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Home My WebLink AboutCOUNCIL - AGENDA ITEM - 01/19/2016 - CONSIDERATION OF AN APPEAL OF THE BUILDING REVIEWAgenda Item 15 Item # 15 Page 1 AGENDA ITEM SUMMARY January 19, 2016 City Council STAFF Mike Gebo, Chief Building Official Tom Leeson, Director, Comm Dev & Neighborhood Svrs SUBJECT Consideration of an Appeal of the Building Review Board Regarding the Coy-Hoffman Silos. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Woodward, Inc. has appealed the Building Review Board (BRB) decision to uphold the Chief Building Official’s declaration that two historic farm silos are “dangerous structures” and not structures that pose an “imminent danger” at 1041 Woodward Way. STAFF RECOMMENDATION No staff recommendation BACKGROUND / DISCUSSION Woodward, Inc.’s new facility and office complex on 1041 Woodward Way, corner of South Lemay Avenue and East Lincoln Avenue, was the original site of the Coy-Hoffman farmstead, a state designated historical site. A barn and two silos are what remain of the farmstead. The two silos are approximately 40 feet tall, one of cast in place concrete constructed around 1912, and a second silo using a concrete stave system constructed around 1913. Due to the storage of silage in the past; both silos are showing signs of concrete decay around their bases. The cast in place silo has a slight list to the east and is out of plumb. The stave system silo is oblong at the upper third. Woodward, Inc. requested that the City’s building official declare that the silos are an imminent danger/hazard in accordance with the adopted 2006 International Property Maintenance Code (IPMC). With a City declaration of imminent danger, the silos could be demolished and repurposed. To assist the City’s determination, Woodward hired the engineering firm of Martin and Martin to evaluate the structural integrity of the silos. Martin and Martin’s Ms. Nicole Lane, PE states in part:  The weakened state of the concrete walls is currently adequate for an empty structure but, without intervention, the silos will continue to deteriorate and will eventually become unstable and unsafe.  I also found both silos are stable against net overturning due to wind pressures. The City hired Exponent Failure Analysis Associates, Mr. Paul Bennett, PE, to provide his structural analysis of the silos and Mr. Bennett states in part:  Under the Structure and Premises Condition Code (International Property Maintenance Code (IPMC)) the silos should be repaired or replaced.  However, under the International Building Code (IBC), Historic Structures are exempt from retrofit requirements as long as a life safety hazard does not exist. Agenda Item 15 Item # 15 Page 2  Exponent determines that as long as people are not allowed to occupy the fall zone of the silos (this can be accomplished by fencing off the silos with appropriate fencing), then a life safety hazard does not exist. Woodward, Inc. then hired JVA Consulting Engineers, Mr. Steve Carpenter, PE. to provide a third structural analysis. Mr. Carpenter states in part:  Because of the reduced concrete section at the bases, and the reduction in concrete strength, compression failure of the remaining concrete under Code required Wind Loads is possible.  The silos will require significant repairs if restored  If the restoration cannot start immediately, that the silos be temporarily shored and/or strengthened until permanent repairs are complete. Code required Wind Loads are assumed to be 120 MPH-130 MPH and are the designed loads used for evaluating construction of new buildings today. The Chief Building Official reviewed all three engineers’ reports and based on their expert analysis, agreed that the silos have reached their serviceability limit and their strength limit state, in accordance with the below IPMC defined terms, and therefore the silos are dangerous structures: Limit State; A condition beyond which a structure or member becomes unfit for service and is judged to be no longer useful for its intended function (serviceability limit state) or to be unsafe (strength limit state). Dangerous structure or premises; A structure or premises is dangerous if any part, element or component thereof is no longer within its serviceability limit or strength limit state as defined in this code or, when considered in totality, the structure or premises pose an imminent threat to the health and safety of the public or the occupants of the structure or premises as referenced in Appendix A of this code. Issue: Imminent vs dangerous City Code Article IV, Demolition or Alteration of Historic Structures Not Designated as Fort Collins Landmarks or Located in a Fort Collins Landmark District, Section 14-71, requires that proposed demolition or exterior alteration of historic structures be reviewed and approved by the Landmark Preservation Commission (LPC), except for historic structures found to pose an imminent threat. No alteration or demolition can occur to historic structures without approval by the LPC or a declaration by the Chief Building Official that the structures pose an imminent danger and require immediate removal. The City indicated to the three engineering firms that an imminent danger declaration was being requested. To help better clarify “imminent” staff provided the adopted IPMC and Webster’s definitions: IPMC; Imminent Danger, a condition which could cause serious or life-threatening injury or death at any time. Webster’s; Appearing as if about to happen, likely to happen; impending. Without a clear declaration of imminent danger, by any of the structural engineers involved, on September 18, 2015, the Chief Building Official declared the silos to be “dangerous structures” and ordered that Woodward, Inc. secure the site around the silos and to submit a plan of protection for stabilizing the silos. Agenda Item 15 Item # 15 Page 3 ATTACHMENTS 1. City Clerk's Notice of Hearing and Site Visit Notice (PDF) 2. Notice of Appeal, Filed by Woodward, Inc, November 12, 2015 (PDF) 3. Materials provided to the Building Review Board (PDF) 4. Applicant Presentation to the Building Review Board (PDF) 5. Materials Presented to the BRB at the hearing (PDF) 6. Verbatim transcript (PDF) 7. Staff powerpoint presentation to Council (PDF) 8. Link to the Building Review Board Hearing and videos of silo (DOCX) ATTACHMENT 1 City Clerk’s Public Hearing Notice and Notice of Site Visit ATTACHMENT 2 Notice of Appeal - Notice of Appeal filed by, Woodward, Inc., c/o Steve Stiesmeyer November 12, 2015 ATTACHMENT 3 Materials Provided to the Building Review Board, Hearing held October 29, 2015 ATTACHMENT 4 Applicant Presentation at the Building Review Board Hearing October 29, 2015 PROPRIETARYINFORMATIONͲ PROPRIETARYINFORMATIONͲ ©2015WOODWARD,©2015WOODWARD,INC. INC. BuildingReviewBoardAppeal SiloStructuralClassificationandNotice toSecure DatedSeptember18,2015 AppealDate:October29,2015 PROPRIETARYINFORMATIONͲ ©2015WOODWARD,INC. X Woodward,Inc. X JimRudolphͲ President,IndustrialTurbomachinerySystems X JenniferRayͲ ProgramManager,LincolnCampus X PamBartelͲ AssociateGeneralCounselandCorporateDirector,Contracts X NextLevelDevelopmentͲ WayneTimura X JVA Ͳ SteveCarpenter Introductions PROPRIETARYINFORMATIONͲ ©2015WOODWARD,INC. X WoodwardandCampusProjectOverview X SiteSelection X GeneralAdaptiveReusePlan X AdaptiveReuseSiloProposal X StructuralClassificationAppeal X ComprehensiveAdaptiveFunctionalReusePlan X Conclusion Agenda PROPRIETARYINFORMATIONͲ ©2015WOODWARD,INC. X Woodward–AnAerospaceandEnergyCompany X FortCollinsCampusProject X MasterPlanned:Woodward871,000SF+CommercialUse73,400SF X 303,000squarefootproductionandofficefacilityforITS X 60,000squarefootcorporateheadquartersfacility X Restorationof31AcresalongthePoudreRivertoitshistoriccondition,dedicatedtoCityfor publicuse X AdaptivefunctionalreuseoftheCoyͲHoffmanfarmstead X $225MillioninvestedbyMarch2016 X Anextensivejobscreator Woodward&CampusProjectOverview PROPRIETARYINFORMATIONͲ ©2015WOODWARD,INC. LocationMapandMasterPlan PROPRIETARYINFORMATIONͲ ©2015WOODWARD,INC. X EvaluatedanumberofsitesinFortCollinsandLoveland X Otherstateswerealsoconsidered X SignificantchallengestotheformerLinkͲnͲGreenssite X FloodwayandFloodplain X Limitedinfrastructure X Overheadpowertransmissionlinebisectedthesite X Mainsanitarysewertrunklinebisectssite X CoyͲHoffmanfarmsteadstructures X PoudreRiverBuffer X Woodward’sandtheCity’smutualcommitmenttosuccessplus X AthoughtfulanddeliberateapproachtotheseuniquechallengeswillachieveaworldͲclasscorporate campusindowntownFortCollins SiteSelectionandChallenges PROPRIETARYINFORMATIONͲ ©2015WOODWARD,INC. CoyͲHoffmanFarmsteadLocation PROPRIETARYINFORMATIONͲ ©2015WOODWARD,INC. X ThesignificantcomponentsoftheCoyͲHoffmanfarmsteadwillberestored andrepurposed,asoriginallyplanned. X TheinitialintentwastoretaintheBarn,MilkhouseandSilos,thoughno specificusewasidentified.Milkhousewasmovedasoriginallyplanned. X HistoricStructuralAssessmentindicatedthattheSiloswerein“fairto poor”conditionandrecommendedafurtherstructuralassessment. X WoodwardengagedMartin/Martintoperformastructuralengineering reportfortheSilos. X AsafollowuptotheMartin/Martinreport,WoodwardalsoengagedJVAto performasecondstructuralengineeringreport. GeneralAdaptiveReusePlan PROPRIETARYINFORMATIONͲ ©2015WOODWARD,INC. X Insummary,thestructuralengineeringreportsfromMartin/MartinandJVA bothindicatedthattheSilosareinanimminentlydangerouscondition. X TheMartin/MartinreportstatedthattheSilosshowsignsofimminentfailure orbreakdown. X TheJVA reportsimilarlystatedthattheSilosshowsignsofimminentfailure duetolongͲtermacidattacks. X Basedonthereports,WoodwardrevisedtherestorationplansfortheSilos fromtheinitialoptions. X ReviewedtheplanwithCityPlanning&DevelopmentDirectorforguidance X SubmittedaRequestforHistoricReview– EligibilityͲ DemoorAlteration X TriggeredCityBuildingOfficial’sEvaluation StructuralEngineeringReports PROPRIETARYINFORMATIONͲ ©2015WOODWARD,INC. X CurrentproposalincludesdismantlingtheSilosandreusingthesalvageable upperportionstocreateseatingstructuresapproximate4foothighinthe samefootprint X Dangerousintheircurrentcondition X Nolongerservingtheirhistoricpurpose X AsproposedtobemodifiedtheSiloswillremainanintegralpartofthe historicfabricofthesitedevelopment X Adaptivefunctionalreusetocreateacontemporarypatioandseatingarea forWoodwardmembergatheringandcollaboration X Publichistoricinterpretiveandeducationalbenefit AdaptiveReuseͲ SiloProposal PROPRIETARYINFORMATIONͲ ©2015WOODWARD,INC. X Afterreviewofthestructuralengineeringreportsandextensive consultation,theCityrequiredWoodwardtoimmediately take thefollowingaction: “Alockableprotectionfenceofsignificantstrength,suchas chainͲlink,andsixfeettallshallbeimmediately installed encirclingthesilosandshallextendoutward25feetfromthe baseormore[...]toprovideasafetyzone.”(emphasis added) CityLetter,Sept.18,2015 PROPRIETARYINFORMATIONͲ ©2015WOODWARD,INC. X TheCityalsopostedaredͲtagwarningontheSilos. X “ThisBuildingisUnsafeandmustbeVacatedImmediately [. ..]Entryposesriskofdeathorseriousinjury.”(emphasis added) CityLetter, Sept.18,2015 PROPRIETARYINFORMATIONͲ ©2015WOODWARD,INC. RedͲTagWarning PROPRIETARYINFORMATIONͲ ©2015WOODWARD,INC. X ThelettermandatedthatWoodwardimmediatelyerecta6Ͳ foottallfencewitha25Ͳfootradius. X TheredͲtagwarningstatestheSilosareunsafeandmustbe vacatedimmediately. X TheCitydeterminedthattheSilosarein“dangerous”condition but,despitethefencingrequirementandredͲtagwarning,did notfindthemtoposean“imminentthreat”. CityLetter,Sept.18,2015 PROPRIETARYINFORMATIONͲ ©2015WOODWARD,INC. X Section14Ͳ71(b) X Section14Ͳ51 X Section111.3oftheInternationalPropertyMaintenanceCode, asadoptedbytheCity CodeRequirements PROPRIETARYINFORMATIONͲ ©2015WOODWARD,INC. X Section14Ͳ71(b):Nostructure50yearsoroldermaybe demolishedunlessitisfoundtoposeanimminentthreatunder Section14Ͳ51oftheCode. X Section14Ͳ51:ACityofficialoremployeemustfind“an imminentthreattolife,healthorproperty”topermit demolitionofthestructure. CityCodeSections PROPRIETARYINFORMATIONͲ ©2015WOODWARD,INC. X InternationalPropertyMaintenanceCode,asadoptedbythe City:“[a]conditionwhichcouldcauseseriousorlifeͲ threateninginjuryordeathatanytime.” X Black’sLawDictionary:“[a]nimmediate,realthreattoone’s safetythatjustifiestheuseofforceinselfͲdefense.” DefinitionsofImminent PROPRIETARYINFORMATIONͲ ©2015WOODWARD,INC. X Section111.3oftheInternationalPropertyMaintenanceCode, asadoptedbytheCity,statesthatanappealmaybebased uponaclaimthat“therequirementsofthiscodeare adequatelysatisfiedbyothermeans.” X TheSiloshavedeterioratedtosuchanextentthattheyposean imminentthreattothelifeandhealthofcitizensandthe surroundingbuildings,andtherequirementsoftheCodeare adequatelysatisfiedbyWoodward’shistoricrenovationplans. AdequatelySatisfied PROPRIETARYINFORMATIONͲ ©2015WOODWARD,INC. X Martin/Martin X January7,2014 X JVA X August10,2015 X Exponent X August13,2015 ImminentDanger– EngineeringReports PROPRIETARYINFORMATIONͲ ©2015WOODWARD,INC. X “Theyarenolongerperformingtheirintendedpurpose. Intheir currentstatetheycannotbeusedassilosorforanyother occupieduse.” X “Theyshowsignsofimminentfailureorbreakdown. The weakenedstateoftheconcretewallsiscurrentlyadequatefor anemptystructurebut,withoutintervention,thesiloswill continuetodeteriorateandwilleventuallybecomeunstable andunsafe.”(emphasisadded) Martin/Martin PROPRIETARYINFORMATIONͲ ©2015WOODWARD,INC. Martin/Martin PROPRIETARYINFORMATIONͲ ©2015WOODWARD,INC. Martin/Martin PROPRIETARYINFORMATIONͲ ©2015WOODWARD,INC. Martin/Martin PROPRIETARYINFORMATIONͲ ©2015WOODWARD,INC. Martin/Martin PROPRIETARYINFORMATIONͲ ©2015WOODWARD,INC. Martin/Martin PROPRIETARYINFORMATIONͲ ©2015WOODWARD,INC. X “Wealsoagreethatthelowerportionofthewallsshowsigns ofimminentfailure duetolongtermacidattack.”(emphasis added) X “[...]duetotheextremelysmallremainingcrosssectionof concreteatthebaseoftheSilo,andthereducedstrengthof theconcreteduetoyearsofacidattack,webelievecrushingof theconcreteunderlateralloadsinducedbyCoderequired windloadscouldoccurnow,resultinginfailure.” JVA PROPRIETARYINFORMATIONͲ ©2015WOODWARD,INC. X Stavesilo: X “Theeffectofaciddeteriorationiscompoundedinthatitattacksthebottomof thesilowall,whichisalsothepartofthewallthatcarriesthegreatestamount oftheverticalload.” X “[T]hecrossͲsectionofeffectiveconcretecanbedecreasedtothepointwhereit willnolongerbeabletocarrythecomprehensiveloadandthesilowallwill begintocrush.” X Castinplacesilo: X “Oncesilageacidspenetratetheconcretearoundthesteelmuchofthebond strengthislost.Theresult?Atsomepointintimethesilowallwillnotbeableto carrytheimposedhorizontalloadandthesilowillcollapse.” OntarioReport PROPRIETARYINFORMATIONͲ ©2015WOODWARD,INC. JVA PROPRIETARYINFORMATIONͲ ©2015WOODWARD,INC. JVA PROPRIETARYINFORMATIONͲ ©2015WOODWARD,INC. JVA PROPRIETARYINFORMATIONͲ ©2015WOODWARD,INC. JVA PROPRIETARYINFORMATIONͲ ©2015WOODWARD,INC. JVA PROPRIETARYINFORMATIONͲ ©2015WOODWARD,INC. X “[...]aslongaspeoplearenotallowedtooccupythefall zoneofthesilos (thiscanbeaccomplishedtosomeextentby appropriatelyfencingoffthesilosandreplacingvegetation withmaintenanceͲfreelandscaping[)],thenalifesafetyhazard wouldnotexist.”(emphasisadded) X “[...] adecisionshouldbemadetoeitherrepairthesilosor demolishthesilossoastomitigatetheriskofdamagetoother nearbyhistoricalstructures.” Exponent PROPRIETARYINFORMATIONͲ ©2015WOODWARD,INC. X “Theconcretehasdeterioratedtoanunsound conditionin manylocations,andtheunsecuredchuteopeningsatthebase ofthesiloscreateaconfinedspacewithrestrictedmeansof egress(attractivenuisance).” X “Theconditionsposeasignificantriskofimminentcollapse underdesignͲlevelwindloads.”(emphasisadded) Exponent PROPRIETARYINFORMATIONͲ ©2015WOODWARD,INC. Exponent PROPRIETARYINFORMATIONͲ ©2015WOODWARD,INC. Exponent PROPRIETARYINFORMATIONͲ ©2015WOODWARD,INC. Exponent PROPRIETARYINFORMATIONͲ ©2015WOODWARD,INC. Exponent PROPRIETARYINFORMATIONͲ ©2015WOODWARD,INC. Exponent PROPRIETARYINFORMATIONͲ ©2015WOODWARD,INC. X JVA:“[I]fcurrentdesignwindspeedsoccurattheSilolocations, [...]thereisimminentdanger.” X Martin/Martin:concurredwithJVA’s assessment StructuralEngineeringEmails PROPRIETARYINFORMATIONͲ ©2015WOODWARD,INC. X Exponent:“[...]withoutperforminganyanalysis,itisunlikely thattheSiloscouldwithstandmoderndaydesignforcesfrom windorseismicevents.” X “Thereisarisk,howeverslim,thesiloscouldcollapseatany timeanditisforthisreasonthatthesilocollapsezoneshould befencedoffaswerecommendedinourreport.”(emphasis added) StructuralEngineeringEmails PROPRIETARYINFORMATIONͲ ©2015WOODWARD,INC. X AIGrefusestoinsuretheentirehistoricrenovationproject unlesstheSilosaretakendown. X NotonlyaretheSilosthemselvesuninsurable,buttheyexpose theBarn(futureconferencecenter)tounnecessaryrisksothat AIGwillnotinsuretherenovatedBarniftheSilosremainin place. Insurability PROPRIETARYINFORMATIONͲ ©2015WOODWARD,INC. Insurability PROPRIETARYINFORMATIONͲ ©2015WOODWARD,INC. X TheHoffmanfamily,asdescendantsoftheoriginalbuildersand owners,supportWoodward’srestorationplans. X “[T]hehistoricalvalueisnotonlymaintainedbykeepingjust thefootprintofthesilos,buttheaddedsafetyallowing accessibilitytolearnaboutandshareinthehistoryofthose structuresisenhancedby[Woodward’s]vision.” HoffmanFamily PROPRIETARYINFORMATIONͲ ©2015WOODWARD,INC. HoffmanFamily PROPRIETARYINFORMATIONͲ ©2015WOODWARD,INC. HoffmanFamily PROPRIETARYINFORMATIONͲ ©2015WOODWARD,INC. HoffmanFamily PROPRIETARYINFORMATIONͲ ©2015WOODWARD,INC. X TheSilosfailtosatisfythewindͲloadrequirementsoftheCode andareinsuchadeterioratedstatethattheyareatriskof imminentcollapseatanytime. X SuchacollapsecouldcauseseriousorlifeͲthreateninginjuryor deathandalsodamagetothesurroundingproperty. TheSilosPoseanImminentThreat PROPRIETARYINFORMATIONͲ ©2015WOODWARD,INC. X TheonlywaytheSilosdonotposesuchariskisifWoodwardis deprivedofitsrighttoallowpeoplewithinorneartheSilos, which,inturn,establishesthatanimminentthreatexists. X TheCityhasacknowledgedtheimminentthreatbyrequiring immediatefencingoftheSilosandalsobyitspostingofredͲtag warningsontheSilos. TheSilosPoseanImminentThreat PROPRIETARYINFORMATIONͲ ©2015WOODWARD,INC. X However,theCityapparentlyreliesonExponent’sstatementthata lifesafetyhazarddoesnotexist“aslongaspeoplearenotallowed tooccupythefallzoneofthesilos…” X IfonecouldrelyonExponent’squalifiedstatementtodetermineno imminentsafetyhazardexists,theninnocasewouldanystructure, nomatterhowdecrepitorcompromised,posean“imminentthreat tolife,healthorproperty,”solongasbuildingownersaredeprived oftheirrighttoallowpeoplewithinornearsuchstructure. TheSilosPoseanImminentThreat PROPRIETARYINFORMATIONͲ ©2015WOODWARD,INC. X InternationalPropertyMaintenanceCode: X “[a]conditionwhichcouldcauseseriousorlifeͲthreateninginjuryor deathatanytime.”(emphasesadded) X Exponent: X “Thereisarisk,howeverslim,thesiloscouldcollapseatanytime anditisforthisreasonthatthesilocollapsezoneshouldbefenced offaswerecommendedinourreport.”(emphasisadded) ImminentDangerPerExponent PROPRIETARYINFORMATIONͲ ©2015WOODWARD,INC. Section111.3oftheInternationalPropertyManagement Code,asadoptedbytheCity,statesthatanappealmay bebaseduponaclaimthat“therequirementsofthis codeareadequatelysatisfiedbyothermeans.” Section111.3 PROPRIETARYINFORMATIONͲ ©2015WOODWARD,INC. X Historicpreservationisrequired“intheinterestofthe prosperity,civicprideandgeneralwelfareofthepeople”. X “[I]gnoring thedestructionordefacementofsuchcultural assets”resultsinnothingbutharmtothe“economic,cultural andaestheticstanding”oftheCity. Section14Ͳ2 PROPRIETARYINFORMATIONͲ ©2015WOODWARD,INC. X Woodward’sdevelopmentplans X PreservetheculturalaspectsoftheCoyͲHoffmanfarmstead X Createauniqueeconomicopportunity X Generatejobs EconomicDevelopment PROPRIETARYINFORMATIONͲ ©2015WOODWARD,INC. X RepurposingtheSilosalongwithrestoringandreusingtheBarn andMilkHousepromotes“prosperity,civicprideandgeneral welfareofthepeople”andthe“economic,culturaland aestheticstanding”oftheCity. X Thecomprehensiverestorationplanwouldnotdestroyor defacethevalueoftheCoyͲHoffmanfarmsteadbutrather makesitshistoryaccessibletothecitizensinasafeand educationalmanner. X WoodwardintendstopresenttheadaptivereuseplantotheLPC ComprehensiveAdaptiveFunctionalReusePlan PROPRIETARYINFORMATIONͲ ©2015WOODWARD,INC. ComprehensiveRestorationPlan PROPRIETARYINFORMATIONͲ ©2015WOODWARD,INC. ComprehensiveRestorationPlan PROPRIETARYINFORMATIONͲ ©2015WOODWARD,INC. ComprehensiveRestorationPlan PROPRIETARYINFORMATIONͲ ©2015WOODWARD,INC. X TheSilosarean“imminentthreattolife,healthorproperty,”as definedintheCode. X Nolongerperformingtheirintendedpurpose X Donothavethecapacitytoresisttheforcesassociatedwithwind speedsapproachingCodelevel X Requireimmediatepreventativeactionstopreventdeathorinjury X Woodward’scomprehensiverestorationplansareinthebest interestsoftheCity Conclusion ATTACHMENT 5 Materials presented to the Building Review Board at the Hearing, October 29, 2015 ATTACHMENT 6 Verbatim Transcript of the Building Review Board Hearing October 29, 2015 BUILDING REVIEW BOARD CITY OF FORT COLLINS Held Thursday, October 29, 2015 Council Chambers, 300 Laporte Avenue Fort Collins, Colorado In the Matter of: Woodward Governor Appeal Case #2015-02 BOARD MEMBERS PRESENT: George Smith, Chair Mike Doddrige, Vice Chair Rick Reider Andrea Dunlap Justin Montgomery Tim Johnson STAFF MEMBERS PRESENT: Mike Gebo, Chief Building Official Lisa Olson, Staff Support to the Board Brad Yatabe, City Attorney’s Office 2 1 CHAIR GEORGE SMITH: Okay, our next order of business is an appeal, case 2015-02. 2 This meeting is being recorded so it is important that all speakers make their statements clearly 3 into the provided microphones. I request that you identify yourselves for the recording and, are 4 there any questions prior to…we commence. I guess we’ll go to the City for the presentation. 5 MR. TOM LEESON: Great, thank you, Chair and Building Review Boardmembers. My 6 name is Tom Leeson; I’m the Interim Community Development Director, and I’d like to give 7 you a brief overview of the case you’re going to hear today and then we’ll get into more specifics 8 as the day continues. 9 The silos that are in question today are located on the new Woodward campus which is a 10 state-designated historical site. The silos were constructed in 1912 and 1913, respectively, two 11 separate years. And they are…were declared as dangerous structures by the Chief Building Official on September 18 th 12 of this year. The silos are approximately 40 feet tall and they have 13 two distinct construction types; the left silo is a concrete slip pour and the right silo is a concrete 14 stave. And again, they were built in 1912 and 1913, which were the two construction styles of 15 those two years. Woodward is appealing the dangerous classification by the Chief Building 16 Official, and has articulated in their appeal that they believe the silos are of imminent danger. 17 The appeal is on the grounds that the Chief Building Official failed to properly interpret and 18 apply the codes, and in your packet are the applicable code sections that are being appealed, and 19 we’ll discuss those. 20 As part of the process to make the evaluation, there were three engineering firms 21 consulted on the structural integrity of the silos. Martin and Martin and JVA were both 22 structural engineering firms hired by Woodward, and Exponent was the third engineering firm 23 hired by the City. Those reports are in your packet and have been provided for you for your 24 information. Two of the three reports did state that the silos could be considered imminent 25 danger under design wind loads with high winds of 120 to 130 miles an hour; but in their current 26 state, they are not considered imminent danger. And the City did provide the definitions of 27 imminent danger to evaluate the silos. Based on that, the imminent danger was not established, 28 and dangerous was the classification given by the Chief Building Official. Under Section 14 of 29 the City Code, Eligible Historic Structures, the dangerous classification requires the silos to be 30 stabilized and repaired. If they were classified as imminent danger, then the silos would be 31 required to be repaired or demolished, per the owners’ choice. 32 So today, the Building Review Board is to rule on the appeal, and rule on whether or not 33 the Chief Building Official failed to properly interpret Section 14-71 of the City Code, which is 34 the Landmark Preservation chapter, chapter 14. Section 71 is the section that specifically 35 pertains to the demolition of structures designated as a Fort Collins landmark, and the prohibition 36 of demolition of such structures unless it is found to be an imminent threat. Section 5-47 is the 37 adopted version of the City’s amended section of the International Property Maintenance Code, 38 and it’s the section of code that the Chief Building Official utilized for definitions of imminent 3 1 threat and dangerous structures. And then Section 111 is kind of a subsection of that Chapter 5- 2 47 that gives the Building Review Board essentially the authority to provide final interpretation 3 of that…of those code provisions, as well as the Chief Building Official’s decision. So those are 4 the sections that are pertinent. And that kind of concludes my presentation…and just wanted to 5 give you a brief, brief overview of what you’re doing here today. 6 CHAIR SMITH: Okay, it’s time for Woodward to present their side. 7 MR. BRAD YATABE: Mr. Chair, actually, if we can just…in line with the procedure 8 laid out…go over some of the procedural issues prior to that. Let me just state, in terms of the 9 hearing record for this proceeding, for the benefit of the parties, the hearing record for this 10 proceeding at this point will consist of the packet of information submitted by City staff, titled Building Review Board, October 29 th 11 , 2015, bearing the logo of the City of Fort Collins; both 12 parties should have received that packet already…in addition to this, documentation in whatever 13 form presented today by the speakers during the proceeding will be entered into the record. 14 Copies of such documentation need to be provided to…for the record, and we’ll keep a copy of 15 that. To this point, I know that Woodward provided us a copy of a letter and some additional 16 documentation; I believe you have received copies of that already. Additionally, all testimony 17 given by the Building Review Board at this hearing will be considered part of the record. The 18 relevance and the weight of any particular evidence that’s part of the hearing will be determined 19 by the individual Building Review Board members in making their decision. And, Mr. Chair, I’d 20 ask if you can make an inquiry to see if there’s any members of the public who may be interested 21 in making testimony today. 22 CHAIR SMITH: Are there any members of the public interested in testifying today? 23 Could you state your names? 24 AUDIENCE MEMBER: Carol Tunner. 25 AUDIENCE MEMBER: Heather Wolhart. 26 CHAIR SMITH: Okay. 27 MR. YATABE: Mr. Chair, with regards to that, I think it’s up to the BRB to determine 28 whether you want to give an opportunity for the public, presuming that testimony is relevant to 29 the issues that you’re examining, if you want to make room within the procedure to allow some 30 public comment in addition to the procedure that’s already been laid out. And, I’m sorry, Mr. 31 Chair, if we just have any discussion among the Boardmembers…to be for the public. My 32 suggestion would be, if the Board is amenable to having some public comment that is relevant to 33 the matter, that perhaps it would be best to put that at the point that…after….so Woodward 34 would first present their case and the Chief Building Official would present his case and then we 35 could take public comment at that time, if…but I leave that up to the Board to make that 36 decision. 4 1 CHAIR SMITH: That’s kind of what we were discussing; and that’s about where we 2 were thinking…we were just thinking that we would limit it to probably three minutes per 3 person? 4 MR. YATABE: I think that’s appropriate. And I think the other question before the 5 Board was whether you wanted to set time limits on the parties. My understanding, talking to 6 Woodward, is that their presentation will be along the lines of approximately 40 minutes or so. 7 At this point, based on that timing, I leave it up to the Board whether they want to put any time 8 limits on it. At this point, I would suggest not, and just seeing how the testimony plays out. 9 Obviously if there’s testimony that’s not relevant or repetitive, you can cut some of that off; but I 10 think that, because it’s their appeal, and they obviously want to make a complete record, that you 11 just listen to what they have and you can monitor as you go. 12 CHAIR SMITH: Does the Board feel that we need to limit any times on the 13 presentations? 14 BOARDMEMBER JUSTIN MONTGOMERY: I don’t think so at this point. 15 BOARDMEMBER MIKE DODDRIDGE: I do have one question, I guess maybe, and I 16 don’t know if this is the appropriate time to ask, but my understanding is our role in this is to rule 17 only on the decision of dangerous or imminent danger, and nothing to do with the historical 18 value of the structures themselves, is that correct? 19 MR. YATABE: That’s correct; the purview of this Board on this appeal is restricted 20 basically to the Building Codes, in this case the IPMC and that determination. Other matters 21 under, for example, chapter 14, those are really within the purview of the Landmark Preservation 22 Commission, so decisions as to historical status, or those types of issues, would be 23 determinations…I know that in the overview presentation there was mention of Section 14-71 of 24 the Municipal Code; and I think, as far as awareness…so you’re aware of the context of things, I 25 think that’s fine for you to understand…sort of where this case fits in and how the finding of a 26 dangerous building versus an imminent threat or an imminent danger…how this sort of interacts 27 with it. But, it’s not really your determination as to whether that was interpreted correctly, 28 because that’s really more of a Landmark Preservation Commission matter. 29 BOARDMEMBER DODDRIDGE: Okay, thank you. 30 CHAIR SMITH: Do we have any other questions before we go ahead? 31 BOARDMEMBER MONTGOMERY: Is it worth stating previous Board appeals? We 32 have a statement usually about whatever they present here at this time is…if they want to appeal 33 to City Council later they have to present everything to this Board that they would later to City 34 Council…does that apply to this meeting? 35 MR. YATABE: That would apply to this decision. 5 1 BOARDMEMBER MONTGOMERY: Whatever the proper statement is for that; but 2 usually we start our appeals out with that, so… 3 MR. YATABE: And that’s fine, and I think…I have met the attorney for Woodward and 4 if she has any questions regarding the appeal status, she can certainly contact me regarding that, 5 and the codes are available online as to the appeal period and the application process for that. 6 CHAIR SMITH: So we’re ready to go? I guess the appellant, Woodward, can state their 7 case. 8 MS. CAROLYNNE WHITE: Thank you Mr. Chairman, members of the Board, good 9 afternoon. My name is Carolynne White, I’m counsel for Woodward, Inc., the appellant, and I’ll 10 just mention for the record that sub-heading on the screen is slightly incorrect because that’s not 11 the right company name; it’s Woodward, Inc., not Woodward Governor. I think we changed it 12 on the other slide, but…just so the record is clear. I’d like to briefly begin by introducing the 13 team that you’re going to hear from today, and providing a brief overview of our presentation, 14 and then we’ll go ahead and present our case in the order that we’ve described it to you. The 15 folks that are here today from Woodward are Jim Rudolph, who’s president of industrial 16 turbomachinery systems, or ITS, Jennifer Ray who is the program manager for the Lincoln 17 campus, Pam Bartel, who is associate general counsel and corporate director for contracts, 18 Wayne Timura with the Next Level Development, who had been the original applicant on behalf 19 of Woodward working with the City throughout this process to entitle and build this campus, 20 Steve Carpenter, senior project manager with JVA, one of the engineers, structural engineers, 21 that prepared one of the reports, and you will be hearing from both Wayne and Steve a little bit 22 later in our presentation. The other witnesses are available for you to ask questions, but we 23 haven’t planned on them giving significant testimony during this time. Excuse me, except for 24 Jim Rudolph. 25 So, we are here asking the Board to review the previous determination and to find that the 26 silos do in fact constitute an imminent threat in order to permit demolition of the same in order to 27 facilitate the proposed adaptive reuse of the silos proposed by Woodward. This is a brief 28 summary of the order of our presentation. We’ll give you a brief overview of what this project is 29 and what Woodward is doing out on that campus, the site selection process and how the decision 30 was made to choose this location, particularly in light of the fact that the structures in question 31 were known at that time and analyzed at that time, and how that played into the long-term 32 planning and decision-making for this site. We’ll then briefly summarize what the proposed 33 adaptive reuse plan is, and then get into a little more detail about the specific structural 34 engineering reports, how the data contained in those reports relates to your interpretation of the 35 code sections in question, and then explain why we believe that there is, in fact, imminent 36 danger, and ask that you would overturn the Building Official’s decision and find that imminent 37 danger or imminent threat does exist. With that, I’d like to briefly hand the podium to Jim 38 Rudolph from Woodward to give you a little background about the company. 6 1 MR. JIM RUDOPLH: Good afternoon; my name is Jim Rudolph, I’m the president of 2 ITS at Woodward. To give you a little background on Woodward, Woodward is a 145 year-old 3 company headquartered here in Fort Collins. We apply technologies and develop solutions 4 around combustion, motion, metering and control for both the aerospace and energy markets. 5 The site that we’re working on out there; we’re in the process of building a 303,000 square foot 6 production facility for ITS, and a 60,000 square foot global headquarters. The site we’re 7 working on used to be Link-n-Greens and includes the Coy-Hoffman historical site. By the end 8 of March, we’ll have about $225 million invested in this project, and we look to complete this to 9 establish growth opportunities for the future of the company and continue to provide new jobs 10 for the local community. 11 MR. WAYNE TIMURA: Thank you Jim. The site that Jim just spoke about is the former 12 Link-n-Greens…oh, sorry; it’s Wayne Timura, Next Level Development. 13 And so the site that Woodward finally selected is the former Link-n-Greens golf course. 14 It’s about 101 acres, 31 acres was dedicated to the City for Natural Areas, and the initial building 15 that Jim talked about is this 303,000 square foot facility, the headquarters facility, 60,000 square 16 feet of space, and then this is the Coy-Hoffman site here, and this is a commercial area. The site 17 selection process was a complicated, extended process that Woodward did. We looked at a 18 number of different sites in Fort Collins and Loveland, as well as other states were considered. 19 And this site, itself, had a number of different challenges from the floodway, which was about a 20 third of the 100 acres, the floodplain which was another third…was some complexity that we had 21 to deal with. There was limited infrastructure on the site; an overhead main power transmission 22 line bisected the site as well as a main sewer trunk line that bisected the site. The Coy-Hoffman 23 farmstead structures also was [sic] obviously in the mix and caused us to really have a difficult 24 challenge in terms of siting the various facilities. The Poudre River buffer, the 300-foot Poudre 25 River buffer, was also certainly an impact. But Woodward’s, as well as the City’s, mutual 26 commitment to success, plus really the thoughtful deliberative approach to the unique challenges 27 on this site, really will achieve a world-class campus in the downtown of Fort Collins. You 28 know, one of the important collaborative efforts that Woodward engaged in with the City was the 29 planning with Woodward’s loan to the City…it was instrumental in restoring the 31 acres along 30 the Poudre River to its original historic condition. So that’s just some background, and we 31 wanted to give you some background about the site and about the historic structures themselves. 32 This next slide shows the ITS facility, the 303,000 square foot, and the headquarters, and 33 the historic structures, here. And we really feel that the significant components of the Coy- 34 Hoffman farmstead will be restored and repurposed as originally planned. The initial intent was 35 to retain the barn, the milk house and the silos, though we really at the time of planning didn’t 36 have any specific uses identified and finalized. The milk house was moved, as originally 37 planned. As part of the due diligence on the site, and part of our preparation to go before the 38 Landmark Preservation Commission, we engage a consultant to do a historic structural analysis 39 of the Coy-Hoffman property. And what we saw in that report was that the structural engineer 7 1 did a cursory evaluation and determined that the silos were in fair to poor condition and 2 recommended further structural assessment. So, we engaged Martin and Martin to perform the 3 structural evaluation of the silos specifically, and then determined from what they saw…we 4 really wanted to get a second opinion, so we engaged JVA as a follow-up to the Martin and 5 Martin. In summary, the structural engineering reports from both Martin and Martin and JVA 6 both indicate that the silos are in an imminently dangerous condition. Martin and Martin report 7 states that the silos show signs of imminent failure or break-down, and the JVA report also 8 similarly states that the silos show signs of imminent failure due to the attack of acid. 9 Since both reports really stated that the silos were in very poor condition, Woodward 10 took another look at the original plans for the historic structures and silos and revised those 11 plans. And so we reviewed the conceptual plan with the City Planning and Development 12 Director for guidance on what to do next, because we were modifying the original intent. And so 13 as a result of that, we submitted a request for historic review, which evaluates the eligibility for 14 historic registry identification as well as demolition and alteration, and what that does. That was 15 done by the Development Services acting manager I believe, and the Vice-Chair of the LPC. As 16 a result of that, that really triggered the Building Department evaluation and the eventual silo 17 structural classification and notice to secure. The adaptive reuse plan, the silo proposal, 18 currently includes dismantling the silos and reusing some of the salvageable upper portions of 19 the silos to create an approximately four-foot seating structure in the same footprint of the silos. 20 And, as proposed, the modification to the silos will, we feel, will remain an integral part of the 21 historic fabric of the site development; the adaptive functional reuse to create a real 22 contemporary patio and seating area for Woodward members to gather and collaborate. The 23 other thing that’s a part of the plan is a public historic interpretive area, which is located just 24 outside the silos along the public path that’s a part of the natural area. So it will provide an 25 educational benefit for the community at large. So, after we received the letter of September 18 th 26 …it was presented to me…that’s when 27 we really needed to take a look at, how do we go forward and make an appeal to change from a 28 dangerous to an imminently dangerous condition. So, I’ll turn it over to Carolynne. 29 MS. WHITE: Mr. Chair, Carolynne White again. So, this is the point at which we really 30 begin to see why it makes such a big difference whether one characterizes the silos as being 31 merely in a dangerous condition, or an imminently dangerous condition. And, as we go through 32 some of the language used in the information that we received by the City, you may also begin to 33 see why we believe there may be even some confusion about actually how imminent the potential for danger actually is. If you look at the September 18 th 34 letter from the Building 35 Official, on the one hand it concludes that there is no imminent danger; it concludes that the silos 36 are merely dangerous, but it nonetheless instructs Woodward to immediately take the following 37 action: to install a lockable protection fence of significant strength such as chain link, 6 feet tall, 38 25 feet outward from the base to provide a safety zone. Additionally, the City posted a red-tag 39 warning on the silos that states: this building is unsafe and must be vacated immediately; entry 8 1 poses risk of death or serious injury. This is a copy of that, which I believe may also be in your 2 packets, but if not, it’ll be in the record as a result of this slide. Danger, do not enter or occupy, 3 entry poses risk of death or serious injury. So, the City determined that the silos are in 4 dangerous condition, not imminently dangerous, but nonetheless required immediate action, and 5 posted this sort of rather dramatic red-tag sign on it prohibiting folks from entering and requiring 6 that Woodward take these immediate actions to establish a 25-foot protective fence around it. 7 So, as was noted earlier in the introductory remarks by staff, the three code provisions 8 that we’re talking about interpreting here today are shown up on the screen, and I’m going to 9 briefly summarize some of the key language points in each of these and ask you to keep those in 10 the back of your mind as we go through and present the evidence, since the fundamental question 11 is whether or not the evidence indicates that the definition of imminent threat or imminent 12 danger is met in this case. The first section is indeed in the historic preservation section of your 13 code, but the operative language here is that no structure 50 years old or older may be 14 demolished unless it is found to pose an imminent threat under Section 14-51 of the code. And 15 then Section 14-51 is the section that says, a City official or employee must find that an 16 imminent threat exists in order to permit demolition of a structure which is 50 years old or older. 17 And that…those two code provisions are really fundamentally the reason why we’re here today, 18 since Woodward’s adaptive reuse proposal does include what the code would consider 19 demolition of the structures, although it also proposes to restore them to some extent, as you will 20 see. 21 So, what is imminent? You’re International Property Maintenance Code, which the City 22 has adopted and codified, defines imminent as a condition which could cause serious or life- 23 threatening injury or death at any time. And some of the key phrases here are “at any time” and 24 “life-threatening injury or death.” We already know that the silos can cause injury or death, 25 because it said so on the red-tag warning. The real question is, could that happen at any time? 26 As a supplemental, we also quoted here the definition from Black’s Law Dictionary…an 27 immediate, real threat to one’s safety that justifies the use of force and self-defense. There are 28 some other definitions, like from Webster’s Dictionary, also quoted by Mr. Gebo in his letter of September 18 th 29 . The other operative definitions that we’re looking at here, or code provisions, 30 are Section 111 of the IPMC that says an appeal may be based on a claim that the requirements 31 of this code are adequately met by other means. And it is Woodward’s position that our proposal 32 to execute this adaptive reuse program would adequately meet the goal of historic preservation 33 by another means, other than attempting to keep the silos vertical and 40-foot tall in their current 34 dangerous and, we think, imminently dangerous, condition. 35 So, as we will demonstrate, the silos have deteriorated to such an extent that they pose an 36 imminent threat to the life and health of citizens and the surrounding buildings and the 37 requirements of the code are adequately satisfied by the proposed adaptive reuse plan. So, 38 keeping those definitions in mind, I’d like to ask our engineer, our structural engineer, Steve 39 Carpenter from JVA, to come to the podium and walk you through some of the findings and 9 1 conclusions of the two reports, Martin and Martin, that Woodward commissioned in order to 2 assess the structural situation of the two silos. This is the list of the three reports; he’s going to 3 cover the first two, Martin and Martin and JVA. Thank you. 4 MR. STEVE CARPENTER: Good afternoon, my name is Steve Carpenter, I work with 5 JVA here in Fort Collins; we’re in Old Town Square. We’re a consulting engineering firm that 6 specializes in environmental, civil, and structural engineering, and under our structural division, 7 we also do historic preservation, so this project is definitely very interesting to us from that 8 standpoint. 9 We were first brought on board to actually look at the barn structure, and then, as a sort 10 of a subset to that, the Martin Martin report that was written about the silos. Their report was 11 written in January of 2014. We were out there in late August, early July…did a follow-up report that was dated August 10 th 12 . So I’ll talk about those two reports. 13 So the Martin Martin report…basically they spent some time out there, measured 14 everything, photo documented the conditions, did some testing, some no-destructive testing, and 15 wrote a report. And the conclusion of their report, and they basically went straight from the 16 format from the Colorado State Historic Fund Annotated Scope of Work…that’s a format that 17 we’re asked to do in historic properties…is they said that the silos are no longer performing their 18 intended purpose, I think that’s self-explanatory, and they show signs of imminent failure or 19 breakdown…and elaborated and said the weakened state of the concrete walls is currently 20 adequate for an empty structure, but without intervention, the silos will continue to deteriorate 21 and will eventually become unstable and unsafe. Sorry… 22 So, as part of their report…they did a great job doing some photo documentation…this is 23 a photo of the concrete near the base of the silo, and you can see the deterioration; it’s very clear. 24 And just to back up a little bit, what happens here is that the silage that’s put in these silos in sills 25 creates acids, liquids, that fall to the bottom and react with the concrete in a negative way; it’s as 26 bad as the chloride type reaction that you see on highway bridges. And the reaction happens at 27 the bottom where the stresses are the greatest. So, that’s a double negative in this case. So, this 28 is the cast-in-place silo. You can see the deterioration of the concrete, but what’s really 29 disturbing here, to me, is the base is totally eroded. That’s daylight that you see right here. So 30 there is significant loss of…I call it section…there’s just no silo left. Here’s some more; this is 31 the stave silo, and so it’s…the concrete has deteriorated to the point where you can see the 32 reinforcing. The stave silo started out as two and a half inches thick and the reinforcing would 33 have been in the middle. So, you’ve lost about an inch and a quarter of your section at this point, 34 down near the bottom. Here’s a close-up of that, and so not only have we lost half the concrete 35 section, but the reinforcing is also corroded to the point where it’s not contributing much at the 36 base. Another close-up: same scenario going on there. 10 1 So then, we went out, and I personally did this report…spent the afternoon out there, and 2 confirmed their measurements, did some more measurements, did some back-checking of 3 calculations, performed some additional calculations, and basically came to the conclusion that 4 the stresses at the base of that silo are high enough to cause an imminent failure danger under 5 code wind loads. And the second quote there, due to the extremely small remaining cross- 6 section of concrete at the base of the silo, and the reduced strength of the concrete due to the 7 years of acid attack, we believe crushing of concrete under lateral loads induced by code- 8 required winds could occur now, resulting in failure. So there’s two things going on: the sections 9 loss, but the concrete is not the same strength; the acid has reacted with the cement paste, the 10 ingredients in the concrete, and have reduced the strength. And Martin Martin did something 11 called the Swiss Hammer test as part of their report, and that’s a hand-held device, a non- 12 destructive testing device that basically, for lack of better word, shoots a probe at the surface of 13 the concrete and measures the rebound strength of that probe. And they were getting numbers in 14 the range of zero to twenty. Each manufacturer has a different calibration for their Swiss 15 Hammer, but generally anything less than twenty is less than a thousand psi, zero is meaning the 16 probe is not coming back; it’s just sticking in the concrete. And that is…that’s disturbing also, 17 that indicates very, very low-strength concrete. So, I also included in my report…we…as an 18 engineering firm that does historic preservation, have seen this before. We’ve seen it before in 19 Colorado, but in Ontario, it’s such a problem that the government has put out a memo to farmers 20 regarding just this type of scenario, and there’s been a number of failures there. So I included 21 that as an appendix in the report. And that report, and you have a copy of this, explains the 22 chemistry and the physics if you want to get down to that level. 23 So we included some photos; these are the two silos, and part of the way I looked at this, 24 and maybe having the advantage of already starting looking at the barn as a, you know, adaptive 25 reuse type thing down the road, is the proximity of those silos to this barn structure that is 26 envisioned as a conference center for Woodward. And the cast-in-place silo is within twenty- 27 five feet or so. That photo, that angle, makes it look closer than that…but it’s very close, 28 obviously closer than the height of the silo to the barn structure. So this is a photo of the stave 29 silo…that’s the pre-cast sort of tongue-in-groove one on the west, and near the base, the acid 30 attack is about enough that you’ve lost total section; there’s holes in it. That’s the same hole 31 from the inside…spent some time inside the thing. And you can see the deteriorated concrete. 32 So this is going over to the one on the east side…what I call the cast-in-place…they’re two 33 different construction types. This one was a thicker concrete to start with; it probably started at 34 six inches. It’s eroded to about three or so at the base, but there are huge gaps here and here 35 where there is no bearing area left. And so, not only do we have reduced concrete strength, and 36 reduced bearing area uniformly, we have areas where there’s no…so this is all right here…the 37 stress is really concentrated, so I found that very concerning. 38 This is a photo just from the inside of the stave silo, you can see the staves; they’re 39 individual pieces that get put together here. And you can see how, here, the concrete at the top is 11 1 in very good condition. That’s because the acids don’t…they just sink down to the bottom. So 2 the top fifteen, twenty feet…these things are actually about forty-five feet high…the top quarter 3 is in good condition. So…I’m going back to…so, I’m done with this, yes. 4 MS. WHITE: Again, for the record, Carolynne White. One comment I’ll make about that 5 photograph, is that the portion of the silo that Woodward intends to reuse as part of the adaptive 6 reuse plan is the part that was just pointed out to you near the top that is in much better condition 7 and has not been eroded due to the acids from the vegetative material that formerly was stored in 8 the silos. 9 So, I’m certain that City staff is going to present to you the Exponent report as well, and 10 that wasn’t an expert hired by Woodward, but nonetheless, there are some important conclusions 11 in the Exponent report that we believe strongly support the finding of imminent danger that we’d 12 like to highlight for you. So, here are some of the conclusions that Exponent reached in their 13 report. And all of these complete reports are in the packet that was referenced earlier; we’re just 14 highlighting some excerpts for you here on these slides. One of Exponent’s conclusions was, as 15 long as people are not allowed to occupy the fall zone of the silos, then a life-safety hazard 16 would not exist. So as long as you don’t let people anywhere near them, they’re safe, or they’re 17 not unsafe. And then another conclusion, or recommendation, of theirs was: a decision should be 18 made to either repair them or demolish them so as to mitigate the risk of damage to the other 19 nearby historical structures. And that’s what Mr. Carpenter was just referencing with the close 20 proximity to the barn, which is also a potentially eligible structure and which is also sought to be 21 rehabilitated as part of the adaptive reuse plan. 22 Here are some of the other key findings in the Exponent report that we think support the 23 conclusion of imminent danger: the concrete is deteriorated to an unsound condition in many 24 locations and the conditions pose a significant risk of imminent collapse under design-level wind 25 loads, and we may end up wanting to come back and talk in more detail about design-level wind 26 loads, but this conclusion, to me, is very supportive of a finding that an imminent danger does in 27 fact exist. 28 These are some of the Exponent photographs, and I think it’d probably be better for me to 29 ask Mr. Carpenter to come back and tell you what these photographs show. 30 MR. CARPENTER: Steve Carpenter, JVA Structural Engineer…so, again, here are the 31 two silos. This is one on the west, the stave silo…this is what I call the cast-in-place silo. And 32 so this is…I believe this is a close-up of one of the photos I showed earlier, or somewhere in 33 close proximity to that. And again, you’ve got greatly reduced concrete strength, greatly reduced 34 area, and then a place that’s totally eroded away so there’s no bearing whatsoever. Neither of 35 these silos have positive attachment to the foundation; that’s actually not unusual for silos. They 36 would cast a foundation and just build the silo straight off of it and then not…by positive 37 attachment, I mean like a rebar dowel, that type of thing. That, in itself, is not unusual, and 12 1 they’re big enough that the actual overturning of the silo as a unit is not a likely failure mode; it’s 2 definitely the crushing due to reduced area, reduced strength, and in some cases, no area, so 3 stress concentration nearby. 4 And there’s some, you know, actually on the exterior, some fairly cosmetic cracking that, 5 for something a hundred and five years old, you’d probably expect. You know, there’s a lot of 6 vegetation around the base…again, there’s another hole. You can see in this photo that, over 7 time, the…assuming that it was assembled to be perfectly circular to begin with, it’s warped a 8 little bit. But what you really see here also, and this is in the stave silo again, because you can 9 see the joints…the upper part is still in good condition and part of the big plan, the adaptive 10 reuse plan, is to have an adaptive seating feature to, you know, sort of carry the historical 11 significance of these. And there is definitely enough left for that, it’s just that you wouldn’t 12 leave it at the base; you would cut the top off, take it down, and then reuse that. So, there’ is 13 good concrete; it’s just in the wrong place. 14 So then, there was a bunch of email exchanges, and I think that’s in the packet as well. 15 And at some point, I wrote an email sort of explaining…just the wind-load business is 16 unnecessarily complicated; the structural engineering community has made the wind-loads 17 unnecessarily complicated. And so I spent some time trying to explain that; under IBC 2012 18 there was a change to what’s called “ultimate wind loads” from allowable service design wind 19 loads. The City of Fort Collins has an amendment that says, no, you go back, you use a hundred, 20 which was the old ASD, which is exactly equivalent to the 130…well, minus one mile per 21 hour…the new…and all of this is semantics really. At the end of the day, any wind load 22 approaching these numbers creates a stress at the base, which I think might exceed the strength 23 of the concrete. So…you know, we can talk about wind load all day, but I don’t think it’s the 24 key thing here really, in the end. More emails…and bottom line, at the end of the day, if a wind 25 load approaching the code required wind load occurs, I believe the stress at the base of 26 that…either one of the silos…could be exceeded…the allowable stress of what’s left of that 27 concrete; therefore, the imminent danger. 28 MS. WHITE: So, the Exponent report did include some language and some findings and 29 conclusions that we believe clearly supports the finding of imminent danger or imminent threat. 30 Subsequent to having received all three reports, Mr. Gebo, I think in an attempt to clarify and 31 resolve all three of the different reports into a single finding, then had an email exchange with 32 each of the three authors of the reports, from Martin and Martin, JVA and Exponent, in which he 33 asked some additional follow-up questions about their interpretation of the data in their reports as 34 it relates specifically to the finding of imminent danger. And that’s the correspondence that Mr. Carpenter was just referring to, which is also in your packet, dated right around September 18 th 35 , 36 before he issued his final letter that day. And, in that correspondence, you have a more detailed 37 summary of the issue of wind loads and the potential frequency with which wind loads 38 approaching code design speeds could occur, and so on. But, we think the really important point 39 here is the conclusion, even in the Exponent report, which ultimately said that they found the 13 1 danger not to be imminent, nonetheless did state, there is a risk, however slim, that the silos 2 could collapse at any time. And not that phrase, at any time, going back to the definition of what 3 constitutes an imminent threat. An imminent threat is one which could occur at any time. Now, 4 Exponent also qualifies that conclusion by saying that the risk is slim, but that’s not what the 5 definition says; the definition says, that could occur at any time. So, we think that the Exponent 6 report is nonetheless supportive of the conclusion that an imminent danger does in fact exist 7 here. 8 Two other relevant facts that we think ought to be taken into consideration in making this 9 determination: as part of its overall work on this campus and as part of its proposal for the 10 adaptive reuse program, especially for the barn structure, Woodward sought to obtain insurance 11 for these structures and insurance for the rest of the project. They inquired of their insurance 12 carrier, AIG, to…you know, quote them a price for the premium for them to obtain that 13 insurance. AIG has indicated that they are not able to issue insurance…they’re not able to insure 14 the silos at all, and they’re not able to insure the barn unless and until the silos are removed. 15 This is a quote from the AIG letter, and we have the letter in your packet, and there’s a very 16 teeny-tiny copy of it on that PowerPoint slide. The other relevant factor, and this really goes to 17 the adequately preserved by other means or adequately achieved by other means, is a letter which 18 is also in your packet…and I won’t spend a lot of time on this, it may also end up being too small 19 for you to read, but the Woodward, Inc. did seek input from the original Hoffman family on their 20 adaptive reuse program and inquired about their feelings and asked for their input as it relates to 21 preservation of the historic character and the historic site, and this is some of the comments that 22 we received on that point: the historical value is maintained by keeping just the footprint of the 23 silos, but the added safety which would allow accessibility…this gets to the point of whether or 24 not people can be allowed near the silos…is actually an improvement over the current condition, 25 so that people have the opportunity to learn about and share in the history of these structures. 26 And, here again is a teeny-tiny copy of the letter, but you should have a full-size copy of the 27 letter in your packet. A couple quotes from the letter, which again I won’t read, since the entire 28 letter is in fact in your packet. 29 In conclusion, based on the structural engineer’s reports and the City’s actions in red- 30 tagging the building, requiring the fencing, combined with the fact that these structures are not 31 insurable, we think that the only conclusion is that there is in fact imminent danger. Now, all of 32 the experts agree that the silos are dangerous, there’s no question that they’re dangerous. The 33 only question is about whether or not the danger is imminent, which really boils down to whether 34 or not the danger could occur at any time. And yet all three of the experts agree that it could 35 occur at any time, and if it does occur, it could cause serious injury, death, or a serious threat to 36 property, particularly the barn that’s nearby, and the other Woodward structures that are nearby. 37 The only way that this risk can be eliminated is if Woodward fences them off and doesn’t allow 38 anybody to get near the silos. This deprives Woodward of the opportunity to actually use these 39 historic structures, which are on their property, and to enjoy one of the many property rights that 14 1 go with property ownership. We think the City has essentially, implicitly acknowledged this 2 imminent threat with its direction in the letter to immediately fence off the silos, and the red-tag 3 posting with that very dramatic language: warning, risk of injury or death. 4 For the City to conclude that it’s not an imminent threat and that it’s only dangerous, the 5 City relies principally on the Exponent report, and in particular their conclusion that, as long as 6 people are not allowed to occupy the fall zone, then an unsafe condition does not exist. But, if 7 that were the way that you would assess an unsafe condition, why then, any condition could be 8 rendered safe, no matter how decrepit, no matter how dangerous, by simply not allowing people 9 to go near it. And since the whole point of one of the reasons why Woodward decided to buy 10 this property in the first place, notwithstanding the historic structures being there, was that they 11 hoped to incorporate them into their overall site plan and make this an opportunity to allow 12 people to, you know, interact with these structures and use them for historical learning. It really 13 sort of defeats the purpose to say that we can’t let anybody near them. 14 So, back again to the definition…the first bullet on this slide is the definition in the 15 property maintenance code that we’re trying to analyze here: an imminent threat, or an imminent 16 danger, is a condition which could cause serious or life-threatening injury or death at any time. 17 And, no question that the JVA report concludes that, no question that the Martin and Martin 18 report concludes that; the only question is whether one must conclude that based on all three of 19 the reports including Exponent. And we think Exponent actually concluded that as well when 20 they said, there is a risk, however slim, that the silos could collapse at any time. 21 So, maybe the question is: how slim is a slim risk and is that risk acceptable? Perhaps 22 that risk may be acceptable in the eyes of the building official, and that’s why they concluded 23 that this was dangerous, not imminently dangerous. But that risk, however slim, is not 24 acceptable to Woodward, and we think it should not be acceptable to the City, particularly in 25 light of the fact that other adequate means exist to preserve these historic structure; the 26 requirements of the code are adequately met by other means. Briefly just summarizing, these are 27 the reasons why you can’t destroy a structure that’s over fifty years old unless it’s an imminent 28 threat, because you’re trying to preserve the historic character for a variety of very good public 29 policy reasons. All of the proposed actions to be taken with the reuse plan, with the adaptive 30 reuse plan, actually will accomplish those goals equally well, if not better than, attempting to 31 leave the silos in their current location and in their current condition. 32 Although it hasn’t yet, it is certainly Woodward’s intent to present this overall adaptive 33 reuse plan to the Landmark Preservation Commission for its review and hopefully concurrence. 34 A couple quick visuals of what that is going to look like. In this graphic…let’s see…this is the 35 proposed reconstructed silos…here, you can see this one in the background right here, and this is 36 the reconstructed barn. Another view of it, this is the milk house right here which is part of 37 the…part of the adaptive reuse is to be turned into a bike repair facility. 15 1 In conclusion then, we believe that all of the evidence clearly supports a finding that an 2 imminent threat does exist. These silos are no longer performing their intended purpose, they do 3 not have the capacity to resist forces associated with wind speeds approaching code level, they 4 require immediate preventive action to prevent injury or death, and that the overall 5 comprehensive restoration plan that’s being proposed adequately meets all of the goals of the 6 historic section of the code and the property maintenance code, by other means such that it 7 would not be improper to allow the finding of imminent danger, and to allow these to be 8 demolished and reconstructed in place as proposed. That concludes our formal presentation and 9 we look forward to the opportunity to answer your questions later in the proceedings. 10 CHAIR SMITH: Okay, thank you. Next would be the appellee, or the Chief Building 11 Official’s chance to present his case. 12 MR. MIKE GEBO: Thank you. For the record, Mike Gebo, Chief Building Official here 13 for the City. Before I do start though, I would like to invite Mr. Paul Bennett, our engineer with 14 Exponent that the City had hired, for his statements, his perspective on what we’ve done at this 15 point, up to date. Mr. Bennett? And then I’ll come back to… 16 MR. PAUL BENNETT: Good afternoon, Paul Bennett with Exponent. So you have a lot 17 of information before you, right? Talk about wind speeds, and stress and strain, and the danger 18 of this happening. And so I think that we can get lost in the weeds with all of this code talk. 19 And so, I’ve taught for several years now; I’m an instructor for ICC, the International Code 20 Council, the developer and publisher of these building codes. And I’ve taught for several years 21 for them, and I thought it might be useful, very briefly, to give you a hand out of a case study I 22 use in that class to show you. 23 I would encourage you that I think this imminent danger…this “at any time” piece, that 24 there’s a common-sensical [sic] element to it, and that you don’t necessarily need an engineering 25 degree and all these codes and ordinances and language to discern this. And so, yes, there’s a 26 risk of a lot of things happening at any time. This drop ceiling, heaven forbid, could collapse on 27 this Board at any time, right? There’s a risk, however slim. The case study before you is a 28 structure that I looked at several years ago…historical structure, built in 1889, a masonry 29 structure…and if you flip to page two, you’ll see the condition of the structure. The shoring that 30 you see in the picture was not on site when I first showed up. We do a lot of work for insurance 31 carriers and look at damaged buildings…the insurance carrier called, said some brick fell off this 32 building, why don’t you go take a look at it? I took a look at it…as you can flip to slide three, 33 page three, you can see the condition at a larger level, again, shoring was not in place when I got 34 there. Page four, similar condition…page five, don’t know how obvious it is, there’s cracks in 35 other walls that…some of which were very recent…all of this had happened the day 36 before…with this masonry that had collapsed. And so, on page six, this is actually the opposite 37 wall…and it’s subtle, but the wall is bulging, you might see towards the base of the wall. So, it’s 38 about to do what the opposite wall did the day before. Page seven, I go into the structure…this is 16 1 what interior walls and doorways look like. Page eight, an interior wall separating from the 2 exterior wall, really, that exterior wall was bowing out. Page nine, you can see the baseboard at 3 the bottom of the wall is bulged outwards…and page ten is the opposite wall where no collapse 4 had yet occurred, but you can see the separation there. 5 I walk into the structure, there’s a low-income family, they don’t speak English, they’ve 6 got four children upstairs…this is imminent danger; this is going to collapse at any time. I get on 7 the cell phone with the building department…they send out an inspector, he immediately gets on 8 the phone with the fire department…they come out and put the shoring up that you see in the 9 picture. I didn’t take pictures at that time; my concern was life safety for the occupants, right? 10 So I would encourage you that…and this is in the courses I teach for ICC…this is the type of 11 case studies we look at. I think you know, I think you sense it when there’s something 12 immediate…imminent…something that could happen at any time. And I don’t sense that with 13 these silos; I think all the engineers in this case are saying the same thing. We’re all seeing the 14 same things…maybe we’re getting lost in the weeds and arguing about semantics. We’re talking 15 about wind speeds. We agree that in a design wind event, yeah, I wouldn’t occupy these 16 silos…wouldn’t be near them, out of an abundance of caution. Because our mandate as design 17 professionals is to protect the health, safety and welfare of the public, we’ve recommended that 18 nobody stand in the fall zone, because there is a risk. These buildings are not…structures are not 19 in good shape. 20 But, what is that risk of a design wind event occurring? Well, the standard, ASCE7, 21 where we get our wind loading from, has an equation in it where you can determine the risk on 22 any given day, and so I took the liberty of doing that. And I’ll give you a quick handout on that 23 and I’ll be done. So this, again, this is the equation that’s taken out of ASCE7, and I simply 24 looked at, what is the probability of this category…these buildings were classified by JVA as a 25 risk category 3…what is the probability of that event occurring today? I won’t even say at any 26 time, meaning any second, let’s just look at today, 24 hours. A risk category 3 building is 27 designed for a wind event that has a 1,700 year return interval. That means, statistically, it 28 would occur every 1,700 years. So, you do that math on that and you can see, it’s 0.0016% is the 29 chance of that happening today. So, when we say in our report, there is a chance, however slim, 30 well, there’s your slim…we helped quantify it. Thank you. 31 MR. GEBO: Alright, thank you Mr. Bennett. Okay, so, I was brought into this discussion 32 here mid-summer this year, and my project, I guess, is one way of saying it, is to try to determine 33 and classify the structural ability of these two silos. And, as noted earlier, there’s a dangerous 34 classification…do they need repair, do they need shoring, are they a danger? And then the other 35 component is imminent danger. And, the Woodward folks sent a Martin and Martin report on 36 the conditions of these silos, and as I read through the Martin and Martin report, it indicated that, 37 first of all, the silos cannot be used. Currently adequate for an empty structure; without 38 intervention, the silos will continue to deteriorate. The foundations appear to be in fair condition 39 and…actually I was surprised to read this, both silos are stable against net overturning due to 17 1 wind pressures. Now, that started…I started asking questions about it…well, design wind…I 2 heard that a number of times…they could fail during design wind. And it kept coming back to 3 me, you know, 120 to 130 miles per hour is our design wind. I think that’s a class 2 tornado, or 4 something, so it’s a pretty high wind. And I would expect that probably a number of buildings 5 throughout town could be damaged in some way by 120 or 130 mile an hour wind. So, even 6 Martin and Martin on their report indicated that yes, the silos will continue to deteriorate and 7 eventually become unstable. 8 Now, when I look at the Martin and Martin, we’re still back on that…under “findings,” 9 the silos are generally in poor condition as defined by the Colorado State Historic Fund, italics, 10 Annotated Scope of Work, specifically…they have a number of bullet points. And their first 11 italic, which I am assuming and I have asked repeatedly, is this italic captured from the Colorado 12 State Historic Fund Annotated Scope of Work? I believe it is; so when they talk about the 13 italics, they are no longer performing their intended purpose…I think that is coming directly 14 from the State Colorado Historic Annotated Scope of Work, which is why it’s italicized. Then, 15 the second one, they show signs of imminent failure or breakdown…again, I believe this is from 16 the State Annotated Scope of Work. So, as I read through these, I think what I’m reading with 17 the Martin and Martin, and no one has clarified this or corrected me yet, that the italics is from 18 the State and the non-italics is the actual finding from Martin and Martin. 19 Martin and Martin goes on to say the weakened state of the concrete is currently adequate 20 for an empty, but without intervention, the silos will continue to deteriorate and will eventually 21 become unstable. That’s over time…they will continue. My whole function is, are these 22 dangerous, and/or are these imminently dangerous? 23 So, the JVA report…paraphrasing here…they provided extensive information about the 24 restoration; they agreed that the silos can no longer be used for their intended purpose, and under 25 design wind loads could fail. I read that a number of times, under design wind load, these could 26 fail. And my interpretation of imminent…it could happen at any moment, it could happen now, 27 it could happen today…not under some design wind speed of 120 or 130 miles per hour…that’s 28 an event in and of itself. Imminent danger, to me, is, it could happen without any external event; 29 it could just fall. That’s the limits that I’m trying to satisfy. 30 So, when I read the three reports, and I’ve provided definitions…you know, we’ve heard 31 about the dangerous structure or premises, dangerous of any part, element or component thereof, 32 is no longer within its serviceability limit or strength limit state. We think that’s true, that you 33 can’t use them for anything else, that’s the serviceability strength. Don’t put anything in there, 34 don’t use them. And the engineers are in fact telling me that. Or, structure or premises pose an 35 imminent threat to health and safety? So I have to add, yes, I think everybody agrees, these are 36 dangerous structures. I agree, the three engineers agree…the real question is the imminent piece, 37 that’s what we keep coming back to. So, under a classification of dangerous, we post them. 38 These buildings are now posted. It’s a pretty standard posting that we use that may sound very 18 1 strong, and may sound, you know, very concerning, but we only have the one dangerous poster 2 that we use for all dangerous buildings. And then, it’s always good when you declare a structure 3 dangerous, to provide some level of safety around that structure…you know, fence it off or 4 somehow rope it off. Post it, which is the standard posting we use, rope it off…that’s standard 5 procedure. 6 Now, the question is…is the imminent part; we’re back to this imminent danger again. 7 And, imminent danger, when in the opinion of the code official, there is an imminent danger of 8 failure or collapse of the building which endangers life or any other structure, a part of the 9 structure has fallen and life is endangered by the occupants, or when there’s actual or potential 10 danger to the building or occupants…I mean this goes on and on…proximity… 11 The key piece I think is that, is this going to happen right now? So I did…once I got the 12 reports and I read through the reports, I asked…I reached out to the engineers again. Please help 13 me understand the condition of these buildings. Can they be considered an imminent danger? I 14 don’t have a preference one way or another…I’m the official that has to make a declaration. 15 Yes, we all agree they’re dangerous, that’s given. Can we move it to an imminent danger? That 16 was my question. And, when I reached out to the three engineers, I had an email back from 17 Martin and Martin to give use some guidance from the City’s perspective as to what that 18 imminent should look like, to help them determine whether it’s an imminent or not. So, the 19 definition in the Property Maintenance Code as imminent danger: a condition which could cause 20 serious or life-threatening injury or death at any time…right now, today, at any time, without 21 some exterior event, without some wind event or…something else to impose upon them. Can 22 they cause damage right now? To help that, I included a Webster’s Dictionary…to help identify 23 imminent. And Webster’s says, appearing as if to happen, likely to happen without delay, or 24 impending. So, when I sent this to the three engineers, I asked, okay…take one more look at 25 this…and I’ve asked this a number of times, take one more look. And, can you tell me that this 26 is impending? None of the three engineers were actually able to tell me that these silos will fail 27 today. It has always been with some wind event, or if I start hitting design wind speeds of 120 or 28 130 miles per hour. I would suspect…I agree…under a condition of a wind event, I could very 29 well have a failure. So, to me, that is not impending, that is not as if to happen without 30 delay…that is, could happen under some other condition. So, I really did not get any clear 31 understanding that these are imminent. I had a very clear understanding from Exponent that 32 these do not pose an imminent danger, and with that, I don’t have an imminent classification. 33 Yes, dangerous, so we have declared the silos dangerous; we have posted and required our 34 appropriate protections because of a dangerous structure. But, at this point, I still do not believe 35 that they are imminent. Now, dangerous means they have to stabilize, they have to secure, they 36 have to do something to those silos to stop them from getting worse than where they are now. 37 They need to protect them right there. If they were imminent, which I have not seen, then they 38 could demolish them; that’s the real key here. 19 1 So, with that, with no clear statement from any of the three, except Exponent said no 2 they’re not imminent, the City declared the silos dangerous, we ordered it to be fenced, we set up 3 a schedule for Woodward as to when the structure…what’s the plan? How do you plan to 4 stabilize? How do you plan to fix these? As historical structures, they really can’t do anything 5 to these silos until a plan has been approved by the Landmark Preservation…do you proposed to 6 stabilize them from the inside, do you spray gunite concrete on them…what are you going to do? 7 That’s the plan…we’re looking for a plan and then we’re looking for that plan to be implemented 8 within a certain amount of time as well. So…I think I’ve covered everything at this point. 9 CHAIR SMITH: Okay, as I’m reading it, Brad, would this be the appropriate time for 10 public comment? Or should we hold that until after the rebuttals? 11 MR. YATABE: I think this is an appropriate time for public comment and certainly 12 remind the Chair also that if there are any questions that any of the members want to ask at this 13 point, that it’s possible to ask, or you can hold off until later…that’s certainly up to you. 14 Sometimes it’s good to ask questions as they come, but that order of procedure is up to you. 15 CHAIR SMITH: I’ll put that up to the Board…is it…would you like to ask questions 16 now or would you like to include the public comment before we ask questions? You want to go 17 ahead and ask questions? Okay, we’ll ask questions at this time. I assume Andrea has the first 18 one. 19 BOARDMEMBER ANDREA DUNLAP: I’m kind of lost in the various billing 20 codes…but as I would read it, isn’t it that in the 2012 IBC is where you pick up the 100, 130 21 wind speed? And, if that were to apply, wouldn’t that apply to all the historical buildings in 22 town…if…because it only happens that that is enacted when you do something to the building? 23 MR. GEBO: Okay, there’s the International Building Code…that is the current adopted 24 code that the City is under. That would be the code that we construct under…additions, new 25 buildings, remodels…we’re going to use the IBC as the code book for how to construct. The 26 International Property Maintenance Code is just that, it’s a maintenance code for all existing 27 buildings. So when we’re talking about an existing building and what to apply and how to use it, 28 we’re going to use the Property Maintenance Code. When the engineers are talking about failure 29 under design wind loads, they’re using the design wind loads out of the Building Code, but that’s 30 the current design wind speed. So, you wouldn’t want to use a design wind speed of 1910 or 31 1912…we don’t know what that is. So, when these engineers are talking about, the silos could 32 fail under design wind speed, they’re using today’s design wind speed…and, yes, that is in the 33 Building Code, but it’s still a viable wind speed to use to address the existing buildings under the 34 IPMC. 35 CHAIR SMITH: Go ahead, Mike? 20 1 BOARDMEMBER DODDRIDGE: Just to expand on that same question then, so if the 2 silos were to be repurposed for some…and stay 40 feet tall…whatever they’re repurposing 3 would fall underneath the 2012 IBC then? Is that correct? 4 MR. GEBO: Well, if they rebuilt something with those silos, yes, they would be under 5 the current building code for what does that look like…how do you build it, how do you design 6 it… 7 If they’re stabilizing or they’re securing, I’m just going to use an engineer because 8 neither one of the codes are really telling me how to stabilize and how to secure something that’s 9 existing. So that would all be totally engineered and designed…does that answer? 10 BOARDMEMBER DODDRIDGE: I believe so…I guess, if they wanted to be able to be 11 walked through by employees, general public, what have you…that would fall underneath an 12 engineer’s recommendation for repair and then it would not necessarily have to comply with the 13 2012 IBC wind loading, and so on and so forth? 14 MR. GEBO: Well, that really depends on the scope of what they plan to do with the silos; 15 we’re certainly going to get engineers involved in whatever that plan may be. If it is to, you 16 know, cut doorways into the silos, then I don’t really have current codes that talk about…how do 17 I cut a hole into a hundred year-old silo…so that’s where the engineers will come in. 18 BOARDMEMBER DODDRIDGE: Thank you. 19 CHAIR SMITH: Any other questions? Okay, I guess at this point, we’ll invite the public 20 to make their comments. Please remember to state your name for the record. 21 MS. CAROL TUNNER: Carol Tunner. I’ve listened to the appeal of Woodward, and it 22 was my conclusion that they cherry-picked facts to meet their need and glossed over that these 23 silos can be repaired or saved, restored. These silos are next to the Coy-Hoffman barn, repaired 24 in 1996 with a Colorado Historical Fund grant of state monies. I wrote the state register 25 nomination as a volunteer even though I was, for twenty years, a Historic Preservation Planner 26 for the City; I retired in 2007. But, back in 1996, I did this outside my job as a volunteer for 27 three years. The grant professional preservation structural engineer, AE Design…maybe some 28 of you knew him…the late Richard Beardmore…did not believe the silos were dangerous all 29 through the three year project, and he oversaw work on the close, nearby barn. In fact, he 30 did…when Woodward took over, he did an estimate for them on moving the silos, and must have 31 thought they were capable of being moved. 32 As part of that grant, hundreds of Fort Collins citizens donated thousands of dollars to 33 save these structures listed in the Colorado State Register of Historic Places. They have also 34 been officially determined to be individually eligible for Fort Collins Landmark designation. 35 Several buildings…if you could have seen them before we worked on them…do you remember 21 1 when the Linden Hotel was condemned? There was four inches of pigeon dung inside the floors. 2 The trolley barn over on Cherry and Howes street…there was an engineer in town that had a 3 little machine he put on it and he listened to it and he said, it’s going to fall down. The trolley 4 barn has been restored and it’s solid. The Downtown Transit Center…I remember doing tours 5 inside there in the spring…historical tours…we had to hold umbrellas because it was 6 raining…hold umbrellas inside the building. 7 Woodward CEO and President, Tom Gendron, told us at their groundbreaking that he had 8 a history degree and assured us that the historic structures would be saved, and they can be 9 saved. They now have an engineer who says the silos are an imminent hazard. Two other 10 engineering firms, from the report I read from the Building Inspection Department, disagree and 11 say they need repair and intervention but are not imminently a threat or danger. I’m immensely 12 supportive of Woodward, and glad they chose to stay here. This pains me to have to speak out 13 like this, but obviously they just don’t want to deal with saving the silos. The legal City process 14 should not be circumvented. This is a very rare resource in Fort Collins and must be saved for 15 posterity; and multiple structural engineers say they can be repaired and saved. They are truly a 16 landmark, in every sense of the word. Saving them is a responsibility as a designated, certified 17 local government of the History Colorado Office of Archeology and Historic Preservation, grants 18 are available. 19 In conclusion, Coy’s 1862 homestead was the cradle of Fort Collins civilization. Buffalo, 20 New York is saving its concrete granary silos, naming them concrete cathedrals, in a recent 21 Coloradoan article. What would the barn and its historic landscape be without its silo? And one 22 more thing that came to me as I listened to the report, is Mr. Carpenter talked about the grain in 23 the bottom wearing…acid wearing it out. Those silos, according to the family, haven’t been 24 used in decades and decades and decades and decades…and they’re still standing. 25 CHAIR SMITH: Thank you. Please remember to state your name. 26 MS. HEATHER WOLHART: My name is Heather Wolhart, and I want to thank Carol 27 for everything she’s done for the City, and she’s a dear friend. I’m the great-great granddaughter 28 of Coy-Hoffman. I grew up on that farm, played in that barn, did things that you don’t want to 29 know about in those silos…I can tell you that, as a child, we would all stand…all five of 30 us…could stand on top of them and rock them back and forth…pretty exciting way back then. 31 And that’s when they actually touched the ground all the way around. 32 I am incredibly excited, as a family and as a person, for what Woodward has planned for 33 this place. I appreciate that the silos seem to be an integral part of the barn, and I appreciate their 34 landmark status; but, if you asked me, and if you asked the family…and I’m sure if you asked 35 the public, if it came down to…what do people recognize out there, the barn or the silos, they’re 36 going to always say the barn. They’re going to always say that. It’s the Coy-Hoffman barn…oh, 37 are you going to save the barn? Is Woodward going to tear down the barn? I’ve heard that and 22 1 heard that and heard that, and nobody has ever asked me or said a thing to me in public about the 2 silos. And as much as they’re neat and they’re cool and they’re fun, if it comes down to it, 3 they’re not really as historical and as important as the barn. And if they’re potential continual 4 deterioration puts the barn at risk…that to me is a sad thing. Because if they would fall and take 5 out the barn, that would ruin everything. But, if they can be repurposed, reused, redesigned into 6 something that would then be of public value…if people in the city, whether they’re just 7 employees, or people walking the bike path, or eventually an interactive event where all things 8 could come together and people could actually touch, taste, see, feel what it was like…and, yeah, 9 they would be short…they wouldn’t be forty feet in the air, but that doesn’t mean that whole 10 impression couldn’t be there…that the educational piece couldn’t be there. Pictures and 11 memories and the whole event…and then sit inside that circle and touch that restored piece of 12 cement and go, wow, how did they do this…how did they make this cement all those years ago? 13 I don’t know if you notice in the pictures, that cement has rocks this big in it. You go out here 14 and dig up this sidewalk, it does not have rocks this big in it. How did they do that? How did 15 they make those? What was the process? That’s more important than the size left to be 16 dangerous and then no one able to ever access them. And as much as I would love to say to my 17 grandkids, look at the barn, look at the silos, that’s where your grandma grew up…I’ll get to do 18 that if we can go forward with keeping them safe and useful, repurposed into a way to be used by 19 the public, by Woodward, in a safe and interactive way. And there is no repurpose that I 20 personally can understand leaving them at their full height; there’s no way to use a full height 21 silo other than silage. And, yes, Carol is right, they haven’t had a lot of farm product in them for 22 decades; it doesn’t take a lot of silage to make a lot of acid, and a lot of smell, and a lot of mess. 23 And it doesn’t take a lot of silage to leave decades of rats and creatures that have loved living in 24 those silos. 25 So, are they imminent? To me, this is kind of a weird thing…are they dangerous? 26 Absolutely. Have they been dangerous for a long time? Absolutely. Is there a chance to do 27 something marvelous by allowing some repurposing? Absolutely. To me, and as the family, 28 that’s really the only question. Can we make this go forward and value my past and my future. 29 Thank you. 30 CHAIR SMITH: Is there any other public comment? Okay, our next order of business 31 would be rebuttals, and we’ll start with the appellant, Woodward. 32 MS. WHITE: Thank you Mr. Chairman; once again for the record, Carolynne White. I’m 33 going to ask Mr. Carpenter to come up first and speak to some of the technical issues that were 34 raised by the engineer from Exponent, and then I’ll conclude by addressing some of the other 35 comments from Mr. Gebo and the members of the public. Thank you…Mr. Carpenter? 36 MR. CARPENTER: Steve Carpenter with JVA. Just…I actually agree with Mr. Bennett 37 that the…it’s easy to get down in the weeds with the wind. The one in 1,700 year 38 occurrence…recurrence…is for what used to be called risk category 3 and 4 buildings. It’s one 23 1 in 700 years for risk category 2, and one in 300 for risk category 1, which is what it would be 2 now in a vacuum. In my report, I actually said…I used 2 or 3…and I would consult with a code 3 official to define that. It’s sort of pointless…these are all, on any given day, small 4 percentages…totally agree with that. I guess what I don’t agree with is that I can’t, as an 5 engineer, predict the weather and know when that thunderstorm is coming with a microburst, or 6 the chinook wind, down sloping wind, day type of thing. So that’s the reason I didn’t go there: I 7 can’t predict the weather. I don’t know what it’s going to be like tomorrow. 8 The only other comment that I have is, there were a couple questions regarding, really 9 basically…if you look at it in old code versus today’s code, and part of the reason I chose 10 today’s code is because of the proximity to the barn…and the barn will definitely be adaptively 11 reused. And so, because of the proximity, I think it would need to comply with today’s code, 12 just simply because of the proximity as part of that conference center. 13 MS. WHITE: Just a few other additional points…I want to make it clear for the Board 14 that no one is trying to circumvent the legal process. This is the legal process for appealing a 15 building code official determination, so we’re going through the process as required; no one is 16 trying to circumvent the process. To the point that Mr. Carpenter just made, and the question of 17 whether or not the 2012 IBC requirement that it withstand current design wind loads of 120 to 18 130 miles per hour, whether that would be applied if the silos were to be reconstructed and 19 repurposed so as to allow people to be in and near them, I think that Mr. Gebo’s answer is 20 certainly correct…that, you know, given that there’s no other code to determine it, he would, you 21 know, consult with an engineer. But also, given the proximity of the barn, what Mr. Carpenter 22 said, I find it hard to imagine that you wouldn’t require it to meet the 2012 IBC standard, given 23 that just 20 feet away is a structure where you’re going to let people gather in large 24 numbers…and I think it can hold between 70 and 120 as proposed. So, certainly we’re thinking 25 about the potential danger to, you know, life and injury as we think is required in this situation, 26 and that was the reason for reaching that conclusion. 27 One other point I wanted to make is that the emailed exchange obviously speaks for 28 itself, and you have the whole thing in your packet, but somebody concluded, and I don’t 29 remember if it was Mr. Gebo or somebody else, said that when he asked the question of whether 30 or not there was immediate danger, nobody’s said yes, or only one engineer said yes. The way I 31 read those emails, JVA said yes, immediate danger, Martin and Martin said I agree with JVA, 32 Exponent said not immediate danger. So, two out of the three did say, yes, immediate danger, 33 immediate threat, in that email exchange. So, that’s certainly the way I read it; you can read it 34 and it speaks for itself, but that’s our interpretation. 35 And then the question was raised about, what did Martin and Martin mean in their report 36 with those italic subheadings? And, I think, given that that interpretation led to Mr. Gebo’s 37 conclusion that Martin and Martin did not feel there was immediate danger, it does bear a little 38 further discussion about that point. So, I’d like to direct you to the packet that we submitted 24 1 today that contained three additional documents in it. The first of those three documents…I 2 think this is the right order…is the scope of work for the historic structure assessment put 3 forward by the State Historical Fund, revised 2014…it’s a nine page document. And this is the 4 template and format that a structural engineer is supposed to use…or not a structural engineer, 5 but a consultant, in doing an HSA, a Historical Structure Assessment. If you turn to page four of 6 that document…I’ll wait until everybody’s there with me…you see that there are three categories 7 that can be applied to buildings in this type of analysis: good, fair or poor, each of which has a 8 few criteria following it, right? Good has three criteria, fair has four criteria, and poor has five 9 criteria. Then if you look at the Martin and Martin report, where the Martin and Martin 10 consultant is reaching her conclusions as a result of performing the Historic Structure 11 Assessment, on page…the bottom of page four of her report, how convenient, both on page 12 four…you see her findings. And there are three bulleted findings, each of which corresponds to 13 one of the criteria under the poor condition in the scope of work on the bottom of page four. 14 So, I can see how Mr. Gebo might have interpreted the Martin and Martin report as not 15 actually stating those as her findings, but rather repeating from the scope of work the 16 subheadings, and then under the subheadings providing her analysis. Except that, if you look at 17 this, there are five potential criteria that one could cite to conclude that a building is in poor 18 condition, right? No longer performing intended purpose, it’s missing, it shows signs of 19 imminent failure or breakdown, deterioration or damage affects more than 25%, or it requires 20 major repair or replacement. In preparing this report, the Martin and Martin structural engineer 21 only cited three of those, and she cited only those which she found to be applicable, namely, the 22 silos are no longer performing their intended use, they show signs of imminent failure or 23 breakdown, and requires major repair or replacement. These are her conclusions, not merely a 24 repeat of the potential headings for investigation. The Martin and Martin report does conclude 25 that there is an imminent danger of failure or breakdown. Then, the JVA report follows up and 26 does an initial analysis and reaches the same conclusion, concluding that the lower portion of the 27 wall shows signs of imminent failure due to long-term acid attack. Now, this isn’t just 28 selectively pulling out of the report, this is the conclusion, this is the finding of the report. And it 29 says, imminent failure due to long-term acid attack. So, there’s really no question, I think, and 30 can there be any question in anyone’s mind, that two out of the three experts believe there is 31 imminent failure. They said so in their reports, they said so in the email conversation following. 32 The third expert, perhaps one could question whether or not they reached that conclusion; they 33 can speak for themselves because they are here. We believe their report actually also supports 34 their conclusion, despite the fact that they stated as a conclusion otherwise, they reached the 35 same finding, namely that failure could occur at any time. 36 And then we get into this question of, what is “at any time?” And Mr. Gebo said that he 37 thought you should think of “at any time” to mean, “without the potential for there to be a wind 38 speed condition. Well, “at any time”, the definition of imminent threat in the code that we’re 39 being asked to interpret, doesn’t say, “absent unusual circumstances,” or “absent a design load 25 1 wind event.” It doesn’t say any of that, it just says “at any time.” And all three of the expert 2 reports clearly state that failure could happen at any time, and therefore the danger is imminent, 3 and we ask you to reach that conclusion and to allow Woodward to proceed with their adaptive 4 reuse plan. Thank you very much. Also, our team is available to answer questions if you have 5 any. 6 CHAIR SMITH: That’s what I was just going to ask the Board, does the Board have any 7 questions for Woodward at this time? Okay, go ahead Justin. 8 BOARDMEMBER MONTGOMERY: I have a question for Steve…structural questions. 9 And it may be that we may want both to answer if possible. We talked many times about the 10 design wind load and the…a concern that the buildings would not withstand the design wind 11 loads. Under your report, Steve, you had done some, I think you’d called them just preliminary 12 calculations, or something, to take a look at what you thought might be the stresses on the silos. 13 I guess one question I would ask is, we’re looking at worst-case condition because that’s what 14 engineers do, but is there a…is there an understanding, at this point, from any of the reports…or 15 maybe, you’re the only one that really showed calculations…is there any understanding that 16 there could be danger at 60 miles an hour? At something that would occur…that we’d see on an 17 every year basis. Is there any thought to that part of it, or conclusions on that? 18 MR. CARPENTER: So, Steve Carpenter, JVA…there was, and I think maybe one of our 19 slides was worded, approaching design wind speeds. What I came up with was a crushing stress 20 of about 220 psi…that was assuming an inch and quarter, half of the stave silo, remaining at the 21 base, uniformly. And the Swiss Hammer soundings, you know, which is an inexact…there’s a 22 number of sort of inexact…very close approximations, but not perfect tight data to come to this. 23 And so I didn’t really fixate on the 130 or the 100 ASD…I just looked at wind loads approaching 24 that number. I didn’t pick 60, per se, but anything approaching that number creates a stress, 25 which I think is more than the capacity of the concrete, especially in the areas between the holes 26 where it’ll really concentrate, and my calculation didn’t go that far. 27 BOARDMEMBER MONTGOMERY: Okay, thank you. Paul, would you have any 28 insight onto that as far as your analysis said similar things that you would think it is possible it 29 would fall under design wind load conditions, but is there any conclusion that you would have as 30 far as more of a normal wind load condition that we might see here in Fort Collins? 31 MR. BENNETT: We didn’t do the calculations that JVA did; we weren’t asked to. But 32 just based on our experience, as we said in our report under design wind loads, we agree. So, I 33 think we’re saying the same thing. But to answer your question directly, we didn’t do that 34 analysis and I don’t have a good answer for you if, you know, at 50 miles an hour…what the risk 35 of it falling down is. 36 BOARDMEMBER MONTGOMERY: Could that analysis be performed? And, I think in 37 one of those reports I read that further analysis should be looked at…probably more if they’re 26 1 doing reconstruction, but to actually test what the real strength of the concrete is and do some 2 further calculations to actually determine what type of danger there really is under the wind 3 loads. It appears that a lot of it is from physical observations, from your feeling as engineers and 4 experience, but there hasn’t been a lot of detailed analysis done to determine that, at this point. 5 MR. BENNETT: You’re right; there hasn’t been enough quantitative analysis to really 6 put a finger on it. And we can do the math out of the code and figure out what the wind speed is, 7 but the real unknown is…Wayne, right? Steve, I’m sorry. As Steve said, what is the strength of 8 the concrete that’s there, and I think we would both agree the Swiss Rebound Hammer readings 9 are not exact enough. But there are other ways to get more exact information on the strength of 10 it. 11 BOARDMEMBER MONTGOMERY: Okay. The other question I’d have is…from a 12 structural engineering perspective, could the silos be reasonably reinforced to meet current 2012 13 IBC wind loads? 14 MR. CARPENTER: They can be; we’ve actually done it before. It’s…you said 15 reasonably…I don’t…it’s an expensive, time consuming process, but we have actually done that 16 before. 17 MR. BENNETT: I’d have the same response. 18 BOARDMEMBER MONTGOMERY: That’s all I have, thank you. 19 CHAIR SMITH: Tim, you have a question? 20 BOARDMEMBER TIM JOHNSON: Yes, just to clarify…Exponent…sorry, what was 21 your name again? 22 MR. BENNETT: Paul. 23 BOARDMEMBER JOHNSON: Paul…this…the probability you gave us here, this is the 24 one in 1,700 year event, and that’s the category 3, but the risk category for the silos could be 25 conceived to be either a 1 through a 3, and the 1 was a one in 300 year potential? Is that correct, 26 from what I heard? 27 MR. BENNETT: That’s right; we use the category 3, 1,700 year return interval because 28 that’s what the JVA calcs [sic] were based on and we recognize the discussion they had about 29 that. We…I did play with that equation yesterday and actually have it on my computer…could 30 run it quickly for you if you’d like. But, even changing it to 300, I think that 1…that leading 31 1…went to like a 3 or 4 or something; it didn’t even move the zeros. 32 BOARDMEMBER JOHNSON: But, ultimately, the year intervals are 1,700 at category 3 33 or 300 at category 1, is that right? 27 1 MR. BENNETT: That’s right. 2 CHAIR SMITH: Do we have any other questions? 3 BOARDMEMBER RICK REIDER: While they’re both up there…starting with you, 4 Steve, besides the wind issue, what else could occur with the silos that would be dangerous to the 5 public? For example, maybe you could speak to parts or pieces of the silo that may imminently 6 fall off and hit someone. 7 MR. CARPENTER: There are a few pertinences attached around the top of the silo…that 8 could happen…they would easily be removed. My biggest concern would be, because the 9 cement paste near the base of the silos has been attacked over all these years, now it’s exposed, 10 there’s not a roof on the silos; they get wet…I think freeze, thaw and moisture in the concrete is 11 the biggest problem. So, they’re continuing to deteriorate; not at the same rate as if the acid was 12 there, but that’s the biggest problem is just the weathering and the freeze, thaw cycles…in my 13 opinion. 14 BOARDMEMBER REIDER: Paul, how about you? 15 MR. BENNETT: I’m sorry; could you ask the question again? 16 BOARDMEMBER REIDER: Yeah, thank you…I…you’ve both spoken about wind 17 events, and I was asking, are there other events that could impact the silos, or is the only concern 18 a high wind event? 19 MR. BENNETT: Sure, I mean we don’t see a risk under its self weight. You know, I 20 showed you pictures of a structure earlier that was falling down under its self weight. We don’t 21 see that as being an issue here. You know, in the building code we primarily design for wind 22 and seismic. So, to answer your question, seismic is a possibility. We don’t see a lot of seismic 23 activity in this area, but that’s another scenario the building code has us look at for new 24 structures. 25 BOARDMEMBER REIDER: And if you were asked to salvage these structures, to save 26 them, what would that entail? What would I expect to see? Would it be on the outside, the 27 inside, how would you do that? 28 MR. BENNETT: Well, there’s a lot of different ways we could do it, and I think it would 29 really depend on what we’re trying to accomplish. If we’re just trying to stabilize them from 30 collapse under, you know, the wind speeds, or if we’re trying to allow people to go inside and 31 view them. I think right now, it doesn’t sound like that’s necessarily on the table. So, you know, 32 my goal would be to do things from the inside as much as possible so that you preserve the 33 historic appearance on the outside. But there still would be, especially near the base, work that 34 would need to occur on the outside. We wouldn’t necessarily repair them to…our philosophy 35 wouldn’t be to repair them to withstand this design wind event; we would look at a much more 28 1 frequent return interval…off the top, you know, maybe something on the order of 50 years, and 2 design to that. And then, of course with any historic structure, you keep an eye on them and you 3 maintain them. 4 BOARDMEMBER REIDER: And Steve, how about you? If you were asked to do that 5 work? 6 MR. CARPENTER: So, when we have…I’m sorry…Steve Carpenter, JVA. When 7 we’ve done this in the past, what we do is essentially use the existing silo as an outside form. 8 You have to get rid of the deteriorating concrete, which will be tricky in this case because there’s 9 not much left. And then we try to make a positive attachment to what’s there with some sort of 10 sheer pins, and then we come in and just shotcrete a new silo on the inside. So, on the inside, it 11 might not look so great…actually, you can form it, depending on the quality of the forms, to look 12 good. It would need some footing work, foundation work, as well. I don’t think the footings go 13 to frost depth…I’m not sure how big a problem that is anyway…but they would need to be a 14 little bit bigger. We actually would design to the wind recurrence interval that the barn needs in 15 its adaptive reuse. I think it’s going to be either category 2 or 3, depending on the building 16 official, so we would use either 700 years or 1,700 years. We’re concerned about the proximity 17 there. 18 BOARDMEMBER REIDER: Thanks. 19 CHAIR SMITH: Any other questions? Go ahead, Mike. 20 BOARDMEMBER DODDRIDGE: Unfortunately, I have a question for someone who 21 isn’t here….getting back to the insurance issue that was touched on and mentioned in the email 22 chain. It says that, in the current state, that the silos and thus…because of proximity…that the 23 barn is uninsurable. But it doesn’t ever address what happens if they are repaired. And so one of 24 my questions is…and I know that person is not here…but there was a Ms. Moore who also is an 25 engineer, it sounded like, with AEG…or AIG, excuse me. And I was wondering if that 26 question’s ever been asked. If they are repaired or restored or stabilized in some state, does that 27 affect the insurability of the adjacent structures? 28 MS. WHITE: Mr. Chair? Carolynne White, again. I wasn’t part of the conversation but 29 we have some people here who were, even though we don’t have the AIG insurance person here, 30 so could you just give us a moment to gather that information and we’ll try to get an answer to 31 your question? 32 BOARDMEMBER DODDRIDGE: Absolutely. 33 CHAIR SMITH: Would this be a good time to take a break if anybody needs to use the 34 bathroom, or get a drink? Okay, let’s take a ten…five minute recess. 35 (**Secretary’s Note: The Board took a brief recess at this point in the meeting.) 29 1 CHAIR SMITH: Alright, it looks like everybody’s back; we’ll go ahead and resume the 2 meeting, I guess at 2:59. 3 MS. WHITE: Mr. Chairman, once again for the record, Carolynne White on behalf of the 4 appellant. The particular question that you asked, are the silos insurable if they were to be 5 repaired or restored, was not asked. What was asked was whether they could be insured as is and 6 whether the barn could be insured, and the response was no to the first question, but also the 7 insurance company, AIG, did say they would not insure the barn unless the silos were removed. 8 And that correspondence is in your packet. 9 BOARDMEMBER DODDRIDGE: Thank you. 10 CHAIR SMITH: Did we have any more questions? Okay, I guess at that point, it’s the 11 appellee’s turn? 12 MR. GEBO: Thank you. I will ask Mr. Bennett if he has any closing comments at the 13 point? 14 MR. BENNETT: Again, Paul Bennett with Exponent. Just two closing thoughts: one 15 thought I mentioned to Mr. Gebo in the email correspondence that I think you were provided 16 with, and that’s the thought that we have historic structures all over Colorado, all over the United 17 States, and many of those historic structures, if you analyze them with modern day wind and 18 seismic loads, would be found to be lacking. And so if that’s the criteria that we’re going to 19 apply as designers, to call something imminently dangerous, that’s concerning, because that’s 20 not what we do when we go around and look at these historic buildings. There would be 21 buildings all over Colorado, Fort Collins and all over the United States that we would be calling 22 imminently dangerous if we’re only looking at them under a design wind or, say, seismic event. 23 The other thing that I wanted to point out was…we weren’t provided with the JVA 24 report; we saw the emails, we weren’t aware of a report. In talking to Mr. Gebo yesterday, we 25 became aware of it and I received a copy of it this morning, and we looked at their calculations. 26 And, there are some errors in the calculations that we want to just point out for the record. Beginning with the area of a circle, πr 2 27 , the diameter was used instead of the radius in the 28 calculations. So, when we rerun the calculations, and we use a category…risk category 1 for 29 agricultural facilities, we’re coming up with a number that is less than half of the stresses that the 30 JVA calculated. So, we can provide more discussion on that if we need to, but I just wanted to 31 point that out for the record. Thank you. 32 MR. GEBO: Thank you. So, a couple of points if I can…going back to the Martin and 33 Martin report, and on page four, under the findings, I still contend that the italicized writing is 34 from the State document, and I say that because the second bullet from the State document, 35 italicized, they show signs of imminent failure or breakdown. The non-italicized is Martin and 36 Martin’s response to that bullet, and she says, the weakened state of the concrete walls is 30 1 currently adequate for an empty structure, but without intervention, the silos will continue to 2 deteriorate and will eventually become unstable and safe. If she is indicating that, yes, they are 3 an imminent failure, I find it a little strange that she would indicate that, well, they’re adequate 4 for an empty structure, and that without any further intervention they’re going to deteriorate and 5 at some point become unstable or unsafe…that is just my opinion on that. As a classification of 6 dangerous buildings, they are not allowed to just stay there and continue to deteriorate. As my 7 classification in my letter said, they are dangerous buildings, you must now stabilize and/or 8 repair, you must provide us a plan for what does that stabilization and repair look like, and it 9 must be completed within a timeframe. So, yes, they are dangerous; yes, there is some 10 timeframe for them to stop becoming further dangerous…they have to do something to these 11 structures; they’re not just allowed to sit there. And then, I would ask Brad maybe to expound a 12 little bit on what the appeal is…it’s not an appeal about whether or not something will happen 13 under some other condition; it’s really an appeal about, did I err in some way. I’ve declared 14 them dangerous…that seems to be an agreement across the board. And I have not determined 15 that they are an imminent…I’ve been on site, I’ve seen these. There certainly seems to be no 16 immediate indication that something is moving within the last 24 hours. I see no indication of 17 concrete or the staves falling off or falling out. Yes, they’re dangerous; yes, they need some 18 repair; yes, they need some support, but I still do not see anything as an imminent hazard and I 19 really believe that…my understanding that that is what this appeal is. Did I err in not declaring 20 them imminent? Thank you. 21 CHAIR SMITH: Okay, does the Board have any questions of Mike or the City? 22 BOARDMEMBER DODDRIDGE: I have one…the classification…or, hang on…when 23 initial application was made, or when this project was initially approved, were those silos ever 24 evaluated at that time? 25 MR. GEBO: Not from the City; not that I’m aware of…apparently the Martin and Martin 26 report was, it looks like, a year ago or two years ago, now, so that was performed by Woodward, 27 and the City did not… 28 BOARDMEMBER DODDRIDGE: It appears to…in that Martin and Martin report…just I noticed that in the timeline, her report was dated January 7 th 29 of 2014, but she said she visited 30 the site in November of 2014, so I was actually curious where that letter was meant…was 31 actually January of 2015…just was a typographical error…just in the timeline; I noted that when 32 I was reading the materials, that she had mentioned that she had visited the site in November of 33 2014, but she couldn’t have visited and wrote the report ten months before that, so…I think 34 there’s a typo there somewhere. So whether she visited the site in November of 2013 and then 35 the letter was written in ’14…I’m not really sure. But I guess where I’m going with this question 36 is, is there any sort of measuring stick of…in that year or however long it’s been, eighteen 37 months, have those silos…the amount of degradation in other words…I guess is what I’m getting 31 1 at; is there any measurable degradation that’s taken place since they were initially evaluated. But 2 it sounds like they weren’t initially evaluated upon that project being approved? 3 MR. GEBO: As I understand it, these reports are relatively recent. 4 BOARDMEMBER DODDRIGE: Thank you. 5 CHAIR SMITH: Any other questions? Okay, I’m going to give the opportunity for either 6 party to make a closing statement. 7 MS. WHITE: Technically as the party who bears the burden of proof, I think typically the 8 appellant has the last word; but so I think we would only want to give a closing statement if Mr. 9 Gebo would like to give another closing statement. If he waives, we waive; stand on what the 10 evidence is already. 11 MR. GEBO: I have nothing else to add. 12 CHAIR SMITH: Okay, and if the Board has no further questions, we’ll move into a 13 deliberation. Do we have any open discussion? Mike, are you saying yes or no? Go ahead. 14 Okay, alright. 15 MR. YATABE: And, Mr. Chair, if it’s helpful and you want to take a recess so people 16 can review notes and that kind of thing, that’s certainly a possibility as well. 17 CHAIR SMITH: Do you want to take a five minute recess to get ducks in a row? No, 18 we’re good to go I guess. If you’d like to start Mike… 19 BOARDMEMBER DODDRIDGE: This is an interesting…interesting case, I guess…to 20 editorialize for just a moment. I keep going back to what the purview, I guess, of this Board is, 21 and it’s to…as Mike just mentioned in his last statement, to determine whether he made an error 22 or not. It’s not really to…oh, how shall I say it? Look at the historical significance of the 23 building, look at whether or not it’s being repurposed appropriately, whether or not…while I 24 sincerely appreciate the comments of the members of the public that spoke, it’s not within our 25 purview to decide or to assist Woodward, or not assist Woodward, in how that…those silos 26 would be better repurposed in the future. Our purview here today is strictly to make a 27 determination if Mike, or Mr. Gebo I guess I should say…the Chief Building Official…made an 28 accurate determination of imminent or simply dangerous. Is that accurate, Brad? 29 MR. YATABE: I think that is accurate; within the purview of review, although there are 30 certainly consequences that flow out of that determination, whether it’s dangerous or imminent. 31 Really the scope of your review is to see whether Mr. Gebo, as the Building Official, did make 32 the correct interpretation of the code provision before you…the IPMC code provision before you 33 in light of the evidence that he was aware of, and certainly the evidence that was presented on 34 the record today. So, yes, there are consequences that flow out of that; I think you understand 32 1 the context of that. But, as to the BRB making the decision based on the historic nature of the 2 property or what may or may not become on that property, I think that’s a little bit outside of 3 your scope. 4 BOARDMEMBER DODDRIDGE: Thank you. 5 CHAIR SMITH: Any other questions, comments? Okay, I guess…are we ready to go for 6 a finding of fact? Still working on it? I guess there’s a point of discussion on finding of fact? I 7 think we would have to determine if there’s…if the building is imminent or dangerous, I guess, 8 to support the motion to either uphold or overturn the ruling. 9 BOARDMEMBER DODDRIDGE: Just as discussion…I think it’s pretty…everybody 10 agrees on the dangerous, so that’d be a pretty easy finding of fact at this point. Are we really 11 trying to determine whether or not we find that it’s imminent or not? 12 CHAIR SMITH: I think we do have to determine if it’s imminent or not, because that 13 directly holds to upholding or overturning the CBO’s decision. 14 BOARDMEMBER MONTGOMERY: Just as discussion for Boardmembers, I am having 15 some…as we all are I’m sure…trying to weigh the difference between the imminent and not, and 16 whether or not, as Mr. Gebo pointed out, we’re going to include every major code-driven 17 weather event as what would cause an imminent failure on a structure, versus it could fall today 18 under just normal conditions. That, to me, was a striking difference between the two from his 19 definition, and I don’t know that we have, I guess, enough from the structural engineering 20 reports, real calculations that would show otherwise…that they would fail under a day-to-day 21 condition, without this major weather event. That’s the one piece that they all agreed on, that the 22 major weather event could collapse the structures, but I don’t see the evidence in the 23 reports…and maybe it’s just because they didn’t have the detailed engineering into it, that we 24 can say otherwise that they would fall today without that event. 25 CHAIR SMITH: I guess what helped clarify that to me was Mr. Bennett’s presentation 26 about what would be imminent is happening now, and as I view the code, imminent is that type 27 of a situation, where dangerous needs to be addressed, I guess. Okay, are you guys sure we don’t 28 need some sort of a recess here to come up with something? 29 BOARDMEMBER MONTGOMERY: I’m trying to draft a finding of fact here, so…does 30 anybody else have anything going as far as that? 31 CHAIR SMITH: I’ll say let’s take a few minutes to allow for a…to draft a finding of fact. 32 Let’s go for five more…thanks. 33 (**Secretary’s Note: The Board took a brief recess at this point in the meeting.) 33 1 CHAIR SMITH: Okay, we’ll call the meeting back into session and see if anybody’s 2 come up with…Justin, did you come up with a motion? 3 BOARDMEMBER MONTGOMERY: Yeah, I’ll take a stab at it here. Quick questions, 4 with this…finding of fact, do we need to all wait for a second and prove it before we offer a 5 motion, is that correct procedures here? Just to clarify. Or do I need to offer the motion with the 6 findings of fact. 7 MR. YATABE: Well, I think the typical way to do it would be to offer the motion with 8 the findings of fact in support of it. 9 BOARDMEMBER MONTGOMERY: Okay. 10 MR. YATABE: But, I’ll say, alternatively, I’ve also seen it where the Board or 11 Commission can agree on the findings prior to that and then they can be incorporated. So, I 12 guess procedurally, I’d leave it up to the Chair to decide how…and I haven’t attended this Board 13 before, so I don’t know how you normally make your motions. 14 BOARDMEMBER MONTGOMERY: I think I’d prefer just to try to roll in into one 15 motion right up front so we can then discuss it…so, if that’s okay? 16 CHAIR SMITH: That’s fine with the Chair. 17 BOARDMEMBER MONTGOMERY: So, I move that…for a motion to uphold the Chief 18 Building Official’s decision in this matter, based on the facts that I heard that we all agree that 19 the buildings are dangerous. I have not heard the…as I’m hearing that the buildings are 20 imminently dangerous because they are not…we’re not seeing an action that is starting or 21 happening at present time that is going to make them fall under a day-to-day operation. And, all 22 the engineers agreed that the event that we’re talking about is a code…2012 building code wind- 23 driven event, where they would collapse. And I have not seen that there’s been any other 24 evidence that they are imminently dangerous, other than the possibility of this wind event. 25 CHAIR SMITH: Okay, do we have a second? 26 BOARDMEMBER DUNLAP: I’ll second that. 27 CHAIR SMITH: And then roll call. 28 BOARDMEMBER MONTGOMERY: Is there a discussion? 29 CHAIR SMITH: Do we have any discussion before we call for a vote? Seeing none, 30 we’ll call for the vote. 31 MS. LISA OLSON: Johnson? 32 BOARDMEMBER JOHNSON: Yes. 34 1 MS. OLSON: Doddridge? 2 BOARDMEMBER DODDRIDGE: Yes. 3 MS. OLSON: Montgomery? 4 BOARDMEMBER MONTGOMERY: Yes. 5 MS. OLSON: Smith? 6 CHAIR SMITH: Yes. 7 MS. OLSON: Reider? 8 BOARDMEMBER REIDER: Yes. 9 MS. OLSON: Dunlap? 10 BOARDMEMBER DUNLAP: Yes. 11 CHAIR SMITH: Okay, the decision of the Building Inspector is upheld, and this may be 12 appealed to City Council, but the appeal must be filed within 14 days? 13 MR. YATABE: I believe that’s correct, yes. 14 CHAIR SMITH: Okay, thank you. 15 MR. GEBO: Excuse me; is that information all on-line for the Woodward folks? 16 MR. YATABE: That is, that’s contained in the code, and Ms. White can certainly contact 17 me if she has questions regarding the appeal or the procedure. 18 MR. GEBO: Okay, thank you. 19 20 21 22 ATTACHMENT 7 Staff Powerpoint presentation to Council January 19, 2016 Woodward, Inc. Appeal Coy-Hoffman Farm Located on the new Woodward, Inc. campus State Designated Historical Site Silos constructed 1912-1913 Silos declared as “dangerous” structures on September 18, 2015 3 Approximately 40’ tall Left silo • Concrete slip pour Right silo • Concrete stave Declaration Process Three engineering firms evaluated silos to determine structural conditions • Martin and Martin • Exponent •JVA Declaration Process Reports were reviewed and comments noted • Silos could be considered imminent danger under design wind loads, high winds of 120-130 mph. • In current state not imminent danger City provided definitions of imminent danger to evaluate silos by Imminent danger was not established Dangerous was the classification given. Building Review Board Appeal October 29, 2015 Woodward appealed the “dangerous” classification requesting that the BRB declare the silos as “imminent danger” BRB confirmed that the silos are “dangerous” However, “imminent danger” was not established. Council Appeal Woodward appealing the “dangerous” classification, believe silos “imminent danger” Appealing on the grounds that building official failed to properly interpret and apply the codes Appealing the Building Review Board’s determination Dangerous vs. Imminent Historical structures • Dangerous classification requires silos to be stabilized and repaired • Imminent danger classification requires the silos to be repaired or demolished (owners choice). Landmark Preservation Regular meeting January 13, 2016 Determination of eligibility for Landmark designation. Link to the Building Review Board Hearing, October 29, 2015 http://cable14.pegcentral.com/player.php?video=6c16bda6d3a0fb046116f007aa880ed4 Links to the video of the silos provided to City Council: Short version - https://youtu.be/aJelrq3Nqn4 Long unedited version - https://youtu.be/ayvK8mqyK7s (There is no audio on either of these videos.)