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HomeMy WebLinkAboutLand Conservation And Stewardship Board - Minutes - 11/14/2007MINUTES CITY OF FORT COLLINS LAND CONSERVATION & STEWARDSHIP BOARD Regular Meeting 200 W. Mountain, Suite A November 14, 2007 DATE: Wednesday, November 14, 2007 LOCATION: 200 W. Mountain Avenue, Suite A TIME: 6:00 p.m. For Reference: Linda Stanley - 493-7225 Mayor Doug Hutchinson - 416-2154 John Stokes, Staff Liaison - 221-6263 Board Members Present Raymond Boyd, Greg Eckert, Trudy Haines, Vicky McLane, Linda Stanley, Dave Theobold, Karyl Ting Board Members Excused Michelle Grooms Council Liaison Mayor, Doug Hutchinson Staff Present Natural Resources / Natural Areas Department: Rick Bachand, Geri Kidawski, Mark Sears, Jennifer Shanahan, John Stokes Guests No guests Public Comments No public comments Agenda Review Stanley: An addition to the agenda for the Board's discussion (possible recommendation) will be the development of the Southwest corner of I-25 and Harmony. Review and Approval of Minutes • Stanley: I will email Geri some small revisions for the October minutes, which won't make any difference with the way anyone votes. Vicky McLane moved to approve the September 12, 2007 Board minutes. Dave Theobald second. The minutes were unanimously approved. Land Conservation & Stewardship Board November 14, 2007 Page 2 of 9 Vicky McLane moved to approve the October 10, 2007 Board minutes. Trudy Haines second. The minutes were unanimously approved. Prairie Dog Fall 2007 Update Presentation Rick Bachand, Sr. Environmental Planner, City of Fort Collins, Natural Areas Program introduced himself and Jennifer Shanahan, Environmental Planer with the City of Fort Collins, Natural Areas Program to Board. Bachand mentioned that Shanahan will present to the Board. • Recap of last spring— Prairie dog policy plan (1998) was replaced by Wildlife Management Guidelines (Spring 2007) o Primary objective — Promote and enhance grassland health o Secondary objective — Provide habitat for prairie dogs, recognize unique stresses and influences of fragmentation on natural checks and balances on prairie dogs in the ecosystem and mange accordingly. o System of filters and zones • Overview • Colony mapping and distribution • Soapstone colony dynamics • Cathy Fromme Prairie colony dynamics • Acres occupied by prairie dogs • Vegetation Monitoring o Qualitative o Quantitative • Rapid Assessment • Vegetation monitoring - quantitative • Vegetation monitoring - methods • Vegetation monitoring - results basal and canopy cover • Species composition — dry weight rank • Remote sensing • Burrow detection at Soapstone • Burrow detection at Prairie Dog Meadows • Soapstone Vegetation Classifications • Comparison of field and satellite monitoring results • Review of spring management actions • Contraceptive research • GonaCon: Injectable hormone inhibitor for both males and females, effective for three years • Diazacon: oral bait — good for one breeding cycle • McLane: Are there any predators that have died from plague? • Shanahan: I would think that they avoid them. • McLane: Maybe plague doesn't affect the predators. • Shanahan: Most prairie dogs we found were dead on the ground Land Conservation & Stewardship Board November 14, 2007 Page 3 of 9 • Haines: Is that a natural occurrence when the colony gets to such a large population? • Shanahan: Plague is not that well understood. The plague is from Eurasia and they don't understand how plague links between colonies, but fleas are the vector. • Bachand: The understanding of plague is that it is cyclical. Once in a colony, it stays in the colony and then they haven't showed what causes it to recycle and appear, but it tends to do that. That is one thing we think about when developing management. • Theobald: Are there additional colony and plague data sets to give you better time series information? Having historical contrasts would be useful in the plan. Division of Wildlife and CDC has been studying this for decades in this area. • Sears: 2004 was the first year we mapped. • Ting: At this point in time would you leave the urban colonies alone? Would you have to put an addendum into the management plan for colonies in urban areas? • Bachand: This is more of a wait and see what happens approach. • Sears: In the past eight years we've relocated prairie dogs on several occasions following a plague incident. In an area that was designated for development, we've moved them to a portion of Cathy Fromme Prairie and some on to Pineridge. • Ting: Do you have repeat photography? • Shanahan: We have photo points that our crew chief Matt Parker started on all of our Natural Areas three or four years ago, but they do not necessarily correspond to prairie dog colonies. • Ting: From the place that you have to interface with the public, repeat photography would be a very useful tool in giving people a visual. • Shanahan: That is very useful information. • Theobald: When comparing urban vs. Soapstone, when was this data recorded? • Shanahan: It was all done in July. • Theobald: Any expectation for those to change over time? • Shanahan: It depends on when the rain comes and what plants you have growing on that site. We chose July because we wanted to give the grading season some time, but yet capture the complement of the warm and cold season grasses. The other aspect is bind weed, which grows over the season and the prairie dogs avoid that. • Eckert: Would the bind weed make bias some of your cover numbers? • Shanahan: If I collected the data at the end of the season I think the bind weed would have affected the numbers more. I am still in the process of looking at the site by site data, because it is site specific. • Theobald: Is this cut out to Soapstone proper or is this the full extent of the studies. Looking down the road of native species coming from other locations, do you get an idea of what the context is? • Shanahan: We did this only for Soapstone. • Theobald: Is there potential of working with the County, because you all will be sharing borders. • Shanahan: To the west I believe they haven't done anything like this, this year. Land Conservation & Stewardship Board November 14, 2007 Page 4 of 9 • Stokes: Crystal Strouse and Daylan Figgs have monitoring spots all over the property at Soapstone, and this started a couple of years ago. Over time we will have good strong data about what's happening on the ground. • Stokes: In category number four "zonation" is that the area that we've done density reduction and zoning elimination? Can you describe that tern. • Shanahan: That was where we treated an edge of a colony so that the colony doesn't expand out. It's not always successful because from where we treated, the prairie dogs move back in probably from the core area. • Theobald: With these twice a year updates, through time, how are you measuring the success of your treatment? • Shanahan: We recognize that to implement those guidelines, we will have to do more treatment up front, to get them where they belong, and then do much less later. Also, vegetation monitoring can measure that success concurrently. • Eckert: Your primary goal is oriented towards the plant community and grassland health. • Haines: Has there been any public comments on prairie dog treatments. • Shanahan: This year no. In previous years yes. • Theobald: Have you kept tract of the calls / complaints from the public? • Stokes: Matt Parker keeps a database of all complaints. • Theobald: You are collecting a lot of information, and this is a sensitive topic for the public, can you be more explicit of the indicators that would describe that your management actions are successful. Give some ways in which these reports can catalogue that you are doing a good job. This would help me as a Board member. • Shanahan: One of the goals of the vegetation monitoring was to help us determine what our thresholds are. • Bachand: We adopted these guidelines in March and this is our first season. • Stanley: On your numbers that go to percentage basal cover, percentage canopy cover and percentage native, you have core, edge and control. If the control is off there are no prairie dogs. Are you hoping to see the edge move closer to the control over time? • Bachand: We are going to manage it for weeds. • Stanley: You do not expect any change on the core over time if your management is working except for maybe the weed part of it. • Bachand: I expect natural fluctuation in the population level. • Stanley: As this policy takes shape your edges will be improved. • Bachand: Correct. • Shanahan: Finding those edges can be difficult. Bachand presented on the contraceptive research. • Theobald: These are options for you all for managing population. • Bachand: We are trying to add a non -lethal tool. • Theobald: When would it be appropriate to use that tool vs. other tools? • Bachand: Where we are doing lethal fumigation right now. • Theobald: I would encourage you to think this through a little bit more. Is the problem too many prairie dogs, is it they are in the wrong place, is it that they Land Conservation & Stewardship Board November 14, 2007 Page 5 of 9 have plague and the public is concerned? There may be a variety of possible reasons to be concerned in a particular management action, which might be more appropriate or less appropriate given that context. • Stokes: The reason we got interested in these studies is because people were not happy with us fumigating prairie dogs. • Bachand: There is no one else studying this right now. Currently it's the City of Fort Collins with the National Wildlife Research Center. • Stanley: I think you have made great strides in the last year with prairie dog management guidelines. You are trying something that no one else has tried before. I feel it's great that you are giving that a chance and then trying to map the data along the way. • Stanley: If anyone has comments or questions please email Jennifer or Rick. Appropriation of Capital Funds for Public Improvements at Soapstone Prairie Natural Area • Sears: We budgeted all of the money for these improvements within our own Natural Areas budget to accommodate a City Capital Project policy. This is a three year project. The Ordinance appropriates $5,100,000 in Natural Areas Program designated revenue into the Capital Projects Fund, to construct public improvements for public recreation at Soapstone Prairie Natural Area. Soapstone Prairie Natural Area will open for public recreation in June, 2009 in accordance with the recently adopted management plan. Prior to opening, the construction of public improvements are required. They include: 0 9.5 miles of gravel access road o entrance station o two gravel parking areas o interpretive features o picnic shelters, and vault toilets o over 30 miles of soft trails Construction of the access road started in October and will be completed by spring 2008. Construction of the remaining improvements will start in the spring and be completed prior to June 2009. Theobald: We are building the road, who will take over maintenance? Sears: This will be a public road, privately maintained. We will probably be seventy-five percent responsible. Trudy Haines moved to recommend to City Council the adoption of this Ordinance on First Reading. Raymond Boyd second. It was unanimously approved. Fort Collins Community Separators Fort Collins — Loveland Community Separators • Sears: Since this Separator Study was completed in 1995, Fort Collins has completed a number of conservation projects in the Loveland Separator and have partnered with Larimer County and Loveland on a number of projects, to protect a Land Conservation & Stewardship Board November 14, 2007 Page 6 of 9 total of 5,834 acres south of the GMA. The area conserved by Fort Collins is 4,157. There are still a few opportunities for conservation left in this separator, two parcels are being researched and discussed at this time. Sears discussed with the Board conservation projects completed between Fort Collins and Loveland. • Theobald: Are there light ordinances within community separators regarding night sky? For instance heights of light restrictions etc. Should we be concerned with this because the City is spending a lot of money on these separators? • Stokes: Where we could have an impact on that is in a conservation easement, although in all the years of working on easements I don't remember any that had some provision about lighting. • Theobald: Let me ask the question again. To what extent would it make sense, and to have the ability to make a recommendation or convey something that says this is one of the values of the community separators. Around the country there is straight forward language about night sky ordinances. • Stokes: This is a complicated issue and not one that staff can work on. The Board does have the prerogative to make this an issue, and invest the time on this issue. Fort Collins -Windsor Community Separator • Sears: Fort Collins has been actively working on conservation along the Poudre River in this area for over ten years. Many of the properties are being mined for gravel or will be in the fixture, so it may take 15 years or longer to acquire conservation easements on some of these properties. Area targeted 2,700 acres, area conserved 560 acres, and area conserved by the City of Fort Collins 172 acres. Sears discussed with the Board conservation projects completed and under negotiation. • Haines: Driving to Denver all you see is store fronts and big boxes. What if the vision of Fort Collins, as you drive into this area, was to view nature? • Sears: That is our vision with the community separator program, the I-25 corridor project. • Stokes: One of the issues is going to be that there is a lot of land and we have a limited amount of money. It would be good to get feedback from the Board on where you feel we should be spending the community separator dollars. • Haines: Because of limited time here, we need to have a discussion about priorities and what do we think about the river corridor. • Stokes: Because of previous spending, for a number of reasons, we've budgeted lean budgets for the next couple of years on land conservation, and it will get bigger as we go forward. We have to be strategic on how we manage our money and the choices we make about where we invest our money, because we do not have unlimited resources. • Sears: The other opportunity for major dollars is GOCO. • Stanley: It would be good for us to have one full meeting or a work session where John and Mark can give us the constraints as they see them, and then we can discuss them. Land Conservation & Stewardship Board November 14, 2007 Page 7 of 9 Fort Collins — Timnath Community Separators • 'Stokes: Timnath City Council has decided to include much of the area Fort Collins designated as a Community Separator in their urban growth area. We are currently on hold waiting for City Manager/City Council direction on how to proceed with the Timnath Community Separator. Area targeted 2,257 acres and area conserved 296 acres. Stokes discussed the conservation projects under negotiation with the Board. Fort Collins -Wellington Community Separators • Sears: Larimer County has taken the lead on four conservation easements in the past two years. Fort Collins has partnered with Latimer County on one conservation easement, and will probably partner with Latimer County on many more. Fort Collins — Real Estate Services staff have spent the last year identifying property ownership, researching the development potential of the separator, researching land values and beginning negotiations. Area targeted 6,081 acres; area conserved 882 acres, area conserved by Fort Collins 599 acres. Sears discussed the conservation projects completed, currently conserved property and conservation projects under negotiation with the Board. Development of the Southwest Corner of I-25 and Harmony • McLane: I am concerned about the presentation given by BHA to this Board last month regarding the development of the southwest corner of 1-25 and Harmony Road. What I worry about most is the use of this Board's name and stature by the developer. I'm also concerned about the fact that this developer is willing to take, with no cost to the Natural Areas program, the 600,000 cubic yards of dirt excavated from Eagle view. To me, this looks like the City of Fort Collins is tacitly endorsing this development, and I feel this is very dangerous. In the current City structure plan a good part of the area is designated a Poudre River corridor. They are proposing to change it from a Poudre River corridor to employment. The other piece that is of concern is the development design. They are hoping to go to City Council in February to change the Harmony corridor plan, the City structure plan, and they expect to put through a separate annexation request for current Council approval. This is all on a fast track and we'll be lucky to catch up with it. If we can weigh in with Council I would like to do so in an appropriate manner. • Haines: I was initially concerned with the protection of the view shed. I think that it is an economic advantage to have view sheds that fit with what the City of Fort Collins is about. • Theobald: I feel that the most powerful tool is to buy the area and then we would have complete control over the property, and then to put an easement on it. To what extent can other things be done? We would need to be strategic in making recommendations on the property, because it is on the plan as a community separator, and it is directly adjacent to existing Natural Areas. Is there some way that we can weigh in on recommendations? • Sears: The Natural Resources Advisory Board has been active in doing that. Land Conservation & Stewardship Board November 14, 2007 Page 8 of 9 • Stokes: I think it is logical for this Board to make comments. The developer did bring the project to this Board to get your feedback so he invited you to weigh in. • Haines: Dense populations belong in the City. How much will the Natural Areas in that area be used, because of the population in that area? • Sears: Very heavily. • Stanley: Can we find out what it means to be zoned City structure plan for the Poudre River Corridor? • Sears: The Poudre River Corridor is very restricted. • Stokes: I'm hearing five major concerns / ideas, and also David Theobald's sense that maybe we should buy this property. There are two kinds of thinking here 1) influence the project, or express our concerns, and 2) acquire or conserve the property. • Theobald: Natural Areas are values that you can apply to any land in the City or County. Think of what those are and what different mechanisms there are to purchase the land. This is the most direct way, but there are other potential ways of influencing that. • Stokes: I would suggest to the Board that Current Planning is the department that deals with that, and Dana Leavitt, Environmental Planner, would be the contact person. His job is to do precisely what you are suggesting, Dave. If you are interested in making a comment or suggestion to the City, it would most appropriately be directed to the Current Planning department. • Haines: At the minimum we should write a letter stating our concerns. • Theobald: To the extent that we can identify specific aspects of this property that are related to Natural Areas, I feel we make a stronger statement in documentation that we all ready have. • Stokes: If the Board wants to write a letter, the Chair could do that on behalf of the Board and circulate it by email and people can comment back on that. • Stanley: Vicky and I will draft a letter and circulate it among the Board members for their comments. • Ting: My concern is what impact this development will have on the Natural Areas if we commit to this project. Where is our role otherwise in that? • Eckert: I think we need to look at the master plan, and see what the ability is of the Natural Areas program to implement that plan and to see what impact something like this would have. • Sears: If this property doesn't get rezoned then our ability to acquire it is very likely. If the community doesn't participate in some of the flood improvements then there is no real value to this property. • Ting: As a Board I feel that we can not comment on this development. • Stokes: This Board's charter is limited to those issues that have some level of impact to a Natural Area. As a Board, if you believe that this project has the potential to impact the adjoining Natural Area then I would advise you that it is appropriate for the Board to weigh in if it wants to because your concerns are consistent with the charter. Land Conservation & Stewardship Board November 14, 2007 Page 9 of 9 • Theobald: There is our discussion, and then there are the Natural Areas staff that is trying to get this done, to what extent would a letter from this Board'modify, change or hinder your potential ability to work with the developer. • Stokes: If the Board weighs in and has serious concerns or reservations of the nature of the project because it has these impacts, I think that would be a significant statement by the Board and I think that would be taken seriously not only by us but by other staff working on this project. • Stanley: We can send the letter to Council, and copy the Current Planning Department and Darin Attebeny. New Business: No new business. Announcements: Stanley: In terms of memos to City Council, at the last meeting I promised to write two memos, one regarding the CSU land exchange, which went to City Council. The Second was the 1-25 / 392 Interchange Improvement Plan, which was delayed to Council. I have a draft completed and will send it out to the Board for their review shortly. Stokes: Our next LCSB meeting will be at Primrose Studio on December 12, 2007. Stokes: The Natural Areas staff is going to Council on December 11, 2007, to talk about the Northern Integrative Supply project. I would like to ask the Board to please watch the tape recorded for City Council, which will be aired on channel 14 the weekend of December 8, 9, 10, 11. There is also the option of watching Council or coming to the Council meeting. At the Board meeting the next night we will give a short synopsis of the presentation to Council, and then answer any question you may have. Adjourn The meeting adjourned at 9:30 p.m. Submitted by Geri Kidawski Administrative Secretary