HomeMy WebLinkAboutTHE GROVE AT FORT COLLINS - PDP - 16-10B - REPORTS - CORRESPONDENCE-NEIGHBORHOOD MEETING (6)All pets are required to be on a leash and under the control of their owners at
all times when walking around the grounds of the Grove property, therefore,
we do not see an issue with regard to pets affecting the wildlife corridor.
[Campus Crest]
Historically the land along the Larimer Canal No. 2 has been used by
neighborhood residents for passive recreation. There is no plan to stop
passive use of the area by students or the larger neighborhood. [Linda Ripley]
9. How is security going to be maintained in and around the Grove? Does the Grove
have a security force on hand? Does it have other staff on hand trained to deal
with criminal activity? What is the Grove's policy on guns in the project?
The Grove General Manager, Leasing Manager and Community Advisors will
live in designated apartments throughout the Grove property. These
individuals are trained on how to respond to various situations that may arise
within the property. If any criminal activity is discovered, the staff will call the
Fort Collins police department.
No guns or any other type of weapon are allowed within the Grove. [Campus
Crest]
7. We understand you intend to market to students. At what point during the
leasing process will you market and lease to non -students?
In accordance with FHA requirements, the Grove community will be available
to all potential customers. However, the Grove, with its related amenities and
lifestyle programs, is designed to fit the needs of today's college students.
[Campus Crest]
8. Regarding pets:
a. How many pets will be allowed in the Grove project? One per
lease/bedroom?
b. How will the project deal with animal waste?
c. How will the project deal with animal noise?
d. How will the project protect the wildlife corridor along the Larimer Canal #2
from predatory pets?
The Grove community will allow pets; however, having a pet in an apartment is
a privilege, not a right. All pets must:
1. be of appropriate size (50 Ibs or less);
2. not be an aggressive breed (i.e., pit bull terrier, or similar); and
3. meet General Manager's approval (Landlord has discretion over any
animal).
Any student that would like to have a pet in their apartment must pay: i) a
$250 non-refundable pet fee, and ii) an additional $30/month pet rent. This
additional charge tends to reduce the number of pets on a typical property. in
fact, a recent audit of the Grove at Greeley (dated May 1, 2011) showed that,
of the 504 beds, there were only 30 pets. All pets were registered with the
General Manager's office.
With regard to animal waste, waste stations will be conveniently located
throughout the property. All student residents are informed that it is their
responsibility to properly dispose of any waste left by their pet. Any non-
compliant resident will be reprimanded and fined. In addition, the
maintenance staff routinely patrols the property and picks up any noticeable
waste.
if there happens to be a barking dog, the lease agreement allows the Grove
management to enter the apartment to resolve the situation.
IN
should contact Matt Wempe and/or David Kemp to explore the issue
further. [Linda Ripley]
b. How is increased bicycle traffic on Spring Creek Trail going to be dealt with?
There is a connection to the Spring Creek Trail via an underpass of Centre
Avenue, approximately 550 feet south of the Prospect Road/Centre Avenue
intersection and approximately 2000 feet north of the existing Centre
Avenue/Rolland Moore intersection. The Spring Creek Trail intersects with
the Mason Street Corridor approximately 0.25 miles to the east. The Spring
Creek Trail and the Mason Street Corridor are facilities that are adequate to
accommodate high volumes of bicycle traffic. [Michael Delich]
5. Regarding guest parking:
a. How will it be accommodated?
b. Where will overflow parking go?
c. Will there be permit parking?
The City LUC requires this development to have 430 automobile parking
spaces. The project is providing 499 parking spaces. In addition, there will be
128 on -street parking spaces for a total of 627 parking spaces available for
students and their guests. Based on experience at other locations, Campus
Crest has found that providing one parking space for each student living in the
complex creates enough parking to eliminate the need for overflow parking
areas. [Linda Ripley]
Campus Crest actively manages the parking situation at all of their properties.
All students will receive a Move -In package that includes a registration form
for their vehicle. Once the vehicle is properly registered with the Grove
General Manager, the student will receive a Grove parking sticker. Vehicles
with Grove stickers and registered guest vehicles are allowed to park on the
Grove property. Other vehicles will be towed. [Campus Crest]
6. Please explain how your policy complies with fair housing regulations, as
students are not a federally protected class.
The lease agreements for all Grove properties are FHA compliant and carry the
FHA logo. [Campus Crest]
2. Will the Grove be heated with electricity? And is there any other heat source
planned?
While choice of a heating source is not regulated by the Land Use Code,
sustainable systems and practices are important to this project and we wanted
to share and discuss them. [Linda Ripley]
The Grove at Fort Collins project team is currently considering four systems —
none of which are air -source heat pumps. The four systems under
consideration are: 1) gas fired furnaces and domestic hot water with Dx
cooling; 2) ground source heat pumps for heating, cooling with domestic hot
water preheat and electric water heaters; 3) a horizontal fan coil system with
instant gas fired hot water and Dx cooling; and 4) a centralized boiler system
for heating (1 per building), with Dx cooling and gas domestic hot water. [Josie
Plaut, IBE]
3. Could the applicant please address the fact that a traffic counting device was
observed by multiple residents on Center at the proposed intersection of the
new Rolland Moore Drive in late February, but no data from such counts was
included in the updated information submitted this spring?
Campus Crest did not perform any traffic counts at the proposed intersection
in late February. [Linda Ripley]
4. Regarding bicycle traffic:
a. How is increased bicycle traffic on Centre Ave going to be dealt with?
Centre Avenue has six foot bike lanes (including gutter) and vehicle travel
lanes of 12.5 feet. This will provide enough width for bicycles to travel
within the bike lanes, without feeling squeezed by the vehicular traffic. The
northbound bike lane ends approximately 200 feet south of the stop bar at
the Prospect Road/Centre Avenue intersection (just south of the access to
the Hilton). At this point, bicycles must merge with the traffic at the
intersection. However, in discussions with Fort Collins Engineering staff, it
was stated that this is not a high accident location for bicycles and vehicles.
[Michael Delich]
Matt Wempe, City Transportation Planner, and David Kemp, the City's Bike
Coordinator work with the Campus Bike Advisory Committee on a regular
basis to enhance bicycle safety on campus. While this group mainly focuses
on education, it also works with other entities on campus and the City to
affect infrastructure improvements. Neighborhood residents concerned
about bicycle safety at the Centre Avenue/Prospect Road intersection
Also, based on the traffic impact study and bicycle and pedestrian level of
service analysis, this development is not responsible for improvements at
the West Prospect Road and Centre Avenue intersection. This does not
preclude future improvements at Prospect and Centre, but they would not
be the responsibility of this development.
4. The City has invested millions of dollars in The Gardens on Spring Creek. How
does The Grove meet the compatibility requirements of the LUC relative to the
Gardens?
If approved and constructed, The Grove at Fort Collins multi -family residential
development will provide a horizontal physical separation of at least 300 feet
between the closest residential building the outside boundary of The Gardens
on Spring Creek. Significant landscaping will occur within that separation
distance. The idea of a multi -family residential project being incompatible with
a public facility, especially since the residents of the project are potential and
probable users of the facility, would seem incongruous.
5. Is the City giving any development fee rebates, discounts, or any reductions
compared to published development fee rates.
City staff is not aware of any development fee rebates, discounts, or any
reductions compared to published development fee rates that have been
granted for The Grove at Fort Collins development project.
Questions for Campus Crest:
1. Please explain/describe the bike ways through the development.
There are 6-foot wide bike lanes proposed on the new Rolland Moore Drive
and on the public commercial street that connects Rolland Moore Drive to the
existing Rolland Moore Drive at Centre Avenue. The local street that comes off
of Rolland Moore Drive and connects to the public commercial street has a
detached 8-foot wide pedestrian/bike trail on the west and north sides of the
street. Bicyclists can connect to existing bike lanes on Shields Street to the
west and to bike lanes on Centre Avenue to the east. There is also a paved
pedestrian/bike connection from the end of the existing Rolland Moore Drive
off of Centre Avenue that links this development to the Spring Creek Trail.
[Linda Ripley]
LOS Signalized Intersection
A <_10 sec
B 30-20 sec
C 20-35 sec
D 35-55 sec
E 55-80 sec
F >_80 sec
The current levels of service at the major intersections are:
AM PEAK
MIDDAY
PEAK
PM PEAK
Prospect College
C
D
D
Prospect Shields
C
C
D
Drake Shields D
D
D
Drake College C
C
E
f. Will the developer be paying for any of the cost of Center Avenue conversion
to an arterial? How is that calculated?
Centre Avenue is designated as a collector street on the City of Fort Collins
Master Street Plan. The traffic impact study for The Grove at Fort Collins
indicates that the roadway would fall under the classification of a two-lane
arterial street if based upon current traffic volumes on Centre Avenue, as
the current traffic volumes exceed 5,000 vehicles per day (5,000 vehicles
per day, strictly from a traffic volume standpoint, would classify Centre
Avenue as a two-lane arterial classification).
The developer would not be required to pay for any costs pertaining to a
theoretical conversion of Centre Avenue from a collector to a two-lane
arterial for a couple of reasons. First, the built condition of Centre Avenue
for all intents and purposes meets the standard of a two-lane arterial as it
exists today. Centre Avenue was built with a center (reversible) turn lane
along the frontage of developer's property as well as most of the entire
stretch of Centre Avenue from Prospect to Shields. As a result, there's no
additional widening that would be anticipated. Second, the developer
would have responsibility for Centre Avenue only to the extent that its
impact would cause a deficiency in level of service to Centre Avenue. In this
case, however, the traffic impact study points out an existing condition that
as a result isn't attributable to the developer, and again, to the extent that
the components of a 2-lane arterial are already in place along the property
frontage. There is no resulting issue of the developer needing to mitigate
Centre Avenue.
Since this development is specifically for student housing and experience
shows that at other student housing that much of the daily commuting to
and from the apartment is by alternative means of transportation such as
bikes and various forms of walking (skate boarding, blading, etc.) a twenty-
five percent (25%) reduction in motor vehicle trips was allowed. This is a
considered a conservative figure based upon experience over the years of
other campus related housing. The City feels its appropriate to allow some
reduction but only as long as the traffic analysis remains conservative in
nature.
In general, it is expected that the majority of routine trips generated by the
proposed use will be non -vehicular in nature. Motor vehicle use is expected
to be significantly less than the average working family generates on a daily
basis.
d. What are the assumptions for numbers of trips generated by other residents
of the City?
That is accounted for as part of the traffic generation figures contained
within the Trip Generation estimations. As the trip generations are derived
from actual observations of land uses, such as apartment complexes, the
counting does not distinguish between those living there from those
visiting. Trips coming to and from a land use whether owners or residents,
or visitors or patrons constitute a given land use's trip generation.
e. Please explain LOS (level of service) standards? At what level are each of the
major intersections functioning?
Bicycle and pedestrian level of service standards are outlined in the Larimer
County Urban Area Street Standards —Appendix H (Fort Collins Multimodal
Transportation Level of Service Manual). There are separate criteria for
bicycle (see pages 10, 19-20) and pedestrians (see pages 8-9, 16-18, and the
map on pdf page 27). Based on the traffic impact study and staff review,
Transportation Planning staff has determined that the development meets
the level of service standards for each mode.
The Highway Capacity Manual defines level -of -service for signalized and
unsignalized intersections as a function of the average vehicle control delay
(meaning how much delay is caused by the traffic control device: traffic
signal, stop sign, etc.). LOS may be calculated per -movement, per -
approach, or for the entire intersection. The following values are based
upon averages and should not be interpreted to be rigidly experienced by a
motorist each and every time they are stopped at a control device. It is a
measurement to aid in comparing and evaluating intersection performance.
with the revised information and found the intersection to continue to
function to City standards.
A TIS Memo, dated November 22, 2010 was later submitted to determine
whether there was need to revise the May 2010 TIS due to the
development changing its layout. This memo reviewed the new plan
against the previous plan and demonstrated that the new plan was
marginally lower in traffic generation than the previous design. It was
based on a reduced number of rental units and bedrooms. Upon City
review of this TIS Memo it was determined that a revised TIS would not be
required for the new project layout.
A final TIS Memo dated December 2, 2010 was submitted based upon a
request from Traffic Operations staff. The November 22, 2010 TIS Memo
did provide that there were some minor traffic increases at the Center and
Prospect intersection. Traffic requested further discussion of the increases
and what might be any possible impacts. The increases were significantly
minor but still it was prudent to have them discussed with greater depth.
In early 2011 the development submitted documents to amend the Overall
Development Plan (ODP) for this area (Amended CSURF Centre for
Advanced Technology ODP — Major Amendment -Type II). An amendment of
this type also requires submittal of a TIS to review the proposed changes
against the historic approved ODP land uses. The TIS dated march 28, 2011
provided the past and present land use review. The study found the
approved land uses proposed in the past generated significantly higher
volumes of traffic than current proposed land uses.
c. What are the assumptions for numbers of trips generated by the prospective
tenants?
There are a few different means to estimate the number of trips a given
land use will generate. All of these means are derived from years of actual
observations of similar types of facilities such as apartments, condos,
banks, retail businesses, etc. and published in books titled Trip Generation
by the Institute of Transportation Engineers. In this case the land use used
to evaluate this development was "Apartment' (Land Use 220) since these
are rental apartments. Traffic generated can be estimated by the number
of dwelling units, number of persons, or number of vehicles. In this case the
number of persons was used and that was determined by the number of
beds available for rent. Traffic estimates were based on every bed being
rented.
4
require development within the designated flood fringe to quantify impacts to
adjacent, upstream and downstream properties.
3. Regarding the traffic studies performed:
a. Why did the City not require that each of the 4 major intersections within a
mile radius of the development be studied?
As traffic moves further and further from its origin/destination, reasonably
estimating where it will go becomes very speculative. In this case, during
the normal peak hours when congestion is of most concern, the traffic
expected to/from this development is expected to be most significantly
from the campus. The most easy and direct route is north/south on Center,
between the future extension of Rolland Moore and the campus. This is
also one of the primary accesses to much of the on -campus parking areas.
Will there be some traffic possibly going to the major intersections in the
area, yes probably so, but even by best estimation practices the quantity
would difficult to measure and quantify as it is expected to be significantly
lower in volume and quite random, and again by all modes on any given
day. Experience tells us it would be hard to discern from the daily
background traffic fluctuations and therefore speculative at best for any
meaningful evaluation.
b. Please explain the traffic studies that were required and why.
As part of the traffic impact study, Transportation Planning required the
developer to complete the bicycle and pedestrian level of service
worksheets.
There was a preliminary traffic impact study (TIS) before the development
was submitted to the City to address questions the development asked
about the necessity and alignment of Rolland Moore between its current
stub from Shields to Center Avenue. The City concluded that Rolland Moore
should continue to conned to Center Avenue.
A formal traffic study, dated May 2010, was submitted with the initial
development submittal in the Spring of 2010. It is the primary TIS reviewing
and analyzing the developments impacts on area roadways and
intersections.
A revision to the May 2010 TIS, dated October 7, 2010, was requested by
Traffic Operations staff to address two errors at the Center and Prospect
intersection. The TIS had an error in the analyzed cycle length and north
bound left turn signalization. This revision re -reviewed the intersection
the Corps. Please see the attached letters from City Planning Staff and the
Army Corp of Engineers. [CSURF]
The canal relocation (realignment) is not a part of The Grove at Fort Collins,
Project Development Plan review process; and, it is not a certainty that the
realignment will occur. The Larimer No. 2 Canal Ditch Company is not subject
to the City of Fort Collins development review process and, therefore, is not
required to amend the CSURF Centre for Advanced Technology Overall
Development Plan as part of their potential realignment of the ditch. [City
Staff]
Questions for the City:
1. Will staff be recommending that the canal move be completed before or
concurrent with building permits are issued for The Grove?
No, because The Grove at Fort Collins Project Development Plan and the
potential Larimer No. 2 Canal realignment are 2 separate projects issuance of
building permits for The Grove will not be tied to the timing for a realignment
of the ditch.
2. Although City Code allows filling in the floodplain (thus displacing water onto
pre-existing development), has this been allowed at other locations in the City? If
yes, please describe where and when.
The designated 100 Year floodplains within the City of Fort Collins consist of
both a floodway (area of highest risk, highest flood depths and velocities) and
flood fringe. Chapter 10 of City Code allows development within the flood
fringes with the following exceptions:
* Residential and mixed -use development is not allowed in the 100 Year
floodplain for the Poudre River; and,
* Critical facilities are not allowed in the 100 Year floodplain (500 year
floodplain for the Poudre River).
The floodways have been mapped based on an allowable 0.5 foot (6 inch) rise
in the base flood elevation (water surface elevation). Development within the
100 year flood fringe has happened in locations throughout the City (Poudre
River, Spring Creek, Dry Creek, etc.) The net result of this allowable rise is that
floodwater can be redirected onto adjacent, upstream and downstream
properties. The floodway and flood fringe concept is consistent with FEMA
floodplain regulations throughout the United States. City Code does not
Questions for the May 23'° Neighborhood Meeting Regarding The
Grove At Fort Collins PDP and the Amended CSURF Centre for
Advanced Technology ODP.
Note For Neighbors: This is a list of questions that we feel important to get onto
the record and answers for. This list is also being provided to Steve Olt so that if
we run out of time at this evening's meeting, Steve and The City have a list of our
questions and can provide answers in their meeting notes. You may feel free to
ask a question from this list or you may ask any other questions which you feel
are important. It is up to you! Thank you for coming!
General Questions:
1. Who is paying for the canal move?
Campus Crest will pay for the ditch realignment project, but it is beneficial and
a desired improvement for CSURF, Larimer No. 2, Campus Crest and the overall
neighborhood. It is truly a win -win solution. [CSURF]
Questions for CSURF:
2. Please explain the relocation plan (and how it came to be) for Larimer Canal #2.
The ditch realignment project will shift an approx. 1300-foot section of the
Larimer Canal No. 2 approx. 50 feet south of its current location. Unlike the
current ditch, the realigned ditch will be clay -lined. The possibility of realigning
this portion of the ditch was suggested by the Ditch Company superintendent
in January as a way to address liability, maintenance and potential seepage
concerns. In addition, as part of the Ditch Company routine maintenance, it
was indicated that the trees would likely be removed. Since saving the large,
existing trees and providing yet another mechanism to address seepage
concerns is also desirable to CSURF and to its lessee, Campus Crest, CSURF
agreed to allow the realignment on its property. [CSURF]
3. Why is the canal relocation not part of the CDP?
The relocation is off -site and controlled by the Larimer No. 2 and CSURF. In
accordance with a written determination by the City Planning Staff, after
consultation with the City Attorney's Office, maintenance, repairs and
relocations of ditches that carry raw water for agricultural purposes are
exempt from the Land Use Code definition of "development" and, therefore,
are not subject to City review or approval. The Army Corps of Engineers has
determined that the ditch relocation project does not require a permit from