HomeMy WebLinkAboutPlanning And Zoning Board - Minutes - 10/20/2005Council Liaison: Karen Weitkunat
Chairperson: Judy Meyer
Vice Chair: Dave Lingle
Liaison: Camero
Phone: (W) 490-2172
Phone: (W) 223-1820
Chairperson Meyer called the meeting to order at 6:00 p.m.
Roll Call: Torgerson, Craig, Schmidt, Lingle, Stockover, Carpenter and Meyer.
Staff Present: Wray, Eckman, Shepard, Olt, Sommer, Wamhoff, Gloss, Frank and
Defines.
Citizen Participation: None.
Director of Current Planning Pete Wray reviewed the Consent and Discussion Agendas:
Consent Agenda:
1. Minutes of the May 19th and July 21 st, 2005 Planning and Zoning
Board Hearings. (Continued)
2. Resolution PZ05-12 — Easement Vacation.
3. #33-05 Evangelical Lutheran Good Samaritan, Nextel Wireless
Telecommunications Equipment — Project Development Plan.
4. #2-05A Front Range Baptist Church and Academy Expansion — Project
Development Plan.
5. #26-05 Belle Claire, 310 — South College Avenue — Project Development
Plan.
6. #36-05 Minatta Annexation and Zoning.
Discussion Agenda:
7. #15-05 Shields Street Lofts (515 South Shields Street) — Project
Development Plan.
8. Recommendation to City Council for the Creation of the Rural
Lands (RUL) Zoning District and an Amendment to the Land Use
Code.
9. Recommendation to City Council to Amend the City Structure
Plan Map.
Member Craig pulled Item #4, Front Range Baptist Church.
Member Torgerson moved for approval of the Consent Agenda minus Items 1 and
4. Member Schmidt seconded the motion. The motion was approved 7-0.
Planning and Zoning Board Minutes
October 20, 2005
Page 2
Project: Front Range Baptist Church and Academy
Expansion, Phase One, Project Development Plan,
#2-05A
Project Description: Request to expand the existing church, school and
parking lot including a new 23,000 s.f. multi -purpose
building for use as sanctuary, gymnasium and
classrooms. The property is located on the south side
of East harmony Road between Fairway Estates on
the west and Bank One on the southwest corner of
Harmony Road and Boardwalk Drive. The parcel is
zoned HC, Harmony Corridor.
Recommendation: Approval
Hearing Testimony, Written Comments and Other Evidence:
Member Craig pulled this item because she had concerns with the level of service
requirements and the egress of the school. It is her understanding that the applicant's
traffic engineer is here and she would like them to address those items.
Ted Shepard, Chief Planner replied that after the worksession, he informed the
applicant that there were some concerns about the way that the students would be
traveling to and from the school. Joe Carter from Cityscape was here to walk the Board
through some images that illustrate some of the connections to the neighborhood.
Member Craig stated that her concern is that there would be up to 150 students and she
wanted to get a feeling of in the area how they would travel. She also had a traffic
concern with getting on and off of Boardwalk.
Joe Carter, Cityscape Urban Design responded to Member Craig's concerns. He stated
some statistics about the school and there are 139 students K — 12. Currently there is
only one student that walks, there are currently no students that bike, there are 22
students that take a bus in from Loveland and then there are also students that come in
from Cheyenne. Fort Collins does a really good job of placing schools in neighborhoods
which makes it walkable, this site is walkable it just not have the demand immediately
around the site because it is a regional school. They are addressing the connectivity
concerns by expanding walks, making sure they have connectivity via sidewalk to
Boardwalk. They have connectivity along Harmony Road which is an 8-foot sidewalk
that is an existing and it parallels Harmony and connects directly to the school.
Planning and Zoning Board Minutes
October 20, 2005
Page 3
Internally there is connectivity through the parking lots as well. Mr. Carter showed
illustrations of immediate on street bike routes and existing and proposed sidewalk
connections and access, connectivity and internal circulation of the campus.
Member Craig asked from the site was there a sidewalk that goes through the existing
development to get out to Boardwalk, down south.
Mr. Carter replied that there is a sidewalk that connects from Boardwalk at the Red
Robin entrance over to the property line. They are connecting from that walk to the
front door of the existing school.
Member Craig asked if the remaining kids that were not previously mentioned were
driving or dropped off by their parents.
Mr. Carter replied that there are 113 students dropped off. That was not 113 cars, but
there are multiple family members or students per car. It is a half hour window. There
is a small percentage that is of driving age which accounts for about 25 students and 18
cars.
Member Craig asked if anyone had been on site during the half hour windows to see if
there were any issues on Boardwalk where they will be turning left (Boardwalk/Harmony
Market access) that is a stop sign.
Matt Delich, 2272 Glen Haven Drive, Loveland, Traffic Engineer for the applicant, stated
that they did the traffic counts at that intersection and found the delays commensurate
currently with one peak hour at level of service E, and as we add traffic to it with the
expansion of the school, the level of service at that intersection will deteriorate with
more delay in the E category and may knock into level of service F. Understand that
intersection and where it is and the type of control that it has, acceptable operation
according to the city of Fort Collins standards is a level of service F. Minor street delay
can be commensurate with level of service F and be acceptable in the city of Fort
Collins.
Member Craig asked if there was any information about the number of accidents there
now because of the level of service before this expansion. Sometimes safety to her
supersedes the fact that we can have it at a level F does not necessarily mean it is the
smart thing for us to do.
Mr. Delich replied that the traffic accidents were not overly significant, he did not have
the exact number with him but they were not called out as being an issue.
Planning and Zoning Board Minutes
October 20, 2005
Page 4
Member Lingle moved for approval of the Front Range Baptist Church and
Academy Expansion, Phase One, PDP, # 2-05A with the findings of fact starting
on page 7 of the staff report. Member Carpenter seconded the motion. The
motion was approved 6-1 with Member Craig voting in the negative.
Project: Shields Street Lofts (515 South Shields Street) —
Project Development Plan, #15-05
Project Description: Request to demolish the existing single-family house
at 515 South Shields Street and construct a new 3-
story mixed -use building containing 5 two -bedroom
dwelling units and 1,440 s.f. of commercial uses on
.22 acre. There will 9 vehicle parking spaces on site.
The property is located on the west side of South
Shields Street between West Mulberry Street and
West Myrtle Street and zoned NCB, Neighborhood
Conservation Buffer Zoning District.
Hearing Testimony, Written Comments and Other Evidence:
Member Torgerson declared a conflict of interest on this item.
This item was appealed to City Council and a verbatim transcript is attached.
I
PLANNING & ZONING BOARD
MEETING OF OCTOBER 20, 2005
Item #7: Shields Street Lofts
(515 South Shields Street)
Project Development Plan
Board Members:
Judy Meyer
Mikal Torgerson
Brigitte Schmidt
Sally Craig
David Lingle
Jennifer Carpenter
Butch Stockover
►A
1 P R O C E E D I N G S
2 MS. MEYER: Now we're moving to Item Number
3 7, Shields Street Lofts.
4 MR. TORGERSON: Madam Chair, I have a
5 conflict of interest on this item, so I'll recuse
6 myself.
7 MS. MEYER: But remember you have to come
8 back.
9 Okay. Steve, are you going to give us the
10 Reader's Digest version? Good. Thank you.
11 MR. OLT: If I may, I'll stand over here. It
12 will be easier for me to work with the slide that's up
13 before you. This is the Shields Street Lofts Project
14 Development Plan. The site is located at 515 South
15 Shields Street. On the map, the yellow square is the
16 site. To the north, approximately a half a block away,
17 is West Mulberry Street. South Shields Street runs
18 along the east side of the property. To the south a
19 half block is West Myrtle Street. Almost directly
20 across the street would be Sunset Avenue going to the
21 east into this residential neighborhood.
22 Contextually, we're looking at a 7-Eleven
23 store on the corner of Mulberry and Shields Street.
24 And next to it is an auto repair, Gilsdorf Garage.
25 Single-family residential to the west. Essentially to
3
1 the south, we have single-family; two homes to the
2 south along Shields Street just north -- or between the
3 project and West Myrtle. The Elderhaus, Elder Daycare
4 Center, is on the south side of Myrtle Street. And
5 then we have single-family residential and a church,
6 American Baptist Church, on the east side of Shields
7 Street.
8 The proposal is for a mixed use dwelling
9 which is defined in the City Code as a building that
10 contains residential and nonresidential uses.
11 The proposal is for five residential dwelling
12 units -- four that would be accessed on the second
13 floor and one accessed from the first floor -- and then
14 approximately 1400 square feet of nonresidential uses,
15 in this case professional offices, personal service,
16 business service uses.
17 This being the site plan -- actually I think
18 I'll go to the landscape plan because that is
19 rendered -- that is colored so you can better see
20 the -- the site. Again, to the north of the property
21 is an alleyway between the -- the 7-Eleven store. And
22 I think there's a vacant space, commercial space,
23 within that building directly north. This is Shields
24 Street along the east side of the property;
25 single-family residence to the south and single-family
rM
1 residences to the -- to the west.
2 The proposal is for one building; although,
3 it does have a breezeway underneath the second level.
4 Four dwelling units would be on the second and third
5 floors. This is a proposed three-story building,
6 approximately 33 feet high. Four dwelling units
7 accessed from the second story in this portion of the
8 building. Below that would be approximately 1400
9 square feet of commercial uses or use. There would be a
10 residential unit accessed from the main floor in this
11 location.
12 Access to the site would be in this location
13 into a parking lot from the alley. There are nine
14 parking spaces on -site in this location. They're
15 located under the -- a second -level deck that's
16 attached to the building. And then the -- the driveway
17 parking area here.
18 A new sidewalk would be constructed along the
19 east side of the building. We have a parkway --
20 landscape parkway along Shields Street between the --
21 the edge of pavement and the sidewalk, foundation
22 plantings around the building to the east and the
23 south. There would be a 6-foot -- pardon me -- a
24 6-foot high fence along the west property line and
25 along the south property line with -- in this location,
3
1 there would be four trees along the west property line
2 inside the fence. Technically the landscape -- or the
3 Land Use Code would require in that location three
4 trees, three shade trees, of some sort in conjunction
5 with the fencing, spaced at 40 feet on center.
6 Because the applicant is unable, due to the
7 nature of the parking, being underneath a deck and then
8 just a drive aisle in this location, the 6 percent
9 interior landscaping for the parking lot is not being
10 met. The applicant has submitted an alternative
11 compliance request to the Land Use Code to not provide
12 the 6 -- 6 percent interior landscaping in here. What
13 they're proposing is a fourth tree along the west
14 property line which would actually then space those
15 trees at 25 feet instead of the required 40, an
16 additional tree to give you better canopy in that
17 location.
18 The nine parking spaces are the minimum
19 number required for the residential units in the
20 development. They're all two -bedroom units that would
21 require 8.75 spaces. They have nine. The commercial
22 uses under the Land Use Code being nonresidential have
23 no minimum parking requirements. They have only
24 maximum allowances. Therefore, it's been determined
25 that the -- the project meets the on -site parking
G
1 requirements for this development and the nine parking
2 spaces provide the minimum parking for the residential
3 dwelling units.
4 In the course of development review, there
5 were two neighborhood meetings conducted at the
6 American Baptist Church across the street; one in March
7 and one in May. You do have minutes of -- of both of
8 those meetings in your packet as well as several
9 letters or comments from -- from various citizens.
10 The project has been determined -- we'll go
11 to the building first. This is the building elevation.
12 I won't spend much time on it. I'll let the applicant
13 do that. So again, you can see a three-story building.
14 This is the east elevation facing Shields Street. The
15 commercial uses would be in this location. This would
16 be the -- the first floor of a residential unit. We
17 have residential units above.
18 There are several criteria in the NCB,
19 Neighborhood Conservation Buffer district, which this
20 site is in, that deal with the building articulation,
21 scale of the building, and setbacks at -- increased
22 setbacks as you get above 18 feet. The building has
23 been determined to meet the requirements set forth in
24 that section of the Land Use Code. Therefore, staff
25 has determined that the project does comply and is
7
1 recommending approval of the Shields Street Lofts
2 Project Development Plan.
3 I'd be available for any questions.
4 MS. MEYER: Thank you. Troy?
5 MR. JONES: Hi. My name is Troy Jones. I'm
6 with M. Torgerson Architects, and I'm representing the
7 applicant here tonight. And I do have a PowerPoint
8 show I wanted to pull up real quick.
9 MS. MEYER: But I have something that I want
10 you to speak to, too.
11 MR. JONES: Okay.
12 MS. MEYER: If -- since our code only speaks
13 to maximums for parking, based on the amount of square
14 footage that -- I want you to speak to if we had
15 minimums for the commercial part of this, how many
16 parking spaces might be allowed for that based on the
17 square footage you're giving here?
18 MR. JONES: If we had minimums? I mean, if
19 the maximums were instead minimums?
20 MS. MEYER: Uh-huh.
21 MR. JONES: Okay. I have a slide on that,
22 actually.
23 MS. MEYER: Okay. I figured you would.
24 Thank you.
25 MR. JONES: Okay. I just wanted to clarify a
0
1 couple things in addition to what Steve described as
2 part of the presentation. If we can go here for a
3 minute.
4 Okay. A couple things I wanted to, in the
5 presentation, touch on. I won't repeat all of the
6 things that -- that Steve just said. But one of the
7 things that I think is really important to start with,
8 as you're thinking through, does this building fit
9 here, is this a good place for this building, is it
10 designed to be compatible with the neighborhood, I
11 think a good place to start is the purpose of the NCB's
12 zone district, or the Neighborhood Conservation Buffer
13 zone district. And in�a nutshell, it's intended to be
14 a transition between existing residential areas and
15 busy arterial or -- and/or existing commercial areas.
16 So I -- I think keep that in mind. Does this building
17 transition adequately between those two things?
18 We've got Shields Street on -- directly on
19 the east of us, which is as you all know, very busy.
20 7-Eleven directly north of us, and -- and a
21 neighborhood directly west of us. Across Shields we
22 also have a'neighborhood, but we do have Shields in
23 between us and the neighborhood across.
24 This partially addresses your question.
25 There's -- there's a staggered demand, I guess is the
0
1 first part of your question, in that residential uses,
2 people go to work and come home or go to school and
3 come home. And during the business day, there's --
4 there's fewer cars that are going to be using a parking
5 space. So as Steve explained, you know, we're - our
6 minimum parking spaces required as far as the
7 residential goes is nine spaces. The code won't let us
8 go over six spaces if our -- of commercial if our use,
9 based on our square footage, were to be business and
10 service shops. And if we did general office -- those
11 are the only two nonresidential uses we specified --
12 would be a maximum of five additional spaces.
13 Now, that's a maximum, not a minimum. So I
14 can't really speak to if -- if it was a minimum, what
15 would that number.be. But at least the City doesn't
16 want it -- there to be more than six spaces in the --
17 in one case and five in the other for the commercial
18 component.
19 Now, this commercial component, just to
20 reiterate, is 1439 square feet. So that -- you know,
21 that could be an insurance agent with, you know, one or
22 two employees. Potentially it could be, you know, an
23 architect's office. It could be, you know, just
24 general office. You know, it could vary in the number
25 of employees, obviously, depending on what type of
10
1 business it is.
2 Let's me continue on with a few points that I
3 wanted to make. Compatibility, there's -- there's a
4 lot of parts to the definition of compatibility. I
5 know this. This is straight out of Article 5 in the
6 Land Use Code. But the points that -- that seem to be
7 the most applicable in this case talk about,
8 compatibility is those characteristics of the building
9 that allow them to be located adjacent to other things
10 that aren't the same in harmony. And then on down near
11 the bottom, it clarifies, compatibility does not mean
12 the same as.
13 It really is the -- the essence of it is, is
14 can it coexist with what's around it harmoniously. And
15 I'd like to explain that this building surely does.
16 Another point of -- of clarification that I'd
17 like to make, is we really have a two and a half story
18 building based on the definition in Article 5 of a half
19 story. And I think that's important to point out. In
20 our first neighborhood meeting, we had a real kind of
21 downtown looking commercial building that we presented
22 to the neighborhood. They said, "That looks too urban
23 for us. Can you" -- "can you maybe do a pitched roof?
24 Can you kind of bring it down and hide a little bit?"
25 And we -- we said, "Well, let's" -- "we'll go back to
11
1 the drawing board and we'll" -- "we'll relook at that
2 again."
3 And I want to go back to that screen shot of
4 the elevation real quick to just illustrate the point.
5 But we've done that. It's no longer a completely
6 three-story building with a flat roof parapet like we
7 had started. We -- we've made it a more residential
8 character on the upper part with -- with pitched roofs
9 and with, you know, space tucked into that half story.
10 But it's not a full story as -- as it's defined in the
11 Land Use Code, you know, which -- which I think is a --
12 is a good point to consider as you, you know, think
13 about compatibility, as you think about how we've
14 responded to neighborhood input through this process.
15 And let's see. I think that's -- that's
16 really all I had to say. I look forward to the
17 discussion, if you'd like, and I'm available for
18 questions.
19 MS. MEYER: Okay. Where do we want to start?
20 Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. The question
21 is, do we want public input first? Okay.
22 MS. SCHMIDT: Troy, do you have a shot of --
23 from the west of -- of the building? Yeah. I'm just
24 wondering, are there going to be doors to these garages
25 or just open parking underneath? And -- and then also
12
1 what kind of access is there from the apartments onto
2 the deck?
3 MR. JONES: The -- there isn't a picture from
4 that angle in the PowerPoint show. Do you know if the
5 PMTs, were they provided? Did they get that in the
6 packet at all? They didn't?
7 MS. SCHMIDT: And maybe it --
8 MR. JONES: I can explain the answer to your
9 question with the diagrams that I have, though. As you
10 can see in this part right here, where I've got that
11 arrow moving around?
12 MS. SCHMIDT: Uh-huh.
13 MR. JONES: That's a breezeway. I'm going to
14 back up to the site plan. But there's a stairway
15 within that breezeway that goes up to that -- to that
16 balcony -- or that patio area above the parking spots.
17 From a side view, you can see right here, the parking
18 spaces are tucked back in behind this wall. And this
19 is kind of that -- that roof of -- of that -- of the
20 structure above the parking spaces that's also this
21 kind of outdoor patio.
22 And you can see on the -- the site plan,
23 again, here's that breezeway. The stairs going up to
24 that breezeway are right here. So the folks getout of
25 their car. They walked down the sidewalk, into the
13
1 breezeway, up the stairs, onto the patio. And then
2 they -- they enter their units that way. Or if they
3 happen to be a pedestrian when they enter the building,
4 they come from the sidewalk. They come into the
5 building, into the breezeway, up the stairs, and then
6 into their units that way. with the exception of this
7 unit down here, which is -- is a residential unit on
8 the ground floor, and then that just has a door there.
9 But you can see this dotted line on this is
10 kind of the -- the representation of where the roofline
11 above those parking spots is for that patio.
12 MS. MEYER: Okay.
13 MR. LINGLE: Just to follow up on that little
14 bit. I -- Troy, can you explain programmatically what
15 the -- what the function of that huge deck is? Because
16 when you look at it in -- in regards to the site plan,
17 it looks like it's equal to the footprint of the entire
18 level of interior residential space on that floor and
19 it's all connected into one large deck. There's --
20 it's not broken into individual decks that are more
21 private and --
22 MR. JONES: Yeah. I mean, it could be. At
23 this point, it's -- you know, we haven't done the
24 architectural working drawings yet. So we haven't
25 worked out whether or not there's private, semiprivate,
14
1 sectioning off of that patio. But in an urban
2 environment, where they're kind of a -- a building
3 of -- of this program, it's just a -- to allow outdoor
4 gathering space. It's yard that happens to be on a
5 patio, rather than a yard. It's, you know, that
6 outdoor backyard -type function for that space.
7 MR. LINGLE: Okay. How -- how many feet is
8 it from your west property line?
9 MR. JONES: To the patio?
10 MR. LINGLE: Uh-huh.
11 MR. JONES: Well, we've got -- we've got five
12 feet from the patio line to the start of the drive
13 aisle. The drive aisle is 20 feet, I believe. And so
14 25 plus another 1 or 2. So like 27ish. I don't know
15 off the top -- off the top of my head, but . . .
16 MR. LINGLE: Okay. Thank you.
17 MS. CRAIG: If I understood you
18 correctly, the patio, balcony, whatever, that's their
19 only way into their apartments; is that right?
20 MR. JONES: The -- the upper units, they
21 enter in the breezeway into -- into the building space,
22 but right. 'They're units --
23 MS. CRAIG: Okay. So you couldn't -- you
24 couldn't really section them off because the person at
25 the end couldn't get to theirs. They would have to go
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through everybody's. So that that area kind of needs
to be a common area, does it not?
MR. JONES: Well, I guess it would depend on
how you design it. For example -- and I don't have a
portable microphone. But I'm going to point a -- well,
here with the -- with the mouse. You've got a laser.
Here we go.
Okay. So for example, if you were to come up
the stairs and -- and this was all basically a common
area that went straight from the top of the stairs and
then what if the -- you know, the common -- the common
area was along the rail here and then each individual
unit had their own yard space in front of their unit,
that could work. We haven't designed that part yet.
That -- that was more of an architectural building
permit kind of --
MS. CRAIG: So how many feet are we talking
about up there right now as a common area? I mean,
leaving it all open as a common area --
MR. JONES: How much what?
MS. CRAIG: Feet?
MR. JONES: How many square feet is that?
MS. CRAIG. The width? The width?
MR. JONES: Oh, how wide is it?
MS. CRAIG: Right. I'm --
15
16
1 MR. JONES: Not off the top of my head.
2 Let's see.
3 MS. CRAIG: I'm just trying to envision how
4 you would leave enough for a common area as well as the
5 individual --
6 MR. JONES: Well, I see a dimension of --
7 here that's 24 and a half from a -- that looks a little
8 bit wider. So it's probably like 22 feet from the
9 building face to the edge of the patio, approximately.
10 MS. CRAIG: Okay. Another question I had,
11 Troy, I was reading in the Land Use Code about how
12 much -- the density that would be permitted on this
13 piece of property. And maybe you can clarify that a
14 little bit for me. I was -- from what I'm reading
15 here, it kind of sounds like you can have up to 24 per
16 acre. But this is .22. So that's about 25 percent.
17 So you could have had 6? Is that -- am I coming up
18 with this right?
19 MR. JONES: You're talking about the number
20 of dwelling units that you can get --
21 MS. CRAIG: I'm trying to get an idea of --
22 MR. JONES: -- more. But the bigger
23 restriction is, it's basically a -- the lot size -- or
24 the building -- excuse me. The building square footage
25 can be no more square footage than the lot size, so
17
1 basically a one-to-one ratio. So this building square
2 footage is the same square footage as the lot size.
3 And that's more restrictive, I think, than the number
4 of units. We could have made more units, but we would
5 have had to park more units and we would have had to
6 have smaller units. And so it just didn't make sense
7 to have any more than five.
8 MS. CRAIG: Okay. So this would be really
9 the maximum that could be put on this lot, five.
10 MR. JONES: It -- it could be -- I mean, if
11 you did creative things like underground parking or
12 something, if you could fit it on here, there may be a
13 way to get more if you did the over/under-parking
14 mechanisms that you find in some big cities, maybe.
15 But I don't -- I don't think it would really make much
16 sense to do more than that here.
17 MS. CRAIG: Okay. I was just trying to kind
18 of get a feel of -- of what was intended in this area,
19 as far as density, etc. Thank you, Troy.
20 MS. SCHMIDT: Is that also -- besides
21 structural concerns on the deck, I mean, I'm thinking
22 that you could have made the building somewhat shorter
23 and gone out over to that patio and just left a walkway
24 along the edge instead of doing that large deck idea.
25 MR. JONES: I guess we saw the large deck as
18
1 a good thing for the units because, you know, otherwise
2 they've just got a parking lot outside of their units.
3 So we thought, what -- you know, why not give them some
4 usable space. I guess that's really what we were
5 thinking. It never occurred to us that it was too big.
6 MS. SCHMIDT: I guess my concern is just that
7 it -- as you said, in your packet, that it's probably
8 going to be college student rentals. I mean, it's a
9 pretty ideal location, I think, for having a lot of
10 parties. And being raised like that, a 6-foot fence
11 doesn't give you much buffering from the neighbors
12 since you're elevated a whole story. So it's a little
13 different than just having a party in your backyard
14 because now you're -- you're raising the whole thing.
15 And I guess I just have some concerns about that.
16 MR. JONES: I guess that's -- that's one
17 reason why we were kind of happy to -- to add more
18 trees there as -- as part of our alternative compliance
19 request. It really did make a lot of sense as well to
20 have, you know, a lot of trees that, once they're full
21 growth, it's really going to buffer that, particularly
22 in the summer months when you're going to have a lot
23 of -- you know, that view being blocked by the trees.
24 MR. LINGLE: A couple other things. .I
25 noticed in the minutes of the neighborhood meeting that
k&"
1 you talk about a potential for a -- some sort of a
2 vehicle lift to increase the amount of parking. Is
3 that not --
4 MR. JONES: Yeah. We decided not to go that
5 way.
6 MR. LINGLE: Okay. And the second thing is,
7 could you explain -- it looks like you've some kind of
8 a drainage channel along your south property line and
9 then up the west property line and then a flow pan --
10 MR. JONES: Right.
11 MR. LINGLE: -- in the parking lot. Can you
12 explain what your -- what your drainage design is and
13 how it relates to detention on -site and that kind of
14 thing?
15 MR. JONES: Well, we've got -- and if I don't
16 answer this right, Brian Shear's here. And he can jump
17 up and clarify. But basically our detention is within
18 the parking lot area. We've coordinated that through
19 the -- you know, the Stormwater Department. And
20 they're -- they're fine with that. But you know, the
21 outfall, basically this pan, you know, starts here,
22 curves all the way. And the outfall is ultimately out
23 onto the curb and gutter on Shields. Does that answer
24 your question?
25 MR. LINGLE: Well, yeah. That's -- that's
1 the way it looked like it was working. And how -- how
2 does the water quality treatment of that work, or -- or
3 has that been waived?
4 MR. JONES: I'm going to have to defer to
5 Brian. I -- I don't know.
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MR. SHEAR: Brian Shear of Shear Engineering,
4836 South College. The water quality issue has been
waived because it's in a basin that directs stormwater
to a common water quality pond. I can't remember what
the name of it is. Rudolph? So it has been waived.
MR. LINGLE: It has been waived? Okay.
One -- one other question about -- I'm sorry, Sally.
I'm assuming the residential unit on the south at the
ground level is to accommodate your handicap
adaptability requirements to -- for the overall --
MR. JONES: That's -- that's one reason. The
other is, that was a lot more square footage of
commercial than we wanted to. You know, given the --
you know, the parking situation, we -- we didn't think
it made sense to make it any bigger than what we have.
MR. LINGLE: Okay. I -- it -- really it's
not something that necessarily has anything to do with
an approval by the P&Z, but just be aware that, you
know, having a common amenity of that.deck on the
second level that's not accessible from that unit,
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1 would kind of put you out of compliance with the Fair
2 Housing Act and some of those related requirements.
3 MR. OLT: If I might interject at this point,
4 just as a matter of fact, talking with the Building
5 Department yesterday. I think as I was concerned, you
6 know, relative to the handicap parking space and -- and
7 that requirement. In talking with the Building
8 Department, there's less than six dwelling units here.
9 And they told me there is no handicap accessible
10 requirement in this building.
11 MR. LINGLE: I guess --
12 MR. JONES: That's voluntary.
13 MR. LINGLE: I guess my suggestion would be,
14 check the Fair Housing Act --
15 MR. JONES: Right. We'll look at that.
16 MR. LINGLE: -- because I think the trigger
17 is for their --
18 MR. JONES: Okay.
19 MS. MEYER: Okay.
20 MS. CARPENTER: Troy, what is the floor level
21 of that deck? I mean, how high is it? Is it -- do you
22 have that anywhere? I'm . . .
23 MR. JONES: I'm -- I'm going to have to give
24 you a guesstimate. I don't have it off the top of my
25 head here. But based on -= let's see. Our floor to --
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our floor to peak looks to be dimensioned at -- that's
a fuzzy slide. With the floor deck, I mean, I -- my
guesstimate, it's about 11 feet, if, based on . . .
You've got three different floors from floor to peak.
It's about 30 feet. It's 10 or 11 feet to the -- where
you're standing on the deck.
MS. CARPENTER: Okay. So you add a 6-foot
guy standing there, they're at about 17 -- 16, 17 feet.
Are there -- are they not going to be -- have you done
anything about where they're going to be -- the site
line would be down into the backyards? These are
single-family homes to the west; is that correct?
MR. JONES: To the west is single-family
homes. There's -- basically, if -- if I remember
correctly, there's one lot directly west that fronts
onto Myrtle. And then it -- it has alley access. So
it's basically looking out into the backyard portion of
the adjacent series of lots that have alley frontage.
MS. CARPENTER: Okay. I guess I'm having the
same concern as -- as the rest of my colleagues here of
the party aspect, looking over into -- right into
people's backyards. What size trees are those that
you're planning on putting in?
MR. JONES: The standard caliper for,-- in
the Land Use Code. I think it's a 2-inch caliper.
exa
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MS. CARPENTER: So it's going to be a while
before those are big enough.
MR. JONES: Right. They'd be -- they'd be
canopy shade trees. So when they eventually grew in,
they'd be the -- you know, the ones that get really big
and tall.
MS. CARPENTER: Well, sure. But it's going
to be a while before that happens if you're putting in
the smaller trees. Okay. Thank you.
Oh, while I've got you -- Steve, were you
able to find me any information on the house that's
coming down there and what happened with that, as far
as how old it is and did it go through?
MR. OLT: I did not see any response from
Historic Preservation in the file. At conceptual
review, the applicant was, you know, basically
instructed to -- to contact them. And in their --
their responses, they submitted, you know, was they
acknowledge that fact. And I -- so I'm going to have
to really defer that question to the applicant.
Because in the file, I -- I see no response from
Advanced Planning on that.
MS. CARPENTER: Okay. Troy, how -- do you
know how old that house was?
MR. JONES: Yeah. Our -- our client talked
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1 to Karen before we were hired. I'm not sure what the
2 answer to the question is, other than Karen didn't
3 comment during the review. So our -- our client said
4 that he had worked it out with Karen. Karen didn't
5 comment. So I can only assume that it's -- it's fine.
6 But if -- you know, if that's one sticking point, we'd
7 be happy with a condition that says, you know, the
8 Historic -- it goes through proper Historic
9 Preservation channels and that, in fact, this house is
10 able to be moved or torn down. We'd be happy with a
11 condition if it came to that.
12 MS. CARPENTER: Okay. Because at this point,
13 I don't even know if that's over 50 years old, if
14 that's an appropriate condition or not, but I --
15 MR. JONES: It's -- it's in really bad shape.
16 I think it's over 50 years old. But it had some weird
17 additions to it. If I -- and I think that's -- that's
18 about all I know. That's why I'm thinking that -- that
19 all sounds correct, that Historic Preservation would
20 have said it's okay to tear it down.
21 MS. CARPENTER: Okay. Thank you.
22 MS. SCHMIDT: Troy, I've got one more
23 question. How -- are there any entrances to the
24 commercial from the west side of the building, or, if
25 when people park there, they're going to have to walk
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around to --
MR. JONES: They'd -- they'd need to walk
through the breezeway and out to the front.
Although -- well, we don't have the full architectural
building permit drawings done yet. If we had an
occupant that wanted a door out to the back, it could
accommodate it because there's a sidewalk right there.
Let me back up the slide.
Our intent was to just have them walk through
the breezeway and around the front. But it could be --
it could be easily accommodated to have a door along
that -- you know, the back of that space.
MS. SCHMIDT: Uh-huh.
MS. CARPENTER: So are you going to have
assigned parking spaces back here for the different
units, or how is that going to work?
MR. JONES: We haven't got that far in our
thought process, I guess.
MS. CARPENTER: I guess my concern is --
MR. JONES: Probably at least one space per
unit. And then there would be a couple extra to fight
over.
MS. CARPENTER: And that would be shared
parking, you're assuming then, for the commercial, is
that the --
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MR. JONES: Yeah. Within the -- the business
hours, the assumption would be that some of the cars
would move out and go about their -- whatever their
daily, you know, driving needs are. And so if there's
customers coming and going, there'd at least be a few
spaces cleared out. So we haven't thought through
exactly how that shared parking works. But we would
want it to be -- those -- those business users to be
able to use those empty space. So we'd have to think
through how -- how best to work that.
MS. CARPENTER: I guess my concern about that
would be that I think those are probably going to be
full of -- I mean, students don't usually drive onto
campus. One of the advantages of this would be the
ability to walk to campus. So daytime, I would think
those spaces are going to be full. And I'm just
concerned about there not being any parking at all for
the commercial.
MR. JONES: It's -- it's weird where that
threshold is. And we've -- we've talked about it over
the years with different projects of -- of how close to
campus does a student walk and how close -- I mean, how
far away is where they get in their car and drive. For
example, Cambridge House Apartments came before you a
couple of years ago. And it's right across the street
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from Moby Arena. And it was shown with their
statistics that, well, they -- they just don't have a
lot of cars because they were so close. The Clock
Tower Apartments a couple of years ago as well. The
P&Z Board said, "You know what? I think they're far
enough away they're going to drive." And so the
modification for parking on that one was denied.
This is a little bit further away than Clock
Tower. So on that same logic, at least some of those
students are probably going to drive to campus. And
some of them will probably walk or bike. But there
will be probably some of those spaces clearing out
because it's -- you know, it's -- to the academic core
of campus, it's, you know, probably three-quarters of a
mile. Some of them will try to park closer; some of
them won't.
MS. CARPENTER: Sure. I'm assuming that
since you have the minimum parking spaces allowed for
the five commercial -- or the five residential units,
that you wouldn't be able to do any -- to assign any of
those to that commercial.
MR. JONES: Yeah. I wonder if we could -- we
could assign them during certain hours, you know, that
this residence has this parking space between the hours
of, you know, 6:00 p.m. and 8:00 a.m. or something
P.il
1 and -- otherwise, it's fair game. I mean, that might
2 be a way to go about it. I don't know.
3 MR. ECKMAN: I don't think that would work.
4 The -- the Code requires, I think, if I'm correct, nine
5 spaces for the residential units, not just nine at
6 night or at any particular time. They have to be
7 available for the residential units at all times. Now
8 the Code also -- and Steve can probably, since he has
9 the Code, quote it precisely. But it seems to me it
10 says that you cannot use a shared parking concept
11 between commercial and residential. You can between
12 commercial and commercial uses, but not residential.
13 So it seems to me that you ought to consider
14 that this project has nine residential parking spaces
15 and no spaces for commercial. Now, the -- that may be
16 a nonissue because the Code doesn't require any spaces
17 for the commercial. But I think that you can't really
18 consider it to be official shared parking. In the
19 staff report, they referred to it as staggered hours or
20 whatever. So maybe in an unofficial way, people will
21 be able to park in those residential spaces during the
22 daytime. But it's -- I would not recommend that they
23 be designated as, for a certain number of hours,
24 commercial parking spaces.
25 MR. STOCKOVER: I would -- you know, that was
29
1 one my concerns. And -- and in Section 3.2.2(g), and
2 I'll read it, "Shared parking. Where mix of uses
3 creates staggered peak periods of parking demand, which
4 we have here, shared parking calculations shall be made
5 to reduce the total amount of required parking. Retail
6 office, institutional, and entertainment uses may share
7 parking areas. In no case shall shared parking include
8 the parking required for residential units."
9 And then as we read through the Code, I
10 just -- and maybe this is something for discussion, we
11 don't have minimum parking requirements. But I think
12 the intent of the Code is, as I read it, adequate
13 parking. So I really have parking concerns with this
14 one because I -- I just -- I see a fight. And -- and
15 you said it yourself. Then they get to fight what's --
16 what's left over. And I just -- I'd like to hear how
17 you address that. How do you mitigate that?
18 MR. JONES: Well, I guess the mitigation is
19 that unofficial sharing that Paul alluded to. I mean,
20 it's an urban situation. It's right on an arterial.
21 It's right near campus. It's -- it's a good place to
22 put density. You're going to have parking problems
23 when you're in an urban situation. You're going to
24 have to be creative. People are going to be -- that --
25 that don't have two cars, might choose to live here
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because they're not worried about parking problems if
they don't have two cars.
It's -- it's, I guess, something that it's --
it's a recurring problem in infill development,
particularly when it's of an urban nature. The NCB
zone allowing a one-to-one ratio between land area and
building area, saying that, you know, it's a buffer
between this arterial and the residential areas. It --
it seems to kind of set up that problem that we're
going to continue to run into here and in downtown and
in -- in other urban -type development.
I don't think it's a function of this
particular project. It's just a function of an -- an
urban character with suburban expectations.
MS. SCHMIDT: Troy, considering that sharing
concept, have there been any discussions? Because I
think partly the design of the building too nice, then
you could put a door in the back, but doesn't lend
itself to people swinging around and parking in the
back and walking all the way around. They'll just park
wherever they can over at 7-Eleven and then just walk
over. Has there been any discussion with 7-Eleven to
see if there's a possibility of sharing parking? Do
they -- is their parking filled all the time, or,do
people mostly, you know, go get gas and then walk in
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1 the store and so there are available parking spaces
2 there?
3 MR. JONES: We haven't had those discussions
4 with them. They do have a vacant building next to
5 7-Eleven. So you've got 7-Eleven right on the corner.
6 There's a vacant retail building just unoccupied. I --
7 I haven't seen anything in there for years. It -- you
8 know, it depends. If they have vacant -- sometimes you
9 see vacant spots in there. Sometimes right at a peak,
10 you don't. But we have -- we haven't approached them
11 for shared parking.
12 The assumption that we had in not approaching
13 them is that if and when that retail store or whoever
14 occupies, I mean, they're going to want to have
15 whatever available parking they have for their own
16 site.
17 MR. LINGLE: Steve, you've got a -- in your
18 staff report, a section on project compatibility that
19 addresses primarily architectural and massing and
20 materials and roofline and that kind of thing. Did you
21 analyze this in terms of a more subjective neighborhood
22 compatibility with some of the issues we've been
23 talking about so far with the -- the elevated deck and
24 the parking and all those kinds of things together?
25 MR. OLT: Well, I think I tried to, you know,
32
1 express it in the staff report, the building is, okay,
2 a two -and -a -half -story building versus a -- you know,
3 in total height versus a three-story. That is a
4 permitted height in the NCB zoning district. I
5 compared it to, granted, the -- the residential housing
6 in the area are all one-story dwelling units. For the
7 most part, I -- I, quite frankly, can't think of any of
8 two-story. There might be some, but I can't think of
9 where they are.
10 You have one structure a half a block to the
11 north and east that I made a comparison to. It's a
12 large home which now acts as a State Farm office
13 building which would be a similar in -- in height,
14 scale, mass; the church, of course, which is across the
15 street slightly -- slightly south and east.
16 But again, when we look at this as being in
17 that -- that first half block on Shields Street as a
18 transition to the neighborhood, by virtue of the design
19 of the building, when it first came in, it was
20 literally a rectangular building, squared off that was
21 almost three stories in height at the setback line all
22 the way from the ground up, that was not complying with
23 the requirements in the Land Use Code relative to,
24 after you reach a certain buildingheight, you have to
25 start stepping back to bring a building of this nature
33
1 in character with the surrounding area. And they've
2 done that in -- in a good fashion, actually, relative
3 to the initial submittal.
4 So you look at the building mass. If you
5 look at the -- the end elevations, the width of the
6 building is -- is not real dramatic. Certainly there's
7 that -- that second -level patio that everyone has been
8 talking about. But the building itself, the building
9 mass is -- is not real deep, not real wide. You're
10 looking at four units across on Shields Street, but
11 again, that faces an arterial street. And it does
12 have, as a ground floor component, a nonresidential
13 use.
14 I found it difficult to, you know, determine
15 otherwise, that it really wasn't compatible as a
16 transitional use to the surrounding areas.
17 MS. MEYER: Thank you. Anybody else? Are we
18 close to a motion?
19 MS. SCHMIDT: Well, we have to have public
20 comment.
21 MS. MEYER: Oh, that's right. Now we can
22 have public comment. We have some ground rules.
23 Everybody's allowed three minutes. If you have a
24 spokesperson for like a -- a homeowner's association or
25 something like that, they get 10 minutes with the end
34
1 caveat that that means they're speaking for the group.
2 That doesn't mean that they speak for 10 minutes and
3 then the whole group comes up, too.
4 And we have two microphones up here. And you
5 have to sign in. And in the interest of time, could
6 you just stand up when the other person is about
7 getting done so that we don't have blank times when
8 nobody's talking or speaking?
9 Okay. With that said, is there anybody that
10 wants to speak to this issue? Well, come up.
11 That's -- you have -- and if you want to talk, you have
12 to come forward. And there's two microphones. Oh, and
13 you have to tell us who you are and sign in.
14 MR. MOSCRIP: Do you have a pen?
15 MS. MEYER: Well, I guess I don't want you to
16 sign in real badly.
17 MR. MOSCRIP: It doesn't work here. Okay.
18 My name is Shaun Moscrip. My address is 616 Monte
19 Vista Avenue. I got one that works.
20 There's a couple of issues I'd like to bring
21 up. First of all, Troy talked quite a bit about
22 compatibility. And it was mentioned just a couple of
23 minutes ago about the scale. I'd like you to keep in
24 mind that most of our houses are single -story, .
25 approximately 17 feet tall'to the highest point of
35
1 roof. This building is 7,000 square feet, about 5
2 times as big and about -- about twice as tall. So it's
3 not really -- compatibility is more than just the
4 materials. It's also scale and size.
5 A couple of issues I have. One, with the
6 site plan, I'm a little concerned about the accessible
7 handicap spot being on one end of the parking lot
8 versus where the accessible apartment unit is.
9 As far as parking goes, with 1400 square feet
10 of commercial space, this would allow for approximately
11 30 occupants at one time in this building. And I know
12 maybe not every one of those 30 occupants would be
13 there at one time, but that's an awful lot of people
14 that could fit in this building per the Building Code.
15 And that's a lot of parking, including parking that
16 would be overflowed into our neighborhood.
17 I don't know if it's in the minutes, but it
18 was discussed at the neighborhood meeting that
19 7-Eleven, Gilsdorf Garage, and the church would not
20 allow shared parking in their parking lots.
21 One of my last concerns is the two-story deck
22 that we talked about. This has been brought up quite a
23 few times. It's approximately 2,000 square feet as the
24 size it is right now. Per the Building Code, this
25 could hold a hundred to 200 people. We think this
36
1 is -- I think this could be a real problem with the
2 neighborhood if there's a large party that comes out
3 onto that deck.
4 And part of the Land Use Code, Section 4.8,
5 it says, "To the extent reasonably feasible, windows
6 that overlook abutting side or rear yards should be
7 minimized." I realize the deck's not a window, but
8 it's an open space that's above an adjacent lot. So I
9 think that should be taken into account. Thank you.
10 MS. MEYER: Thank you.
11 MR. SANDERSON: My name is John Sanderson.
12 I'm at 1012 Sunset Avenue. It's about five -- four
13 homes east of this development.
14 And I -- my issue, more than anything, is
15 this compatibility issue, which I think the physical
16 aspects of it perhaps have been adequately addressed.
17 It looks like it's a fine-looking building and all of
18 that. But I think it's a real big mistake to ignore
19 the social aspects of this compatibility issue. And we
20 know that City Council has been grappling with rentals
21 in residential areas.
22 1And we are a residential neighborhood still,
23 and it's -- it's nice (sic) to think that just because
24 we're so close to CSU, we're just a big rental
25 neighborhood. But we are a lot of long-time homeowners
37
1 there. And
we
are trying very hard to maintain some
2 cohesion in
the
neighborhood and maintain some quiet.
3 There are several of us who have already
4 thought that perhaps we're going to need to leave
5 before too long because we're being already
6 continuously harassed by noise in that neighborhood;
7 parties, both large and small, lots of traffic on
8 Sunset
Avenue going down
Monte Vista. And so these
9 things
need to be taken
into account.
10 And personally, I feel like this parking
11 issue has been grossly inadequately addressed by the
12 project proponents. To -- to think that -- that there
13 are going to be plenty of spaces open for commercial
14 use of that area with already -- I mean, how many
15 residents -- roughly 10 residents minimum are going to
16 be living there, maybe more the way landlords tend to
17 pack in their -- their rental units here. And to think
18 that there are going to be sufficient parking areas for
19 those commercial establishments is -- is -- it doesn't
20 fly in -- in my assessment at all.
21 And so where are they going to go? They're
22 not going to go to 7-Eleven which is, incidentally,
23 already a problem in our neighborhood with the loud
24 motorcycles and the 24-hour traffic there. So they're
25 going to be parking in the 'adjacent neighborhoods. And
38
1 I'd like to reiterate that these neighborhoods are
2 residential neighborhoods. They're not -- they're not
3 rental neighborhoods.
4 So those are my points. Thank you.
5 MS. MEYER: Thank you.
6 MR. MCMAHAN: My name is Andrew McMahan. I
7 live at 605 Monte Vista Avenue, just less than a block
8 from the development. This is my first time addressing
9 a body such as this. So am I allowed to ask questions,
10 or am I just allowed to provide comments?
11 MS. MEYER: You may comment and you can ask
12 questions, but they won't be answered until later.
13 MR. MCMAHAN: Okay. Well, one question I
14 have is I'm wondering --
15 MS. MEYER: This is a question -and -answer
16 period --
17 MR. MCMAHAN: -- what is -- is -- as far as
18 this item on this agenda with this body tonight, are --
19 are you folks going to be making a decision toward a
20 recommendation, or are you just having a hearing and
21 discussing the item tonight?
22 1MS. MEYER: When it comes on our agenda, we
23 make a decision if we're the decision -making body.
24 MR. MCMAHAN: Okay. One, I'm wondering --
25 can -- can we put the map up of the plot? The map that
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shows those -- larger site area from Laurel Street up
to Mulberry. The one that's on the back of the . . .
And, Steve, can I borrow your pointer?
I guess two points. One, the -- on the
parking, the staggered demand concept, in my mind,
doesn't really hold much water being the fact that
we're -- it will be mostly students and will be two
blocks from CSU.
There was discussion of the notion of
compatibility. And part of that in that definition,
the word "harmony" came up to me. As John just
mentioned, the Caroline Mantz Neighborhood is quite a
unique neighborhood for one of the neighborhoods that
surrounds CSU. It is mostly owner occupied. If you
haven't been there, I strongly urge you to drive
through or walk through that neighborhood. It's quite
a unique, beautiful neighborhood.
Traffic. This is an alleyway right here
(indicating). That alleyway, in my opinion, is going
to experience significant increased traffic as -- where
that alley intersects the property is the access point
to that parking there. I received a phone call from a
resident on Mulberry last night saying that in the past
few months three cats have been killed in that alley
from the traffic that's going through there already.
39
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1 I also believe there's going to be
2 significant increased traffic through our neighborhood
3 from the students that will be living there.
4 That's all I have.
5 MS. MEYER: Thank you.
6 MS. SIU AU LEE: My name is Siu Au Lee. I
7 live at 939 Pioneer Avenue.
8 I again would like to address this issue
9 because it says that, can this project coexist
10 harmoniously with what is there. Troy also mentioned
11 that one should not have suburban aspirations in an
12 urban environment. I have lived in that neighborhood
13 for 23 years. I do not consider that I live in
14 suburbia. I consider that I live in a core area of the
15 city, a core neighborhood of the city, a neighborhood
16 that when you think about Fort Collins, it is what it
17 is. It's not suburbia. We choose to live there
18 because it's close to CSU; it's close to Old Town. We
19 want to maintain our quality of life.
20 As Troy keeps referring to Shields and
21 Mulberry as arterial streets, it is true. However, if
22 you look at the houses surrounding it, I'd like to
23 point out on this map. All of these areas are zoned
24 residential low density and/or neighborhood
25 conservation low density. They are all single-family
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housing. And so if you say there's a transition into
commercial or something, I want to ask, transitioning
to what? This is meant to be a buffer. And I want to
ask, buffering us against what?
Instead, this project introduced the kind of
things that are really harming core neighbors
throughout Fort Collins; namely large number of rentals
meant for students; huge stacks that are just party
central; inadequate parking. I don't know what
neighborhood conservation buffer means. To me, it
seems like it should be shielding the residential area
from the problems that we normally face with commercial
development. But instead, it's introducing all kinds
of problems.
So this is all I wanted to say. But I think
that people should start treating us living in core
neighborhoods, not just as someone that are just
transients and we don't care about the city and so on.
MS. MEYER: Thank you.
MS. ESTELLE: My name is Veronica Estelle,
and I live at 1012 Sunset Avenue. It's the fourth
house on Sunset Avenue on the north side of the street
from the proposed building. And I have a couple
comments.
It is true that already the intersection at
41
42
1 Mulberry and Shields is not only a busy intersection,
2 but also a very dangerous one. There is very loud,
3 very noisy traffic that passes there 24 hours a day,
4 but especially between the hours of midnight and 3:00
5 a.m.
6 I have talked to the police on many
7 occasions. 7-Eleven is already a problem in the
8 neighborhood. And I anticipate that this building will
9 only heighten our difficulties there.
10 It's a regular occurrence for me on weekends,
11 particularly the first two months of the academic year,
12 to call the police about parties that happen on
13 Mulberry right in our backyard. I don't anticipate
14 that this building will be any different from that.
15 And tonight I was very disappointed to hear
16 about this heightened deck. That will definitely
17 change my husband and my plan to add on to this house,
18 and it could affect our decision to stay in the
19 neighborhood. We had considered adding on a top level
20 to our house. But given this building, we won't be
21 doing that.
22 The other thing I'd like to comment on is the
23 parking. Maybe I'll back up. I also anticipate that
24 if this building goes in as planned, it could also
25 affect our property value.' And that's very
43
1 disappointing that the City would let that happen.
2 The other point I want to make is that our
3 street, Sunset Avenue, is already a through street.
4 People turn from Mulberry on to Pioneer and then Sunset
5 to avoid the intersection at Mulberry and Shields.
6 It's a quicker way around the traffic problem that
7 happens there, especially in the afternoons. They also
8 screech through in the middle of the night, at 2:00 in
9 the morning. We've called the police to just come and
10 sit and watch the traffic pattern there, but we've
11 gotten no response from that.
12 We also looked into, as a neighborhood,
13 closing off the west end of Sunset from Shields. We
14 got no response to that. We asked for speed bumps on
15 Sunset. We got no.response to that, saying that was
16 too dangerous. There's -- there's no control on that
17 street for the speed that people travel or the number
18 of people that zoom through there to avoid that
19 intersection at Mulberry and Shields.
20 You should also be aware that crossing from
21 the new building over to Sunset will be very dangerous
22 for pedestrians or bicyclists. I sometimes stand for
23 five minutes, even though there's a pedestrian
24 crosswalk with the large yellow sign trying to get
25 across Shields to go for a 'walk or go for a run. In my
44
1 opinion, that will be a very dangerous place. And
2 there will be people crossing to try to walk the campus
3 or on their late night forays to walk around.
4 So I hope you'll consider these things. It
5 is a social aspect. And there are a lot of points that
6 have not been brought up. Thank you.
7 MS. MEYER: Thank you. Thank you.
8 THE WITNESS: My name is Amy Hahn. I live at
9 612 Monte Vista Avenue.
10 I think -- I'm sorry to belabor a point here.
11 But when we're talking about parking, there is a big
12 point that Troy overlooked relative to the parking
13 situation. Think about the realities of student life.
14 We have some rentals in our neighborhood. They may
15 have two people. They may have four people living
16 there. Are there ever two or four cars? No. There's
17 usually more like eight, and that's because these
18 people have friends over; they have boyfriends,
19 girlfriends that spend the night, hang out. And when
20 they're staying at the Shields Lofts, where are they
21 going to park their cars? At the Caroline Mantz
22 subdivision. And we already have problems with that.
23 The other thing I wanted to say was that Troy
24 referred to Shields as it's an already existing major
25 artery that goes right past CSU. Well, Shields is a
M_
1 major artery that goes all the way through Fort Collins
2 north to south. In most sitdations, Shields is
3 surrounded on both sides by residences. Most of the --
4 most of Shields cut (sic) through neighborhoods on one
5 side or the other and frequently both sides. So it's
6 not a case of, oh, well, you know, it's just a business
7 lane anyways and that's -- we're just going to continue
8 with that kind of a synchronicity, for lack of a better
9 term, but, you know, you are really talking about
10 changing the -- I'm having a mental blank here.
11 You're -- you're changing the whole way that people
12 will look at that particular part of Shields. It won't
13 be residential anymore. It will really look commercial
14 because you've already got the church; you've already
15 got the 7-Eleven; you've got Gilsdorf around the
16 corner, and now you're going to have another tall
17 structure. And it's just -- it's going to change how
18 that whole area looks.
19 Thank you.
20 MS. MEYER: Thank you.
21 MS. YACKEL: Hi. My name is Amy Yackel
22 (phonetic).' And I'm a resident on Sunset Avenue, 1008.
23 And I too would just like to reiterate that
24 we live in a very special neighborhood. Mantz
25 Neighborhood is a wonderful place to live. It does
FAI
1 have its issues because we do have some student
2 rentals. And we work really hard with those students
3 to create a nice, welcoming atmosphere.
4 Something that I'd like to bring up. First,
5 I support a lot of what my neighbors have said. Those
6 are concerns that I have. I'd like to address
7 something else, and that is something that Troy
8 mentioned earlier.
9 Next to 7-Eleven is retail space. And
10 nothing has been in that retail space for at least four
11 years, since I moved and purchased a home in the
12 neighborhood. And this is not, I think, the ideal
13 commercial setting. And so I really have strong
14 concerns that commercial will even work in this area
15 and that the commercial space may lay vacant. And that
16 doesn't bode well, as well.
17 I have deep concerns over the deck, which I
18 am confident will become a party hot spot.
19 And I'll just leave it at that. Thank you
20 for your time.
21 MS. MEYER: Thank you.
22 MS. THOMPSON: I'm Edie Thompson. I've lived
23 31 years and 1 month at 623 Del Norte Place.
24 I was active in an ad hoc committee when the
25 west side neighborhood plan was in process. And my
MM
1 concern there, then and today, is the same. And you've
2 heard it from all of us, and that is, this is a -- an
3 area of homes, of residences. And my thesis is that a
4 city is strong and has viability when it protects its
5 neighbors. I've seen this in Chicago. The west --
6 the -- the Lakeshore Drive is not expanded because
7 neighborhoods are being preserved. This will be your
8 job and the job of all the P&Z boards to keep these
9 neighborhoods together.
10 A lot of this has been said before. I'll
11 skip that. I'll just say that we're middle-class
12 people. It's a -- and this is probably -- this
13 homeownership is probably the greatest investment we'll
14 have in our lives. Indeed, I'm thinking that my home
15 is going to be in lieu of long-term care. God forbid I
16 end up in a nursing home. But if I do, I would like my
17 property values to help keep me in that nursing home.
18 The proposed two -and -a -half, which some of us
19 might say, three-story building now under discussion is
20 not compatible. If you've ever seen any Edward Hopper
21 paintings, you know he loved Brooklyn and -- and red
22 brick buildings and -- right up on the street. This
23 would be a great building for Edward Hopper, but it
24 doesn't belong on Shields Street in -- within these
25 neighborhoods.
46
1 Pencils were made, but they've also given us
2 erasers. So if we make a wrong mistake, you can always
3 rub it out. That's my parting thought, and thank you.
4 MS. MEYER: Thank you.
5 MS. WATKINS: Hi there. My name is Roxanne
6 Watkins. I live at 1134 West Myrtle Street.
7 I just wanted to reiterate a couple of
8 things. And I guess you've heard a lot of this. But
9 pride of ownership in that neighborhood does exist. A
10 good example of this is at 1134 West Myrtle Street was
11 an abandoned lot. We've purchased that lot. We
12 scraped it. We cleaned it. We moved a house from Taft
13 Hill Road and Drake, where the widening project was,
14 put it on there and have put an extensive amount of
15 money into making it a home. I think there's a lot of
16 that in those neighborhoods. I think that we're
17 risking the pride of ownership that people have. And
18 you know, that's something that -- that people really,
19 really own. They -- they own that pride that it took
20 them; they put their sweat into those things. And
21 we're washing that away by just saying, you know, we
22 can just have a -- a deck that a hundred people can fit
23 on and look over your backyard. So it kind of makes
24 you not want to do things to your own home after you
25 purchased them. That's one thing.
49
1 Second, the alley behind 7-Eleven is a
2 through street from City Park Avenue to Shields.
3 There's already a lot of traffic out there. It's --
4 it's ridiculous. I think the overflow parking and the
5 traffic is going to not only go to 7-Eleven's parking
6 lot, but Gilsdorf Garage. Gilsdorf Garage, in my
7 opinion, has a lot of people driving in and out.
8 That's what they do. They're a garage. I think
9 there's a safety factor there if the traffic is
10 increased in that area and down that alleyway. I walk
11 my dog down that alleyway.
12 And I think -- it's my understanding a
13 traffic analysis was not done because it was said it
14 wasn't needed. I think that's wrong. I think that's a
15 bad thing to -- to do. I think we should have really
16 focused on traffic in that area.
17 Third, I just want to tell everybody that
18 it's my knowledge that the retail space next to
19 7-Eleven, which Southland Corporation a/k/a 7-Eleven
20 owns, is their training center. So it is being used.
21 It's not a vacant spot. It's where they train. There
22 are people that park there that come there. And it's
23 in full use. So there are no extra spots to share.
24 That's all I have to say.
25 MS. MEYER: Thank you. Anybody else? I'm
6191
1 sorry. Obviously, I left for a few minutes. I'm back
2 now.
3 MR. HOLMQUIST-JOHNSON: Hi. My name is Chris
4 Holmquist -Johnson. I live at 613 Armstrong Avenue,
5 roughly about a quarter mile from the site.
6 I'm writing to oppose the Shields Street
7 Lofts project. There will be a negative impact on
8 existing businesses such as Elderhaus, 7-Eleven, and
9 Gilsdorf Garage. The alley is currently used by
10 7-Eleven and Gilsdorf Garage for trucks, deliveries,
11 and other stops. If the alley is used as a street by
12 the occupants of the Shields Street Lofts, it could
13 potentially block fire and other emergency vehicles
14 from the neighboring businesses and neighborhood.
15 There have been a number of proposed
16 variances, such as parking, building height, drainage,
17 landscaping, setbacks, and the new one that we've not
18 saw tonight is the new patio -- you know, the raised
19 patio. These seem unreasonable and should not be
20 approved.
21 Given that the project is located in a
22 single-family area, the project should be required to
23 meet the codes and regulations that have been set by
24 the City.
25 The number of parking lots is not adequate
51
1 for the number of units. This will cause an additional
2 parking in front of the homes of residents and
3 surrounding neighborhood, Elderhaus, the church,
4 7-Eleven, and again, Gilsdorf Garage.
5 College students partying on their newly
6 raised deck and coming and going late at night will be
7 noisy and disruptive to the neighborhood.
8 Additionally, the increased traffic in the Caroline
9 Mantz Subdivision is unsafe for children and people
10 riding bicycles.
11 They talked about the student parking and
12 driving to campus that they thought, you know, spots
13 would be opened up because the students would drive to
14 campus. We live about a quarter mile closer to campus,
15 and we have students parking in front of our house
16 because it's the closest place they can park to campus.
17 And so the idea that the students living in these lots
18 are going to drive to campus because they're far enough
19 away, I think, is unreasonable because the only place
20 they can park closer is if they park on campus and pay
21 money for it. And they're not doing that now. They're
22 parking in our neighborhoods.
23 The other point I'd like to bring up is, they
24 talked about the tree buffer for the patio, that they
25 were going to plant these trees, that they would create
52
1 in the summertime this large foliage that would create
2 a buffer. The time that it's going to take for these
3 trees to grow into the mass that will be required to
4 provide a buffer on this size of a patio is far down
5 the road. And the other point is, that they mentioned
6 that the budding of the trees in the summer will
7 provide a greater buffer. And if it is mostly students
8 living there, it's the summertime, when they're gone,
9 and we don't have the problems with the noise. It's
10 during the spring and fall and winter months that we
11 have the majority of our noise problems with student
12 parties. So I don't see that as a viable solution to
13 the noise problems.
14 Thank you.
15 MS. MEYER: Thank you.
16 MS. HOLMQUIST: My name is Nancy Holmquist.
17 And I live in the --
18 MS. MEYER: There. Speak into it.
19 MS. HOLMQUIST: -- Caroline Mantz Subdivision
20 on Pioneer. I'm strongly opposed to putting this
21 gorgeous building in the suggested location. I have 10
22 points I'd `like to read through.
23 At one time, there were several variances
24 required for this building that shouldn't be necessary
25 for a neighborhood community.
53
1 Number 2, the alley congestion is already
2 significant.
3 Number 3, the safety of the residents in the
4 proposed loft is questionable due to inaccessibility of
5 adequate fire and ambulance.
6 The traffic on the -- number 4, the traffic
7 on the corner of Shields and Mulberry would increase,
8 by even one car, would be too much. Those two streets
9 were designated as designed to be single -- single -lane
10 traffic. And there currently, have two-lane traffic or
11 four -lane traffic, however you look at that.
12 Number 6, there's insufficient parking for
13 residents of the proposed loft.
14 Number 7, there's insufficient parking for
15 the employees of the stores beneath the condos or
16 apartments.
17 Number 8, there's insufficient parking for
18 the shoppers.
19 Number 9, there's more traffic close to Dunn
20 Elementary, which is a significant dangerous situation,
21 in my opinion. I've walked across that street a
22 multitude of times.
23 Number 10, increased noise in the area, which
24 is already plagued by late night noise.
25 And the last thing I have is that the
54
1 drainage situation makes me concerned. Although, I'm
2 not an expert in the West Nile breeding, that is --
3 terrified our community for several years now. And it
4 doesn't seem to be adequately addressed, that West Nile
5 breeding, stagnant water, if it rains and they don't
6 have great drainage. So I'd like that. That was
7 brought up by one of you.
8 Thank you.
9 MS. MEYER: Thank you.
10 MR. JOHNSON: My name is Mark Johnson. I'm
11 the owner of Gilsdorf Garage.
12 My concern rests primarily with the
13 aforementioned by everybody in adequate parking. I'd
14 like to point out that one of the nine parking spaces
15 is designated as handicapped. If there's no one
16 handicapped living in that -- in those lofts, that
17 space will remain empty. You're left with eight spaces
is for five residential units of two bedrooms apiece. You
19 can do the math.
20 My concern is, commercial has no place to put
21 their employees, no place to put their customers. The
22 overflow from the commercial, the overflow from the
23 residential, and there will be overflow for the
24 residential when they have visitors, things like that,
25 the two most likely places for that overflow to occur
55
1 is the 7-Eleven lot, the Gilsdorf Garage lot. It's a
2 real natural. You have your -- your one and only
3 entryway into this property going in a northern --
4 northerly and southerly direction right off the alley,
5 and it's a dead end. There's no access from the south
6 side in the back of this property to get in or out.
7 It's a -- it's a down, and then it's a back.
8 People coming out of there will likely --
9 their only access is the alley. Part of what will
10 happen is, that traffic will also filter through our --
11 our parking lot, interfering with our operations and
12 creating quite a safety hazard as they cut through to
13 Mulberry. That happens today with customers from
14 7-Eleven, instead of going all the way up the alley to
15 City Park, will cut through the Gilsdorf Garage lot
16 creating a safety problem.
17 The issue that I have is, goes back to the
18 compatibility and the being in harmony with the rest of
19 the neighborhood. Because of just addressing the
20 parking issue alone -- and there have been many other
21 great comments about the deck. And those have all been
22 addressed. 'But the compatibility and being in harmony
23 will not exist because 7-Eleven is going to be towing
24 vehicles out of that lot; Gilsdorf Garage is going to
25 be towing vehicles out of our lot. My only defense as
56
1 Gilsdorf is to gate it at the alley to prevent any
2 access. And even then, I expect vehicles will be there
3 that were left there in the night, they will be there
4 the next morning, and they will have to be towed off.
5 I would prefer not to get in an adversarial
6 relationship with the tenants of these lofts. It's --
7 it's bad business to do battle with your neighbors.
8 Whether the neighbors are -- are a business or
9 residential, it's bad blood. I don't see where the
10 harmony is going to be enhanced by this project.
11 Thank you for your time. I appreciate it.
12 MS. MEYER: Thank you. Anybody else? I'd
13 just like to thank you all for being so prompt at the
14 podiums. It does make it a lot quicker.
15 If there's nobody else, we'll bring it back
16 to the board. Are there any other comments? Don't
17 speak all at once.
18 MR. LINGLE: I've got a -- oh, here he comes.
19 During some of the public testimony, Paul, I was -- I
20 looked through the Land Use Code. And there doesn't
21 appear to be anything in there that addresses the
22 concept of neighborhood compatibility including even a
23 definition of what that would be. Is that correct
24 or -- or --
25 MR. ECKMAN: Article 5 contains a definition
OVA
1 of compatibility. And I'll just read it. It means
2 "The characteristics of different uses or activities or
3 design which allow them to be located near or adjacent
4 to each other in harmony. Some elements affecting
5 compatibility include height, scale, mass, and bulk of
6 structures. Other characteristics include pedestrian
7 or vehicular traffic, circulation, access, and parking
8 impacts. Other important characteristics that affect
9 compatibility are landscaping, lighting, noise, odor
10 and architecture. Compatibility does not mean the same
11 as, rather compatibility refers to the sensitivity of
12 development proposals in maintaining the character of
13 existing development.',
14 Then in Article 3, under "Building
15 Standards," there's a section on building and project
16 compatibility. Most of that has to do with
17 architecture, building size, height, bulk, mass, scale.
18 But there is one called "privacy
19 considerations." And I know there was some mention
20 about the deck and the neighbors to the west. Privacy
21 considerations, that requirement states this:
22 "Elements of the development plan shall be arranged to
23 maximize the opportunity for privacy by the residents
24 of the project and minimize infringement on the privacy
25 of adjoining land uses. Additionally, the Development
58
1 Plan shall create opportunities for interactions among
2 neighbors without sacrificing privacy or security.
3 I may have missed some, but I think -- then
4 we go into building materials and glare and windows and
5 building color. I didn't find that section, and I know
6 it must be here, about windows. That was mentioned,
7 but I didn't find it. "Windows shall be individually
8 defined with detailed elements such as frame, sills,
9 lintels, and defined building storage and establish
10 human scale in proportion." And that's about all I saw
11 pertaining to -- to compatibility. So I thought that
12 that privacy (inaudible).
13 MS. SCHMIDT: There's a 3.5 on (j) under
14 operational and physical compatibility standards,
15 "Location on a site of activities that generate
16 potential adverse impacts on adjacent uses such as
17 noise and glare," I think -- I think it's more than if
18 you have your whole area designed. But by the nature
19 of that deck, you're going to have a site for
20 activities that cause noise.
21 MR. ECKMAN: Yes. And that -- I had seen
22 that before, and I had forgotten that. But that's a
23 good point. And it says, "Such as noise and glare," so
24 it's not limited to noise and glare.
25 MS. SCHMIDT: Uh-huh.
1 MR. LINGLE: So I guess to -- to respond to
2 some of the comments we heard from the neighborhood
3 concerning the social impact of the -- of a project on
4 the neighborhood as opposed to just the physical impact
5 of mass of a building and architecture and all that, I
6 heard you say some key words like harmony, character,
7 privacy, and then, I think, Brigitte what you were
8 saying. So I -- I was just trying to see if there was
9 anything outside of some of the things that are listed
10 in the facts and findings that -- that we can address
11 in our comments or not.
12 MR. ECKMAN: Well, the definition of
13 compatibility, when it says "harmony," may not be
14 particularly helpful because then we have to go to the
15 regulations and see what they say. But I do think that
16 the privacy regulation is useful. And also the -- the
17 regulation that Brigitte mentioned, which is about not
18 generating potential adverse impacts on adjacent uses.
19 That's fairly general language, adverse impacts.
20 MS. SCHMIDT: Paul, I had a question, someone
21 raised the comment, and -- I don't know. I guess the
22 option would be to just totally do away with the
23 handicap parking. But -- but if one of those nine
24 spaces is designated as handicapped and -- and there
25 isn't a tenant who is handicapped, I mean, can they
m
1 still use that space or can they not use that space or
2 do we then get down to eight spaces?
3 MR. OLT: Obviously the use of the handicap
4 space would be a violation, conceivably a violation,
5 that would be an enforcement issue. You can't take
6 that handicap space out for any parking lot as set
7 forth in Section 3.2.2. There's a table for handicap
8 parking spaces. Any parking lot with 1 to 25 parking
9 spaces requires 1 handicap parking space. So that is
10 a -- a requirement, that they have that space.
it MS. SCHMIDT: So then do we really have nine
12 parking spaces that are usable? we really only have
13 eight, if -- unless there is a handicap tenant or
14 customer, I guess, or . . . Okay.
15 MS. CARPENTER: But didn't we just say that
16 none of these have to have -- be handicap accessible?
17 Did you not say that, Steve, on the unit?
18 MR. OLT: The -- the response that I got from
19 the Building Department yesterday was there was no
20 handicap accessible requirement in this building being
21 less than six dwelling units.
22 MS. SCHMIDT: So the building doesn't have to
23 be, but I think you have to have parking, right? Is
24 that what you're saying?
25 MR. OLT: But there still is -- yes. For any
61
1 parking lot with 1 to 25 spaces, you have to have a
2 handicap space designated.
3 MS. CARPENTER: But then that does -- I mean,
4 it gets rid of one parking space.
5 MS. SCHMIDT: And in essence, you're probably
6 not going to have a handicap tenant if the building
7 doesn't have to be handicap accessible.
8 MS. CARPENTER: Exactly.
9 MS. MEYER: Any other comments?
10 MR. STOCKOVER: Well, I would -- I have quite
11 a bit to say, and I'll try and keep it brief.
12 To start with, I -- I was on the Planning &
13 Zoning Board of Appeals for eight years before this.
14 And it's always been my nature to try and make every
15 project work. I think it's in the best interest of the
16 community to keep an open mind. And I also believe
17 that City staff works on this type of project very
18 hard. So for me to oppose this, which I am going to
19 do, I have to feel very strongly that there's some
20 reasons why. And I'll just -- I'll just start right
21 down the list.
22 And I'll start with the good things first. I
23 think the building looks very nice. I think there can
24 be a very good case that this is the proper place for
25 this type of building. But we have one major
62
1 fundamental flaw, and I believe that is the parking
2 issue. And I think it's -- we can make a case quite
3 clearly with City Code that this does not meet the
4 needs of the uses.
5 And I'll just start with, the first thing
6 was, right on their plat they said they're going to do
7 shared parking. But as -- as Paul Eckmann brought up
8 and we quoted earlier, "Shared parking" -- "in no case
9 shall shared parking include the parking required for
10 residential uses." So what -- what would I do if I
11 were the developer? I would just take that line right
12 off of my submittal and say, "Hey, I'm going to go with
13 the other part of the Code which says there is no
14 minimum parking required for commercial."
15 But then I read the Code some more, and there
16 are paragraphs in place to ensure that it isn't a
17 detrimental impact to the neighborhood. So there are
18 exceptions to the general office parking standard, and
19 I just underlined, ensuring that parking provided is
20 adequate. So if there isn't adequate parking, there
21 are tools in place to raise the maximum. Okay?
22 Well, I think the intent of the Code is --
23 the first thing is that any building we do is not
24 detrimental to the public good and that there are ways
25 to increase parking if it is going to impact your
63
1 neighbors. And this is what this project is going to
2 do. It's going to impact the neighbors. And I think
3 we would be doing the City a disservice if we put a
4 problem out there where the neighbors are fighting for
5 parking places. And that's what this boils down to in
6 my mind. We are going to create a fight. And it will
7 benefit the builder at the expense of all the
8 neighbors. And I think that is fundamentally wrong.
9 And that's what I have to say on that.
10 No clapping. I mean, we have to be fair to
11 both sides, and clapping is unfair.
12 MS. MEYER: Anybody else?
13 MR. LINGLE: I -- I guess I'm struggling with
14 this just in terms of the fact that it does meet a
15 number of -- of adopted plans and conforms with -- you
16 know, it's -- it's in conformance with the West Central
17 Neighborhood Plan. It's in conformance with the zoning
18 district and the intent of that zoning district. It
19 meets the bulk of the site development standards and
20 building design standards and -- and those. And I
21 think that -- that Troy and his staff have worked
22 really hard to -- to make the design much more
23 compatible than what I think they showed the
24 neighborhood the first time, from what it sounds like.
25 And then I'm struggling with the fact that in
64
1 the consent agenda, we just approved Bill Claire where
2 we allowed the elimination of tens of parking spaces
3 for a commercial use and didn't say a thing.
4 MS. MEYER: Welcome to my world.
5 MR. LINGLE: So I'm -- I'm kind of -- I'm
6 kind of concerned that, you know, in one case because
7 there wasn't any neighborhood opposition, we allowed
8 something to proceed; and then in this case, where
9 there is neighborhood concern, we're going to take a
10 different position on it where it's really kind of the
11 same issue. So I'm -- I'm kind of struggling with how
12 to get my arms all around that, but . . .
13 MS. SCHMIDT: I guess I don't see it as quite
14 the same because Bill Claire is right on College
15 Avenue. And it is two and a half blocks or three
16 blocks from a parking garage, the one on Remington and
17 Mountain. So it's not -- I mean, there are other
18 opportunities for parking that are not very far away
19 that aren't going to be on neighborhood streets,
20 necessarily, and -- and impact the neighborhood as much
21 as -- as this project would.
22 ' I think -- so I think there's slight -- you
23 know, it's a fine line between, you know, infill right
24 in the core of the City and then as you start edging
25 out into the neighborhoods,a little bit more. But I
65
1 think I see that distinction. And I really do --
2 again, I think -- I think they made a -- a large effort
3 to -- to make this a -- a nice project. And I think
4 the building looks nice. And from that point, I think
5 even the height and everything is compatible.
6 My major concern is the -- is the uses that
7 the design of the building would generate and the
8 compatibility factor I think with the neighborhoods,
9 because it is difficult when you raise open areas to
10 that level. And I -- I think for the tenants, it's --
11 it's a very nice thing. But it does make privacy and
12 buffering a lot more difficult. And I don't think
13 we've really achieved those aspects with this project
14 just yet.
15 MS. CRAIG: I also -- I think it was quite
16 unique that we actually had a business owner stand up
17 and say that it was going to affect him. And I think
18 that he also brought up a great point, and that was,
19 why are we going to put in a project that the minute
20 they start on it, it's going to be an adversary
21 situation for everybody around there; businesses,
22 residential, etc. What are we gaining by starting off
23 with something like that, shoving it down everybody's
24 throat when they're trying to tell us, "This isn't
25 going to work." They live 'there. They would know.
M.-
1 The businesses would know this isn't going to work.
2 And I tend to agree with Butch on that one.
3 MS. MEYER: Jennifer?
4 MS. CARPENTER: I'm -- one of the things that
5 I'm looking at, as I look at this project, is I -- I do
6 think that this is a great use for -- for this space.
7 I think that that's -- that's great. I think a great
8 buffer. I think that it could be made to work if you
9 took a piece of it, if you took the -- the one-story
10 piece, the part on the other side of the breezeway out
11 and you provided more parking. If you did some more
12 mitigation with the trees in the back and use maybe
13 some evergreen trees and more of them and bigger,
14 larger sizes, that kind of thing.
15 I have a problem with the deck raised up. I
16 just see that as -- as a privacy issue for people. But
17 I think this project could be made to work, but not at
18 this density and this intensity. I think that it's
19 just too much of an impact on the neighborhood which
20 then makes it incompatible for a lot of different
21 reasons that we've all talked about.
22 MS. MEYER: Okay. Anybody else?
23 MR. LINGLE: Just one other comment. I agree
24 completely about the deck. I've got real problems with
25 that. And I think that regardless of how this vote
67
1 comes out, I think that that needs to be addressed.
2 But part of my issue with the parking is that
3 if we -- if the standard says we don't have to have any
4 for commercial, then the problem we have is with the
5 standard, not with the development proposal. And maybe
6 that's something -- and I know that's in -- in the
7 thinking in terms of readdressing our parking
8 standards, particularly around the campus
9 neighborhoods. But I have still struggled with
10 transferring a problem we have with our standards to a
11 particular project where all they're doing is meeting
12 what the standard says in that regard. I realize that
13 there's probably other issues of compatibility outside
14 of parking, but I just wanted to say that about the
15 parking.
16 MR. STOCKOVER: I'd like to respond to that.
17 And I -- and I agree we cannot force an issue with the
18 Code on this developer. But it -- I think the intent
19 of the Code is adequate parking. I really do feel the
20 intent of the Code is adequate parking. And when they
21 talk about shared parking, sharing means you have
22 something to give. And this does not have anything to
23 give. So there is going to be no sharing.
24 MR. ECKMAN: Madam chair. Oh, I'm sorry.
25 MS. MEYER: Let him finish, and then you can
m
1 have your say right after me.
2 MR. STOCKOVER: When it clearly states that
3 you cannot share parking with commercial in the Code, I
4 think that makes a very clear case that this project
5 does not work.
6 MS. MEYER: Okay. Number one, intent of the
7 Code is not my job. This is why parking is my most
8 unfavorite topic. It's very subjective. One place it
9 works. One place it doesn't. We built a whole
10 building on Cherry Street without any parking, so it's
11 been done. It's been tried; it's been done. I'm not
12 going to say it works, but it's been done.
13 So I -- I have -- because the parking says
14 maximum. It doesn't talk to minimums. And I do not
15 think that I can lay on this developer something that
16 I've been upset about for two years anyway. But this
17 is the problem we run into, that says maximum. It
18 doesn't talk to minimums.
19 Now, if you're going to have a retail store,
20 you're not going to do only maximums. You're going to
21 want parking. An office space is something else. And
22 that's whatgot put on Cherry Street, was an office
23 space with no parking. So it's been done. So we
24 really shouldn't lay that on this one. And now it's
25 your turn.
m
1 MR. ECKMAN: Well, I just -- i just wanted to
2 remind you that the findings of fact in the staff
3 report are all in support of a favorable motion of
4 approval. And if there is to be a motion of denial, I
5 would recommend that the motion maker list specific
6 sections of the Code that you believe have not been met
7 so that, if this should go to the City Council on
8 appeal, they'll know what sections to focus on in the
9 Land Use Code in -- in the context of an appeal. And I
10 don't think that just focusing on what you think the
11 intent might be of the Code would be a good -- it might
12 be something that you could use in a -- in a tangential
13 way in your motion. But the underpinnings of the
14 motion should be based upon specific criteria and
15 requirements of the Land Use Code. And so I just
16 wanted to get that to you before you start making a
17 motion so that you have a chance to think about the
18 sections that you want to cite in your motion.
19 MS. MEYER: Thank you. You could become our
20 source, you know.
21 MS. CARPENTER: Judy? Paul, you read
22 something to us a little bit ago, about incompatibility
23 that addressed adequate parking as being a part of --
24 of compatibility. Did I hear you wrong?
25 MR. ECKMAN: I don't recall saying that.
70
1 MR. OLT: Was that when he read the
2 definition of Article 5?
3 MS. CARPENTER: Uh-huh.
4 MR. OLT: We could go back to that.
5 MS. CARPENTER: Yeah. It was -- it was one
6 of those that you were reading to us. And I thought
7 that it addressed incompatibility, problems with
8 parking or adequate parking.
9 MR. ECKMAN: Oh, yeah. Here in the
10 definition, "Other characteristics include pedestrian
11 or vehicular traffic, circulation, access, and parking
12 impacts."
13 MS. CARPENTER: Okay. And what was -- can
14 you give me the numbers on that and --
15 MR. ECKMAN: Well, that's just a definition
16 in Section 5.1.2. So that's really not a regulatory
17 provision, the definition is not. You need to go back
18 to Article 3 or -- I don't know if there's anything in
19 Article 4. But Article 3 or 4, most likely Article 3,
20 to find your -- your criteria.
21 MR. OLT: I think you really need to focus on
22 Section 3.5.1 in Article 3 to try to translate that to
23 that -- because my understanding of the Land Use Code,
24 that's really the only section of the Code where.we
25 deal with compatibility to'any extent.
71
1
MS.
CARPENTER: Okay. Thank you.
2
MS.
SCHMIDT: Well, I think that 3.5.1(d)
3
that addresses
the privacy issues and that the 3.5(j),
4
I think it is,
that discusses the site for activities
5
that lead to incompatibility because of noise or glare
6
or those kinds
of things.
7
MS.
MEYER: I think the first one you quoted
8
was probably .
. . I'm not sure that we can imbue.
9
Although we all
can imagine what this deck is going to
10
do, I'm not sure we can imbue it with certain
11
characteristics
before it's built.
12
MS.
SCHMIDT: Well, it just has to say
13
potential adverse. I mean, I think --
14
MS.
MEYER: I think you're imbuing it.
15
You're imbuing it, you know.
16
MS.
CARPENTER: But, Judy, anytime anything
17
comes to us, it's
not built out. So we have to -- we
18
have to pretty much go there, you know.
19
MS.
MEYER: You want to imbue it
20
with . . . She
had the first one worked. Her first
21
one worked.
22
MS.
SCHMIDT: It was 3.5 --
23
MS.
MEYER: .1(d)?
24
MS.
SCHMIDT: -- .1(d) on privacy
25
considerations.
72
1 MS. MEYER: Privacy considerations. Yeah.
2 MS. SCHMIDT: Yeah.
3 MR. ECKMAN: That provision says, "Elements
4 of the development plan shall be arranged to maximize
5 the opportunity for privacy by the residents of the
6 project and minimize infringement on the privacy of
7 adjoining land uses," adjoining meaning right next
8 door, abutting. "Additionally, the Development Plan
9 shall create opportunities for interaction among
10 neighbors without sacrificing privacy or security." So
11 that really has nothing to do with parking.
12 MS. MEYER: No, but --
13 MS. SCHMIDT: No.
14 MR. ECKMAN: So it does have to do with
15 privacy. Then the other one that was mentioned was
16 (j) --
17 MS. SCHMIDT: Uh-huh.
18 MR. ECKMAN: -- "the following conditions may
19 be imposed upon the approval of a development" -- "of
20 development applications to ensure that new development
21 will be compatible with existing neighborhoods and
22 uses, including, but not limited to, restrictions on
23 location on a site of activities that generate
24 potential adverse impacts on adjacent uses, such.as
25 noise and glare." I don't 'know, you know, how you'd
73
1 want to work with that. But those are the two sections
2 that were mentioned. I thought I ought to read them to
3 you in case you -- you don't have your Land Use Code
4 books with you.
5 MS. CARPENTER: I have a question, Paul.
6 If -- if since we don't have any minimum parking
7 standards for the commercial, then does that mean
8 really that we cannot speak to that or address the fact
9 that we think that there's -- I mean, some places there
10 are some sites where you have minimum -- or have some
11 on -street parking; you have possibilities for shared
12 parking in which maybe this would be -- would -- would
13 be adequate. So where are we legally as far as
14 addressing parking since there isn't a minimum? Can it
15 fall under compatibility?
16 MS. SCHMIDT: And where are we with the eight
17 versus nine given the handicap?
18 MR. ECKMAN: I think that the -- it's a very
19 odd provision. Because as it was pointed out with the
20 handicap, you really end up -- if there's no one to use
21 it, you end up with eight spaces instead of nine that
22 are usable. The chart just says if you have a parking
23 lot of a certain size, then one of the spaces has to be
24 handicap. So I think you still count nine even though
25 one of them is handicap. And I see the -- the
74
1 disconnect with that. Maybe that's something we need
2 to address with the Land Use Code the next chance we
3 get to make changes.
4 As to the (j)(2) provision, that has to do
5 with imposing conditions upon the development, opposed
6 on the approval of the development to ensure
7 compatibility. So there are -- you may impose
8 conditions on -- on your approval to ensure
9 compatibility with the existing neighborhoods; among
10 them being the -- the question of site activities that
11 generate adverse impacts.
12 MS. MEYER: Yeah. Move on.
13 MS. CARPENTER: And would inadequate parking
14 be one of them?
15 MS. MEYER: No.
16 MR. ECKMAN: If you think that lack of
17 parking could generate a potential adverse impact on
18 adjacent uses? Then you may impose a condition to
19 address that problem under (j)(2), such as --
20 MS. SCHMIDT: But we can -- we can only
21 impose a condition if we approve the project, right?
22 MR. ECKMAN: Right. That's -- that's what
23 (j) allows you to do, is impose conditions.
24 MS. SCHMIDT: Uh-huh.
25 MR. STOCKOVER:' Let me just take a stab at
75
1 it.
2 MS. MEYER: Okay. Good luck. May the force
3 be with you.
4 MR. STOCKOVER: I mean, it's a very difficult
5 thing for us to do here.
6 I move that we deny the PDP Number 15-05
7 (sic). And Ind like to state a couple of the reasons
8 why. First is that on the application, they've
9 designated that the parking places are to be shared.
10 And the Code on 3.2.2(g) specifically says that "In no
11 case shall shared parking include the parking required
12 for residential uses.,,
13 And then the second finding is 3. -- I would
14 just like to put as a side note 3.2.2(a), and --
15 nonresidential parking requirements. "In the event
16 that on -street or shared parking that is not available
17 on land adjacent to the use, then the maximum parking
18 allowed may be increased by 20 percent. And I think
19 that is indicating that what the intent of the Code is,
20 is that if you do not have enough parking on -- by the
21 maximum, that you can increase that. So I read the
22 Code to say that you do need parking for commercial and
23 that commercial parking is not compatible with
24 residential.
25 And then I would like to cite 3.5.(j)(2),
76
1 compatibility with the neighborhood, and 3.5.1(d) for
2 privacy issues in regards to the deck and screening.
3 MR. ECKMAN: What was the section that
4 you -- the second section? I thought you said
5 3.2.2(a). Is that correct?
6 MR. STOCKOVER: Well, I'm on -- oh. It's in
7 the parking section.
8 MS. SCHMIDT: (Inaudible.)
9 MR. STOCKOVER: I pulled it out of my -- I
10 made a copy of it. At the top of the page, it says
11 Section 3. It says 2.2(k). Article -- and on the
12 bottom it's Article 3, Page 31.
13 MS. SCHMIDT: It says, "This section is
14 intended to ensure that the parking and circulation
15 aspects of all developments are well designed with
16 regard to safety, efficiency, and convenience for
17 vehicles, bicycles, pedestrians in transit both within
18 the development and to and from surrounding areas."
19 MR. ECKMAN: Okay. I understand it's -- it's
20 -- it was the 20 percent thing you were talking about,
21 which was (k) --
22 MR. STOCKOVER: My point there is that there
23 are mechanisms in the Code to ensure that you have
24 enough parking.
25 MR. ECKMAN: Again, the Code section, Steve's
77
1 asking me to make sure we understand which Code
2 section. I think it -- it's 3.2.2(k)(2)(a).
3 Is that right?
4 MR. STOCKOVER: Yes. 2 and 2(a).
5 MR. ECKMAN: Yes. Okay.
6 MS. MEYER: Would the applicant like to come
7 up here for a second? I need to speak at you.
8 MR. STOCKOVER: Do we need to have a second
9 to the motion before we discuss it, or no? Can you
10 discuss a motion before it's seconded or not.
11 MS. MEYER: Okay. Go ahead.
12 MS. CARPENTER: I'll second it for purposes
13 of discussion.
14 MS. MEYER: Now -- now I'm discussing it.
15 First, if I were to put my money on this, you're going
16 to get denied. So, you have two choices. You can go
17 through this vote and then move on with whatever steps
is you have to do, or you can continue it and see if you
19 can modify the project to meet whatever conditions need
20 to be met here. It's your decision before we take a
21 vote. Just -- you -- you can decide what you want to
22 do.
23 MR. JONES: If we -- if we have clarity on
24 what to come back to you with, I think we'd rather
25 continue. If -- if it can'be -- I didn't hear that
78
1 motion quite -- I didn't understand exactly every
2 aspect of the sections you cited and whether or not
3 that's something --
4 MS. MEYER: It's workable?
5 MR. JONES: -- we could address if
6 continued -- being continued. There -- there was a lot
7 of them in there. But I think our preference would --
8 would be to -- if we had a punch list of these several
9 Code sections, "This is things you need to work on.
10 Come back and tell us how you satisfy these," I think
11 we'd rather that, than a denial.
12 MS. MEYER: Okay. We'll discuss it. Thank
13 you. Okay. So how do you guys want to proceed?
14 MR. ECKMAN: If there was to be a
15 continuance, the -- someone would have to make a
16 motion --
17 MS. MEYER: Right. We have to make a motion,
18 but I think we have to be pretty clear on what we want
19 if --
20 MR. ECKMAN: That's correct.
21 MS. MEYER: -- you know.
22 MR. STOCKOVER: How would you deal with the
23 motion that's on the table? Can you rescind it?
24 MS. SCHMIDT: Withdraw it.
25 MR. ECKMAN: Yeah. You'd have to withdraw
79
1 it.
2 MS. MEYER: Can we make it clearer for --
3 MS. SCHMIDT: Well, I guess -- I don't know.
4 I guess we can out -- outline it, and then they can
5 decide if that's -- basically some of it amounts to
6 redesigning the project to deal with the privacy issues
7 that are created by a raised deck situation, and then
8 also the -- I think the lack of -- of parking or
9 perceived lack of parking, is the way I see it, if you
10 want to add to that.
11 MS. CARPENTER: I think those are the basic
12 problems with it. I just have a hard time when we
13 start doing this and designing here. It's not really
14 our job.
15 MS. MEYER: Okay. So if we don't want to go
16 down this, do you want to just have a vote and move on?
17 MR. LINGLE: Well, I would support a
18 continuance if that's -- if the applicant is agreeable
19 to that. Because if those are the primary issues, I
20 think they're solvable.
21 MS. MEYER: They have the opportunity to do
22 that.
23 MR. LINGLE: I mean, we heard some comments
24 that people just felt it was too much. But in general,
25 they were more surrounding parking, site access, and
X
1 privacy issues.
2 MR. STOCKOVER: So were you thinking drop the
3 commercial and lower it a story or what?
4 MS. SCHMIDT: Well, I think the developer can
5 figure --
6 MR. STOCKOVER: But he's asking for direction
7 on what we're looking for, so it's kind of a --
8 MS. MEYER: You're looking at adequate
9 parking. That's what you want. You want more parking.
10 MR. STOCKOVER: Well, that's my -- my big
11 issue is adequate parking.
12 MS. MEYER: But you can't tell him how to get
13 it.
14 MR. LINGLE: I mean, that -- that could take
15 the form of reduced commercial or reduced residential
16 or more parking. Go back to the list or whatever
17 they --
18 MR. STOCKOVER: And I agree it is not our job
19 to design this project. I feel it -- it's my job to
20 look at the public good.
21 MS. CARPENTER: Absolutely. That's what
22 we're here for. Troy, have you gotten enough direction
23 from us here that if we went forward, you'd feel like
24 you'd know where to go with it or --
25 MR. JONES: Yes, if -- if the Code sections
m
1 that -- that Butch cited as in his motion for the
2 denial were the same Code sections that you gave us
3 direction to come back and rework something and show
4 us -- show you then how we meet it, all of those
5 sections, that gives me clear enough direction, I
6 think, to come back with a continuance, take another
7 stab at it, work at it some more, see if we can get you
8 to agree that we satisfy those standards with some
9 tweaking of the -- or redesign work.
10 MS. SCHMIDT: Well -- and I guess Troy, this
11 might be out of place for me to say that. I guess the
12 feeling is partly that we hope you'd be able to look in
13 some extent, as Butch was saying, to the intent and not
14 just meeting the absolute letter of -- of what the
15 policy says. Is that -- I know that that's -- that
16 still may not bring back a project that we feel
17 comfortable with, even though we feel like we end up
18 having to approve it because of that. And I -- I think
19 some of the comments you've heard here today, that's
20 nothing we can outline exactly. But that's sort of
21 some of the general feeling that . . .
22 MR. JONES: We'd prefer the chance to be able
23 to rework it.
24 MS. MEYER: Right. And we need the Code
25 sections that you need. So does somebody have those
82
1 written down in a version that we can use?
2 MR. STOCKOVER: And I -- I apologize. I'm
3 not really good at citing Code.
4 MR. ECKMAN: I -- I didn't write them down,
5 but Steve may have. And that one section we struggled
6 with so much, you know, it might be worth discussing a
7 little bit. I'm not sure how that applies to this, to
8 the facts of this case.
9 MS. MEYER: Well, it may be -- that one
10 section may be the one that we need to give him and
11 then he needs to discuss, too, so we can all come to
12 some sort of a --
13 MS. SCHMIDT: I think some of the ones that
14 Butch was quoting was 3.2.2(a) and 3.2.2(k)(2).
15 MR. STOCKOVER: And I'm thinking 3.2.2(g),
16 shared parking.
17 MS. CARPENTER: And 3.5.1(d) and 5.1. --
18 MS. MEYER: Slow. Slow. Slow. Troy's
19 writing as fast as he can. Where are you at?
20 MR. JONES: 3.2.2(g) what? Jennifer said
21 something about (g)?
22 MS. CARPENTER: I don't remember.
23 MR. STOCKOVER: That was shared parking, and
24 then she went to --
25 MS. SCHMIDT: And then 3. -- 3.5.1(d) which
1 is the privacy issue. And then there's the 3.5.1(j)(2)
2 which is, you know, the noise and, again, adverse
3 impacts. It deals a little bit more with conditions we
4 could place on the project to limit those. But I think
5 that was the concern, that there might be adverse
6 impacts.
7 So I think what we could do, is if the motion
8 person is willing to withdraw his motion and the
9 seconder willing to withdraw their second, then we
10 could make a motion that we'd like to continue the
11 project and have the developer come back and address
12 the issues identified in those Land Use Code sections.
13 MR. ECKMAN: Also, I might add that the -- to
14 Mr. Stockover and the person who seconded, that you're
15 -- you're under no compulsion to withdraw your motion.
16 You've made a motion. It's on the table. And you can
17 consider it. I'm not sure now about the parliamentary
18 rules. But I think if someone else were to make a
19 motion to postpone this to the next month's meeting,
20 that's probably a motion that takes precedence over the
21 main motion and could then be done that way without
22 your having to withdraw your motion.
23 It's sort of just a parliamentary mumbo
24 jumbo. It doesn't matter to me. You can withdraw your
25 motion. You can -- you can leave it on the table.
84
1 Someone else, perhaps, would have to make a motion to
2 postpone. But if you should withdraw your motion, then
3 we have no motion on the table and you could then
4 entertain any motion that you might want.
5 MS. MEYER: Did you get all that?
6 MR. STOCKOVER: Pretty much.
7 MS. MEYER: So what's your druthers?
8 MR. STOCKOVER: I'm going to think about it
9 for a second. Can I think out loud?
10 MS. MEYER: Don't ramble.
11 MR. STOCKOVER: As I said early on, I -- I
12 try and make every project work because I think the
13 basic Code is very good. And I think City staff works
14 very hard. And if we can get these issues in line, I
15 would be in support of the project. And I think the --
16 the developer will come back to us with something that
17 does handle the parking and does handle the privacy
18 issues. So yes, I am going to withdraw my motion.
19 MS. MEYER: Thank you. Do you want to
20 withdraw your second?
21 MR. LINGLE: It was --
22 MS. MEYER: Oh, Jennifer.
23 MS. CARPENTER: Oh, yes. I agree to
24 withdraw.
25 MS. MEYER: Okay. Does somebody want to make
1 the new motion, the continuance motion?
2 MR. STOCKOVER: Do we have to state anything,
3 or just we move to continue?
4 MS. MEYER: Just move to continue.
5 MR. STOCKOVER: I would move to continue the
6 PDP Number 15-005.
7 MR. ECKMAN: We should continue it to a
8 definite date. We should have -- it's really called
9 postponement. But I'm told that next month, that might
10 be a little short. And then the December meeting
11 occurs on December 8th.
12 MR. STOCKOVER: So I would move that we
13 postpone it to December 8th.
14 MS. CARPENTER: I'll second.
15 MS. MEYER: Okay. Are we ready to vote? All
16 right. Georgiana, are we ready?
17 THE CLERK: Lingle?
18 MR. LINGLE: Yes.
19 THE CLERK: Stockover?
20 MR. STOCKOVER: Yes.
21 THE CLERK: Carpenter?
22 MS. CARPENTER: Yes.
23 THE CLERK: Craig?
24 MS. CRAIG: Yes.
25 THE CLERK: Schmidt?
W
1 MS. SCHMIDT: Yes.
2 THE CLERK: Meyer?
3 MS. MEYER: Yes. The motion carries. This
4 is carried over to the December meeting.
5 I think in the interest of the fact that it's
6 8:15, we'll take a 10-minute break and we'll be back in
7 10 minutes.
8 (End of Proceeding.)
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STATE OF COLORADO )
) REPORTER'S CERTIFICATE
COUNTY OF LARIMER )
I, Anne Hansen, a Registered Professional Reporter
and Notary Public, State of Colorado, hereby certify
that the foregoing video proceeding was taken down by
me in stenotype notes and thereafter reduced under my
supervision to the foregoing 86 pages; that said
transcript is an accurate and complete record of the
proceedings so taken.
I further certify that I am not related to,
employed by, nor of counsel to any of the parties or
attorneys herein nor otherwise interested in the
outcome of the proceedings.
Attested to by me this 24th day of January, 2005.
Anne Hansen
Meadors Court Reporting, LLC
171 North College Avenue
Fort Collins, Colorado 80524
(970) 482-1506
My commission expires: February 16, 2007
m
Planning and Zoning Board Minutes
October 20, 2005
Page 5
Project: Recommendation to City Council for the creation of
the Rural Lands (RUL) Zone District and amendment
of Section 3.9.2 of the Land Use Code to allow single-
family detached dwellings in the RUL District to be
developed within one -quarter (1/4) mile of 1-25.
Project Description: Request to create a new zone district, the Rural
Lands District (RUL) that would be applied to areas
designated as "Rural Lands" as well as privately -
owned properties designated as "Community
Separator" on the Structure Plan map at the time of
annexation into the City. This item also includes an
amendment to Section 3.9.2 of the Land Use Code to
allow single-family detached dwellings in the RUL
District to be developed within one -quarter (1/4) mile
of 1-25.
Recommendation: Approval
Hearing Testimonv, Written Comments and Other Evidence:
Cameron Gloss, Director of Current Planning gave the staff presentation. He stated
that the areas to be zoned RUL are located within the following three areas:
Southeast — abutting the Fossil Creek Reservoir;
Southwest — west of S. Shields Street and south of Fossil Creek (within the SW
Annexation area); and
Northwest — west of N. Shields Street and north of Willox Lane
Also, there are some parcels that abut 1-25, there are three that are cumulatively 80
acres in size that come virtually right up to 1-25 and there is a special provision that
govern those areas that he will speak on briefly.
In specifically looking at the zoning ordinance in the Board's packet, the permitted uses
as well as some design standards are relatively straight forward as a template and is
configured relatively the same as is what is in the Urban Estate Zone. Looking at the
standards you see a density limitation of 1 unit per 10 acres and then a density
potential, if you cluster a development of 1 unit per 2.29 acres. He stated that this has
been an ongoing effort for more than 5 years working with area property owners and
Planning and Zoning Board Minutes
October 20, 2005
Page 6
weighing the options. The basis of the standards lies within the County's regulations.
Staff went back to the FA-1 zoning, which is Larimer County's most common zoning
district within the perimeter of Fort Collins and that is where the 2.29 acres per unit
comes from. There is also an O, Open district and an Airport District that provide for the
larger lot size and lower density. It is a marriage of those zone districts trying to respect
the rights of existing property owners in the County when they do annex into the city
that they can carry some of those development rights with them, but at the same time
maintaining either a rural or semi rural character for those areas.
Director Gloss reviewed two specific provisions in the Ordinance; one is the exemption
for RUL zoned properties to the '/a mile separation from 1-25. There are three properties
that are abutting 1-25, the properties are only about '/a mile in depth and in order to
afford them some reasonable development rights on their property we would apply the
RUL district, but would specifically exempt them. The other special provision in the
Ordinance relates to the airport critical zone. There is a very small area zoned RUL that
would be impacted by this code provision. There is the Fort Collins Loveland Airport to
the south, immediately south of Fossil Creek Reservoir there is a critical flight path
coming through there. This code prohibits development within that particular zone.
Member Craig asked if any lands south of Fossil Creek Reservoir were being
designated as RUL.
Director Gloss replied no.
Director Gloss clarified that the properties that are being shown as RUL on the Structure
Plan Map are not in the city at this time. When they are annexed, staff is contemplating
assignment of that zoning system with the Comprehensive Plan. We are not zoning
specific pieces of property, but creating a zone district.
Member Torgerson asked why does the Structure Plan have different designations for
zoning — we expect it to come in and become RUL, so why on the Structure Plan do we
say that is Rural Open Lands instead of RUL, it seems like you could remove all
confusion if you called them the same thing.
Director Wray replied that when we developed the Structure Plan, we had a general
green color for a lot of areas inside our GMA. It was a general category for our edges
and some of our stream corridors and open lands and they were not looked at in
specific detail. We did not have zoning specifically attached to that general category in
the Structure Plan. Our Structure Plan legend does not have the same amount of
categories as our zoning map. It is generalized and we knew eventually after we
adopted the Structure Plan and went through the update that we needed to better define
what the Rural Open Lands category meant.
Planning and Zoning Board Minutes
October 20, 2005
Page 7
Member Torgerson replied that was the root of his question. Why for example are RL
and LMN put in the same color on the Structure Plan? It seems to just provide
confusion. Why not have the Structure Plan be the expected zoning when it is annexed.
Director Wray replied that part of that is when we came up with that general category for
Rural Open Lands, that included both public lands and private property, mostly outside
city limits and we knew that eventually implementation of that would fall under either
POL, if it was acquired publicly or for privately held lands we knew that we did not have
a zoning district yet for that and that is what we are moving toward with this. To better
determine some of the green areas that was originally designated on the Structure Plan.
Member Schmidt asked about the airport fly zone and where was it located.
Director Gloss replied that if you go directly south of the reservoir that is the center of
the runway and it goes to the northwest, south of County Road 32, there is an area
there that would be designated RUL that is within that critical path.
Member Torgerson asked in defining the critical path or the airport zone was staff just
taking what the County's airport zone is.
Director Gloss replied that was correct. The County has an Airport Master Plan that
defines those zones.
Director Gloss added that staff was asked when the Structure Plan was amended a
couple of years ago to actually show colors and communities outside Fort Collins that
would expand the map. When we did that we showed where those future areas and
how they would be patterned with development, so it actually goes outside the GMA
boundary. Director Gloss showed the Board a slide and stated that you have areas that
are zoned Rural Lands or Community Separator that are outside the GMA and in the
future if we were to expand the GMA, it would be likely that we would use this type of
designation within those areas.
Member Torgerson said we are talking about two different zones that have the same
color on our Structure Plan. Are we intending to amend our Structure Plan to show RUL
as a separate color, or are we going to leave it like we do for LMN and RL and have it
the same color and decide it when it annexes.
Director Gloss responded that we would have the two areas that are designated on the
Structure Plan, the Rural Lands and Community Separator when they were to annex,
they would get the RUL designation.
Planning and Zoning Board Minutes
October 20, 2005
Page 8
Member Torgerson asked at present they would be left the same color on the Structure
Plan.
Director Gloss replied yes.
Member Craig asked again if the Structure Plan Map was being changed tonight
Director Gloss replied no. The zoning district merely implements the Structure Plan
Map.
Member Craig asked if just through definition of RUL, that is where it is decided that is
where it is going to be. So the definition here tonight will decide where RUL will be even
though there is no color designation on the Structure Plan Map.
Director Gloss replied there is a color on the Structure Plan Map that refers to the RUL,
there is multiple districts that when they are annexed, they will be zoned RUL.
PUBLIC INPUT
Tom Hahn, 1601 Quail Hollow Drive spoke to the Board and stated that he is a Planning
Consultant and has worked in the Northern Colorado area for several years and much
of it has been in this relationship of urban and rural transition. He stated that this is a
very important addition to the Code and it does set the process for two issues that he
would like the Board and staff to consider.
Currently there is a 10 acre minimum lot size for this zone district. If you do nothing
else it is one unit per 10 acres. He thought that by itself inefficient, and leads to sprawl
and he was not sure as an urban area it is something that we want to encourage. There
may be County developments that are 2.29 acres or 5 acre lots, so why would we then
want to annex a piece of property and in fact discourage it from being annexed and give
it something less intense than what the adjacent use may be. A 10 acre minimum lot
size takes you out of that possibility. You can do 2.29 acres if you cluster and an 80/20
open space to development area when you do the cluster. You can do septic on the
2.29 acres and again that is not encouraging efficiency or what should be occurring in
an urban area and that is the utilization of appropriate sewage systems. In that
instance, you can still do your cluster, you should give a bonus to people to encourage
them to use public sewer. Encourage them to use appropriate, efficient sanitary sewer
systems and give them a bonus to allow them to develop at some level higher than what
would be an overall 2.29, but they are still only going to occupy 20% of the developable
site. They may do 10,000 or 20,000 s.f. lots and not 100,000 s.f. lots because they are
on septic they are not going to be encouraged to go to sewer unless they can go down
to a smaller lots because there are cost deficiencies. That is also an issue of not
Planning and Zoning Board Minutes
October 20, 2005
Page 9
encouraging urban efficient development and we are penalizing someone that is coming
in and they are still creating a rural environment and they are still creating open space
and those are the things we are trying to do on that edge relationship. It is difficult to
take an existing rural development and come in with an urban area, but he thinks it
could be done with these two issues and make this district just a little bit better and it will
encourage people to do something that will fit into the city's land use pattern better.
Mike DeTullio, represents the South Fort Collins Sanitation District stated that he was
surprised this was being talked about tonight, in fact he is appalled to see this
discussion taking place when there has been no attempt to include other governmental
entities in this decision making process. You would think that as governmental entities
that the staff would have taken the time to come out and talk to them as to what they
are proposing. What this really does, is it predisposes any kind of dialogue with respect
to zoning on land that has been designated prior to an annexation because it takes
away the ability to negotiate or even talk about it because it has already been
predetermined. The Sanitation District owns over 200 acres in the area that you have
designated as RUL. The last time he had any discussion at all is when the airport zone
was being talked about. The ground they have right now is already in an airport zone
with Larimer County and it allows at least a special review if anything were to develop
on that property. He is confused about the process and what the intent is and how it
goes from here.
Member Schmidt asked Mr. DiTullio if the Sanitation District owns the property or just
provides service.
Mr. DiTullio replied they own the property and their treatment plan is also located within
the zone. He asked what that meant with respect to the treatment plant.
Director Gloss replied that upon annexation it would become a legal non -conforming
use.
Member Torgerson asked if restrictions for expansion would be placed upon them after
annexation.
Director Gloss replied that was correct.
Member Lingle reminded the board that tonight we are only creating a parameter of
what this zone district is, and we are not mapping any of these areas at this time.
Director Gloss added that in defense of Mr. DiTullio's comments we do have a Structure
Plan map that has such designations that the RUL district would be applied to. In fact,
by creating the zone district it is likely that those areas upon annexation would be zoned
Planning and Zoning Board Minutes
October 20, 2005
Page 10
RUL if they are so designated as Rural Lands or Community Separators on the
Structure Plan, but we are not adopting a map per sea.
Deputy City Attorney Eckman stated that the zone district lists public facilities as a use
permitted by Administrative Review under Institutional Public Civic Uses on Page 7. So
it would be a permitted use in that zone district.
Member Torgerson thought that there was a valid point raised by the first speaker and it
seems like it might be consistent with the city's goals to promote additional density
within a 20% cluster if they were tying into public facilities. It seem like overall that
would be better promoting the health, safety and welfare of the city if the same 80%
were left as open space. Did we consider that?
Director Wray replied that when we set the base of 1 to 10, there is that incentive to
cluster at 1 to 2.29 and we waive the lot size clustering on 20% of the overall property.
Member Torgerson asked if it would not be consistent with the city's goals to allow
additional density if they were tying into public sewer and water.
Director Wray responded that staff did look at a lot of different scenarios and again
staffs intent was to look at the existing county zoning in these areas. There were three
zoning districts to review, the O, Open which is consistent with the 1 to 10; there is also
the FA-1 and the airport zoning, and down in the south area we are trying to be as
consistent with that as we can with the cluster provision of 1 to 2.29. Our resistance to
adding additional density to that district is if you look at these areas, they are within the
Fossil Creek Reservoir area that is in our corridor, community separator area.
Member Torgerson thought that we were not deciding tonight where they were. He was
told earlier tonight that we were not deciding where they were going to be but we were
deciding about a specific zone.
Director Wray replied that he was just pointing to where on the Structure Plan identified
this color.
Member Torgerson asked if the Board adopts this zone, we are in fact identifying where
they will be.
Director Wray replied that the action tonight to establish a zoning district is just that.
The Structure Plan as we have talked about before has the general designation.
Member Torgerson asked that prior to adoption to this new zone district, if one of those
properties were to annex, what zone district would we have applied.
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October 20, 2005
Page 11
Director Gloss replied that we would have to find the closest zone district to match it, so
Urban Estate would be the lowest density residential designation that we have for
privately owned land so that would probably be what would be assigned.
Member Schmidt commented that she agreed with the idea that it is within the Urban
Growth Area boundary and we want to look at urban densities, but she thought through
City Plan, the city has always determined that we want to buffer when we get to the
edges and that is why she thought that the density that you get with the clustering might
be sufficient presuming the idea that it is going to be a buffering to the rural lands in the
County.
Member Lingle moved to recommend to City Council
approval of the creation of the Rural Lands (RUL) zone district and amendment
to Section 3.9.2 of the Land Use Code to allow single family detached dwelling
units in the RUL zone district to be developed within 1/4 mile of 1-25.
Member Torgerson commented that he thought this was a good stab and he thought it
was important that we do create a similar type of district. He would not be supporting
this one because he thought that it was in the city's best interest if we are promoting
health, safety and welfare to insure that those within the city are tied into public utilities.
The septic systems on these 100,000 s.f. lots are notoriously problematic; in fact the
County frequently requires that you have two septic envelopes because they assume
one is going to fail. He is also concerned that a property owner with 200 acres in this
area was not aware that this new designation was being developed and apparently did
not have input.
Member Lingle agreed with Mr. Hahn's comments about trying to overall encourage a
more compact density and zoning that applies to that. In this case he tends to agree
with staff about trying to create a zone that would adapt to three different County
zonings and make it a little more comprehensive.
The motion was approved 6-1 with Member Torgerson voting in the negative.
Planning and Zoning Board Minutes
October 20, 2005
Page 12
Project: Recommendation to City Council for a City Structure
Plan Map land use designation amendments within
the recent expansion of the Growth Management
Area (GMA) boundary, incorporating the former Fossil
Creek Cooperative Planning Area (CPA), #19-04
Project Description: Request to amend the City Structure Plan map's land
use designations for the Fort Collins Growth
Management Area (GMA) boundary amendment
incorporating the former Fossil Creek Cooperative
Planning Area (CPA), and area of approximately 2
and'/4 square miles.
Recommendation: Approval
Hearina Testimony Written Comments and Other Evidence:
Pete Wray, Interim Director of Planning gave the staff presentation. He stated that City
Council and the Larimer County Commissioners agreed in concept to recent decisions
to extend our Growth Management Area south of the Fossil Creek Reservoir Area to
encompass identified Cooperative Planning Area. City Council has given staff direction
to look at properties north and south of Carpenter Road, west of 1-25 and south of the
reservoir area to look at better defining the land use designations within the Structure
Plan Map.
The public process that staff looked at included the previously adopted plans including
the Fossil Creek Reservoir Area Plan in 1998, the City Plan Update in 2002 and 2004.
Staff has had some public open house meetings, and in June staff went to the Planning
and Zoning Board to extend the GMA, and a public hearing in March with City Council.
There was a public hearing meeting with the Larimer County Commission in June and
July and there were additional public meetings on the land use options in August and a
recent meeting with the HOA of Eagle Ranch Estates.
Planner Wray reported that some of the development related issues associated with
looking at the land use designations within that area that he talked about are the needs
to improve the 1-25 Interchange immediately adjacent to Carpenter Road on the west
side, compatibility of future development within the surrounding existing land uses,
preservation of open lands as part of the Loveland/Fort Collins Community Separator
and mitigation of development impacts on existing wetlands and natural areas.
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October 20, 2005
Page 13
Planner Wray showed a broader map focusing on the Structure Plan on the south side
and the area that is being looked at to amend the City Structure Plan Map is
immediately on the west side of 1-25 along the portion of the frontage road on the north
and south side of Carpenter Road and 1-25 approximately''/2 mile west of 1-25. As part
of this item, staff is not proposing to change any other part of the City Structure Plan
Map further to the west or anything else.
The existing Structure Plan Map gave some general guidance on land use designations
west of 1-25 and north and south of Carpenter Road. We had an Urban Estate land use
designation on part of the peninsula behind some of the existing commercial
businesses. Along the frontage road it had a commercial designation on the west side
of 1-25 and an employment designation south of Carpenter Road approximately'/2 mile
south and then there are some public open lands with a regional park and some areas
that the development units have been transferred off as part of the TDU program and
then there is a Community Separator designation further to the west south of Carpenter
Road.
Staff looked at the previously adopted Plans to provide guidance for looking at various
alternative land use designations for this area; The Plan for the Region between Fort
Collins and Loveland adopted in 1995, the Fossil Creek Area Plan, the Northern
Colorado Regional Communities 1-25 Corridor Plan and City Plan. The Corridor Plan
had two areas identified as part of that Planning process; immediately adjacent to the
interchange area of 1-25 and Carpenter Road, areas 17 and 18, generally described as
mixed -use development associated with the interchange and then more rural
designation as you go to the west and identifying key natural areas around the reservoir
on the north side. The Northern Colorado Regional Communities I' 25 Corridor
Framework Plan identified the interchange area as an activity center on either side of
the interchange and it also identified a street network with a bus route along Carpenter
Road previously Highway 392.
The Fossil Creek Area Plan identified this immediate area as no change as part of the
Framework Plan; we were not suggesting change in the County zoning at that time.
The hatched area recommended that if any specific property came forward for
development in this area that staff needed to look at it as part of a unified effort to try
and coordinate the interchange area in and around the Fossil Creek Reservoir Area.
The Staff Recommendation that came out of this process identifies the Urban Estate on
a portion of the peninsula, the commercial along the frontage road on the west side of
the interchange extending on the south side and staff recognized an approximately 300
foot transition between the existing Eagle Ranch Estates area and the commercial
designation on the east side. This is approximately a 300 foot buffer or transition
between the two land uses. The red line depicts the recent decision to expand the GMA
Planning and Zoning Board Minutes
October 20, 2005
Page 14
from within the reservoir down south of Carpenter Road, so the existing development
pattern and vacant lands in this area continue to be shown as the community separator
designation on the Structure Plan and/or Open Lands as associated with the Regional
Park on the north side. The existing Structure Plan shows a larger employment
designation south of Carpenter Road, north of Mountain Range Shadows and
somewhat of a smaller commercial designation along the frontage road; compared to
the staff recommendation for an extension of the commercial designation, which staff
felt was consistent with the Corridor Plan and the other plans mentioned as far as an
activity center and a transition between the rural residential and the activity center.
Staff looked at several different land use designations during the public process and we
had the existing City Structure Plan Map as a base. Option 2 looked at various
refinements of the existing City Structure Plan Map, either extending the commercial all
the way to the eastern edge of Eagle Ranch Estates or more of a transition or looking at
a larger employment separation between the commercial activity center and Eagle
Ranch Estates with Option 4 and Option 5 looked at commercial going all the way. The
staff recommendation is consistent with the previously adopted plans recognizing in the
interchange areas as an activity center and felt that it was not appropriate to bring the
commercial designation all the way out to the edge of the existing estate residential and
in fact staff felt that at least a minimal 300 foot transition of employment land use
designation which allows for offices, limited commercial and secondary uses a little
better quality; site planning and architecture associated with development within the
employment category would act as a buffer or transition between these two different
uses.
A point he wanted to make from the worksession last Friday based on previous staff
discussions. This was shown as commercial on an approximately 3.5 acre piece on the
south part and staff is recommending that the employment designation is part of that
transition between existing residential and Mountain Range Shadows and the
commercial activity which is north.
Member Craig asked if where staff has designated employment comes in under County
and there is a good chance of that because of contiguity in that area, what does the
County have that would follow through with our higher standards for that area?
Planner Wray responded that there is a County Referral Review of projects that are
within our GMA for properties that are not eligible for annexation. Staff reviews those
and provide the appropriate land use guidance for the county looking at our Structure
Plan Map land use designation. We forward our comments to the County for a project.
Staff describes the intent of the Land Use designation and the County as part of that
joint process incorporates those comments into their review, but they do look at their
existing zoning for their base interpretation.
Planning and Zoning Board Minutes
October 20, 2005
Page 15
Member Craig asked if the County has anything in their Land Use Code that if the
applicant said, "I'm in the County and I want to do it the County's way and there is
nothing in the Code that can keep me from doing that", just our comments can't give the
commissioners the tools they need to have it developed the way we want it.
Planner Wray responded that when staff looked at our Structure Plan Map that is a
policy map, it is part of our Comprehensive Plan. They do not have a Land Use Master
Plan within our GMA, so they do rely on our guidance for our Land Use Designation. It
is at the policy level, we are not talking about required zoning. They do look at their
base zoning for a particular project. For these properties in this area, most of these will
be eligible for annexation. We have existing city limits on the north side by the reservoir
and we can annex across a water body. We are in the process of considering
annexation of the regional park, which again most of these properties on either side of
Carpenter Road that either touches the water or the other properties will be eligible for
annexation in the near future.
Member Craig asked if it was possible through the IGA to put in any kind of beyond
guidelines, but give the Commissioners the tools to say "we have to abide by the city
because you are in the GMA".
Planner Wray replied that one of the things we could look at when we work with the
County on a particular project, if it is not eligible for annexation, is to suggest some of
the uses as an example that are within our Employment District that the County could
add to one of their zone. In this area itself, when he showed the existing County zoning
map, all of this area south of Carpenter Road is within their airport designation, and at
this present time, for the most part allows some residential and most of the other uses
within the airport are under special review. When we provide our land use direction for
a County Referral, it is not a regulatory piece.
Member Craig said she understood that and that is why she was curious if through the
IGA it could be given more "clout" rather than guidance. We say that we want to take
this on and it is going to be an expense for the City to take this on because it is away
from the city when it comes to Police Services and some of those issues. What she
envisions is that it is going to develop out similar to what we ran into on the east side of
Mulberry under the County and then we are going to take it in and are going to have to
put up with whatever it is that is coming in. What she is trying to put forth here is is
there any way this Board, or even herself could recommend to City Council to look at
the IGA and try to give it a little more meaning so we don't have to annex in another
Mulberry situation.
Deputy City Attorney Eckman asked in what way would she give it more meaning
Planning and Zoning Board Minutes
October 20, 2005
Page 16
Member Craig responded that her hope would be that within the IGA it could state
something to the effect of "because this is in our GMA and so forth, the
recommendations of city staff would take precedence over the Land Use Code of the
County". So if the County did not have any kind of standards for the employment area
and our staff recommends that this is what should be done, then the Planning
Commissioners and the County Commissioners could say that the IGA requires that
their recommendations supersedes ours.
Planner Wray responded that one of the things that staff did do on the north side of the
reservoir within the Fossil Creek Plan as a follow-up implementation action, was to
identify an agreed upon design and development standards for the Fossil Creek area
that the County incorporated — it was initially in the IGA, but ultimately ended up in their
Land Use Code as supplementary regulations. Staff could consider some additional
recommended supplementary standards for employment, as an example because the
County does not have that category for this area, that is similar to what staff was
recommending for the East Mulberry Corridor Plan area as a follow-up item for the
County to develop some agreed upon design and development standards for the
Corridor area. That is still pending for that area.
Member Craig felt it was very important because what we are going to run into is we are
going to go through the staff meeting and Board meetings and reassure neighbors that
this is what is going to happen down there and then because the County has no legal
requirement to follow through with this that they can put in what ever they decide they
want to. She feels that we are sending out false messages to people. She felt the
Board should send to Council some kind of directions that they feel it is very important
that either we implement standards that whether they can be put into the IGA, so they
are not "pending" forever, just like the design standards on the 1-25 Corridor Plan, or a
lot of this is not going to develop like we intended.
Member Torgerson asked if there were any active project through the County in this
area.
Planner Wray replied that in the area we are looking at for this item, the only one he is
aware of is a residential project.
Member Torgerson asked if they would be subject to the regulations that were in place
when they submitted.
Planner Wray responded that they are under County review. This project was
submitted before the GMA was finalized. He also wanted to clarify that this has gone to
City Council and Larimer County Commissioners and they have agreed in concept to
the GMA expansion. There are still a few follow-up items to complete that process.
Planning and Zoning Board Minutes
October 20, 2005
Page 17
One is the County needs to extend the Plan Development Overlay zoning within the
GMA and they need to amend the IGA to complete that process. This project submitted
prior to this.
Member Schmidt asked so technically the GMA has not been expanded at this time
because it has not completed all the channels it has to go through.
Planner Wray replied that it has gone to both bodies as hearings to agree to the
boundary change, but to make it complete, the County needs to extend the Overlay
Zoning and amend the IGA. As he understands it, that process is identified for later this
fall.
Member Lingle asked if the buffer that was being recommended in the preferred
alternative is 300 feet wide and how was that number arrived at? When he looks at that
strip in scale with the residential lots of Eagle Ranch Estates, it looks so narrow that it
would seem like something that would come in that would be employment would be
forced to develop in a strip configuration to fit. He was not sure if it was being
envisioned that something else would be more clustered and have employment uses
within that 300 feet or how was that number arrived at.
Planner Wray replied that Eagle Ranch Estates developed as a cluster development
and he believed it was a 50/50 cluster where roughly 50% of the area was residual open
space and if you look on the east side, you have anywhere from 300 to 600 plus feet as
a built in buffer to the existing residential estate project to anything that happens out to
the west. Yes it does look narrow on a map, but when you apply that to an existing
setback and buffer from the existing residential development, if there were a large retail
as part of a commercial project, you would not have the large retail buildings backed up
real close to the property line. That would be further to the east and we would get some
different buildings and architecture and site planning along that edge.
Member Craig asked if that section was left to the original Structure Plan then it would
be designated Community Separator and therefore because of what the Board did
previously, if it came in, it would be zoned RUL. Is that correct?
Planner Wray responded that it is the only rural that come close to the County zoning in
that area.
Member Craig asked if it was left as the original Structure Map and it came in, even
though it is in our GMA, and came into the County to develop, what could they develop
in that area.
Planning and Zoning Board Minutes
October 20, 2005
Page 18
Planner Wray replied that it would fall under the airport zoning and it generally allows
the rural residential within airport zoning and most of the other non residential uses are
under special review.
Member Craig asked if the reason it was under special review was because it is in the
airport zone?
Planner Wray replied that the airport zoning covers a large area further to the west and
the County identifies special review because it is part of the corridor and part of the
airport influence and critical area.
Member Craig said the reason she brought this up was because if the County felt that
particular parcel needed special review because of a safety factor with the airport, are
we being smart turning it into an employment and commercial, when it might be an area
that safety wise it would not be wise to do that.
Planner Wray responded that the city does not have a regulatory position to restrict a
development within the airport influence area. The noise contours from the airport go all
the way up north of the reservoir and have a wider designated area as part of the airport
influence. The only part that Cameron mentioned that we are looking at a regulatory
restriction on development is within the critical area, which is the crash zone on either
end of the runway.
Member Craig asked if she understood correctly, as staff they felt that that area was not
in the critical flight zone, so we are not really looking at a safety issue.
Planner Wray replied no.
Member Schmidt asked about improvements to the interchange and had anyone put a
pencil to it and if this commercial were to build out at reasonable revenue, did it give us
enough to make preliminary improvements or has anyone looked at what the benefits
are financially to this.
Planner Wray responded that when there is public participation on this item, the Board
would get more information on that.
Member Schmidt asked if rezoning this commercial it should give us enough income
revenue in that area to make improvements.
Planner Wray replied that it would help. If you ask CDOT for money right now for
interchange improvements, the answer is no. It is on their list of projects, long term list.
Planning and Zoning Board Minutes
October 20, 2005
Page 19
Member Schmidt asked what level of service the interchange was at.
Planner Wary responded that it was at capacity and failing at times.
PUBLIC INPUT
Joe Carter, Cityscape Urban Design representing Mr. Kurt Dimick who owns 40 acres
right at the interchange. Mr. Carter had questions regarding the 300 foot strip and how
if functions as the buffer. He said generally they were in agreement with staff that Mr.
Dimick's 40 acres should be developable as commercial or employment. They also
don't think that coming in with a residential designation adjacent as shown previously
would just create the same problem that is already there in creating commercial next to
residential. From a tax standpoint we think that we would want to get as much
commercial as we possibly could at this intersection for the benefit of the city. It is there
preference to go all commercial and they think that through cooperation with staff and
smart development practices, you can get the type of buffering that you want. He does
not quite understand what the employment zone does for them, certainly it gives them
an opportunity to put office in there, but so does commercial. It gives them the ability to
do residential, but so does commercial. He did not think that the employment
designation is the right way to go either. One of the things that he employment district
does, is it also allows for light industrial and is that a better than a big box store? A big
box store is not going to be 60 feet high; it is going to be 30 feet high. There are
architectural controls in place to allow for articulation in the structure. He thought he
needed more information, but did not know if the 300 foot employment zone is the
solution. Personally they think it should be all commercial. He also asked if Mountain
Range Shadows to the south had been spoken to.
Tom Hahn, 1601 Quail Hollow Drive, was here representing property interests on the
north side of County Road 32 on the west side of 1-25. They certainly don't have any
objections to the plan recommendations as presented in that particular area. A couple
thoughts and comments that her clients wanted to bring forward in this whole process
was the issue was greater than a designation on a map. What is happening is that as
the city has begun to want to take charge of the area, influence the area and see that
there are some benefits to this particular part of the world being brought into Fort Collins
both as an entry area and potential commercial and the advantages that could bring to
the city. Several things can be factored in, one is he believes the interest in coming to
the city is there if the city is willing to be a partner and do the kind of things that those
particular property owners feel are going to work to everyone's best advantage and
make it work. It is a very significant cooperative issue. You have the highway
department, you have the town of Windsor, the city of Fort Collins and then all the
private property interest on both sides. Obviously there is one very big "gorilla" that is
sitting in the room and that is an inefficient interchange that because of its existing
Planning and Zoning Board Minutes
October 20, 2005
Page 20
condition, it is already a problem and there are things that can be done to make it a
win/win for everybody. The city can take significant leadership in doing that in this
process as one of the starting points, but it also needs to take the time to sit down with
the property owners and work on those issues. It is probably through the annexation
agreements and encouraging that process that some of these issues about to what this
buffer might need to look like and how the transition would work, that is where we best
take care of that. We do it through design standards. He thought that trying to put a
narrow strip of a different land uses on a piece of property is not necessarily going to
accomplish that. The objectives can be stated, the P & Z Board can state that, the City
Council can state that and then we move on to another level as we move toward
annexation to begin to address that. The key is that the city takes the leadership role
and helps form the partnerships so that we do move forward in a positive way.
John Barnett, 3200 Greenwood Court, was there representing the property owners at
the southwest corner of 1-25 and Highway 392. It is the closest property to Carpenter
Road. They have been involved in this process for a considerable amount of time and
the Prado family has owned this property for 20 years. They viewed it originally as a
long-term investment that would be developed at an appropriate time in the future. As
they have owned this land the town of Windsor and the cities of Fort Collins and
Loveland have grown together around it and the interchange has become much more
problematic. None of the landowners have anything to do with the problems created at
that interchange and yet that interchange is a major barrier for owners realizing the
return on their investment.
When the Corridor Plan was developed and adopted in spring of 1995, the intersection
was still functioning fairly well and was not a major issue that was brought up at that
time. Nothing was done or planned for for the idea that land uses would have to
support its future redevelopment. Hence, the mixed use land uses that were designated
around it. Everybody realizes that the interchange is broken, but its repair is at least 20
years out. There is no funding for it now or for the foreseeable future, therefore it is
going to fall back on a kind of boot strap public/private partnership effort to get it done.
The drawing that was shown earlier has within in it a phased redevelopment of that
interchange with property owners carrying a significant amount of burden over time.
They have got the revenues available in the land in order to pay for that infrastructure.
That infrastructure includes development first to the frontage and later relocation of the
ramps and finally the replacement of the overpass over the interstate. The landowners
are being asked to take on a tremendous burden and solve a problem that they
themselves did not create. They need help from the public sector to do that and part of
that help is land use. The original Structure Plan amendment, if that were left in place
right now, he could tell you that the interchange would stay exactly the way it is as such
time as the public is prepared to do the replacement. If zoning is adequate and the
Planning and Zoning Board Minutes
October 20, 2005
Page 21
folks out there can generate sufficient revenue through tax increment financing and so
on, through all those mechanisms, then development will happen and development here
will pay more than its fair share, it will pay for a great deal of the replacement of the
interchange. What we need is an effective public partner, they ask that the city of Fort
Collins be that effective partner and designate the entire site as commercial. The
closest part of Mr. Prado's property to any of the lots in Eagle Ranch Estates is 600 feet
and they think that is a very good buffer, but in addition to that 600 feet they will of
course be required to meet Fort Collins Big Box Standards and they have no objections
to doing that but they do need the land uses and the city will have the opportunity to
review design.
Jeff Couch, Team Engineering, 3465 Shallow Pond Drive, stated that he would like to
make three points with the Board tonight. He stated that they were opposed to the
Structure Plan amendment as presented. They would like to see the employment
removed. He represents the VanCleaves who own 40 acres. It is very hard to do
anything in a 300 foot strip when you are talking over a quarter of a mile. They felt what
was happening was commercial was being buffered from commercial. They are hoping
that the Board approves all commercial.
He stated that when they went to the County Commissioners, the County
Commissioners realized that certain properties would bear the brunt of the interchange
improvements. They asked for two things of city staff, "the requirement that the city of
Fort Collins staff negotiate with impacted property owners to develop a certainty that the
proposed Structure Plan will accommodate the zoning requests of all property owners".
The second "the assurances that the city will be active participants in an effort to
provide adequate public facilities on the 1-25 and 392 Interchange and Carpenter Road
should be completed". As of this date there have been a couple of meetings with the
Transportation Department and they are saying that there are no capital improvements
and there is no funding and all they can do is schedule some meetings for us. That
does not meet that requirement.
He stated that at one time Windsor was going to bond for those improvements with
these properties and they were going to dedicate the right-of-way for the frontage roads
and it was a 20 million dollar project. At that time Windsor spent $150,000 for the
preliminary design and placement of that interchange. That was approved by CDOT.
There has been a considerable amount of work to the point with some preliminary plans
and work they could build those frontage roads with a lot of the information that is
already done. We are way past where Fort Collins is with their Transportation Staff.
Fort Collins has no reason for being out there because there is no infrastructure out
there.
Planning and Zoning Board Minutes
October 20, 2005
Page 22
PUBLIC INPUT CLOSED
Member Torgerson asked what kind of uses did they see in the employment area that
would be the kind of buffer that they would want to see.
Planner Wray replied that with the roughly 300 feet staff was envisioning some office
buildings and potentially some smaller uses like clinics as part of the primary. There is
some room for the 25% of secondary uses, but there is certainly not room there for a
large light industrial manufacturing plant within that small strip.
Member Torgerson said that all the things he mentioned staff would like to see are
allowed in the commercial zone and yet the employment zone introduces things that
you would not want to see like light industrial. Are there uses that staff specifically
thought would make a good buffer in the employment zone that you could not do in the
commercial zone?
Planner Wray replied that if there was a large commercial project that went all the way
up against the edge of Eagle Ranch Estates, conceivably you could have 150,000 s.f,
buildings and those typically would be fronted onto Carpenter Road, since those lots are
rectangular, and truck loading and side parking would be on the edge between the two,
or the backs of the buildings.
Member Torgerson said he thought it would be subject to the compatibility standards of
the Code.
Planner Wray said we do have our large retail standards and we do have the
landscaping standards for trying to buffer and industrial to residential. Staff thought this
would add some additional uses in conjunction with pushing some of those other
commercial uses further away from the residential.
Member Torgerson asked if the commercial or residential would generate more tax
dollars to help fund the interchange improvement.
Planner Wray replied that staff did not get into that level of detail.
Member Torgerson asked if anyone has looked at the flight pattern of the airport and
would it be problematic when it comes to height of buildings.
Planner Wray replied that we do know where the flight pattern is now for the large
planes and the airport and they generally swing around and fly over the reservoir area
and a little north of that down over to the critical area which is further to the west of this
area.
Planning and Zoning Board Minutes
October 20, 2005
Page 23
Chairperson Meyer asked if anyone had spoken to the residents of Mountain Range
Shadows.
Planner Wray replied he could check on that, he believed the notification area did
include them.
Member Carpenter commented that she sees what staff is trying to do with making that
a buffer, she is concerned as well and what she does not want to happen is the next
time this comes in and it is light industrial and it is something that is really inappropriate
in that area and she wondered if there was not a better zone or some it could be
conditioned so we can make sure that that does not happen. There a lot of uses in
employment that really would be inappropriate there and we would be in the position of
this does not work but it fits all the criteria. She thought that in making it employment
instead of commercial we may be making it worse.
Member Craig asked about when staff put in the big chunk of employment, what their
thoughts were.
Planner Wray replied that thoughts were to have some additional opportunity to get
other uses and types of projects in and around the interchange than what commercial
would normally allow.
Member Craig asked why they have changed their minds
Planner Wray replied that when we looked at the other adopted plans and the
designation as an activity center, staff felt that the commercial designation could work
here. Based on further discussions, we felt that we wanted to reduce that.
Member Craig asked by having a larger piece, you could bring in a larger employer
versus little pieces parts. Was that considered at the time and why was it considered
not necessary down there. Did we have enough big pieces of employment further north
that we don't want to encourage employment along with an activity center.
Planner Wray replied it was not so much that in that we recognize that this is the
immediate interchange area and if you look at some of our other corridors you have
more commercial activity right around the interchange. In looking at the Harmony
Corridor, the employment doesn't really begin until you get further separated from the
interchange.
Member Torgerson asked if all this area was included in the 1-25 Sub Area Plan and
therefore subject to the additional standards.
Planning and Zoning Board Minutes
October 20, 2005
Page 24
Planner Wray replied yes.
Member Lingle asked if Windsor was annexed to the interstate.
Planner Wray replied yes.
Member Schmidt asked given some of the designs of the new frontage roads — if that
ends up going down is that going to be a problem with splitting some of these
properties.
Planner Wray replied that was a detail of site planning. There was a street network
identified as part of the 1-25 Corridor Project that showed the area that preliminary
alignment work was done for the frontage roads. If a specific project came in or a series
of them together coordinated, then both the County and the city would have to look at
them together to respond to where the roads are proposed and how that is in
relationship to the uses on the property.
Member Torgerson moved to recommend to City Council that the Sub Area Plan
be adopted consistent with Option 5.
Member Lingle seconded the motion.
Member Craig would not be supporting the motion. She could just not go along with
turning it into all commercial when we had some employment. She would like to see
some employment down in this area as well. She thought Option 2 might be the
closest. She would not be supporting Option 5.
Member Torgerson felt comfortable recommending this because it is subject to all the
additional regulations in 3.9, which are the 1-25 Sub Area Plan regulations and there are
a lot of really good standards in there that he believes will promote a good buffer.
Chairperson Meyer commented that staff spent a lot of time and personally if this is
flawed or not, it is better than nothing and at least the city is forging ahead instead of
reacting they are pro active and she thought that was wonderful.
Member Schmidt asked to add something about Sally's comment of trying to get the
Council to strengthen the IGA with the County so if projects to come in ahead of time
that don't have to be annexed they try to have something that more forcefully
recommends the use of our standards in any project review.
Planning and Zoning Board Minutes
October 20, 2005
Page 25
Planner Wray replied that we do joint County Referrals and forward recommendations
and they try to adhere to our guidance, but it is not a regulatory framework from our land
use recommendation.
He thought was Sally recommended before is that the Board would recommend that we
work with the County to capture the intent of the employment designation if that is what
Council would support to add to their supplemental regulations.
Member Schmidt asked if the County had adopted all the 1-25 Design Standards.
Planner Wray replied that we have our existing Code and the landscaping standards for
commercial projects next to residential and industrial. We have our 1-25 Corridor
Standards that talk about sight planning and edge transitions, so we do have some
good language in place right now.
The motion was approved 5-2 with Members Craig and Schmidt voting in the
negative.
These minutes were approved 3/16/06 by the Planning and Zoning Board.