carefully and has agreed it has met
11 those guidelines.
12 The traffic impact study analyzed 21 different
13 intersections in an area that is basically a half -mile
14 radius. In addition, it also analyzed Lemay and Vine.
15 Even though that intersection is outside of the City
16 guidelines of the study area, there were so many questions
17 on this intersection, we felt it appropriate to analyze.
18 As you're aware, a traffic study was done
19 previously on this site. However, we conducted new
20 traffic counts in 1999, to make sure that we were using
21 the most up-to-date and reasonable background information.
22 Per City guidelines, the analysis really
23 considers three different scenarios. Existing conditions,
24 being existing traffic, no improvements in the area;
25 five-year growth, which looks at the amount of development
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1 that can be expected to occur within a five-year period
2 but no City sponsored improvements on the roadway system;
3 and then a 20-year period which looks at an ultimate
4 buildout of the area for background traffic growth and
5 assumes that the City master street planned improvements
6 are in place.
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Based on the analysis of these scenarios, we
identified a number of improvements that needed to be made
to the area. These improvements -- sort of a real quick
summary of them -- they consist of a dual -westbound
left -turn lane for Mulberry at Lemay, which is an
improvement that's needed right now under existing
conditions. It also included improvements to Lemay from
Mulberry to Lincoln, improvements and construction of 12th
Street and Magnolia Street, and relocation of the frontage
road at 12th Street and Lemay.
The total cost of these improvements is right
under $4.4 million. That is in off -site improvements,
contributions to the pedestrian bridge, and street
oversizing fees. So obviously a lot of work is going into
this area to accommodate future traffic.
With those developer -committed improvements, all
intersections in the analysis operated at acceptable
levels of service for both the 5-year planning period and
the 20-year planning period. So let me state again,
33
1 everything operated acceptably with those improvements.
2 In some instances the intersections actually operate
3 better with the addition of site -generated traffic and the
4 site -committed improvements.
5 Not only does the site have a lot of improvements
6 going in the area, but the construction of this site will
7 alter the way people drive in the north side of Fort
8 Collins. Eric BRACKE touched upon the fact that we're
9 expecting a reduction in what's called VMT, or vehicle
10 miles of travel.
11 Quite simply, this means that there is really not
12 adequate shopping opportunities for people living on the
13 north side of Fort Collins. And those people are driving
14 to the south side of Fort Collins to pursue those shopping
15 activities. If they have shopping options on the north
16 side of town now, their trips are much shorter, it reduces
17 traffic on the north/south streets in Fort Collins,
18 specifically South College Avenue, and as a result you
19 have improved operations and also improved air quality due
20 to the reduction in VMT.
21 With that, I'm going to turn this presentation
22 over to Mark Goldberg to discuss the various modes of
23 transportation other than by automobile. And I'll be
24 available to answer questions.
25 MR. GOLDBERG: Thank you, Kathleen. I would like
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1 to take you on a walk or a bike ride, if you will, from
2 around the project and kind of through the project into
3 the store that we'll have on the north side.
4 Starting on the very north side of the project at
5 Vine and even a little beyond Vine, there are
6 bike/pedestrian routes down to Lincoln and Lemay. And
7 then, of course, with Buffalo Run, they've installed a
8 detached sidewalk from their location down to where this
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new store will be.
From the east side, we're going to be installing
Magnolia Street from basically our eastern boundary over
to Link Lane. Now that extension of Magnolia will have
bike lanes, will also have detached sidewalks on either
side of Magnolia for pedestrian access from all those
businesses that exist over in the area just east of us
along Magnolia and Lincoln and other places.
From the south there's a lot of connectivity in
the existing neighborhood. There are bike lanes on Lemay
that get to the project up to -- to the southern end of
our site. And to the west, of course, we've had a lot of
discussion this evening about the pedestrian bridge that
we have contributed to and with the grant, hopefully, will
be installed. That will go across the Poudre, connecting
the neighborhoods in downtown to -- to the project.
Also from the west along Lincoln, there's a bike
35
1 lane and a wide shoulder there that will be accessed from
2 the Buckingham neighborhood that will go from the east
3 along Lincoln to Buffalo Run and again down to their new
4 sidewalk and into the project.
5 On -site we're making a lot of improvements.
6 There will be a new -- let's go to the on -site piece.
7 What you're seeing now is the new improvements that we're
8 going to make on -site in pedestrian ways and the extension
9 over to Magnolia. There will be a detached sidewalk that
10 will go all the way from Mulberry to Lemay -- up to the
11 Buffalo Run, a detached sidewalk. And, of course, there
12 will be the two bike lanes on Lemay.
13 Likewise, Magnolia from the site on Lemay over to
14 12th Street will also have bike lanes and detached
15 sidewalks. And that will continue as Magnolia goes east
16 of the site over to Link Lane. 12th Street is a new
17 street we're running along our eastern boundary all the
18 way to Mulberry up to Lincoln. Bike pass, again, and --
19 and sidewalks.
20 One of the more interesting features of the
21 project that I talked about in earlier sessions actually
22 happens at the very southwest corner of our project.
23 We're going -- when we do Phase 2, we're going to do a
24 bike pavilion, a place where people can get on the Poudre
25 River trail, hopefully park at our project. We're going
36
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to have tools, an air for bikes, and a covered place. And
2
you'll be able to access that bike route, if you will, by
3
going to the -- just to the west a little bit, under --
4
under the Mulberry and back on the path that way. And
5
that will be a connection to the -- to the bike route.
6
On -site, once you're at the -- within our sites
7
with these bike routes, there's going to be several very
8
unique features. The green areas that I'm going to point
9
to briefly, here (indicating) and up here, are routes for
10
the pedestrian to use once they're in the parking lot.
11
These will be raised landscaped islands, a place where you
•
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can separate yourself from the automobile. A very unique
13
feature in terms of this kind of a project where normally
14
you would just be out there with the -- with the cars.
15
And then in front of the Wal-Mart store here
16
(indicating) is a very large -- I think it's 35 feet of
17
sidewalk, a place once you come out of the store, a place
18
to gather you and your children and groceries and that
19
sort of thing before you get out. And also a place to
20
meet neighbors and kind of have a social experience.
21
On the west side of the project, here
22
(indicating) and here, Ted talked earlier about our kiosk
•
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for the cola machines, but there will also be a place to
24
have seating and umbrellas. And we're hopefully going to
25
have a nice little feature there.
37
1 In conclusion, all the work that we're doing and
2 the other connectivity is probably more access to this
3 project than anything that I have ever done or, dare say,
4 anything that has been in the way of connectivity projects
5 of its style.
6 The City has determined that the connectivities
7 and the pedestrian bikeways do meet their standards. And
8 I think in some cases, like a pedestrian bridge, certainly
9 exceed them. Thank you very much.
10 MS. WILSON: Good evening. My name is Michelle
11 Wilson. I'm the principal architect with CLC, responsible
12 for building design, building landscape architecture, and
13 engineering for the project. Our office is at 8480 East
14 Orchard Road, Englewood, Colorado, 80111.
15 We developed this project to promote quality
16 design which reflect the local values. This objective
17 meets the intent of the design standards and guidelines
18 for large retail establishments. It is important to
19 highlight the major components.
20 The vision. The vision is to provide a building
21 architectural theme with a timeless quality that
22 recognizes Fort Collins as a unique place. Our research
23 and studies of the adjacent area determined the need to
24 create a shopping district which maintained the urban
25 fabric of the City and best strengthen the network of the
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1 boarding neighborhoods.
2 This objective formed the direction for an
3 architectural character for the project. We chose an
4 industrial warehouse concept to form a style with
5 timeless, classic flair and turn of the century
6 style. The overall image being one which evolved over
7 time, establishing an exciting yet comfortable and
8 relaxing environment.
9 To accomplish this, the building massing played a
10 very important role. And I'd like to refer to our
11 building elevation. Since we are very short on time,
12 basically I'm going to describe what that is. The
13 building massing scale elements and orientation enhances
14 and captures and preserves the idea of a smaller scale
15 retail center. The goal being to break down the
16 appearance of the large building into smaller, more
17 defined components which reinforce the district concept.
18 The Wal-Mart building was stripped of its familiar
19 corporate identity and broken into smaller components to
20 determine how it is -- how its form could best be enhanced
21 in meeting this goal.
22 There are no facades greater than a hundred foot
23 in length. We have incorporated recesses, projections at
24 key locations corresponding to the design elements which
25 met this criteria. Mass elements were further detailed to
39
1 include facade articulation, detailing, and repetitive
2 patterns throughout the entire facade treatment on all
3 four sides.
4 Ground floor facades that face Lemay, Mulberry,
5 and 12th
Street have arcades,
colonnades, display windows,
6 entries,
awnings, overhangs,
and other features in over an
7 excess of 60 percent of their horizontal length.
8 In addition to these features, pedestrian
9 orientation and human scale is enhanced by a richness of
10 ornamentation. Common amenities, green space, information
11 kiosks, nodes of activity which lend to a quality of life
12 for its users, residents, and adjacent neighborhoods.
13 Roof lines are accentuated forming gables, hips
14
and peaks,
distinguishing entries
and towers
which
15
establish
points of interest for
the project.
Each mass
16
form is further accentuated with
a variety of
roof forms
17
including a complimentary mix of
turn -buckle
style
18 awnings, overhangs, stepped parapets, pitched roofs,
19 canopies, and additional awning features.
20 The detailing is a controlled mix of elements
21 which respond to the images of the industrial age.
22 Cornices, expressed structural elements, bays, contrasting
23 building materials are a few of the options that we used
24 to highlight these areas.
25 This treatment will be further enhanced from a
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combination of concrete faux windows, distinctive
goose -net gliding, turn -of -the -century turn -buckle
awnings, site furnishings, display boxes for public
dedication, galvanized metal roofing, and other such
features incorporating within.
The building materials, as you can refer to the
material palette board that we have in front of us, were
selected to carry this concept. The background shall
maintain a timeless fabric utilizing a rich mixture of
brick masonry, cultured stone, stucco, which are all
classic to this style of architectural treatment. All
materials represent a neutral color palette and are
accentuated by historic colors.
Entryways define the access by pitched roofs,
overhangs, canopies, cornices, which establish a hierarchy
of building forms. Entries are not only located at the
front of the store but also at the garden center facing
12th Street and at the retail shops facing Lemay
Avenue. All elevations, in addition to the one in the
front, are adjacent -- or are highly articulated even
those adjacent to the residential neighborhood.
Numerous areas are located through the site where
public paths are enhanced by activity nodes and community
space. Landscaped planners, bench seating, kiosks, dining
and patio opportunities have all been incorporated on
41
1 those specific nodes and paths within the areas within
2 the -- the circulation patterns on the site. The
3 landscaping and amenities afford a lasting impression
4 while providing a soft transition to the building.
5 Together these form a sense of place within the project.
6 Condition of the preliminary PUD approval was to
7 enhance the architectural elevations at the west face
8 along Lemay and to incorporate additional detailing and
9 human -scale features which further reinforce the tie from
10 this development to the Buffalo Run apartments.
11 A total of seven display boxes for public
12 dedication along with additional faux windows, goose -neck
13 lighting, a stone arcade featuring the display windows and
14 encasing those windows surrounded by additional planters,
15 and bench seating we're adding.
16 At this time Mark Goldberg will now make the
17 closing comments.
18 MR. GOLDBERG: You -- Fort Collins is a very,
19 very, unique community. The bar has been set higher here
20 than any place else in Colorado and I think the western
21 United States.
22 The big -box standards that you've adopted are now
23 appearing in every community that we go to. They start in
24 California and end up in Fort Collins. And they are
25 commonly known in our industry as the Fort Collins big -box
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standards.
Given the opportunity to build this project, you
will have the finest regional shopping center that exists
in the country. And I hope this evening you take those
things into consideration. Give us your approval so we
can build on the promise that we've been working on for
five years. Thank you very much.
MR. COLTON: Thank you for the presentation. All
right. It's about quarter after now. And we agreed to
take a break about 8:30 or so. I'd like to see, I guess,
how many people will be giving a presentation or want to
give us inputs tonight. If you could give me a show of
hands, I just want to get a rough idea. 18, 20, something
like that I see. So at three minutes each. Okay.
Why don't we go ahead and we'll hear from like
five or whatever until 8:30, and then we'll take about a
10-minute break.
Again, you've got three minutes. And you got the
green light until it turns yellow, with 30 seconds left
and it will turn red. So please sign in, give us your
name. And we do have three microphones. Back there
(indicating), here, and here. And you can queue up to
make it even quicker. Thank you very much.
MS. ARAGON: Ready?
MR. COLTON: Yes, go ahead.
43
1 MS. ARAGON: Hi. My name is Betty Aragon. I am
2 from the Buckingham neighborhood.
3 We are not here tonight to debate whether or not
4 a Wal-Mart supercenter should be built. The decision by
5 the people through a City election was made. It is the
6 will of the people that this shopping center be built.
7 Tonight we are here to move forward to implementing that
8 decision.
9 This project has been held up long enough. As
10 long as the developer, Mark Goldberg, has met the criteria
11 that complies with the regulations by the City, then we
12 ask that this project be approved.
13 Our neighborhood is excited and anxious to break
14 ground. We look forward to having the choice and
15 convenience of affordable shopping on the north. I truly
16 believe this shopping center will add balance to the City.
17 I am confident it will not take away anything from the
18 downtown business, but, in fact, enhance the business for
19 downtown.
20 We are all entitled to our opinion and our
21 decision to support different issues. But there comes a
22 time when a decision is made and the opposition needs to
23 respect that and lose with respect instead of putting
24 forward tactics to delay the project.
25 Our neighborhood is in very much support of this
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1 project, and we hope that you will approve it tonight.
2 Thank you.
3 MR. COLTON: Thank you.
4 MS. SCHMIDT: Hi. I'm Bridget Schmidt, a 30-year
5 resident of Larimer County. And I've been involved with
6 this issue since the ODP time.
7 I'd like to read to you sections of a letter that
8 I think you received earlier today. And I have some
9 copies if you did not. It's from the Law Firm of Martin &
10 Mehaffy. And it addresses the fact that Planning and
11 Zoning Board applies the provisions of the Land
12 Developments Guidance System to propose projects and thus
13 determines whether a particular development plan should be
14 approved or denied.
15 In this manner P&Z determines the rights of
16 applicants by applying existing legal standards, the LDGS,
17 to facts presented to public hearings. This type of
18 review is characterized by the laws quasi judicial, an
19 important legal concept.
20 As you know the history of this project, the
21 complaint, the applicant went and filed a legal action and
22 even in his complaint said the actions and decisions of
23 the City Council complained of herein were taken by the
24 City Council as an inferior tribunal exercising quasi
25 judicial function.
45
1 The Colorado constitution provides that the
2 initiative power is reserved to the voters of every city,
3 town, and municipality as to all local, special, and
4 municipal legislation of every character. However, the
5 power of initiative is not a limited and does not extend
6 to nonlegislative matters. Rather initiative exceeds to
7 the peoples' right to legislate. It is not applicable to
8 determine how previously and active public policies such
9 as Fort Collins, the LDGS will be administered or
10 executed. In this regard the Colorado Supreme Court has
11 ruled that initiated ordinances relative -- relating to
12 administrative matters are invalid.
13 I continue to quote from the letter, "It's my
14 understanding that the City may rely upon the holdings of
15 Citizens versus the City of Steamboat Springs which states
16 that the approval of a PUD is legislative act. However,
17 neither Planning and Zoning approved the preliminary PUD
18 and the initiated ordinance related to nonlegislative
19 matters. As such, no legislative act ever occurred. It
20 is therefore our opinion that approval of the
21 Mulberry/Lemay Crossing preliminary PUD is invalid and of
22 no legal effect."
23 That is a letter from Christopher Ernst from that
24 law firm that I mentioned. I'd also like to enter a copy
25 into the record of the list of the LUPP and LDGS concerns
46
' 1 that contributed to the denial of the preliminary PUD. We
2 feel that some of those have not been sufficiently
3 addressed, as other people will speak to this evening.
4 Thank you very much.
5 MR. COLTON: Thank you.
6 MR. CARNES: I am Gary Carnes. And having been a
7 member of the Board, I can appreciate how conflicted some
8 of you must be in having denied this preliminary PUD in
9 November 198, and having the correctness of your decision
10 affirmed by the City Council on appeal.
11 The basis for denial was just spearheaded by
. 12 another citizen. And City Council concluded that the
13 project cannot be incorporated into the neighborhood and
14 community transportation network without causing safety
15 problems.
16 I thought it was a rather -- talk about tactics,
17 it was interesting that whereas the big -box standards
18 adopted five years ago prohibit standalone big boxes,
19 they're coming in with the Lot 1 or Phase 1 which is,
20 guess what, a standalone big box. If you approve that --
21 if that is approved, then they wouldn't have to come in
22 for the additional phase. And guess what they got? A
is
23 standard big box which they wanted from the beginning.
24 A lot of the problems are on the south half of
25 the site. So we're here tonight as a citizen agenda
47
1 because you are the final authority. The staff does not
2 give approval. Staff does not determine whether or not
3 the requirements are met. Staff does a great job of
4 evaluating and recommending, but you have the authority.
5 The final authority.
6 And when -- when our term of service started on
7 the Board -- mine was about five years ago -- Paul Eckman
8 explained that this Board performs quasi judicial
9 functions, which are interpreting and applying the code
10 and charter, making findings of fact and conclusions,.
11 following strict rules of conduct in procedure. You've
12 had the benefit of expert advice and counsel and have been
13 protected from undue influences and conflict of interest.
14 Voters had none of the above. As the only appointed Board
15 in this City with quasi judicial authority, you have very
16 special powers and duties to uphold the City Code and
17 Charter.
18 Some would say that this hearing must proceed for
19 reasons of due process. Due process is what happened one
20 year ago before this Board and Council. The code states,
21 "Application for final plan may be made only after
22 approval by the Planning and Zoning Board of a preliminary
23 plan." The Board did not approve the preliminary .
24 PUD. The code and charter make no provision for voter
25 approval. Protect the integrity of the Board from those
m
• 1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
• 12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
• 23
24
25
who would show ignorance or contempt for final authority.
Vacate this hearing.
MR. COLTON: Thank you.
MS. YORK: Good evening. My name is Nancy
York. Any development proposal which conforms to the
rules adopted by this City should be allowed to
develop. But here's the rub. In your hearing of the
Lemay/Mulberry Crossings Preliminary PUD, the Board found
there were off -site impacts that were not properly
mitigated. The situation has worsened.
Policy 70 of the land use policies plan, which is
the basis of the LDGS, requires, quote, regional community
shopping centers will not be allowed to create demands
which exceed the capacity of the existing and future
transportation network of the City.
April 198 traffic counts at the Lemay/Mulberry
were over 45,000 vehicles per day. The Lemay/Mulberry
supercenter is projected to generate 19,000 additional
trips per day. The level of service is currently D
according to the January Mulberry/Lemay intersection
alternatives analysis, and, quote, is projected to drop to
Level F, total congestion, with short-term projected
growth.
It also notes that increased congestion will
impact emergency vehicle response time, which relates to
49
1 LDGS criteria A2.1. Quote, can the addition -- additional
2 traffic, vehicular, pedestrian, and bicycle traffic
3 generated by the land uses within the project be
4 incorporated into the community transportation network
5 without creating safety problems? No.
6 Currently traffic is impacted by bridges to the
7 southwest and train tracks southwest and north. Routinely
8 traffic backs up across the Mulberry and Lemay
9 intersection during rush hour and when trains pass.
10 To the north, the Lemay/Vine intersection,
11 traffic is projected to go from level of Service D to F by
12 2004 according to table 4, intersection capacity analysis
13 summary, in your packets. Traffic currently backs up
14 through Lincoln on Lemay during rush hour.
15 The proposed roundabout at Lemay/Mulberry may
16 very well be able to handle 10,000 vehicles per hour or
17 the 7,000 vehicles per hour demand that is projected in
18 the near future. But what about the traffic and trains at
19 the intersection of Lemay/Riverside, Riverside and
20 Mulberry, and Vine and Lemay?
21 A project of this size which is projected to
22 generate thousands of vehicular trips per day in a City
23 which -- in which we are already driving more vehicular
24 miles traveled, increasing over 8 percent a year, and a
25 project that is surrounded by impacted intersections does
• 1 not meet the necessary criteria for development. Thank
2 you.
3 MR. COLTON: Thank you.
4 MR. WILSON: My name is Gil Wilson. I live at
5 1733 Elim Court in Fort Collins. That's at the north end
6 of town. It's Adriel Hills.
7 Down through these years I've been coming to this
8 same building and expressing my viewpoint, which is,
9 hoping to see this project go forth and be built. It
10 would be wonderful if I could avoid driving clear across
11 town, like so many people have to do, to shop at the south
• 12 end.
13 And I think we need to compliment the staffs here
14 tonight. The City staff was very professional in their
15 presentation, as was Mr. Goldberg.
16 And just quickly in conclusion, just one thought
17 I'd like to have you think about, I think with all the
18 hundreds of qualified attorneys we have in Fort Collins,
19 it seems rather odd that this squeaky group needs to go to
20 Boulder of all places to find somebody to threaten the
21 voters of this community. Thank you.
22 MR. COLTON: Go ahead.
• 23 MR. EDWARDS: My name is Brad Edwards. My
24 residence is at 2828 Cherry Lane in Fort Collins.
25 I am a north side resident who does as much
51
1 shopping in
the
north as I can.
I don't
find everything I
2 want here.
And
I do go to the
south side
for some things.
3 But it turns
out
that Wal-Mart
is one of
the places that
4 I've not been hardly ever to find things that I want.
5 Two examples of many, many things were bulk oil,
6 that I finally found at Country General. Wal-Mart doesn't
7 have it in bulk prices. Another thing was a simple pink
8 bathtub mat that I got for my mother for Christmas.
9 Wal-Mart didn't have it. I had to go to a factory store
10 in Loveland. They had it here. So I don't believe that
11 I'm going to be finding what I want at the new Wal-Mart
12 any more than I found at the old Wal-Mart, even though I'm
13 a north -side resident.
14 I believe very strongly that the Wal-Mart that we
15 have in the south side is all we need right now. I don't
16 see any reason in putting in a larger Wal-Mart right
17 now.
18 There was a certain amount of talk that was
19 addressing the direct effect now that the Wal-Mart store
20 is not going to have on floodplains. The problem was,
21 as -- at a neighborhood meeting about two years ago before
22 the original P&Z decision, there was mentioned by one of
23 the City engineers, I think it was, who was mentioning a
24 dike that would have to be built on Lemay or at least
25 elevated to a higher level. I wanted to find out just
52
•
1
exactly how this was going to affect the -- the building
2
of an additional higher dike on Lemay because of the
3
additional traffic due to Wal-Mart, but there wasn't any
4
discussion on that. I think that's something that needed
5
to be added to the discussion, and it was not. That's a
6
deficiency of what we we're talking about here. It's an
7
indirect effect because a dike on Lemay due to additional
8
traffic of Wal-Mart would definitely affect the
9
floodplain. It would expand it just like anything else
10
would. Even though it's an indirect effect of Wal-Mart,
11
it would still be every bit as much a -- an inevitable
•
12
outcome as any kind of direct effect by Wal-Mart being in
13
the floodplain which apparently isallright now.
14
One other thing I want to mention. I am a very
15
major user of the bike trail. Mr. Goldberg mentioned how
16
great the access is going to be, how much better the
17
access is going to be with their pavilion of people
18
getting on the bike trail, but he didn't mention anything
19
about how the bike trail itself is going to be improved to
20
be able to handle all that additional traffic capacity.
21
I've been talking with Craig Foreman of the Parks
22
and Recreation. I tried to talk with some people in the
•
23
Department of Transportation to try to get traffic
24
densities on the bike trail like on all city streets.
25
They have no -- nothing in the works right now to be able
53
1 to do plans like that. And I'm afraid that the bike trail
2 is going to be terribly impacted.
3 One other thing is, the intersections I think
4 are -- or the plans, the studies on the intersections are
5 too limited. The staff gave only intersections at Lemay
6 and Mulberry. It didn't give the other intersections.
7 There was no level of service planned for Lincoln and
8 Lemay that was submitted tonight. They gave a diagram of
9 how the turn lanes were going to be changed, but they
10 didn't say how the level of service is going to be
11 affected. I use Lincoln quite a bit. And the Lemay
12 intersection at Lincoln is going to be something that will
13 impact me. Thank you. Bye.
14 MR. COLTON: We might take one more person and
15 then go take our 10-minute break and come back. Why don't
16 we go ahead and take it now until 20 till.
17 (Recess from 8:30 p.m. to 8:45 p.m.)
18 MR. COLTON: Okay. We're back live at the
19 Planning and Zoning Hearing, having watched at least a
20 good part of the eclipse, and we're ready to proceed on
21 with citizen input. So go ahead.
22 MR. HALVORSON: My name is Curtis Halvorson. I
23 live in northeast Fort Collins.
24 Last year our Greenbelt Homeowners Association
25 went on the record as being overwhelmingly against this
54
•
1
Lemay project due to traffic, railroads, and floodplain
2
problems. That opinion is unchanged. However, we are
3
disenfranchised by being county residents rather than city
4
residents and could not vote in a very questionable
5
referendum initiated by Mr. Goldberg and Wal-Mart's money.
6
Nonetheless, residents of this area have an important
7
impact on the City's committee as well as on the serious
8
developing problems on Lemay Avenue traffic.
9
In the Coloradoan yesterday the big banner
10
editorial headline read, "Wal-Mart project must be
11
approved." Well, I expect nothing less from the
•
12
Coloradoan. They acknowledged that the land use question
13
is not to be decided by public vote. The results of the
14
public vote last year, again, minus us northeast
15
residents, shows Wal-Mart got 57 percent support versus 43
16
against. But it cost Wal-Mart $4.96 a vote versus 29
17
cents per vote opposed. This meant that a grassroots
18
opposition was 17 times more effective in getting support
19
than Wal-Mart who spent 23 times more money. Translated,
20
this suggests Wal-Mart couldn't win in a legitimate
21
referendum that includes all the people, City and County,
22
affected by Goldberg's proposal.
•
23
Planning and Zoning Commission has been
24
courageous in its past decision on this project despite
25
Mr. Goldberg's threats of personal litigation against its
55
1 members and other bullying tactics.
2 Tonight I ask you to be even more courageous
3 particularly the (inaudible) of the champion by the
4 Coloradoan and Wal-Mart supporters, which is, if the City
5 Planning Staff says all the T's are crossed and all the
6 I's dotted per City regulations, approval is required.
7 This is false. Let me clearly state, the approval is not
8 required.
9 You, the Planning Board, exist as a nonelected
10 group of interested citizens to prevent developers from
11 overrunning planning and act as ombudsmen to filter out
12 outmoded, narrowly defined legalistic or inadequate
13 regulations that do not take into account factors other
14 than the immediate site. I emphasize immediate site
15 requirements.
16 Both Goldberg and City planners are doing just
17 that. There's no planning for Lemay Avenue north, the
18 Vine Street railroad crossing, and floodplain
19 considerations which unrealistically are being ignored.
20 Cosmetic fixes do not solve world problems. We are
21 talking about a huge project that is proposed for a City
22 already too retail heavy, which according to the
23 Coloradoan, again, by June 199, has twice the average
24 retail store space in the nation. Who needs this? Only
25 Wal-Mart and Goldberg agreed at the expense of permanent
56
•
1
problems for Fort Collins.
2
Unless Wal-Mart were to mitigate to move out to
3
I-25 like they -- please vote to refuse this proposal once
4
and for all. Thank you.
5
MR. COLTON: Thank you.
6
MR. BUDERUS: My name is Mike Buderus. I reside
7
at 2813 Adobe Drive. I've been president of the northeast
8
Fort Collins Business Association for probably -- a few
9
too many years, actually. But we have about 50 or 60
10
members in that area.
11
This area is faced with a lot of challenges as we
•
12
forward
go and especially -- I'm sure Planning and Zoning
13
is aware of those -- as we start to develop and grow to
14
the northeast.
15
I think one of the -- the issues when you look at
16
this project is, first of all, will development occur
17
there? And I think you have to say, "Yes, it will.,, So
18
the next question is, "What type of development?" If you
19
look at this project, I think if you look at it logically
20
and what's being provided by Mr. Goldberg, this could be a
21
centerpiece and anchor for development to start to occur
22
out in that area.
•
23
I was born and raised out there. There's a lot
24
of shopping that hasn't been out in that area. And you've
25
already heard that there are developments that are
57
1 starting to occur out there. So I really encourage you to
2 approve this. Thank you. I'd like to commend Mr.
3 Goldberg for the quality of the project, too.
4 MR. COLTON: Thank you.
5 MS. VELASQUEZ: I am Kathy Velasquez. I live at
6 205 Third Street.
7 I'm the co-chair of the Buckingham Neighborhood
8 Committee. And I have a few resentments I guess I'd like
9 to air. Some of them are that we have been told that the
10 voters are totally unprepared to vote on the issue that
11 was put before them and then was to ask you to please once
12 again consider the Wal-Mart procedures. I am definitely
13 prepared. I sat through about 30 hours of meetings, and
14 I've studied it. And I'm a voter. And I voted for it.
15 And, again, I live in the neighborhood. And, yeah, it
16 would be something good for us.
17 But as the person before me stated, we need some
18 anchors there that are something that we can hold on to.
19 "We" being the lower income people in the area. We
20 currently -- my husband and I are both disabled. We
21 currently drive to Greeley once a week to buy groceries
22 because they're so much cheaper there. And we have to
23 make pennies count. And even saving the money by shopping
24 locally is nothing compared to what we can save when we go
25 to Greeley where there are some big -box stores. I'd like
Ll
•
1
to see some big -box development in my area.
2
In the last year I've been threatened with
3
minor-league baseball parks and closer to the -- closer to
4
the river than Wal-Mart. I've been threatened with an
5
amphitheater, 2000-seat amphitheater closer than Wal-Mart
6
to the river. And there seems no concern whatsoever about
7
the floodplain for these people.
8
And the housing developments, we've already seen
9
one housing development, and another one is coming closer
10
to the river than Wal-Mart. But Wal-Mart is supposed --
11
according to the plans that I have read and the studies I
•
12
have
made, they're going to make a lot more improvements
13
than just being there. They're going to improve our
14
quality of life and destroy some of the smog that lies
15
around there.
16
And I've got one more thing I want to say. You
17
use my taxes that I pay and -- to pay the City planners,
18
these people who said Wal-Mart meets all these
19
requirements. And if you're going to call them a liar and
20
vote them down, then fire them and get some people to
21
think the way you do. Otherwise, let them do their job
22
that you pay them to do with my tax money. Thank you.
•
23
MR. COOPERSMITH: My name is Howard
24
Coopersmith. I live at 1205 Steeplechase Court. And I
25
both live and work up in the northeast part of town.
59
1 I've got just a few issues. You've heard most
2 everything over a few times here and previous nights, too,
3 but just a few issues I'd like to bring up.
4 First of all is traffic. That keeps coming up,
5 of course. The lack of infrastructure and the inadequate
6 roads in the area. Look at the north Lemay and Lincoln
7 Avenue. Go drive the roads and look at this. It's
8 ridicules to think about any more traffic there. I was
9 stuck on north Lemay at the Vine intersection for like 20
10 minutes this evening trying to get home from work. Build
11 the infrastructure first, then look at development.
12 One of the other issues that came up at the
13 preliminary hearings here is that the Wal-Mart traffic
14 engineer stated, the delivery trucks for this development
15 would come down Lincoln from the east into the backside of
16 the development. Has anybody looked at Lincoln in that
17 way? That's in the county. That street is totally
18 inadequate for that kind of traffic.
19 You've heard about the poor intersections. I
20 won't go into those. I'm not sure how the new idea for
21 the roundabout at Mulberry and Lemay really will fit with
22 this.
23 One other thing about the traffic, and especially
24 the number of projections, these are all based on the
25 south Wal-Mart store staying open. There are no
0 •
m
•
1
guarantees -- have been given the store would stay open.
2
In fact, you look at Wal-Mart history and their stated
3
policies, and it's very clear the store will close quite
4
shortly. And then everybody from the south will be
5
driving up north. So there -- it's just -- you know, you
6
have a lot of questionable traffic numbers. And I think
7
you need to err on the side of -- of caution here, you
8
know. If you approve something and it turns out that
9
these numbers were wrong, we're stuck with it. We have to
10
live with it anyways.
11
Another. issue I have is, I see now we're talking
•
12
half
about one of the project basically versus what was
13
the full project before. That kind of minimizes the
14
impacts initially here.
15
The other issue is the full project buildout that
16
we have. This is only part of the development. There
17
will be adjacent developments. I just read today in the
18
Northern Colorado Business Report in Evans, Colorado, I
19
believe, where just across -- adjacent across from a super
20
Wal-Mart was going in, another big -box store, Super K-Mart
21
or something like that. So this will bring a lot more.
22
You have to consider all of the impacts of the
•
23
area before you approve a development of this size.
24
Anyway, that's about all I have to say.. Thank you.
25
MR. COLTON: Thank you.
61
1 MR. CLINE: My name is Ken Cline. I live at 1010
2 Smith Street. It's across from Harris Elementary School
3 in most of the maps that we've seen on these displays.
4 I find one of the true treasures of Fort Collins
5 to be the -- the small stores downtown. And I'm afraid
6 that putting a big box this close to that area will
7 seriously threaten that. And that's a big concern that I
8 have. And for that reason, mainly, I oppose the project.
9 I'm also concerned about the traffic implications
10 we saw that this will increase traffic. And that's
11 another concern I have. Thank you
12 MR. COLTON: Thank you.
13 MR. ATTWOOLL: My name is Bill Attwooll. I live
14 at 2806 Antelope Road, Fort Collins.
15 I'm a manager of a business downtown, and I have
16 to admit I've worked professionally on this project. But
17 I'm here tonight as a private citizen to express my
18 support. I've been following this process very closely,
19 attending all of the public hearings at the Lincoln Center
20 and whatnot. And I'm genuinely impressed with the efforts
21 that are being made. I think this will be a great credit
22 to our community.
23 The Wal-Mart, this will not be a typical
24 Wal-Mart. It will be a wonderful addition to the
25 community and much needed.
W,
•
1
I feel primarily, the reason I'm here tonight, I
2
believe that the citizens have spoken. I believe they
3
understood what they were doing. I spoke with many people
4
during -- leading up to the election. And the people I
5
spoke with all clearly understood the issues and voted in
6
favor of this project.
7
It's my belief that the regulations have been met
8
in every way and plus some. My feelings would be that
9
since the developer, the proponent, has met all of their
10
requirements and gone beyond them in most every instance,
11
that this project should be approved. If there are
•
12
problems with those procedures, they should be addressed
13
by changing the ordinances of the requirements so that
14
future developments meet whatever would be the appropriate
15
level felt to be. But I believe in this instance
16
everything has been met and the project should be approved
17
and go forward. Thank you very much.
18
MR. TRUJILLO: Hello. My name is Marty Trujillo.
19
I live at 5220 West County Road 52E in Bellview, Colorado.
20
Glad to be here this evening. Want to thank the chairman
21
and the Board for letting me speak.
22
I want to commend you for all the good work that
•
23
you have done and the great work you've done. It is truly
24
a choice city that we live in. It is great to be here.
25
I want to commend Mark Goldberg and the patience
63
1 and the work that he has done. I also want to respect the
2 opposition. We need to do these things in a kind manner
3 as possible and respect those that oppose us.
4 As we look at this project and as we look at the
5 Choice City -- beautiful city, wonderful city, love living
6 here, I want to live here the rest of my life -- it's an
7 incredible place to live. And as you look at the way the
8 City is running right now and the streets, I find it very
9 difficult myself. And those in the area that I live in,
10 LaPorte, Bellview, I've also talked to a lot of people in
11 the Wellington area, and it's a nightmare to go to south
12 Fort Collins to shop. It's not only a nightmare, it's not
13 only pollution that's involved, there's also the problem
14 of safety.
15 When you go on College and you come across an
16 intersection on Drake or any of those roads and you get
17 caught in the middle of the intersection because the light
18 has turned red, and the intersection to the south and the
19 cars are backed up that far, we know we have a problem.
20 So I'm for it because of spreading the traffic patterns
21 out. I think we can do that. And no matter what we do,
22 people want to live here. They want to come to America to
23 experience the thrill of living in America. And we're
24 going to have growth.
25 I know there's no -growth people. And they would
rV
•
1
like for us all to live in apartments crammed together and
2
walk and ride bikes, but we live in the West. We're
3
Westerners. We like our cars. We want our freedom. And
4
that's going to be hard to change.
5
I want to commend you for the work that you
6
do. This is a great city. Let's not forget that. We
7
live in a wonderful place. And I agree, we do need the
8
Wal-Mart. It's a great -- they are a great neighbor.
9
They do so many things. You talk to their employees, they
10
are -- most of them are pleased.
11
We have the Distribution Center that is not too
12
far away from us. They provide wonderful employment
13
opportunities and scholarships.- And we could go on and
14
on. I studied businesses, and Wal-Mart is one of those
15 that has impressed me immensely. So I want to thank you
16 for your time.
17 MR. COLTON: Thank you.
18 MS. KILKELLY: Good evening. My name is Kathleen
19 Kilkelly. I live at 920 Inverness which is in the county.
20 And I'm a 30-year resident of Larimer County.
21 I am one of those people who did not get a chance
22 to speak. We hear about "the people have spoken." I'm
• 23 one of those persons this project will directly affect,
24 but I did not have that chance to speak. So tonight I'm
25 going to tell you that in November 198, when this
65
1 development proposal appeared for preliminary approval,
2 the staff recommended approval with six conditions.
3 Well, it's been a long road, and we're here once
4 again. Staff are recommending approval again but without
5 any conditions. The reason for this is that staff believe
6 that five of the six conditions have been met. And the
7 one which remains no longer applies because it concerns
8 Lot 2.
9 I've been told that Phase 2 or what will happen
10 on Lot 2 is in process. But right now all we have to
11 evaluate is Phase 1, Lot 1. We have no guarantee that
12 Phase 2 will not be withdrawn. And in the words of Ms.
13 Liley, "Whether or not Lot 2 is ever approved." We cannot
14 consider what might or might not happen regarding Lot 2.
15 So we're here tonight to evaluate this, Lot l only.
16 This creates a rather interesting situation. You
17 see this plan for Lot 1. What is it you see? I'll tell
18 you what I see. I see a big box standing alone. Exactly
19 what the City of Fort Collins was seeking to avoid when it
20 adopted the standards and guidelines for large retail
21 establishments in 1995, which I'd like to enter into the
22 record.
23 The major purpose of these standards was to
24 prevent exactly what you see before you tonight. A big
25 box standing alone. The goal of the standards was -- and
C�
C,
M.-
1
I quote, "To encourage development that contributes to
2
Fort Collins as a unique place by reflecting its physical
3
character and adding to it in appropriate ways." The idea
4
behind this was to reduce uniform appearance, reduce a
5
massive scale of big box, and expand the range of
6
activities that are possible at the site in harmony with
7
the identity, character, and scale of the community.
8
These standards go on to list various articles
9
against which this proposal must be evaluated. Because of
10
time limitations, I'm not able to discuss each one. So
11
I'll enter my own evaluation into the record. Needless to
• 12
say, I found deficiencies still exist.
13
One comment I would like to make in summary,
14
please see what it is. It's a big box standing alone.
15
MR. COLTON: Thank you.
16
MR. JOYCE: Hi. I'm Steve Joyce. I reside at
17
1124 Cobblestone Court. I've lived in Fort Collins about
18
24 years now. And all of that time that I've been in Fort
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Collins, I've owned property adjacent to the center at --
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my brother and I own Supermarket Liquors.
21
Over the last five years we've received I don't
22
know how many cards, I think from you people or at least
• 23
from the City, advising us that this project was
24
eminent. From the very beginning when we bought the
25
property, we were told that a large shopping center would
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1 be built there.
2 Mr. Goldberg has presented his plans. As a
3 resident of Fort Collins, I'm very proud of this
4 project. I'm proud of the things that have happened
5 because of the opposition. I think they've done a fine
6 job of making sure that every standard was met. The staff
7 has done a wonderful job in making sure that every
8 standard that we have in Fort Collins is met, and that
9 makes it such a fine place. By meeting all those
10 standards, this is a project that we can all be proud of.
11 And you should all be proud to vote for it. Thank you.
12 MR. COLTON: Thank you.
13 MS. WHITE: My name is Cheryl White. I live in
14 northeast Fort Collins.
15 And first I'd like to point out that even though
16 we've been subjected to violence of flushing, stomping,
17 stabbing, drowning, goring, composting along with the --
18 along side of the hand of God sweeping away a well-known
19 symbol, let us remember this is a land use issue and not
20 whether or not we like a particular retailer or what
21 effect it's going to have on area businesses.
22 Over the past several years we have watched this
23 developer jump through the City's hoops to meet and exceed
24 the standards set before them. Our City staff consists of
25 professionals trained in the areas of development,
70
•
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sure where this is coming from, or if we can't learn from
2
the people in Loveland.
3
Today's traffic, not tommorrow's traffic because
4
we're growing in the northeast. But in today's traffic I
5
don't go home anymore on Lemay from work. I work at CSU.
6
The last time I did this, I made a mistake. And on
7
Lincoln I was trying to turn left on Vine and I couldn't
8
and the cars were backed up -- stacked up to the
9
railroad. And I was really uncomfortable because I was
10
trying to get out of that left -turn lane and I had no
11
place to go. Today's traffic can't handle what we've
•
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got. I'm not sure who is thinking about a regional
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big -box shopping center there.
14
Lucia Liley told us at a meeting recently that
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Lemay was perfect just like Harmony. Lemay is two
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lanes. Harmony is four plus. I cannot -- I don't know
17
what -- what this is all about.
18
Now this bike trail. Have you gone grocery
19
shopping or to a discount store on a bicycle? You can't
20
carry the stuff home. This bike business must be
21
something to make us sound cute. But we've got -- the
22
basics are -- and you've already decided this once. I'm
•
23
not sure why we're here again. But a regional big -box
24
shopping center just does not fit into this little
25
space. There's nothing wrong with the architectural. It
71
1 looks good. Close to I-25, yes. Lemay and Mulberry and
2 Vine, no. Thank you.
3 MR. COLTON: Thank you.
4 MR. FREEDMAN: Excuse me. Thank you. My name is
5 Phil Freedman. I live at 201 South Grant.
6 I've lived in Fort Collins for 24 years and lived
7 in the downtown area for almost 19. I have relatively
8 small occasion to go down south, finding that most of my
9 needs are accommodated by the shopping in the north part
10 of town and in the midtown -- midpart of town. So I
11 failed to understand sometimes why we have a society and
12 as a community such a preoccupation with a need for
13 excessive amounts of shopping, but that's another story.
14 Let me give you just a quick event that occurred
15 a couple of days ago. I had the occasion to fly to Fort
16 Lauderdale. And as the plane was landing about 6:00 in
17 the evening, when the lights were just coming on, the
18 gentleman behind me that was from the area was talking to
19 two women behind -- next to him that were from Canada
20 coming down for a cruise. And he was extolling the value
21 of the south Florida area by saying that it's one giant
22 city all the way from Palm Beach to Homestead, Florida,
23 with the Atlantic Ocean and the Everglades forming the
24 east/west boundary. That's an area approximately the same
25 size as the Colorado Front Range from the Wyoming border
E
E
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down to Pueblo. The response of the two Canadian women
2
who lived in British Columbia was, "Ugh." So I'll just
3
leave that with you.
4
One thing that I do believe that is extremely
5
important with respect to this particular development
6
proposal is the imperative need to view the overall
7
cumulative impact that this proposal would put upon the
8
City, particularly the northern part of the City and more
9
particularly the northeastern part of the City. And
10
acknowledging the fact that the Mountain Vista area will
11
grow with the significant number of people. I believe the
•
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is
number something in the order of 35,000 people at
13
buildout based upon the Mountain Vista area plan. It is
14
clear that we will need and will certainly expect
15
continued availability of commercial services so those
16
35,000 plus or minus people that live in that area will
17
not have to drive.down and fight the traffic in the
18
southern part of town where most of our larger commercial
19
services are.
20
However, I think the issue of this particular
21
development is simply, right idea in the wrong place. I
22
think there is a need for commercial services and there
•
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will be. And there probably is a need in that particular
24
location. But this is a land use issue, not necessarily
25
how pretty the big box or any associated development in
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1 that area can be. We don't need a regional shopping
2 center attracting scores -- hundreds of thousands of
3 people on an annual basis in that particular area. Thank
4 you.
5 MR. COLTON: Thank you.
6 MR. MOHAN: Thank you very much. My name is Jim
7 Mohan. I'm a resident of Fort Collins at 2405 Denby
8 Court.
9 I've come up to dismiss -- there's some concerns,
10 I guess, about the south store closing. I'm also the
11 district manager in charge of operations for Wal-Mart
12 stores in the north end of Colorado. We plan leaving the
13 south store open. That's a very good location for us.
14 One of the reasons that we're trying to get the
15 north store opened up is due to the small size of the
16 south store. We're just too tight down there. We need
17 the large store open to take some pressure off the
18 existing location. We will not close that location. We
19 need it. We feel it's very important to what we do with
20 our business here in town, and our customers on the south
21 side of town want to continue to shop that location.
22 A second reason not to lose that location, it
23 would just be incredibly hard to try to ever replace it
24 again. So we do want to leave that location there.
25 I would also just -- as a resident and somebody
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that works, would ask that you vote for this project.
Thank you.
MS. JENNETT: Hi. I'm Gina Jennett, and I live
in Old Town.
And I guess, first I'd like to say that you all
are in a tough position. This is a controversial project
with quite a few complicated issues. And I know it won't
be easy. But I think the two things that I would like to
leave with you -- three things, are number one is, the
role of this body is to examine the plan and determine
whether it does or does not need to meet the City's
guidelines. That is your most important role here.
We heard very much about traffic, and I think
that it's disingenuous by the developers to say, "Well,
this Lot l will only produce two-thirds of the traffic,
and therefore, the whole thing is fine." Because if you
look at all the traffic, the surrounding intersections
will have major problems including a level of Service F at
Vine and Lemay.
I think that you need to also look at the issue
of what improvements will be made. We've heard recently
that the City's interested in doing a roundabout at
Mulberry and Lemay. And no matter what you feel about
that, whether it's a good or bad thing, I think it's a
major recognition that we have a very severe problem with
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1 traffic at that location that is getting much, much
2 worse. It illustrates the City's concerns, and
3 particularly related to the two bridges on Mulberry and
4 Lemay and the narrowness of those bridges and the fact
5 that there will be insufficient stacking lanes for
6 traffic. I would guess with a roundabout or a standard
7 intersection because you have narrow bridges very close to
8 the intersection.
9 And the public safety issue is one of the key
10 criteria that you all have to look at as seated members of
11 the Planning and Zoning Board, is that cars stack up to
12 the south on Lemay to the west on Mulberry. They will
13 cross railroad tracks backing up. And that is a severe
14 question of public safety that you should consider.
15 The other -- the other issue that we brought up
16 tonight is the legal issue. Under the State Constitution
17 and the City Charter, the Planning and Zoning Board has
18 the responsibility to decide whether land use decisions
19 follow the City's Code and Guidelines. That is your
20 job. And these same regulations say that any appeals
21 should go to the Council for final decision.
22 The issue here tonight is not whether the popular
23 vote says that they want this project but that the Board
24 follows the rules and guidelines. And this project was
25 denied by the Planning and Zoning Board. It was also
76
• 1
denied by the City Council. They both disapproved this
2
project because they found it did not meet the City's Code
3
and Guidelines.
4
These folks can tell you as much as they want,
5
and they can spend $114,000 on advertising to the voters
6
that it meets the standards. But it clearly doesn't --
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didn't. Doesn't now. And that is what you all need to
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decide. Thank you.
9
MR. COLTON: Thank you.
10
MR. TOWNSEND: Good evening. My name is Charlie
11
Townsend, and I have lived in Fort Collins for almost 45
• 12
years and have lived on Gregory Road the last 30 years.
13
This is an area that will be negatively impacted by this
14
development.
15
I have attended several neighborhood meetings, in
16
which the developer participated, as well as all Planning
17
and Zoning Board and City Council meetings which have
18
dealt with this project.
19
In today's Coloradoan there was a letter to the
20
editor which describes very well the characteristics of
21
the individuals seeking the approval of this irresponsible
22
and massive development and the motives of some of his
• 23
supporters. I have to say that I truly agree with the
24
opinion of the gentleman who wrote that letter.
25
It is difficult for me to visualize how
77
1 reasonable people could develop regulations that would
2 permit bringing in million of cubic yards of soil to raise
3 a building site so that this project can meet guidelines.
4 How precipitous can humans become when trying to fool
5 mother nature without considering the disastrous calamity
6 that will result when challenging the nature flow of the
7 Poudre River at this site. And all due respects to our
8 City staff, I have little confidence in their analysis of
9 this problem.
10 If the findings and the collusion -- if the
11 findings of the City Council, an elected body, can be
12 overturned by a ballot initiative, such as has occurred in
13 this instance, why do we have a City Council? Why do we
14 have a Planning and Zoning Board, a City and Planning
15 Zoning staff? Or for that matter, any form of City
16 government? Just do it by ballot initiative. Thank you.
17 MR. COLTON: Thank you.
18 MR. RICKARD: Good evening. My name is Chris
19 Rickard. I live in Fort Collins.
20 I'd like to refer to Section A(2.3) in the LDGS
21 that talks about natural features. It says -- or it asks,
22 "Do the physical elements of the site plan adopt well to
23 the physical characteristics of the site and minimize the
24 disturbance of topology, water bodies, streams, wetlands,
25 wildlife habitats, vegetation, and other natural
W_
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features?"
For those of you who are contemplating final
approval of this project tonight, I would ask you
individually to answer how the addition of 200,000 cubic
yards of fill within the floodplain is consistent with
this component of the LDGS. Thank you.
MR. COLTON: Thank you.
MR. AUGUSTINE: Hi. My name is Ron Augustine.
I'm a business owner down at -- in the industrial park
downtown. My business is on Lincoln Avenue and Industrial
Drive. And as I'm speaking for my employees that I have
down there, we very much would like to see this thing pass
and support our needs in the area. The truck traffic that
we have down there right now is -- is definitely ongoing
as businesses start to grow and stuff. I don't think this
is going to be a matter with the truck traffic on Lincoln
Avenue. I travel Lincoln/Lemay everyday back and forth
doing business.
We do way too much business in the south side of
town back and forth, and I don't think that we need to be
doing our business down there. We need to be doing it
locally. And we also -- I'm also going to be soon to be a
north -side resident. And so my family and I already know
the impact of moving up there and what's going to happen.
But we feel like it's going to be an asset to us also up
79
1 there.
2 I'd also like to make a note that the people have
3 spoke by a vote. Please approve it. We voted yes.
4 That's what we want. Thank you.
5 MR. COLTON: Thank you.
6 MS. COIL: Hi. My name is Janice Coil. And I
7 live on the north end of town.
8 I just want to start off by saying that I lived
9 in Fort Collins for about 20 years. Mostly I've lived on
10 the south side of town. And within the past probably year
11 and a half, my husband and I have decided to get out of
12 that part of town and move up to the north because it was
13 just getting so congested and so built in that area, we
14 couldn't stand it. So we moved a little bit north. And
15 now it seems that the congestion and all the craziness is
16 going to follow us up into that part of town. And I don't
17 think that's a really good idea.
18 I guess the thing is, I don't have an issue with
19 having shopping available on the north side of town. What
20 I do have an issue with is the fact that we're building
21 such a huge project in that particular location which is
22 so busy to begin with. I, again, like a lot of people
23 here, travel that road every day. Especially like this
24 morning I was coming into work, I got stopped by a train.
25 It went back for, oh, gosh, probably half a mile. I got
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stopped in that.
Sometimes the trains are there 15, 20 minutes at
a time. I've seen traffic back all the way up to where
Wal-Mart is going to be in this big complex. I've been
there. So I know what that's like, and it's frustrating.
I've seen people doing dangerous things because they get
stuck in traffic. Going the other direction in the lanes
that they shouldn't be and passing people. It's crazy.
I guess I have an issue with Wal-Mart in the fact
that with all this, never once did they even work with the
communities to say, "Hey, maybe we can just build
something a little bit smaller. We'd like to be there and
provide you with the services." But, gosh, let's at least
kind of compromise. They did that with Safeway off of
Harmony, and look, everybody bought into it. I think they
should be able to do that here.
Now we're talking about possibly putting in a
roundabout. Well, this wasn't an issue with Wal-Mart
before. They say, "This is not going to increase
traffic. You guys go by there anyway. No big deal." Now
all of a sudden we need a roundabout to take care of all
the traffic.
The train's already been mentioned. They're a
big issue. And I think, too, that people that say that
they'll never have to be to the south end of town again
M
1 once Wal-Mart comes, I'm sorry, I can't buy that.
2 Granted, yeah, there might be a few people, but I think
3 most people, everything is down there. Our theaters, our
4 eating. Everything is down at that end of town. So to
5 say Wal-Mart is going to be our saviour and we'll never
6 have to go south again, I just -- I don't buy into that
7 either.
8 And I think people need to realize, that is not
9 just going to be Wal-Mart. There's going to be -- as
10 proposed in previous meetings, there's going to be a huge
11 multiscreen theater there. You look at what happens on
12 Horsetooth when those theaters let out. What happens?
13 And also, too, you're going to have like a big home
14 improvement store. Look at Home Depo trying to get in and
15 out of there.
16 I think we need to realize what's going on here,
17 and I hope you will not approve this. Thank you.
18 MR. COLTON: Thank you.
19 MS. OLSON: I'm Connie Olson. I reside at 1304
20 Green Street. And I just want to say that the previous
21 speaker had a lot of my same sentiments. And I just had a
22 few other things I'd like to add.
23 The main issue I still see is traffic and that
24 the infrastructure around this development is not going to
25 be able to handle the massive increase in traffic that
W
•
1
this development will generate. And if you don't even
2
know which kind of intersection you're going to be having
3
there, with the proposed current plan that you see here or
4
the possible roundabout or traffic circle, whatever it's
5
called, that's also being sent to the CDOT, how can you
6
know what the traffic is going to be and how it's going to
7
be handled for those areas? And I don't know how you can,
8
you know, make this decision without making some more
9
decisions on that intersection. It's going to be very
10
difficult for pedestrians and bikes to get to the Wal-Mart
11
development.
•
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But the other issue I wanted to bring up with
13
traffic is the argument that it was going to save traffic
14
going down south. It's not an issue. The growth down
15
south already is going to probably cancel out any
16
lessening of traffic that's down there anyway. And it has
17
nothing to do with the issue at hand, which is the local
18
neighborhood impacts that this side of town is going to
19
have to worry about because there's a lot more of the
20
established neighborhoods that are around here. And a lot
21
of those established neighborhoods have voted against by
22
the popular vote, which is an unbinding vote, but
•
23
nonetheless, it is a popularity contest that we're talking
24
about here. And the number of the Old Town neighborhoods,
25
the Eastside Park Neighborhood, my University Acres
1 neighborhood, and the Fort Collins High neighborhood were
2 all opposed to this development because they know that
3 it's going to impact them very adversely with the traffic
4 and the safety issues that have been previously
5 mentioned.
6
So you need to keep that in perspective. This is
7
your job.
You're representing all of us in making this
8
decision.
And that is why I'm here. So thank you very
9
much.
10
MR. COLTON; Thank you. All right. There's no
11
one at the microphone. So if you want to get your
12
comments
in, you better stand up now and start working
13
your way
down or I'm going to say going, going, gone here
14
in a minute.
So anyone else? I see one coming down.
15
Come on.
I know this is hard to do, but if you want to do
16
it, now's
the time because I'm going to close it here in a
17
minute.
18 MR. HERMANN: I'll be quick. I'm trying to talk
19 through a vail of laryngitis. I'm Eric Hermann. I live
20 on Whedbee Street just uphill from the project. I'm going
21 to bear with Mark Goldberg and Associates a little bit.
22 And I'm going to assume a happy gleeful horde of bicycle
23 traffic coming into this area to get their little -- their
24 tools and fix their bikes and then come across the
25 intersection into Wal-Mart.
[ZI]
• 1 And I've driven this intersection and I already
2 know how congested it is. And suddenly what I don't see
3 in your planning is the increased-- the promised increase
4 of pedestrian, bicycle traffic crossing this road in the
5 midst of this traffic, hurtling across the road to buy
6 their TV sets and so forth to pack on their bikes back
7 home.
8 And I think -- I just want to say, better figure
9 all that wonderful pedestrian traffic in there. And thank
10 goodness there are emergency facilities near by because
11 you're going to need them. Thank you.
• 12 MS. WHITE: I just had a question since I didn't
13 use all my time. Can I make one last comment? Can I
14 readdress one comment I forgot to make.
15 MR. COLTON: As long as I don't see anyone
16 else --
17 MS. WHITE: Is that legal?
18 MR. COLTON: Real quick.
19 MS. WHITE: Okay. I just wanted to make the
20 point that I've heard so many people now saying, who's
21 going to go shopping on their bike, who's going to -- you
22 know, who's going to want to go buy a TV on their bike?
• 23 We seem to be forgetting that not all of us are fortunate
24 enough to have a vehicle. There are people that live in
25 that area, many a people who live in that area that don't
rp
1 have the means of transportation to get to the southbound
2 end of town. So, yes, for some people, for a lot of
3 people on the north end of town, this will be a
4 salvation. Thank you.
5 MR. COLTON: Thank you. Okay. I don't see
6 any -- boy.
7 MR. JOHNSON: Slide one in here real quick. I
8 just want to voice my opinion in support of this
9 project. I own a business on Mulberry. I think Mr.
10 Goldberg has done a tremendous job with his group in
11 putting this together. And, you know, a lot of these
12 issues as people are bring up, it's going to lighten
13 traffic as far as the south end or increase or decrease, I
14 mean, it's all counterproductive there. You people are
15 appointed. You are not voted. The people in the City
16 Council that have voted against this thing, quite a few
17 are not there anymore because the people who voted them in
18 didn't get what they wanted. Give us what we want. We
19 want it. Bob Johnson.
20 MR. AGNEW: Hi. My name is Andrea Agnew. I have
21 a business at 808 South Lemay.
22 It takes a lot to get a project through the
23 City. There's a lot of work that's involved. And
24 developers are the ones that really do the work. I mean,
25 they -- they're the ones that put the streets in. We
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don't wait for the taxpayers to -- for the City to come up
with the money to improve the infrastructure and then
development happens. It just doesn't happen that way.
If Mr. Goldberg can't go through -- it's been
five years tied up. You know, a lot of this capital is
tied up for five years going through this process. If he
can't do it, do you think a small business person is going
to do it? No. I don't like the way I see the City going.
The only people that are going to do it, they are
going to be developers, and add to the growth of the City
are going to be the big-time people. Small business
owners are not going to put up with this crap.
It's not a popularity contest. You have a job to
do. You need to make sure that all the I's are dotted and
the T's are crossed and all the plans are followed right.
Whether you like Wal-Mart or not is not the issue. If Mr.
Goldberg has met the requirements, he needs approval. And
the City wants it. Thanks.
MR. COLTON: Thank you. All right. I don't see
anyone else. Don't see anyone else. So we're going to
cut off public input now and bring it back to the Board
for questions. We don't need a rebuttal or anything, do
we? There wasn't even a --
MR. ECKMAN: I don't see any request for
any. Our plan -- our procedures call for rebuttal. I
m
1 don't know if the applicant desires to.
2 MR. COLTON: Okay. We want to keep this real
3 short.
4 MS. LILEY: I would be happy to keep this real
5 short, Mr. Colton. Just a couple of comments to
6 clarify. And I think it is important because there were
7 some new issues brought up and this is the only
8 opportunity that we may get to deal with them.
9 A lot has been said, and I envision a lot more
10 will be said about the goals and objectives and the land
11 use policies and the use of those to deny the project. I
12 want to remind you, look at the goals and
13 objectives. Look at the land use policy. You can't read
14 them in a vacuum.
15 You will find that this City for a period of
16 about 20 years has encouraged exactly this kind of growth
17 to the north and the northeast of Fort Collins. And every
18 single policy practically in the goals and objectives in
19 the land use policy planned for this area will tell you
20 that. In fact, it goes so far as to say it encourages a
21 shopping center with a supermarket in the northeast. And
22 it directs growth. And I'm reading now from the land use
23 policies, "To the desired areas with City incentives
24 regarding fees and streets." Because the City recognized
25 that this is an area totally deficient in capital
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improvements and that they had a responsibility to put
capital improvement dollars and that was the only way that
they were ever going to get development joining hands with
the City in making those improvements to come to the north
to balance the growth to the south.
Read the policies. Look at policy 39, 40, 41.
The northeast is specifically designated as a desired
direction of growth. "The City should promote, improve
traffic, ped circulation, and transit." And it talks
about the City obligation in that. So I think when we use
these policies, understand the context in which those
policies were adopted and promoted by the City.
Nancy York made some comments about the Mulberry
and Lemay intersection. And I would urge the Board
members to ask Eric Bracke to address those. She dealt
with other traffic numbers and figures which are not in
our traffic study and not before you. I would simply make
this kind of comment. This traffic study complies with
every requirement of the LDGS. It meets every level of
service test as it has consistently been applied in the 20
years in which the LDGS was in effect. And if you treat
this project the way you treat every other project,
including the Harmony Town Center, just approved as a
big -box LDGS project, you will use exactly the same
analysis.
m
1 And if you use the analysis suggested by some,
2 there is no large commercial project that could meet that
3 test. Every intersection in the City of Fort Collins
4 would eventually fail.
5 It is not Wal-Mart traffic which causes the
6 intersections to fail. It is the growth that comes in the
7 north without improvements being made. And that's why in
8 the long-range future you are always entitled to consider
9 both the growth and the improvement. But it's not
10 Wal-Mart which makes the intersections fail.
11 Railroad. I just want to make one quick point
12 about the railroad. It is the very same railroad that
13 travels along Vine and curves and heads down the Mason
14 corridor and travels and blocks the entire west part of
15 Fort Collins. And the difference there is, that there is
16 no outlet. The entire western part of the City is blocked
17 when the railroad, that very same railroad, goes by. That
18 has never been used as any test to deny any project. In
19 fact, the City routinely approves commercial projects all
20 along the South College corridor, which are routinely
21 blocked by the very same railroad we're talking about
22 tonight.
23 Parking and the shopping center. Just one minute
24 because we always hear this issue about the size and it's
25 too big. But the citizen committee that recommended the
M
1
adoption of the big -box regulations said, "There is no
2
size limitation. Instead, we will deal with this through
3
a combination of multiple entrances, parking orientation,
4
architectural features." That's the way we're going to
5
deal with the size issue.
6
What about the size of the site then? Is it too
7
small? Is that the problem? Let's look again. We
8
provided a couple of charts and I think they're up there
9
now just to show you so we don't have a double standard
10
here. These are the only two other projects, shopping
11
centers approved under the LDGS and under the big -box
•
12
standards. And you will note that in every category this
13
project is better, including better than the recently
14
constructed Harmony Town Center.
15
If you look at parking, we have less parking than
16
required -- than allowed, I should say, by either the LDGS
17
or the land use code. It averages 4.95 per thousand.
18
Also, if you look at the categories, it has less
19
building coverage. It has less parking and less driveway
20
pavements. And it has more open space and
21
landscaping. So again, if you use the same standards and
22
if you apply them fairly, this project is better than the
•
23
other projects that have been approved by this Board and
24
this City.
25
And the final comment that I would make has to do
1 with the legal issues
and the
election.
I think this is
2 not the time or place
to get
into a legal
argument. It is
3 now 10 or 11 months since the
initiative
was filed. And
4 one would think if there were objections, they would long
5 since have been made and objections brought. We haven't
6 seen that. But if it comes, we are confident, having done
7 the research, having looked at the cases, it would
8 withstand constitutional scrutiny. And if it does come,
9 we will argue it in the proper forum.
10 I'm curious, too, who talk about the election
11 being bought. And I want to make one brief comment about
12 that. Aside from the fact that that is a somewhat
13 inappropriate comment to make in a hearing of this sort,
14 think about what those people are saying when they say
15 that. It is actually a very elitist and an almost
16 sneering disregard for the citizens of this City. First
17 the spokesperson says that the average citizen voting
18 can't understand the issues. You can vote for President
19 and Governor and on constitutional amendments, financial
20 initiatives, but you can't vote on a land use issue. And
21 now the election is bought. The citizens should make no
22 mistake who's really being targeted by that comment. Not
23 Mark Goldberg, not Wal-Mart, but every citizen, 16,000
24 plus of them who voted for it is being told that they have
25 no political integrity, that their vote is up for sale.
�1
•
1
And as people -- well, as citizens who live in this City,
2
who pay taxes, who voted in good faith, and who voted
3
their conscience, I would be offended by that kind of
4
comment. And I would turn to Kelly Olson, whether you
5
agree or disagree with him, he is an astute political
6
observer. He has observed, on many occasions after
7
elections where a lot of money was spent, that money
8
rarely determines any issue in the City of Fort Collins
9
because the electors can't be bought in this City.
10
Thank you for your time. We urge your approval
11
of this project because it has met each and every
•
12
requirement of the City. Thank you.
13
MR. COLTON: Paul, you're looking at me like you
14
have something to say.
15
MR. ECKMAN: Well, I think according to the
16
procedures which the Board apparently approved in 1997,
17
then there's an opportunity for public surrebuttal focused
18
only on the issues that were raised in the rebuttal.
19
MR. COLTON: I'm not sure how to do that.
20
MR. ECKMAN: Hopefully there wouldn't be a
21
massive undertaking to accomplish that.
22
MR. COLTON: Okay. Is there anyone who would
•
23
like to have a rebuttal back to what Ms. Liley just said?
24
If there's one or two people that have a --
25
MR. ECKMAN: Again, it would have to be limited.
93
1 MR. COLTON: She probably took six to eight
2 minutes. Raise your hand, again. I see three or four
3 hands. I'll give up to two minutes to each of you. Okay?
4 So why don't you come forward.
5 MR. HALVORSON: I'm not an attorney. An attorney
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
`I
is very clever at words.
MR. SHEPARD: Sir, could you give your name again
for the record.
MR. HALVORSON: Curtis Halvorson, 1824 Cannes
Court, northeast Colorado.
Just a couple of points that Lawyer Liley made
about railroads in the downtown. There's no comparison
between the traffic web that's available downtown compared
to what we have available at Mulberry and Lemay.
Absolutely no comparison. There are many routes to go if
the train comes through downtown.
On shopping, we have recently gotten a very nice
shopping center up on the northeast part of town on
College where Albertson's provides all the services that I
could think of that -- anything that a shopping grocery
store could provide at this big box.
As far as the election being bought, I was the
one that made some statements that could have been
interpreted as an election being bought. I was speaking
figuratively. But for the amount of money that Wal-Mart
94
•
1
spent -- and it's not Mark Goldberg's money, it's
2
Wal-Mart's that behind this. And this attorney was
3
twisting the facts.
4
The election also was not representative of the
5
people who are going to be affected in a large way by the
6
traffic on this -- in this box. Thank you.
7
MR. COLTON: Thank you.
8
MS. KILKELLY: I'm Kathleen Kilkelly again. And
9
I would just like to respond that 16,000 voters is
10
scarcely a majority mandate in a City with over 100,000
11
people. Particularly not being inclusive of many, many
•
12
county people directly impacted by this. What possibly
13
should have been done in hindsight was to declare a
14
special election district. And those people who would
15
have been most directly affected then would have been able
16
to contribute to their vote on whether or not this was
17
suitable for their part of town, their neighborhood, and
18
their community.
19
MR. CARNES: Yeah. My name is Gary Carnes, and
20
I've been quoted and misquoted several times.
21
I've been a citizen of Fort Collins for the last
22
20 years. And contrary to rumor, I don't plan to move to
•
23
Boulder. I was -- I was interviewed about a week ago, and
24
I just insisted that the ballot language be printed in the
25
paper. The ballot language was simply that an ordinance
95
1 approved -- approving with six conditions previously
2 recommended by City staff, the Preliminary PUD for a
3 community regional shopping center project in north Fort
4 Collins which includes a proposed Wal-Mart store, is not
5 the only thing there. There's other than this as well.
6 Known as the Mulberry/Lemay Crossing Preliminary
7 PUD which ordinance would also overturn and reverse
8 previous decisions of the City's Planning and Zoning Board
9 and City Council denying the project and make a finding
10 that the project complies with all relevant provisions of
11 the Code and Charter of the City.
12 Then I'm quoted correctly as saying that I
13 question how the average citizen was familiar enough with
14 the City's Codes and Charter to determine the project was
15 in compliance. That was my question and remains today.
16 Thanks.
17 MS. YORK: I'm Nancy York. And really they've
18 covered -- really pretty well covered the points. I do
19 want to point out that -- that Wal-Mart and Mr. Goldberg
20 alone funded this -- the vote, that is, the spending to
21 influence the vote. And that was -- that was $114,000,
22 while the opponents raised on the order of $3,500. And in
23 no mean -- the idea of buying the vote is really the
24 influence of advertisement. We do know, and you know
25 better than maybe- any of us, that the complications of
W.
1 this code and then asking -- you know, using a few
2 slogans, such as, "have met all the conditions," when
3 we've raised some conditions that haven't been met in our
4 view.
5 We all want to do the right thing here. And I
6 think the important thing is -- is that we look at how
7 it's going to affect the future and the people who live in
8 the northeast, the east, the downtown area. And there's
9 no question that the traffic impacts are major and are
10 going to be a -- a -- it's going to be a serious blockage
11 in that area. And that's the basis I wish you would deny
• 12 it.
13 The railroad track issue has been covered by this
14 gentleman. And it's true. The cars don't back up into
15 College Avenue when the train -- when the trains come
16 by. In this area there's three train tracks. And they do
17 back up into those intersections. And I think that
18 traffic engineering is going to have a heck of a problem
19 trying to mitigate those. And I would like to know
20 exactly what the development proposes -- a way to mitigate
21 it. Thanks.
22 MR. COLTON: Okay. Thank you.
• 23 MR. ECKMAN: Mr. Chairman, if there's no further
24 input from the public, we're very close to Board
25 deliberation. I do think we need to -- if the public is
97
1 finished, we
need to
offer the applicant one
last
2 *surrebutter
to this
presentation we've had
here.
3 MR.
COLTON:
Okay. If we can keep
it brief,
4 please.
5
MR. GOLDBERG: Mark Goldberg, for the
record. We
6
have no
further statements to make.
7
MR. COLTON: Thank you. Okay. So we're
going to
8
bring it
back to the Board now for questions.
And, Jerry,
9
you were
starting out I think.
10
MR. GAVALDON: Okay.
11
MR. COLTON: We could break this down
to -- well,
12
I don't
know. Let's start. We probably have some traffic
13 questions and others. Go ahead.
14
MR. GAVALDON: Well,
I'll try to keep mine
15
focused,
too, and won't have speakers coming up and down.
16
Ted, can
you please help me on
the Buffalo Run issue with
17
the cross
-- the connection to
the Wal-Mart project there?
18
There was
a discussion at work
session. Is there an
19 update on that, sir?
20 MR. SHEPARD: Yes. The update is that the
21 Buffalo Run approved plans called for a sidewalk
22 connection to the -- their south property line, which is
23 the Wal-Mart north property line. If they fail to
24 construct that, we have a standard operating procedure for
25 enforcing that improvement, and that is the withholding of
W
1
certificates of occupancy.
2
Before we do that, we'd like to sit down and have
3
a full discussion with the applicant that that's pending
4
to let them know the seriousness of that. And we haven't
5
had that discussion yet, but it's certainly available to
6
us as it is on any project. We're confident that our
7
procedures are in place and we'll get the connection.
8
MR. GAVALDON: So there's no need to put anything
9
on this project since it was part of the ODP process that
10
was approved originally?
11
MR. SHEPARD: That's correct. This project is
•
12
carrying the burden by building to their north property
13
line.
14
MR. GAVALDON: Okay. Thank you very much for the
15
update. I just wanted to bring that out and also note
16
that we have a process in place for that. Great.
17
Eric, can you please help us on this -- help me
18
on -- I'd like to get some more clarity on Nancy York's
19
concerns and her numbers that were brought up just for the
20
record so that way everyone can hear what numbers we're
21
working with and how her numbers tie or don't tie into the
22
process.
•
23
MR. BRACKE: Okay. There were two studies that
24
were going on. Actually three studies, including the
25
access management plan along that corridor. But this
W,
1 study and the study we were doing on the modern -- and the
2 study we were doing on the modern roundabout.
3 We looked at the Mulberry and Lemay intersection
4 under a lot of different scenarios and different timing
5 plans. And they're showing that the Mulberry/Lemay
6 intersection would go to a level of Service C. We used a
7 different timing scheme with some other issues, and we
8 showed a level of Service E by the year 2004. It's not
9 that far off. It's just different timing. But it still
10 is acceptable in the short term, in terms of the immediate
11 impacts.
12 If that four -lane improvement would be -- let me
13 back -- take a couple of steps back. The issue with that
14 intersection now is poor geometry. Okay? You have one
15 lane northbound at the intersection. It needs to be two.
16 If you look at Nancy York's picture and you see the
17 pictures of the northbound traffic, there's a right -turn
18 lane with one vehicle in it and everybody else is merged
19 over into one lane. This project with the four -lane
20 improvement would create those extra -- the extra through
21 lane which helps mitigate that.
22 Also, there's incorrect geometry. It needs a
23 double left. It's needed a double left -- westbound
24 double left for a long time. And traffic, actually,
25 because there's so many westbound left turning vehicles,
100
1 that actually backs up into the through movement. And we
2 have looked at this. And we know that that intersection
3 even with these improvements is -- sometime before 2010 is
4 going to fail. Okay? That's why we looked at the
5 roundabout option.
6 And we know that the master street plan calls for
7 it to be a -- Mulberry to be a six -lane arterial. If we
8 did the six -lane arterial sometime in the future similar
9 to all the developments along Harmony Road, we know that
10 Harmony Road, for example, is going to be a six -lane
11 arterial from College east to the interstate. We know
12 that's going to happen. We know that's going to happen
13 with Mulberry if we don't do something different. And
14 that's why we were looking at the roundabout. But it does
15 meet the level of service standards in my opinion.
16 MR. GAVALDON: Okay. Very good. Can we move to
17 Lemay and Lincoln? Do we have all the right-of-way
18 established for making those improvements as it calls for
19 in our plans?
20 MS. REAVIS: The right-of-way either exists or we
21 have received documents dedicating the right-of-way if
22 necessary for the improvements.
• 23 MR. GAVALDON: So we have everything in place,
24 all four intersections --
25 MS. REAVIS: For the improvements they're
101
1 proposing, yes.
2 MR. GAVALDON: Okay. Eric, can we move to Lemay
3 and Vine. There was data shared that in 2004 it shows as
4 an F level service? And can you expand with your
5 improvement recommendations that you have in place or
6 coming in place?
7 MR. BRACKE: Hopefully by next week we will have
8 changed the signal phasing on that -- that intersection.
9 Right now it's what's called a two-phase signal. That
10 means you have the north/south movement and an east/west
11 movement. I'm going to make it a split -phase movement
12 which means that all north traffic will go including the
13 left turn, clear that out, changing the cycle length, too,
14 and also bringing it down. Then all southbound traffic
15 will move, the rights, the throughs, the lefts. Okay?
16 Right now because of the geometry, one left turn
17 can hold up quite a bit of cars, a great number of cars.
18 This will help clear those out. We can bring that
19 intersection down to Level B today with or without this
20 project.
21 Using that as the base, optimizing it, and
22 looking at all different kinds of cycle lengths, I was
23 able to -- at Glen's request, when I started looking at
24 all these different years, I can keep that level of
25 service, you know, fairly reasonable into a little further
102
1
past
the short term.
It would be --
this is assuming.
2
And
I still included
all the growth
and all the projects
3
that
are improved --
approved out there and everything
4
else
that's proposed,
including the
Mountain Vista plan,
5
that
we can maintain
that level of service out there at
6 the geometry for a while.
7 MR. GAVALDON: So we can maintain B through --
8 past 2004 then?
9
MR. BRACKE: Still be -- 2004, I think it's a
10
level of Service C. C, D, with this project, B without
11
it.
•
12
MR. GAVALDON: Okay. So it would be C with the
13
project and B without it, 2004, so --
14
MR. BRACKE: And that includes if this project
15
was built today and all the traffic started, it would
16
still be a B. It would be a very high B almost into the C
17
range, but it would still be a B. And as all the other
18
growth occurs, that starts pushing it up.
19
MR. GAVALDON: Okay. Glen, those are all the
20
questions I have for now. Eric, thank you very much.
21
MS. CRAIG: Eric, since it's fresh on your mind,
22
I wondered from way back when you gave this earlier this
• 23
evening, why did you wait until next week to improve this
24
intersection since we've known for over a year that it's
25
obviously a very sore point with people in this area?
103
1 MR. BRACKE: Budget. And I didn't have the money
2 for it until this year. I had a lot of projects going on
3 this year. And when we decided to do this, we need to buy
4 some equipment, some signal heads. We're in the process
5 of timing every signal in the community. And first thing
6 in this year, we bought the equipment.
7 MS. CRAIG: So what is the cost to fix this?
8 MR. BRACKE: It's going to be several thousand
9 dollars. And that's just the equipment, plus the time.
10 MS. CRAIG: Thank you.
11 MR. COLTON: I just wanted to follow-up on the
12 Lemay/Vine thing because that's been a primary concern of
13 mine over time. And here's kind of the events I've seen.
14 Last year when we had the preliminary, we were
15 told, first of all, that we couldn't have an analysis of
16 that because it was beyond a half mile, which I kind of
17 question why we never went beyond that because in the LDGS
18 it says, "Traffic transportation impact analysis may vary
19 depending upon the complexity of the project." But we
20 finally did get an analysis kind of at -- towards the last
21 minute for the hearing. But I think all it showed was
22 2000 -- a 5-year and a 20-year plan.
23 So at the hearing, and the 2000 -- the short-term
24 plan showed it still acceptable. The long-term, it showed
25 unacceptable. And I think at maybe 1:00 in the morning or
104
•
1
something I asked the questions, and I think it was going
2
to turn unacceptable in 2004 or 2005. I can't even
3
remember now. It's too late. Didn't read the minutes.
4
So we had a lot of late information,
5
contradictory information. Even this time we got the
6
packet from the client -- or the applicant, his traffic
7
engineer, which showed Lemay and Vine at a level of
8
Service F in 2004 with or without the traffic from this
9
project. And so I called up Eric and said, "How can we
10
allow this project to continue?" And then like on Monday
11
or Tuesday he went through and ran calculations, I think,
•
12
which show now it's going to be acceptable to 2010.
13
So I guess I want to pass on to people, here's
14
the sort of information that I've kind of had. And you
15
kind of wonder why we're confused or make some of the
16
decisions we've had. We have had a lot of conflicting
17
information on that intersection. And I just want to
18
make -- I think Eric's done a lot of good work on a lot of
19
these intersections, the roundabout. He's done a lot of
20
good work, and I appreciate the work he did on Monday.
21
But it's very confusing and, I guess, contradictory to us
22
when we're trying to make a decision up here.
.
23
And we do have criteria that says, "Can the level
24
of service desired by the City be met with the traffic
25
from this project today and into the future?" And I had
105
1 evidence, I think, that showed that it was not going to be
2 able to meet the level of service at Lemay and Vine in the
3 short-range future. Now Eric is saying it's 2010. And I
4 appreciate that. But why so late?
5 So I guess that's all I want to say about that
6 one. And maybe we can move on to other questions. Eric,
7 would you like to respond to that?
8 MR. BRACKE: If you take a look at that -- that
9 statement, it's at -- it was going to the immediate impact
10 with this project at full development. Okay? It was
11 still bringing it up to a level of Service D under the old
12 signal phasing. Okay? We change signal timings all the
13 time. I mean, it's a constant effort. It was still
14 within the level of service guidelines.
15 In terms of the long-term future, we were looking
16 at what the master street plan improvements were -- were
17 saying. That intersection wasn't going to exist sometime
18 in the future. With the realignment, the actual
19 intersection of Lemay and Vine was going to be
20 significantly north of there, and it will be gone.
21 And so that's where we were coming from on
22 this. And the immediate impact of this project was being
23 mitigated -- or could be handled by that system. Just
24 there's other developments going on that are impacting
25 this intersection, also. It wasn't this one that was
��
1
putting it over the top.
2
MR. COLTON: Okay. And I appreciate that. And I
3
guess we'll have some comments on -- at the end towards
4
relying on future undefined funding of projects for
5
bringing the levels of service up.
6
Kathleen, you still there somewhere? Okay.
7
Kathleen Reavis -- Reavis. This is another one where I
8
was actually pleasantly surprised tonight, I guess, on the
9
sidewalks to Lincoln, west on Lincoln, east on Lincoln,
10
and north on Lemay. Again, I just want to let people
11
know, this is the first time I've heard -- tonight was the
•
12
first time I've heard that we had dedicated funding or a
13
source of funding for sidewalks to the neighborhoods that
14
are impacted who are actually giving us a bunch of hard
15
time tonight for actually pushing on this issue, holding
16
up the process. But I think -- this is the first time I
17
ever saw a dedicated source of funding.
18
Again, a year ago was when, "We realize it's a
19
problem. We hope to get some funding. Trust us." And I
20
want to get -- that's my impression. I guess, I get -- I
21
want to hear from you, what has happened?
22
MS. REAVIS: Basically when you raised the issue
•
23
on Friday, I went back -- we have a list of prioritized
24
projects for the annual pedestrian plan funds. And again,
25
it's projects that are community -wide, and they're in a
107
1 prioritized system. And I went back through that list and
2 look at where -- we had identified this area as a need
3 originally when we were -- we were developing the list.
4 And I went back to check, where did it fall out in the
5 list priority -wise. And based on the annual amount of
6 funding we get each year, where did I anticipate that
7 falling out. And it should -- based on everything I know
8 today and the current projects that are on the list, it
9 should be able to be funded over the next -- probably in
10 2001.
11 Given the extent of the work that needs to be
12 done there, we may not be able to complete all of it in
13 one year. It may take a couple of years for funding. But
14 there is funding identified, and it is at the top -- close
15 to the top of the list. So I'm confident that we'll be
16 able to get to it in a shorter amount of time than I was
17 able to say a year ago. We did get to a lot of the
18 projects on our list in 1999. So things moved up quite a
19 bit, so.
20 MR. COLTON: Okay. So you anticipate all these,
21 the west on Lincoln from Lemay, the east to Buffalo Run
22 over to like Link Lane and north on Lemay to be completed
23 in 2002?
24
MS.
REAVIS: What
we're going
to do is start with
25
the emphasis
on pedestrian
connections
from the
•
U
HMe
1 neighborhood to the transit spots. That's our first level
2 of work. And we'll see how -- funding -wise how much that
3 takes us and be able to try to accomplish that as quickly
4 as we can. And then we'll concentrate on the pedestrian
5 connections within the neighborhoods.
6 So at this point in time I don't have it in
7 detailed design plans and a schedule laid out. But that's
8 our intent as far as how to tackle the issues in that
9 areas. So I can't guarantee that every street would be
10 done all at once, but we will work away at them, again,
11 targeting the transit accessability first.
12 MR. COLTON: Okay. But what I heard you say is
13 that it's high on the list? You're going to get the
14 majority of it done probably in 101?
15 MS. REAVIS: That would be my hope, is -- when we
16 try to go in and do a whole area at a time, it's just
17 without all of the final cost estimates on the project.
18 It's hard to say if we have enough -- we only get a
19 certain amount each year in the fund. And what we found
20 in some of the areas, we have to go in and do half of the
21 project one year and then wait for the remainder of the
22 funding and then do -- you know, finish out the second
23 part.
24
So without that detailed
information, I
can't
25
tell you exactly what street would
be done, you
know, in
AM
1 what sequence. But I can tell you that the area -wide
2 improvements should be done within, I would say, 2002 at
3 the latest. So definitely started in 2001.
4 MR. COLTON: Okay. I appreciate your work on
5 that. And if I'm seeming a little defensive, it's because
6 this is one of the major issues that I had at preliminary
7 that I don't think was addressed. And it sounds like
8 maybe some of that pushing got some results. But I don't
9 feel like it met City policies on requiring that all modes
10 that -- I'll read it all later -- that it be safe for all
11 modes traveling to a project like this. And I couldn't
12 see how we're going to have, according to her estimates,
13 you know, multiples of people walking to this -- on wide
14 shoulders or dirt shoulders, as I can see tonight. So you
15 know, I don't think I'm crazy in asking these things. I'm
16 trying to do it for the benefit of the people. And I
17 don't think it met City policy the way it was described a
18 year ago. So.
19 Other questions?
20 MR. TORGERSON: Kathleen, I just had a couple
21 follow-up questions. With the schedule that you just
22 described, is that independent of this project? Would all
23 of that occur independent of this project, or would it be
24 affected one way or the other?
25 MS. REAVIS: No. It's independent of this
0
0
•
110
1 project.
It's
just
part of our pedestrian plan projects
2 that we
have on
our
list.
3 MR. TORGERSON: Okay. And the second question
4 is, I know you're working on the design of the pedestrian
5 access to the bridge that's proposed as a part of this
6 project. And Mr. Goldberg has offered to kick in funding
7 for that. Would that bridge happen independent of this
8 project, or is that contingent on this project?
9 MS. REAVIS: Well, it would depend. I mean,
10 they're kicking in a portion of the funds on the project.
11 If we didn't have that funding, I don't know that we would
12 have enough funds with just the grant funding we have to
13 complete the projects. We would have to look at that.
14 But we are planning to -- we're still in the
15 process of working on the design for the pedestrian
16 connection along there and the bridge design. We're
17 planning to have that completed by March. So I think if
18 we were to operate under the circumstances without the
19 funding from this project, we just have to look at, do we
20 have enough to do it at this time without that or how much
21 can we do at this point in time?
22 MR. TORGERSON: Thank you.
23 MS. CRAIG: Kathleen? Kathleen, while you're up
24 there, I wanted a better understanding of what you're
25 going to do on Lemay, north of Lincoln, as far as the
ill
1 sidewalk goes. Are you going to go from the empty lot up
2 into where San Cristo and the other housing is up there in
3 Andersonville?
4 MS. REAVIS: Again, we don't have the detailed
5 plan identified for that. But with the transit stop at
6 the corner of Lincoln and Lemay, that would be a priority
7 route. I mean, how do we get people from -- that live in
8 those neighborhoods to the transit spot at Lemay and
9 Lincoln? That is one of the important destinations. So
10 it would be addressing the sidewalk connectivity along
11 Lincoln -- or along Lemay. Excuse me.
12 MS. CRAIG: Now when we talk about off -site
13 improvements and we talk about the pedestrian plan that
14 you've put together and what you've looked at and what you
15 had the study done to show what is needed, as far as
16 pedestrian access to regional shopping centers, or any
17 shopping centers as a matter of fact, you went into levels
18 of service and you went into sidewalks on both sides and
19 some of that. When you get done with this, would this --
20 will this reach the targeted level of service that you
21 require of developers that come through the land use code?
22 MS. REAVIS: That's our intent. I mean we -- we
23 try to hold ourselves to the same criteria that we hold
24 the development community to. The level of service
25 criteria applies to the City as well as to the private
•
•
112
1 side. So it's the same criteria that we would have to
2 live up to.
3 In some cases where the improvements might be
4 temporary until, say, full -street improvements are made,
5 then in those cases we may do something a little
6 different. And we have had that happen at some locations
7 where we know we need to build some improvements for
8 pedestrian facilities. But the only -- they have a short
9 life because eventually the full -street improvements would
10 go in to provide the detached sidewalks and that sort of
11 thing. So in some cases we have had to do something a
12 little different in our design. But generally speaking we
13 designed them to live up to our own standards.
14 MS. CRAIG: In this particular project, if it had
15 come in under the land use code, what other improvements
16 that the City is making would you have requested of the
17 developer?
18 MS. REAVIS: The pedestrian improvements that
19 we're talking about here on the -- on Lemay and on
20 Lincoln, we -- under the current land use code, with the
21 way the pedestrian level of service is written, we still
22 would not have been able to require these because they
23 were beyond a quarter -mile distance to specify in the
24 level of service manual.
25 MS. CRAIG: So north of Lincoln, that empty lot
113
1 there on Lincoln and Lemay is a quarter of mile from this
2 project boundary line?
3 MS. REAVIS: For example, connecting into the --
4 Buckingham Street, for example, in the neighborhoods
5 there, as well as the homes on Lemay, was over a quarter
6 of a mile from the edge of the Wal-Mart property. Again,
7 we couldn't measure from the edge of Lincoln and
8 Lemay. We needed to measure from the edge of this
9 development. And it was just a hair over a quarter of a
10 mile. This is one of those examples that's proposed -- or
11 brought about some of the questions and potential changes
12 to the pedestrian level of service criteria. It's just a
13 hair beyond; but we wouldn't have been able to require it.
14 MR. GAVALDON: Glen, I have one for you, sir,
15 please. Thank you. Chris Rickard brought up a discussion
16 item, the neighborhood -- the natural features, 2.3, about
17 the amount of fill coming and how it applies to the
18 process. Would you be able to address that in Phase 1 and
19 how it applies and what issues or what safeguards we have?
20 So it won't be an issue in Lot Number 2? The topography
21 considerations, would that be yours?
22 MR. SCHLUETER: I'm wondering if it isn't more
23 Ted's area.
24 MR. GAVALDON: Oh, I'm sorry.
25 MR. SCHLUETER: As far as the fill they're
114
• 1 bringing in, they're bringing in just enough fill to make
2 their site drain basically because it is flat. As far as
3 the criteria, I think that Lucia probably hit it the best,
4 is that, you know, it's been a farm field. It's been --
5 it's not like a topographic feature that is prominent like
6 a rock outcropping or a stand of trees or wetland or
7 something like that.
8 MR. GAVALDON: Okay. I just wanted to test it
9 against them because it was brought up by a citizen. And
10 I just wanted to make sure we're given -- where we are
11 with this. And Lot 2 won't be filled until it comes
• 12 before us, right?
13 MR. SCHLUETER: That's -- no. They're going to
14 be doing the grading as they're doing this site. The
15 overlying.
16 MR. GAVALDON: Okay. And is it going to be the
17 same level or is it going to be some mitigation until it's
18 that level?
19 MR. SCHLUETER: It's -- it's actually the rough
20 grading of the site. The pads will pretty much be where
21 they're going to be. They have applied to FEMA for a
22 letter of map amendment for their building sites.
• 23 MR. GAVALDON: Okay. Thank you. Thank you very
24 much.
25 MR. TORGERSON: Why don't I catch you there so I
E
115
•
1
don't make you run around there. A gentleman named Brad
2
Edwards brought up a question about a dike on Lemay?
3
MR. SCHLUETER: Sure.
4
MR. TORGERSON: Could you address his concerns?
5
MR. SCHLUETER: The dike that he's talking
6
about -- actually there's another drawing here that shows
7
the cross section. This is a cross section showing Lemay
8
Avenue over to the west (indicating). This is the river
9
over here. Right now Lemay acts as a dike, but it's not
10
accepted by FEMA as a levy because it doesn't meet the
11
free -board requirements. And if we would come in there,
•
12
we would probably build the levy with a dewatering system
13
and the compaction that's required and the three-foot
14
free -board requirement.
15
And we would probably be adding a foot higher to
16
that. We would do it on the west side. We've already
17
talked with the landowner over there. And we would
18
probably -- might even do some of that with the roundabout
19
project. And if you go back to that other slide -- that
20
one, yeah -- what in effect it would do, FEMA would take
21
all this out of the floodplain (indicating). Except
22
there's one problem, is there's existing culverts that go
•
23
underneath Mulberry here that would let water from the
24
river back up into there.
25
So we could probably do something like the flat
116
1 gate that Wal-Mart is going to be doing to mitigate
2 that. And then that whole industrial area would be
3 removed from the Poudre River floodplain.
4 MR. TORGERSON: Is any of that a part of that
5 project or is that a proposed part of --
6 MR. SCHLUETER: No. That's part of our master
7 planning project.
8 MR. TORGERSON: Thank you.
9 MR. COLTON: This is a question for someone from
10 staff, but I think Mr. Carnes -- maybe someone else raised
11 the issue of the big -box standards requiring big box to be
12 part of a shopping center. And it was on the preliminary,
13 but now it's coming in as a -- by itself, I guess. I kind
14 of shared the concern of, so what if we approved this and
15 the second part doesn't come in? How does that meet the
16 big -box standards?
17 MR. SHEPARD: The test was that it meet or exceed
18 the minimum point chart score on the community and
19 regional shopping center point chart. That test was met
20 at preliminary when the 42-acre shopping center came in as
21 a multibuilding center much as Harmony Town Center,
22 Harmony Village, Harmony Market, in that the preliminary
23 PUD indicated a shopping center.
24 Some shopping centers get built one phase at a
25 time. For example -- and I think I pointed this out at
117
• 1 the work session -- that it took one year to build Pace
2 Warehouse which is now Sam's Club. It took the next year
3 to build Builder's Square and it took the third year to
4 build Steele's. So that was one year per anchor, three
5 years. Was there ever a guarantee that we would get the
6 other two anchors after Pace pulled their building permit,
7 no, there was not a guarantee. No bond was posted.
8 That's the market risk that the developer takes.
9 We see this as Phase 1, Lot 1, of a multiphase
10 shopping center.
11
MR. COLTON: I'm processing that just because of
•
12
the big -box standards, how it relates. Because I think
13
it's different than some of the other --
14
MR. SHEPARD: It's not a big -box standard, per
15
se, it's a requirement of the point chart. The point
16
chart requires that large retail establishments be in
17
community regional shopping centers. So it's not in the
18
standards and guidelines, per se, for individual big -box
19
consideration. We evaluated this as a community regional
20
shopping center based on point chart C of the LDGS.
21
MR. COLTON: Okay. I think I want to ask Mr.
22
Carnes if that -- if he agrees with that assessment that
•
23
it's in the point chart. Or if you can point to a
24
specific -- if you can come to the speaker. If you can
25
point to a specific point in the big -box guidelines
1 supporting.
2 MR. CARNES: They were submitted in evidence. I
3 don't happen to have them. So anyone could help
4 themselves. And I quote whatever they say. I think the
5 examples just given by Ted were pre big -box standards.
6 Those were adopted in January of 195. I think these
7 particular things were done at that point.
8 So I think, you know, the law is based on a
9 reasonable person and common sense. And I fancied myself
10 as being a reasonable person. But I don't think no one is
11 24 hours a day. That's why we need boards and juries and
12 things like that to approximate a reasonable person.
13 So all I know is, if this Lot 1, Final PUD
14 somehow gets approved, there's nothing that can compel
15 this community to -- to do the rest of it. And having
16 been on the big -box task force where we came up with the
17 standards, our whole purpose in having that prohibition
18 was simply to prevent - protect the community investment
19 and infrastructure. If the big box goes down, there's
20 nothing else there. We're going to -- it's going to take
21 a lot of time and difficulty to recover.
22 MR. COLTON: Okay. Thank you. Yeah. I've been
23 looking through the big -box guidelines, and I just can't
24 find that particular provision.
25 MR. SHEPARD: That's because it's not in there.
119
•
1
The requirement that each large retail establishment meet
2
the big -box standards and guidelines is in the big -box
3
standards and guidelines. But the phasing of a
4
multiproject, multiphase 42-acre PUD is more of a function
5
of the community regional shopping center point chart.
6
MR. BLANCHARD: And if you look in the big -box
7
standards, Mr. Chairman, it's -- you go back to the
8
ordinance that passed it, and that's where you find it.
9
In Section 3, that states, "It's amended" -- it refers
10
specifically to Activity C, the community regional
11
shopping center. And it amends that particular section of
•
12
the LDGS.
13
And I'd like to point out, too, that when we talk
14
about the lack of guaranties on subsequent phases, is it's
15
not dissimilar to what you all have faced in the past with
16
LDGS projects where the multi -- when you recall some of
17
the -- some of the residential projects that were
18
approved. And the way they got their density was to clump
19
the multifamily in the high density in the end. And as
20
you know, there was no guarantee because, in fact, the
21
City did not get some of those projects. They were
22
pulled, or they ended up being purchased for open space.
•
23
It's not dissimilar to the day care centers where
24
we awarded points. And there were always questions about
25
whether those were going to be built until some of the
120
1 final amendments to the LDGS -- before we adopted the land
2 use code and went into the transition ordinance. So it's
3 not dissimilar to a lot of the other types of projects
4 that you've acted on as a Planning and Zoning Board.
5 MR. COLTON: Okay. I just wanted some
6 clarification.
7 MR.
ECKMAN:
One other point to be made,
I
think,
8 in that, is
that the
vested rights provisions of
the
City
9 vest the project once the infrastructure is constructed.
10 And presumably the infrastructure would be constructed
11 with the development that is presently before you.
12 Then once it is vested, the development has to be
13 completed in that manner unless there is requested before
14 this Board an abandonment of the remaining parcel of land.
15 And one of the criteria for abandonment is that you have
16 to look at the part that has already been developed and
17 make sure that it is in and of itself still qualified for
18 approval under the Land Development Guidance System. And
19 that -- those provisions are found on page 109 of the Land
20 Development Guidance System. So I think that should give
21 you some comfort that you would not be compelled to
22 authorize an abandonment of the other parcel unless this
23 parcel still remained qualified for approval under the
24 LDGS.
25 MR. COLTON: Okay. Thank you.
L
121
•
•
1 MS. CRAIG: I just had one architectural
2 question. When the architect came up and talked about it,
3 is the building going to have brick facade, or is it going
4 to be brick -colored concrete?
5 MR. SHEPARD: It's a brick -colored concrete.
6 MS. CRAIG: So there is no brick facade on this
7 building?
8 MR. SHEPARD: There's some brick -detail features.
9 But what we call the building field is very similar to the
10 jumbo brick that you see on the walls in this -- chambers.
11 It will be sandblasted red, but it will be a concrete
12
product.
13
MS. CRAIG: Will
it have the gray in between so
14
it looks like it's brick?
15
MR. SHEPARD: Yes.
It will have mortar joints.
16
MS. CRAIG: Okay.
Thank you.
17
MR. COLTON: Any
other questions? I just had one
18
more for Kathleen Reavis.
And it just -- again, I
19
appreciate that we're getting
the sidewalks near, but I
20
just had a question on the
off -- the quarter -mile
21
rule. I mean, I guess I look
in the A, 2.6, pedestrian
22
circulation. And it says,
"Sidewalk and bike -way
23
extensions may be required
based on the impacts created by
24
the proposed development."
And then I look at your
25
analysis that shows maybe
-- was it 200 people a day going
122
1 north on Lemay, 160 going west? I'm just taking half of
2 your estimated bike and pedestrian. And 50 going east.
3 And wondering, how we can just have a set quarter -mile
4 limit, and not looking at the number of trips when this is
5 a rather significant number of trips? Why do we feel like
6 we don't have the flexibility to ask for some off -site
7 impact beyond a quarter mile? Is it written somewhere in
8 our guidelines that it can only be a quarter mile?
9 MS. REAVIS: Well, the --
10 MR. COLTON: Or is it just customary?
11 MS. REAVIS: No. The issue is -- the quarter
12 mile comes out of our current standards. That
13 quarter -mile limit is in our current pedestrian level of
14 service standards. We don't have a limit. We don't have
15 the ability to require that under the LDGS.
16 What -- what I looked at when I looked at the
17 project and I looked at the trip generation and the
18 distribution of it, the majority of the trips are going
19 south on Lemay and west on Mulberry. There are some trips
20 going north on Lemay and the trips on Lincoln. But it's
21 very hard to predict the number of pedestrians and the
22 number of bicyclists. And I just use the only sort of
23 methodology that was available using some regional
24 load -split projections and that sort of thing.
25 But generally on any development, we don't
123
KI
1 specify how many vehicle trips, how many bike trips, or
2 how many pedestrians. So that's just a rough proportion,
3 I guess. And I think it's a very optimistic split as far
4 as the numbers. So we emphasize the need for those
5 connections. As I said, south on Lemay and west on
6 Mulberry.
7
As far as not being able to require anything
8
additional for those other legs, I feel that we've
9
required the extent that we could. And if there's other
10
issues, that they may be more legal issues than
11
transportation issues. I guess I would look to Paul or
•
12
someone for a clarification on that.
13
But based on the primary directions of travel for
14
this center, those were the routes we emphasized for the
15
pedestrian improvements. Again, there are bike lanes
16
going north and west. And there are city -slated projects
17
to take care of those needs as well. So.
18
MR. COLTON: Right. Yeah. No. I appreciate the
19
fact that we are -- do the city -funded projects. I just
20
wanted to follow-up on the off -site impacts. Thank you.
21
Okay. Other questions? I had one thing I just
22
wanted to -- Eric had made some comments earlier on
• 23
vehicle miles traveled. And I just wanted to, I think,
24
add one thing, too.
25
He had sent me a written response back to that
124
1 question. And it's very similar to what he said. But you
2 left one sentence off at the end. I just wanted to get it
3 out because even though VMT is not -- reduction is not
4 part of the LDGS process, I think it was widely heralded
5 that during the election that this project would help to
6 relieve congestion on South College. I just wanted to get
7 this into the record. Eric said, "I can neither support
8 or argue the validity of the VMT study. The methodology
9 they used is reasonable. The actual words they used is
10 substantial rather than significant reduction. The
11 estimate is a .6 percent to 1.9 percent reduction. These
12 numbers are minimal from a perspective that this range
13 would not be noticeable to the average citizen nor will it
14 eliminate congestion on College Avenue."
15 You disagree with that or is that --
16 MR. BRACKE: No. I mean, I wrote that.
17 MR. COLTON: Again, this is a highly unusual.
18 And since the Board did not give the preliminary approval
19 and the voters did, I just wanted to get out some
20 information about that particular issue.
21 MR. BRACKE: I think it would be important to add
22 though, there is not one single action the City could take
23 to eliminate congestion on College Avenue or the other
24 arterials. It's going to be numerous. Many, many small
25 things that do it. And you're not going to get a big bite
• 0
125
• 1 of the apple with one project. But if you start doing
2 other projects and more people start carpooling, more
3 people start vanpooling, more people start walking or
4 riding their bikes, it's all of them added up that make
5 the difference. It's not one project, and it's not
6 reasonable to assume one project should have that
7 responsibility. I wanted to make that clear.
8 MR. COLTON: Right. I agree with you a 100
9 percent.
10
MR. BERNTH: Eric, could you read verbatim
11
what -- just eluding to that correspondence back and forth
•
12
between you and Glen. would you read that last sentence
13
just to be clear, again? You wrote it.
14
MR. BRACKE: I don't have a copy of it.
15
MR. COLTON: I just read it.
16
MR. BRACKE: Oh, I do have a copy. Okay.
17
Beginning with, "Please keep in mind?"
18
MR. BERNTH: Please.
19
MR. BRACKE: "Please keep in mind that no one VMT
20
solution is going to help. It will take a large number of
21
very small solutions, such as land use, trip reductions,
22
telecommuting, carpooling, etc., to solve the
• 23
problems. See you Thursday."
24
MR. BERNTH: Thank you.
25
MR. COLTON: That's it. Mike.
126
1
MR. TORGERSON: Yeah. I had another question
2
relative to that. I know it's not a part of the LDGS.
3
But just for reference, have we had any large shopping
4
center projects recently that purported to reduce VMT,
or
5
does that typically increase VMT?
6
MR. BRACKE: I believe that projects don't
7
increase VMT. People increase VMT. I think there's a
big
8
difference there. No one is forcing anybody to drive.
9
Okay? This was the first project that ever did an
10
analysis of it that I know of. I'm not familiar with any
11
other in the 12 years I've been here.
12
MR. TORGERSON: I suppose it doesn't matter if
13
it's not part of the LDGS anyway.
14
MR. COLTON: Okay. Are we ready to move on?
15
Does anyone have any more questions, or is that it?
16
MR. TORGERSON: Yeah. I have a question for Ted
17
and I wanted to make a general comment, too. Ted, some
of
18
us weren't here on the Board when the preliminary came
19
through. I've looked at it and everything. But I just
20
wanted to get for the record, is -- would you say that
21
this project is substantially compliant with the
22
preliminary? There's -- the developer actually brought
up
23
quite a few issues that were new in the project and
24
they've purported to be positive additions to the
25
project. Is there anything that you see as not meeting
127
•
1
the preliminary?
2
MR. SHEPARD: No. There's nothing I see. I
3
think it's in substantial compliance with the preliminary.
4
MR. TORGERSON: Okay. Thank you. And the other
5
issue I wanted to bring up is, I think Bridget Smith read
6
a letter from an attorney that was brought to the Board.
7
Maybe some of the other members would be interested in
8
commenting, too. But to me I think it's -- it's really
9
nasty legal tactics to threaten to sue Board members,
10
especially when we received the lawsuit -- or the threat
11
of a lawsuit literally minutes before we convened. And
•
12
this project was approved, I think, 11 months ago. It's
13
been a foregone conclusion that Mr. Goldberg was going to
14
pursue the project. And it seems to me a really poor way
15
of doing business, to threaten a lawsuit moments before we
16
convene. I don't intend to even take it into
17
consideration or let it sway my vote one way or the other.
18
MR. BERNTH: I can only go on record, too, that I
19
do feel it is a bit inappropriate. And I guess there's
20
probably been the opportunity to -- on both sides with
21
those kinds of -- I hate to say threats, maybe that's not
22
the correct word. But again, it just seems unseemly to a
•
23
certain extent. We are volunteers on this Board. We do
24
the best we can. We spend time, I should say at some
25
points inordinant amounts of time working on these
128
1 projects. And again, it just feels uncomfortable and
2 unseemly when we're threatened with personal lawsuits, not
3 that I have much to worry about, trust me. But it just
4 doesn't feel right. And I would just like to put that on
5 record. Thank you.
6 MS. MEYER: I want to concur with my
7 colleagues. I do not appreciate having threatening
8 letters and getting them. And essentially for me because
9 I was late getting here, approximately two minutes before
10 I walked into this Board room. And I'm with them. I
11 don't think this is the way you do business with people.
12 MR. GAVALDON: I'm going to echo my thoughts as
13 well as what Dan and Mikal and Judy has done very well. I
14 don't need to repeat. But I'd like to make some
15 observations.
16 One, you're right. We're volunteers. We don't
17 get any money. But we get food, and that's okay with me.
18 And I guess we do okay with that. But we do more than
19 just for food and sitting here and doing things. We take
20 a big interest in our City. We look at the community as a
21 whole. But yet we've got everybody in sandboxes. Bava
22 has their sandbox. Well, my grandmother used to live over
23 there. So I take pride in that.
24 Everybody has sandboxes on the south side of
25 town. We brought -- projects come our way and everybody
129
• 1 was in a sandbox saying, "We want it this way. We want it
2 that way." Hey, that's cool because you take an interest
3 in your area. You don't want -- you want the impact to be
4 minimal or substantial, however you look at it. I think
5 that's fair.
6 But we here have to sort through a lot of data.
7 I'm one of the ones who asked for a three-inch ring binder
s from Lucia and Kathleen. I read it. I go through it.
9 It's the second time I reviewed it. It's a big, thick
10 one. And then, of course, Lucia has another nice binder
11 that comes our way. We look at that. We study it. We go
• 12 in and out of it.
13 Ted provides a substantial amount of information.
14 Eric does a lot of work. Everybody puts their heart and
15 soul into this. We really work hard.
16 Whether we agree or not, at least we can walk out
17 of here and say, "We did our part." And, yeah, lawsuits
is come in. Well, might have to hang on and go to Paul and
19 say, "Okay. Paul, help us out here," because we're
20 volunteers and we want to work with integrity and with our
21 hearts and minds to do a very good job for this entire
22 community.
. 23 So I'm ready to go with a motion. And --
24 MR. COLTON: I want to make one comment, also,
25 because lawsuits go both ways. And I'm sure the City
130
1 Council felt just as uncomfortable being sued by the
2 applicant as we do being potentially sued by a --
3 neighborhood groups. Cuts both ways.
4 MR. GAVALDON: So if anyone has more questions, I
5 don't want to take the thunder of our Board members, but
6 I'm ready to go with a motion as I have reviewed this
7 thoroughly. So without anyone jumping in to make a
8 comment, I'd like to proceed.
9 But first a couple comments before the motion.
10 We listened to a lot of information. You brought a lot to
11 us. We had to listen to it. We digest it. We sort
12 through it. The applicant did their presentation. They
13 brought information. Did they bring enough information to
14 say that we have to go back and sit and continue this
15 meeting? I don't think so. I really think we have all
16 the information we need and all your testimony. And I'm
17 sure you know I go back and pick what people say to make
18 sure we get their answers, their questions heard and
19 addressed. It's important that we do that.
20 Is this project in substantial compliance to the
21 LDGS and to the process that we have tonight? Is it or
22 isn't it? That's a question we've got to study and
23 analyze. Is there differences that say, "Oops, we've got
24 a problem. We need to ask Mark -- Mr. Goldberg to go back
25 to the drawing board?" I don't think so. I really think
131
•
1
that everthing's been done reasonably prudently possible
2
so this project can go.
3
I cannot ask Mr. Goldberg to go fix every street.
4
I cannot ask other people to go fix every street. But I
5
cannot ask the taxpayers to fix every street because
6
there's a balance we have to strike. The mitigation and
7
all that, they all have done what was reasonably expected
8
and asked for. Ted has -- and staff has given their stamp
9
in saying, "Yes. It's ready to go."
10
However, there are opportunities that we have to
11
work on. I hate to say problems. There are
•
12
opportunities. We do have to work on other streets. We
13
do have to make an effort. And I think that's where Eric
14
has our inputs from workshop and Ken McNamara and his
15
group has our inputs. We want some streets worked on that
16
is a city-wide, community -wide process. We got to do it.
17
But long-winded ways, I cannot say no to this.
18
So along that -- and I want to add one thing. I
19
do appreciate the Board members with their inputs and
20
their questions and everything they ask for because that's
21
our role. And that's what's neat about this Board. We
22
bring out the best of everything to make our improvements
•
23
for our community. I think you can see that tonight.
24
So I move for the approval of the Mulberry/Lemay
25
Crossing, Lot 1, Filing 1, Final PUD 26-96D, with the five
132
1 and six conditions that staff has recommended they have
2 met. And it is -- and the reason is, it is in substantial
3 compliance to the approved preliminary plan and it is
4 compliant -- and is compliant to what it meets in the LDGS
5 process.
6 MR. TORGERSON: I'll second.
7 MR. COLTON: All right. Twenty minutes to make
8 some comments. Do you want to make some comments?
9 MS. CRAIG: I guess I'll make one comment. And
10 that is, that I'm not going to support this, but I
11 wouldn't support any vote tonight because issues came up
12 at executive session that I wasn't comfortable with. And
13 I feel we're talking about things that were given to us
14 last minute and we really didn't get a chance to digest or
15 discuss. And they irritated me. And so I will not be
16 supporting this or any vote that would have come up
17 tonight.
18 MR. COLTON: Well, I've got a few things to
19 say. Part of this is because I try to do -- like Jerry
20 mentions, I try to do the best job I can. I looked at the
21 LDGS, the land use policies plan, and I interpret it for
22 the best of the community, in my best judgment. And I've
23 been around five years. And, yeah, I don't always
24 disagree with staff. Sometimes I'm wrong disagreeing with
25 staff. Sometimes I think staff is wrong. There's a lot
133
•
•
1 to be interpreted in this thing. It's not black and
2 white.
3 And, you know, when I read things -- you know,
4 the first thing I want to say is, my vote at preliminary,
5 I'll stand by it 100 percent. When I read criteria that
6 say, "Can the additional traffic, all modes, generated by
7 the land uses within the project be incorporated into the
8 neighborhood and community transportation network without
9 creating safety problems? Can the impacts from the
10 additional vehicular traffic meet City traffic flow
11 policies? Can pedestrian and bicycle needs be addressed
12 so that opportunities for these travel modes are
13 integrated into the overall system? Does the pedestrian
14 circulation system accommodate pedestrian movement from
15 the neighborhood to the site and throughout the proposed
16 development safely and conveniently?"
17 These things don't say, "Can I require the
18 builder to do it?" These things don't say, "A
19 quarter -mile limit." They don't say, "A half -mile
20 limit." You know, I think from our optic and our
21 viewpoints, there are bigger impacts beyond a half mile.
22 I mean, I have no idea what's going to happen north and
23 Lemay and Country Club as a result of this -- the traffic
24 from this.
25 We did finally get an analysis of Lemay and Vine,
134
1 but I
don't know what's really going to happen way out
2 there
to those people
having to drive on that road. You
3 know,
it's beyond the
scope. Yet this is a regional
4 shopping center where
20 percent of the traffic is going
5 to be
heading straight
up North Lemay which is two lanes,
6 no shoulder, I mean.
7 I think we're just having too small of view. And
8 I think it is the purview and responsibility of people,
9 like myself, on the Board to have that broader view even
10 if staff says, "Gee, I have these guidelines that say I
11 can only go a quarter mile or these policies." I think we
12 owe the community more than that.
13 I've agreed all along that we need retail in the
14 north side. And this project is going to be the best
15 looking 200,000 square -foot store around. I have no
16 problem with that. Is it the best thing for Fort Collins?
17 I don't think so.
18 I think -- you know, I would ask Mr. Goldberg, if
19 you really wanted to do the right thing for Fort Collins,
20 why doesn't he take a few of those regular -size Wal-Marts,
21 like an 80,000 square -foot one, put it on North College
22 where the people up there can -- will be close to it?
23 Don't have to travel all the way down to this
24 intersection. Why don't you take one and put it out in
25 the Mountain Vista area where we're going to have 25,000
135
•
1
people living and put one here about the same size instead
2
of having one big huge one where that it may -- at least
3
some of the traffic is going to be diverted from the
4
south, but there's going to be a lot of -- you know, it's
5
a regional center. It's going to generate a lot of
6
traffic on the north that is unnecessary for that smaller
7
discount retail.
8
I don't think I have to ask Eric or any of the
9
traffic people to say that regional shopping centers
10
create a lot more traffic than smaller community shopping
11
centers or neighborhood ones that could provide the same
•
12
services but not at a super -huge location.
13
That's -- you know, people in Fort Collins are
14
wondering, "Why is our traffic in Fort Collins getting as
15
bad as it is?" Eric says there's a lot of little things
16
we can do. Well, this is one of them. In the city of
17
Fort Collins, we've got to start figuring out how to get
18
back to the original LDGS intent, which is to have smaller
19
community shopping centers closer to where people live.
20
Not the super biggest thing you can possibly put in.
21
Like I said, I had some very strong concerns at
22
preliminary. Some things popped out of the woodwork.
•
23
Since that preliminary, we went from a, "Well, we think
24
that we'll work together" -- "we think we'll work together
25
on putting together a pedestrian bypass and bicycle path
136
1 over the Mulberry," to, "It's coming in. We've got some
2 money for it." Okay. Great.
3 We went from, "Gee, you know, the sidewalks
4 aren't there. And we've got it in our plan to work on it
5 sometime, but we don't know when the funding is coming."
6 Well, we now have identified funding.
7
There were
a lot of questions around
Lemay and
8
Vine.
Like I said,
I went through that earlier
with some
9
of the
information.
You know, I -- where are
we going to
10
come up with $17 million to do that overpass?
We better
11
start
figuring that
out soon. And I've heard
a lot of,
12
"Well
that's in our
master street plan so, you
know, it's
13
okay."
14 Well, last time I saw it the City had $490
15 million worth of traffic needs over the next 20 years and
16 potential sources for 250, maybe half of it. Okay, things
17 like that are going to compete with Mason Street
18 corridors, possible bypasses, Vine Street arterials in the
19 north. All right, where's all this money coming from, you
20 know? And to say we've got it in a plan somewhere and we
21 have to wait until the next capital improvement plan which
22 competes with more than those things, it competes with
23 libraries, cultural centers, everything else that the
24 people in this town want, you know, there's no assurance
25 that some of these projects are going to meet -- make
137
•
1
those lists.
2
We've got some hard decisions to make. You know,
3
there aren't roads out in the northeast. Where's it all
4
going to come from? So again, I stand by my vote at
5
preliminary. And there's been a lot of new things that
6
came out within -- like today or the last couple of days
7
that are causing me to say, "Well, okay. Some of them" --
8
"my biggest concerns were addressed from preliminary."
9
Sorry. I'm getting long-winded here. But after
10
getting beat up for a year on this, I've got to -- got to
11
get this stuff out, you know.
•
12
And some of these guys, they didn't like the
13
lawsuit, but I don't like being called, you know,
14
"arbitrary and capricious." I don't like having, "You've
15
got a political agenda," all this stuff that's floating
16
around. You know, sorry. You know, you can -- if you
17
want this job, you can come and have it.
18
Let's see. I don't know. Those -- those are the
19
main things that I have to say. So even though I don't
20
think it is the best thing for the community in terms of
21
traffic impact, it is going to be a -- we do need the
22
retail. It will be a nice looking project. Assuming Eric
•
23
can waive his magic wand and really do what he says he's
24
going to do to Lemay and Vine, to make all those
25
improvements and keep it acceptable through 2010, good
138
1 luck, I guess it meets the criteria.
2 And I do kind of agree with Sally on some of the
3 things that came out in the memo tonight as far as things
4 we were or weren't supposed to possibly look at. But I'm
5 ignoring that just like I'm ignoring the lawsuit.
6 I guess that's it. I probably missed something,
7 but you guys wouldn't want to hear it, probably. Any
8 other comments?
9 MR. GAVALDON: You know, I've got to commend Glen
10 and Sally for taking the other side of the fence and
11 really helping bring out some things because we do bring
12 up stuff in work session with staff that we would like as
13 a Board to work on.
14
And yes,
I'm being -- I think
Eric can really
15
attest to that.
I've been really harping with Vine and
16
Lemay. I see a need
for improvements.
But we've got to
17
take that from a
different process and
also get the right
18
funding and make
sure we get the right
contributions for
19
it.
20 But what everybody else brings up is important
21 because it strikes the so-called balance in getting the
22 best project. And I think it's so important that we
23 continue to foster everyone's inputs on the Board and
24 through the community so we can continue to make these
25 necessary improvements.
•
139
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3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
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13
I have a lot of faith in Eric and his wand, by
the way. And I really applaud the work he's done with the
roundabout coming through and the other improvements he's
recommending, though he catches a lot of feedback from us.
And I think he takes it in great stride. And I hope he --
and I will continue to echo, the northeast needs those
improvements. And please, with the growth and all the
activities going there, we do need to put our priorities
and our priority house in order to make that happened.
So -- but I do want to compliment Glen and Sally
for their thoughts in this because this is very
significant to accomplish -- to bring out the best
projects. Thanks.
14 MR. TORGERSON: I'll try to be brief. I guess I
15 just wanted to say, first of all, I really appreciate the
16 fact that there are so many citizens who care enough to
17 get this to the point that it is. And everybody on both
18 sides of the fence has been civil, and I appreciate that,
19 too.
20 There are a lot of good issues that were brought
21 up tonight. A lot of those don't relate to the LDGS. And
22 I'm all about judging this relative to the code that it is
23 supposed to be judged by and not by other issues. I think
24 Cheryl white, one of the citizens that spoke, said it
25 best. "This is about land use, and it's not about
140
1 Wal-Mart. And it's not about a lot of these other
2 things." But I appreciate the fact that everybody is
3 concerned as they are.
4 I did read this entire traffic study. I'm an
5 architect, and some of that goes over my head. But I rely
6 on the experts, and I think Eric's an expert. And he's
7 confident that we're meeting the criteria that we need to
8 meet. And there's a certain point where we need to defer
9 to the experts. And so I'll be supporting the motion.
10 MR. COLTON: Okay. Roll call?
11 THE CLERK: Gavaldon?
12 MR. GAVALDON: Yes.
13 THE CLERK: Craig?
14 MS. CRAIG: No.
15 THE CLERK: Bernth?
16 MR. BERNTH: Yes.
17 THE CLERK: Torgerson?
18 MR. TORGERSON: Yes.
19 THE CLERK: Meyer?
20 MS MEYER: Yes.
21 THE CLERK: Colton?
22 MR. COLTON: Yes.
23 So that concludes the hearing. We appreciate
24 everyone's inputs. And we'll see where it goes from
25 here.
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(Meeting adjourned at 10:49 p.m.)
141
142
1 STATE OF COLORADO )
2 ) REPORTER'S CERTIFICATE
3 COUNTY OF LARIMER )
4 I, Anne Hansen, a Shorthand Reporter and Notary
5 Public, State of Colorado, hereby certify that the
6 foregoing Planning and Zoning Board Hearing of
7 Mulberry/Lemay Crossings, was taken on Thursday, January
8 20th, 2000, at 300 West Laporte Avenue, Fort Collins,
9 Colorado; that said meeting was taken down by me in
10 stenotype notes and thereafter reduced under my
11 supervision to the foregoing 141 pages; that said
12 transcript is an accurate and complete record of the
13 proceedings so taken.
14 I further certify that I am not related to, employed
15 by, nor of counsel to any of the parties or attorneys
16 herein nor otherwise interested in the outcome of the
17 case.
18 Attested to by me this 27th day of January, 2000.
19
20
21
22
AI* OTA 3 ..
2324
~e41:IlIlOi'
25
Anne Hansen
Meadors Court Reporting, LLC
140 West Oak Street, Suite 266
Fort Collins, Colorado 80524
(970) 482-1506
My commission expires: 02/13/03