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HomeMy WebLinkAboutLand Conservation And Stewardship Board - Minutes - 02/14/2007MINUTES CITY OF FORT COLLINS LAND CONSERVATION & STEWARDSHIP BOARD Regular Meeting 200 W. Mountain, Suite A February 14, 2007 For Reference: Bill Bertschy - 491-7377 Mayor Doug Hutchinson - 416-2154 John Stokes, Staff Liaison - 221-6263 Board Members Present Bill Bertschy, Michelle Brown, Greg Eckert, Michelle Grooms, Vicky McLane, Greg Snyder, Linda Stanley, Dave Theobold, Karyl Ting Board Members Absent No Board members were absent. Staff Present Natural Resources / Natural Areas Department: Geri Kidawski, Jeremy Lees, Mark Sears, Jen Shanahan, Rachel Steeves, John Stokes • Bertschy: Introduced Dave Theobold, the new Board member, and asked Board members to introduce themselves to him. Guests Four Colorado State University students Public Comments There were no public comments Agenda Review Stokes: I'd like to add a brief update on the Soapstone process. Sears: I'd like to present for recommendation the temporary Lease to Seller of the residence on 75 acre Coyote Ridge Stables property to be purchased for the Natural Areas Program. Review and Approval of Minutes • Ting: On page 6 there is a typo, in my statement the word should be paleontologic not ecologic. • Eckert: I did not attend January's meeting, I was excused. Linda Stanley moved to approve the January 10, 2007 meeting minutes, with corrections. Michele Grooms second, and they were unanimously approved. Land Conservation & Stewardship Board February 14, 2006 Page 2 of 8 Conveyance of Tracts of Land in the Bobcat Ridge Natural Area • Sears: After the purchase of Bobcat Ridge Natural Area, it was discovered that the fence -line of the neighboring parcel, owned by Philip and Connie Sprague, encroached on the Natural Area property according to the legal description. The fence line has been in place for over fifty years, therefore City Staff recommends recognizing the fence line as the property line. To acknowledge the fence line as the property line and to correct the legal descriptions for both Bobcat Ridge Natural Area and for the Sprague's property, staff recommends conveying the two tracts of 1.84 acres and .50 acres in size, to the adjacent property owners, Philip and Connie Sprague. We do need the Board's recommendation to Council to proceed. Sears referenced the map included in the packet for the Board's review. • Stanley: Is this property something in the future, we may acquire? • Sears: It certainly is one that we may want to have a conservation easement on. • Bertschy: Do we have to do an appraisal of any kind? • Sears: No, we're going to deed it over at no cost. Vicky McLane made a motion. The Land Conservation and Stewardship Board recommend that Council approve the conveyance without any significant impacts to the management of Bobcat Ridge Natural Area. Second by Linda Stanley. It was unanimously approved by all. Foothills Management update — Rachel Steeves • Steeves: We brought this document back to the Board as a chance to review the full document. There are not many updates. One change is that McKee has been renamed Coyote Ridge, making it part of the Natural Area. It now fits under the Foothills Management Plan. • Snyder: I would like it stated in the Plan when short term or long term projects have been completed. There are many goals and actions stated, but no where does it state that they have been implemented or completed. • Sears: It could be stated that we are actually going to do the project, but what we try to fall short of is actually doing the limitation planning, for instance; of which year etc. • McLane: The Plan language is an overall comment is it not? I would not like to see the intension to implement or complete a project stated in an area of the Plan. • Stokes: We could introduce the document with a statement about how these plans would be implemented moving forward; however it does partly depend on our resources from year to year. Sometimes these are aspirational, and a lot of this we will get done, but there may be some things that may never get done. We can review the document and look at this issue. • Eckert: From this do you go to a strategic plan of how the department spends money? • Stokes: Yes, there is a work plan that comes after this. • Bertschy: How often do we update this plan? Land Conservation & Stewardship Board February 14, 2006 Page 3 of 8 • Sears: We have been doing them every five years, however this is the second revision of this plan so it may have a shelf live of about ten years. • Bertschy: In the introductory comment it may be worth stating that this plan is periodically updated. • Stokes: If the Board has any additional comments over the next few weeks please call the office. • Bertschy: We do appreciate all the hard work that was done on this Management Plan. • Sears: I know that the Board was aware that Edith Felchle, our Senior Environmental Planner retired after 22 years with the Natural Resources department. Edith was largely responsible for all of our local management plans, and she was the leader of the team that worked on this Foothill Management Plan. Rachel Steeves stepped up to work on the Plan after Edith left. Public Comment on Wildlife Management Guidelines — Jen Shanahan • Stokes: I'd like to introduce Jennifer Shanahan, who is a Research Assistant in the program. The Wildlife Management Guidelines was previously brought to the Board, and we wanted to come back and give you any update on the process we've been through with the Wildlife Management Guidelines. The following tables include comments from five distinct groups, Land Conservation and Stewardship Board, City Council, Natural Resources Advisory Board, Colorado Division of Wildlife, other peer review and the public. Greg Eckert has provided some extremely helpful comments, which will sharpen our thinking around these guidelines, and also help with future planning efforts. What we would like to ask the Board for this evening is a recommendation to Council to rescind the existing Wildlife Management Plan and support the administrative adoption of these Wildlife Management Guidelines. Shanahan reviewed the public comments, issues and responses with the Board. • Snyder: Regarding comment 18 from the Natural Resources Advisory Board "Why don't we do more to control foxes?" Can you explain that? • Stokes: My understanding is, as the human population grew along the Front Range and Eastern Colorado, and with the fragmentation of the habitat and creation of agricultural fields, the Red Fox being an adapted animal, has thrived in that kind of habitat. Maybe one hundred years ago the Red Fox would not have stood a chance against the wolves and coyotes, but now that we've changed the landscape so much they adapt very well to our kind of habitat. Their population has grown and there is nothing we can do about that or are going to do about that. • Shanahan: The Red Fox is the Division of Wildlife's jurisdiction. • Stanley: Why are prairie dogs classified differently than Foxes by the Division of Wildlife? 0 Shanahan: They call prairie dogs pests. Land Conservation & Stewardship Board February 14, 2006 Page 4 of 8 • Stokes: It's a State Law that they are classified differently then most wildlife, which does fall under the Division of Wildlife in the State of Colorado. Prairie dogs are classified as pests or varmints. There are hunting regulations for all kinds of animals, but there are no regulations for prairie dogs, so prairie dogs are essentially unregulated. • Ting: Who controls feral animals? • Stokes: Lets make a note to clarify this in the document. • Ting: Is there anything in the charter regarding the discharge of fire arms in a Natural Area? • Sears: You can not discharge a fire arm within City limits, and we've added to that that one can not carry fire arms in a Natural Area. We amended that to allow hunting in the regional Natural Areas by permit allowing someone to carry a fire arm by permit only in a Natural Area. These changes were made about a year ago. • Brown: When you do a management plan for hunting season, will that go to the public first or will you just put it in the overall management plan? • Stokes: On Soapstone, what staff will recommend, is the possibility of using hunting as a recreational and/or management tool. We will not implement a hunting program because what we want to see is how the wildlife reacts to putting people on that land. Red Mountain is different because this is county property. They got a portion of the money from the Division of Wildlife, so they will start with a very limited hunting program. We will monitor the wildlife and see what happens on the Soapstone Natural Area property, before making any decisions about whether or not it will be appropriate to have a recreation and hunting program. • Stanley: I remember that you talked about sending the Management Plan Chapter on prairie dogs to prairie dog experts for their review. Are their comments included in the summary of key comments, and are you considering them? • Shanahan: Yes, Jim Detling from Colorado State University (CSU) is a plant biologist and studied vegetation on prairie dog colonies for about twenty years. Bill Andelt is a wildlife biologist and is focused on control methods for prairie dogs. The third person is a graduate student who is finishing his PHD. He completed his Masters and PHD setting prairie dog colonies in Denver. I also consider several of the folks from the Division of Wildlife as experts. • Stokes: Pat Mehlhop a Species Recovery Coordinator for prairie dogs, from the Division of Fish and Wildlife service, made several comments and is defiantly involved in wildlife issues. People were concerned about our ability to implement the prairie dog guidelines. We are aware that this will be a lot of work. This spring we will begin working on an implementation plan, and we will do a better job of going through the fine filter analysis of prairie dog habitats. Then we will figure out how to manipulate these prairie dog towns to try to get towards the vision we have that is articulated in the Wildlife Management Guidelines. With respect to our time and resources we will do the best we can. • Shanahan: Seth Manley, from CSU, commented that we are describing prairie dogs like they are the problem, when it's urbanization that is the problem and this is an unfair dialogue. I went back to the introduction of the prairie dog chapter and added Land Conservation & Stewardship Board February 14, 2006 Page 5 of 8 three paragraphs outlining what happens through urbanization. This was a very important comment. • Snyder: Is there a plan in the works to chart and trace, moving forward, what we've done with prairie dog fumigation as far as population counts, aerial photography? • Stokes: We have been monitoring prairie dog populations, and moving forward, we will continue to monitor to see what happens. We have some very good data from the past five years. I want to commend our staff, Matt Parker our crew chief, his technicians and Crystal Strouse, for their work this summer. They have worked diligently on vegetation monitoring of numerous sites, because we felt the need to get a good baseline off the mountain field, and to build on data we collected in the past. It is a very important part of what we do. • Theobold: I thoroughly agree. Along those lines and in these types of plans do you have a periodical assessment, whether it's one year or two years or ten years? Do you have an expectation as to when you will check back to look at the data? • Stokes: This spring we will work on an implementation plan and that's the sort of thing we will address. • Shanahan: The most updated version of the Wildlife Management Guidelines is on the Natural Areas department web page, which was posted on February 12, 2007. This is the copy that was sent to City Council for their meeting next week. • Bertschy: Do we need to take action on this item? • Stokes: Yes, the legislative reason for going to Council is to rescind the existing prairie dog policy plan. So the action would be a recommendation to Council to rescind the existing prairie dog plan. • Shanahan: One very important aspect is what our accountability is for these Wildlife Guidelines. We have written into the guidelines that we will come to the LCSB every six months to report on what has been done, what were the results and how we plan on moving forward. The LCSB is an accountability Board and you will help us with the adaptive management plan moving forward. Linda Stanley made a motion. The Land Conservation and Stewardship Board recommends to Council to rescind the existing prairie dog management policy plan, and to recommend Administrative adoption on March 15, 2007 or later of the Wildlife Management Guidelines. Second by Vicky McLane. It was unanimously approved by all. Comment: • Eckert: I wrote comments on the guidelines, because I had issues and questions partly because the guidelines introduced concepts of ecosystem health and adaptive management. I saw that the Wildlife Guidelines could be better tied to the ecosystems and to the Natural Areas themselves. I expressed that in my comments, but at the same time I want to see us move forward and to give the managers the flexibility, which I think is very important. I will be working with the staff on this. There aren't a lot of good examples out there, and we can't say that a lot of people Land Conservation & Stewardship Board February 14, 2006 Page 6 of 8 know how to do this yet. It will be interesting to see how this applies in an urban setting. Budget Review — John Stokes Stokes reviewed the handouts of the Natural Areas 2006 budget, with the Board, looking at the revenues and expenditures and budgeted revenues and budgeted expenditures. He also reviewed, with the Board, the Natural Areas 2007 budgeted revenues and budgeted expenditures. The 2007 budgeted expenditures included 2006 carryover. • Stokes: We are required to report annually to the Board and to the public about our revenues and financial situation, and how the money is budgeted. This is one opportunity to do this. We also provide regular reports to Council and then we will also generate an annual report, which may come out as soon as March. We will come back to the Board to talk about our capital needs at Soapstone. The biggest issue for us at Soapstone is getting the roads built. The extension and completion of county road 15 will be a big number. We are working on the planning and design of the extension, and hopefully the design will be completed by this July, and we would like to have the road completed in to the "T" by the end of this year. Questions from the Board were answered by Stokes and Sears. Temporary Lease to Seller of Residence on 75 acre Coyote Ridge Stables Property to be Purchased for Natural Area Program — Mark Sears • Sears: The attached memorandum outlines the purchase of the Robin Jones property. Natural Areas and Real Estate staff have negotiated the purchase of the Coyote Ridge Stables property, including all improvements, from Robin Jones. The purchase price for the property is $1,100,000. • McLane: Is the City going to get it? • Sears: We do not have it under contract; however I heard from the seller's attorney today that he did not see any problem with our purchase agreement and the seller is motivated to sell. We anticipate having it under contract within next week. The one aspect we are bringing to you this evening is that we would like to allow Mr. Jones time to find and purchase a suitable substitute property, the purchase agreement includes the lease of the existing Jones residence for up to one year. This allows us to close quickly. • Stokes: Acquisition of the Coyote Ranch Stables will remove the last remaining "in - holding" within the Coyote Ridge Natural Area and the community separator along South Taft Hill Road, preserving a spectacular view shed and wildlife habitat for the future. Sears referenced the Jones property map handed out to the Board at the beginning of the discussion. Michelle Brown made a motion. Land Conservation and Stewardship Board recommends that Council approve the temporary lease for one year of the existing residence to Robin Jones, Seller, located at 8161 South County Road 19 (South Taft Hill Road), Fort Collins, Colorado. Second by Linda Stanley. It was unanimously approve by all. Land Conservation & Stewardship Board February 14, 2006 Page 7 of 8 Resource Recovery Farm Lease — Mark Sears Sears made reference to the attached map in the LCSB packet. • Sears: Resource Recovery Farm is located near Prospect and Interstate I-25, and totals approximately 150 acres. The site was purchased from the City of Fort Collins Utilities department in 2003 in an effort to maintain open space along the I-25 corridor. Of the 150 acres, approximately 110 acres are former agriculture lands that have been idle since the Natural Areas purchase. We've asked for proposals, and today we actually received two proposals from two different fanners to lease the property. Leasing the property back to a farmer for agriculture production reduces management and maintenance costs for the Natural Areas program and allows time to explore management and use options for the Resource Recovery Farm. We are asking that the Board recommend to City Council to approve an ordinance granting an agriculture lease of 110 acres located on Resource Recovery Farm. • Ting: Are there any stipulations in the lease? • Sears: It will be in the lease that they will have to use approved pesticides and herbicides. Depending on which offer we take, there will be some things that we'll be responsible for and some cost that they'll be responsible for, especially in the first year as we transition from ground that has a lot of weeds on it, to hopefully by the end of this year, a nice looking farm land. • Bertschy: What about water? • Sears: Irrigation water will be provided by shares of Lake Canal water that transferred to the Natural Areas program with the property, ground water from wells located on adjacent city owned property, and/or water leased from the City of Fort Collins Utility department. • Snyder: Will the lease include the shed? • Sears: No. It will include only the fields. • Snyder: Who currently uses the shed? • Sears: We have some equipment and supplies in the shed and various City departments are stock piling topsoil in the shed. • Snyder: I feel the shed is valuable, if City departments are not utilizing it. I think there can be some income potential from that, if used for covered storage. • Sears: We tried to lease the shed, and in the past the problem we faced is compliance with building and zoning. We would have to bring the road up to standards, which stops any lease. • Theobold: The uses in Running Deer Natural Areas are they relatively compatible with adjacent property? • Sears: The portions of Running Deer that you can see on the map are gravel mines. The gravel mining company, Lafarge, is in the process of restoring that area, but due to the snow pack, they are delayed. They should finish restoration this year and then it will be three or four years before we open it to the public. Vicky McLane made a motion. The Land Conservation and Stewardship Board recommends to City Council to approve an ordinance granting an agriculture lease of 110 acres located on Resource Recovery Farm. Second by Michelle Brown. It was unanimously approved by all. Land Conservation & Stewardship Board February 14, 2006 Page 8 of 8 Soapstone up -date — John Stokes • Stokes: We had an open house for Soapstone Natural Area, with about 200 people in attendance. A quick overview was given to the audience and then we broke out into small groups. We recently collated all the commentary and categorized it, and when completed we will bring it to this Board for your review. In general most of the people are really keen on conservation and realize that this is a very special area and they want to protect those values. As a staff we are looking at those issues that we've aggregated. We will develop responses to those issues, and we will be sending the responses to everyone who sign in at the Soapstone open house meeting. Our next public meeting will be in July, and by then we will have our zones and some conceptual ideas about recreation on the maps to bring to the public. 0 McLane: Let me caution you, from our experience, about using the word zone or zonings. That may bring to mind for many people a regulatory status. D Stokes: That is a very good point and I will pass it along to Daylan Figgs. New Business: No new business. Announcements: • Stokes: As you recall we did a user survey in 2006. It was a quantitative and qualitative survey. The results are in and I will bring this back to the Board as an agenda item next month. Adjourn The meeting adjourned at 8:45 p.m. Submitted by Geri Kidawski Administrative Secretary APPproved E) t� e