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Home My WebLink About210-212 W. MAGNOLIA ST., URBAN LIVING LOFTS - MOD #1 - 24-05/A - CORRESPONDENCE - (3)Anne As en - RE: 210-212 W. Magnolia LofN Staff Review Comment Letter Page 5 Subject: 210-212 W. Magnolia Lofts Staff Review Comment Letter Hi all, Here is an electronic copy of the letter. The redlines and a hard COPY are on our counter for pickup. Anne Anne Aspen City Planner Current Planning Department City of Fort Collins, CO aaspen@fcgov.com (970)221-6206 Anne As en - RE: 210-212 W. Magnolia Lofts Staff Review Comment Letter Page 4 City Planner Current Planning Department City of Fort Collins, CO aaspen@fcgov.com (970)221-6206 >>> "Corey Seitz" <corey_seitz@excelfg.com> 07/18 9:22 AM >>> Anne, Thank you for emailing us the staff project review notes for Urban Living Lofts at 210 W. Magnolia. The only issue that we are having difficulties with is issue #48 (parking). The fact that the operation of the lifts does not allow us to count them towards our parking requirement has brought up a lot of issues with our neighbors, the DDA, parking services, as well as being in direct conflict with principals T-1, T-2, and T-4 of the Fort Collins city plan. We have contacted parking services and the city currently does not have any parking we can lease off site. We have found private parking that we may be able to purchase but we are getting strong objections to doing that from the DDA, parking services, as well as our neighbors. What we are hearing from the downtown community is that it makes much more sense to have the owners of the lofts wait for 90 seconds if they happen to pull in the garage at the exact same time someone is removing a car from a lift rather that having us inconvenience the whole downtown community by eating up off site parking that is vital to the continued development and economic health of downtown. Is it possible to submit the plans with the lifts and ask for a variance / modification that would allow us to count the lifts as parking spaces? We would support the request with documentation showing that this plan is consistent with the city's planning principals and the impact to the downtown community makes this a much better alternative to off site parking. Please let me know as soon as possible if we can ask for this variance / modification and if so what the process is. Thank you for your time, Corey Seitz Urban Living Concepts, LLC —Original Message — From: Anne Aspen [mailto:AAspen@fcgov.com] Sent: Friday, July 15, 2005 4:25 PM To: corey_seitz@excelfg.com; jcl-architecture@gwest.net; alan@savanthomesinc.com Anne As en - RE: 210-212 W. Magnolia Lolls Staff Review Comment Letter Page 3 they are rentals and that the associated income is much lower. Similar projects that have price tags in the mid-200,000's have not fared so well because of the likelihood that there will be 2 breadwinners who both have cars which they use to commute. The requirements for how to request a modification are located in Section 2.8 of the Land Use Code. The Land Use Code is available on the City website at http://www.colocode.com/ftcollinsfanduse/begin.htm. The fewer cars you seek to get the modification for, the better. As Of staff review, you would have needed a mod. for 10 of your 30 or so cars. That's a lot. You would also need to show that the lifts WORK. As Of staff review, it did not appear to me that sufficient thought was put into making the lifts feasible in physical reality. Another point to consider is the marketability of the units. Most of the other loft project developers (Pine St. Lofts, Belle Claire and Penny Flats included) have told me that they have to provide 2 parking spaces per unit to be marketable. Belle Claire even went so far as to design the parking first and then figure out how many units they could create based on how many cars they could park. So unless you have a very different marketing strategy, I think we're all in this together. I am just starting to read a book called 'The High Price of Free Parking" by Donald Shoup. You might be interested in taking a look at it. It could be useful in your efforts to obtain a modification. I am happy to work with you on the modification but I want you to go into it with your eyes open. This is not a matter of the City beaurocrats blindly holding you up. This is the forefront of change in our community and it has no simple answer. There are many issues and many stakeholders involved. Another thing you should be aware of is that the City is hosting a charrette on this very topic in three weeks. It is called REFILL, on infill and redevelopment issues and strategies. Cameron Gloss, the Director of Current Planning is coordinating it to involve as many types of stakeholders as possible from the various utilities, to transportation, to the marketing world, to the DDA and private sector developers and consultants. The result of this effort will be proposed Land Use Code changes for this fall on emerging topics of redevelopment like parking requirements, so STAY TUNED!! Hope that answers some of your questions. Please let me know if you have others. Anne Anne Aspen Anne Aspen - RE: 210-212 W. Magnolia Lofts Staff Review Comment Letter Page 2 principles. However, the regulatory standards to carry out City Plan are housed in the Land Use Code and according to the Land Use Code, you must provide a certain number of parking spaces per bedroom. This number has arguably worked very well for years in predicting how many cars will be associated with a project. Hopefully, that number will start to decrease as people adopt a more urban lifestyle. I've gotta editorialize though and say that "urban" next to the foothills and RMNP etc. is different than urban in Manhattan. I doubt people will go without cars here because part of the allure of this area is getting up in the mountains, which you can really only do in a car. Simply pointing to City Plan's principles is not a realistic way to assess whether it will happen in reality. Also, at this point, unlike Manhattan, downtown Fort Collins is not yet consistently able to offer most services in walking distance. Most folks can't walk to a grocery store or dry cleaners or other typical services —yet. (In your case, one small part of your mod argument could be that you are in fact walking distance to Safeway, Ace Hardware and the Co-op.) With that said, you should also know that I explained in detail with you all at staff review and with Justin in a separate meeting that there are ways to handle this situation. I mentioned that offsite parking was an option or that a request for modification of standards was another option. You all seemed to be interested in the offsite parking option. That was the last I heard until I got an excited call from Chip. Since the offsite option has not panned out, your other option is still to request a modification to that parking standard. As I told you all and Justin, if you go that route, you'll need to justify it. I have a few examples available for your review. I gave a couple of them to Justin when we met but since you weren't thinking about a modification at that point, I didn't go into a lot of detail with him on that so I have more info if you want it. Some of the issues that have come up with the Planning and Zoning Board and Admin Hearing Officers in these cases will alert you to their concerns. For example, a similar modification was granted to the Atrium Suites for a reduction in parking required. Ted Shepard was the planner on that project. He and the applicant put a significant amount of energy into convincing the Board that fewer cars would be brought by someone living across from campus. They documented nearby apartment buildings etc. and showed that the parking numbers were lower than average in the adjoining blocks. The decision makers in that project granted the modification largely because of its proximity to campus, the fact that Anne Aspen - RE: 210-212 W. Magnolia Loffa Staff Review Comment Letter Page 1 From: "Corey Seitz" <corey_seitz@excelfg.com> To: "'Anne Aspen"' <AAspen@fcgov.com> Date: 07/18/2005 3:17:52 PM Subject: RE: 210-212 W. Magnolia Lofts Staff Review Comment Letter That makes sense, thanks for the clarification. Corey —Original Message — From: Anne Aspen (mailto:AAspen@fcgov.com] Sent: Monday, July 18, 2005 3:02 PM To: corey_seitz@excelfg.com Subject: RE: 210-212 W. Magnolia Lofts Staff Review Comment Letter Hi Corey, Section 3.2.2(D)(2). This is considered obstructed. Other examples of this that have fallen under this section are parking in driveways and parking in tandem. The lifts you propose have the same inherent problem. Anne Anne Aspen City Planner Current Planning Department City of Fort Collins, CO aaspen@fcgov.com (970)221-6206 >>> "Corey Seitz" <corey_seitz@excelfg.com> 07/18 11:36 AM >>> Anne, We do have options for off site parking but want to make sure we exhaust all possibility on site first. In preparing for a request for modification I have reviewed section 3.2.2 of the land use code and I can not find where it excludes the use of a lift from being counted as parking. Is there another place I should be looking? Thanks for you help, Corey —Original Message — From: Anne Aspen [mailto:AAspen@fcgov.com] Sent: Monday, July 18, 2005 11:13 AM To: corey_seitz@excelfg.com Cc: Cameron Gloss; Pete Wray; steinco@frii.com; jcl-architecture@qwest.net; alan@savanthomesinc.com Subject: RE: 210-212 W. Magnolia Lofts Staff Review Comment Letter Hi Corey, You are not alone in having this problem. Downtown redevelopments are very tricky. They are a relatively new concept too and we are all still learning how to do it well. You are right that the City Plan encourages reduced vehicle trip miles, increased mass transit use and increased bike use as an alternative to auto use. I myself (and many of my coworkers) use a bike most days of the week to commute and support these