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HomeMy WebLinkAbout120 CHERRY ST., CHERRY ST. STATION - PDP - 9-05 - CORRESPONDENCE - CITIZEN COMMUNICATION (14)We are burned out coming to development meetings in this neighborhood. Not only are some of us still burned our from the 2 year very intense involvement in getting the CoHousing and adjacent houses to fruition, but we've had other projects over the years to deal with. And in the past year we have had Cherry St. Lofts, Mason St. North and Penny Flats to deal with, not to mention many issues about Cherry St. and monthly neighborhood meetings and our own issues in general. Many people from our neighborhood have spent many, many, many hours in meetings and email and conversations about these developments in addition to Cherry St. Station this spring and summer. So if we're not at the Administrative Hearing, it is not because we are not concerned. We've attended the neighborhood meeting and have written to you about our concerns and are just at home trying to live in our work week. That's the challenge about being a neighbor involved in developments in any neighborhood ...... we don't get paid for our time, for us it's above and beyond our whole lives.... whereas for the developer and the City staff, it's part of their work world. And yet we live with the consequences and the developers do their thing and leave it when it's done. So, lack of attendance is not about apathy, especially in our neighborhood .... for us it's about being overextended and exhausted. Many people feel like fighting developments like this is an uphill battle that is very difficult for us to influence, and so we have to weigh what that will take vs. the toll it will take on the rest of our lives. Thank you for listening to me. I did write you a letter when this all began, but I've done a lot more thinking since then and needed to write again. I've lived here going on 11 years and have been very involved in our neighborhood in that time. Also very supported by my neighbors during a bout with cancer and ongoing Chronic Fatigue. It's a great place to live with a lot of great people as neighbors. Chris Maldonado 412 N. Whitcomb St. Fort Collins, CO 80521 So although he knew us all and knew about how much we like to be involved in a project that will affect us, Mikal did not contact us about this development. We found out about it by the sign the City puts out at a new development. We were very concerned about the this building, especially the size, given the location, and we got an email conversation going amongst ourselves about it and decided to ask him to come to a neighborhood meeting to explain what he was up to, and he did do that. During the meeting he agreed to send us updates on his drawings as he had them .... but he never did that .... it wasn't until we had to ask several times that we got them. He also said he'd send a drawing of this proposal from the park view, as many neighbors are concerned about the aesthetics of this from the park view, and we never got that. He made quite a slam during the meeting about the way the neighbors had communicated their concerns with each other about this project prior to this meeting, which was via email.....a slam that the facilitator didn't catch which was very unfortunate. That felt very disrespectful and lent itself to the feeling he was doing us lipservice but didn't really care about what we thought. And that didn't rest well with many of us. Although he seemed like he was listening and cooperative for the most part during the meeting, the fact that he never got back to us with his plans, and didn't include us in his walk around the parking garage that he offered to City staff as a way to view his project made us feel like he was saying one thing and doing another. The weeds on this property got very high many times between the neighborhood meeting and the hearing, the City would've ticketed anyone in our neighborhood for weeds like that .... which projected a sense of not caring until it was in his interest to do so. It just mostly didn't seem right that someone who had known us and been involved with us for some months getting one of his first big projects in Fort Collins would not opt to involve us or even let us know about his project and treat us not very respectfully once he was involved. Although it was not required of him, he had always said involving neighbors was very important, but it seems it is not to him ...... it would've been the right thing to do.....for us to find out about it in arrears put us on the defensive. Hence, there is not the good feel about Mikal and his project that there is for the other 3 going on right now.....and in my mind that will carry over to how we interact with this project, if approved, and the new neighbors.... that is what will last. He didn't involve us, he didn't follow up with us as he said he would, and he hasn't kept his property up and cleaned up, as we are expected to do. Whereas there will be a different feeling about the other 3 projects and our new neighbors. To me, this is the core of community, building bridges, not walls .... and it starts with something as simple as just a feel about how it was all done in the first place. 3) Politicians generally consider a letter or phone call or attendance at a meeting by one person to be representative of at least 10 people who are also concerned about an issue. So in this case, if 30 neighbors came to the meeting, that means there might be at least 300 who are actually concerned about this project and it's impacts. And you could multiply the number of written comments you've received on that basis as well. The access to Cherry St. is not good from this building. There is no on street parking for a block in any direction from the entrance to this proposed building, which means much difficulty for guests or movers. The CoHousing and adjacent houses already suffer parking woes if any of them has even a small party, let alone two gatherings going on at the same time .... there just isn't adequate parking there already. And the park not to mention the baseball games take a LOT of parking.....that is a continuing issue that the City doesn't know what to do with. Cherry St. is supposed to, by City definition, carry a maximum of 5000 cars a day. But in actuality it carries almost 8000/day and growing.....this development will only add to a problem the City doesn't know how to fix. I am not opposed to development on this site. I am grateful that he kept the trees that were there. But the height and the look of this proposed building seem totally out of character with what is already there and what is being built to the west and southwest of it, and what is across the street in all 3 directions, and that out of character sense does not add, but rather detracts. 2) Another thing that concerns me just as much is how we are building community in our city. It's not what is happening in the development process that is important as much as how it is happening, and in this case it happened badly and it is leaving some bad very feelings in it's wake. When Mikal first moved to Fort Collins, he and his wife rented a little house in our neighborhood, the Martinez Park Neighborhood. It was right at the time when the neighbors were involved in fighting a proposed 180 apartments bordering the park on Railroad property. The neighbors were able to cut a deal with the railroad to say we needed 6 months to come up with the asking price, 'h million dollars, or we would present them with a project we could live with. It was a win -win situation for us both. Ultimately we were not able to raise enough money, although we did raise some and with that were able to buy down the density needed to make the property development viable. Instead of 180 apartments we got the CoHousing development and the 10 houses just east of that, a much better situation for us all. Mikal became involved with this as a neighbor and eventually become one of the architects of River Rock CoHousing. He was very pro -neighbor involvement and our project. So it came to me and others as quite a shock that he was proposing and pursuing this Cherry St Station without ever involving our neighborhood. All the folks he worked with then still live here in the neighborhood, and this property he has exactly borders the property we all worked on back then.....so he must've known we would be concerned about any new development there. The Mason St. North developers have been excellent at developing relationships with the neighbors, as have the Penny Flats folks. The man who owned the land for Cherry St. Lofts also did an excellent job of neighbor outreach, holding open houses and writing about his ideas in our monthly neighborhood newsletter way before he settled on anything .... he wanted the neighbors to feel good and be involved in what he was doing. So, for many of us, we may not like everything about these developments, but we have good feelings about them. To the Administrative Hearing Officer Re: Cherry St. Station August 30,2005 Hello, I have 3 main sections to my letter. Thank you for taking time to listen to me. 1) This proposed building is out of proportion to what is around it. On the 3 opposing corners there are one story buildings that will be there for the long term. This building being on the NW corner, with only the park behind it seems way out of place for this height! To blend in with the neighborhood, the Mason St. North development has chosen to not go any higher than the highest point on the development just to the west of it, the 10 houses on the park. 39' is the highest point there on the turret of Experience Plus and will be the highest point in the Mason St. North development. This proposal is also adjacent to a park and huge natural area, the only one in our City that borders inside the City .... to put such a huge building there, the only one on the whole side of the street, seems like it would really look out of place. The facade of the building is fine for a county courthouse, but not next to a residential development that extends for some miles west. Mason St. North has done a great job of developing both homes and space for business that will fit in with the character of the neighborhood. Penny Flats proposal does that as well and is (if I'm remembering correctly) under 60' for the whole development, even tho it will encompass an entire City block. This neighborhood has long been the "wrong side of the tracks" from some perspectives .... it was where the sugar beet farmers and immigrants lived. We have worked hard to preserve the character of our neighborhood and honor her history. We have monthly neighborhood meetings, and a monthly newsletter. It's as mixed as neighborhoods get in Fort Collins, both income -wise and color -wise and we would like to continue to honor that. Our downtown has always been surrounded by residential areas (my house is a 1910) and I think that preserving that feel is the best for our downtown. Our neighborhood and downtown have never had the buildings like Lodo in Denver, that this proposal is modeled after.....so I don't feel the need for it to be created downtown now. If this building goes in, it will be there permanently.....to me and many others, it looks like it will stand out like a sore thumb! If it was a continuation of the residential look, even tho it might be all business, that would work much better for the aesthetics of this spot and our neighborhood. We asked him to work on developing more friendliness and approachability in this building in our neighborhood meeting, but the current plans don't look any different than what he showed us then, aside from being only 5' shorter.