HomeMy WebLinkAboutTHE SUMMIT ON COLLEGE PARKING GARAGE - MJA/FDP ..... REMAND FROM CITY COUNCIL - FDP130056 - DECISION - MINUTES/NOTESADMINISTRATIVE HEARING
CITY OF FORT COLLINS
Held Thursday, September 4, 2014
Conference Room A, 281 North College Avenue
Fort Collins, Colorado
In the Matter of:
Major Amendment to The Summit on College Project Development Plan #FDP130056
ADMINISTRATIVE HEARING OFFICER:
Marcus A. McAskin
STAFF MEMBERS PRESENT:
Seth Lorson, City Planner
Mark Kempton, Stormwater Master Planning Manager
Lindsay Ex, Senior Environmental Planner
Paul Eckman, Deputy City Attorney
Sandy Lindell, Senior Building and Development Review Tech
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1 ADMINISTRATIVE HEARING OFFICER MARCUS MCASKIN: For the record, my
2 name is Marcus McAskin with the law firm of Widner, Michow and Cox, I’ll be the Hearing
Officer this evening. It is September 4
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3 , 2014…this hearing has been noticed and scheduled for
4 six o’clock this evening. This is a…the Major Amendment to Summit on College PDP, or FDP,
5 number 130056. The applicant is the Capstone Development Corporation. I originally heard this
matter on March 5
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, and I entered a written decision in this case on March 19
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6 , to approve a
parking structure consisting of 440 parking spaces. That March 19
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7 decision was appealed to
8 City Council in accordance with City Code Section 2-49. Three appeals were consolidated for
purposes of the May 20
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9 hearing before City Council. City Code Section 2-55(F)(2) provides
10 the City Council shall uphold, overturn or modify the decision of the Hearing Officer provided
11 that City Council may also remand the matter for re-hearing in order for the Hearing Officer to
12 receive and consider additional information with regard to any issue raised on appeal. Any such
13 remand shall include direction from the City Council to the Hearing Officer as to the issues to be
14 considered at the re-hearing. Direction has been provided to me in the form of City Council
Resolution 2014-063, dated July 22
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15 , 2014. Based on the direction set forth in that Resolution,
16 this hearing shall be limited to the following issues: number one, whether Section 3.4.1(I)(2) of
17 the Land Use Code was properly interpreted and applied, and number two, whether Section
18 3.5.1(J) of the Land Use Code was properly interpreted and applied.
19 Specifically, the Resolution that was adopted by City Council directed me to further
20 consider the impact of the proposed major amendment on the Spring Creek viewsheds and to
21 consider the possible reduction of the size of the parking structure and reduction in the number of
22 parking spaces in the structure, to a number closer to that established by Ordinance No. 121,
23 series 2013, presently codified at Section 3.2.2(K)(1)(a) of the Land Use Code for multi-family
24 development within the TOD overlay zone, with a view toward compliance with Sections
25 3.4.1(I)(2) and 3.5.1(J) of the Land Use Code.
I reviewed the DVDs of the May 20
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26 Council hearing in advance of this evening’s
27 hearing, and it is my understanding that the applicant has submitted a revised application
28 reducing the number of parking spaces in the garage. It is further my understanding that the
29 applicant is requesting an approval of the major amendment as originally submitted; however,
30 the applicant is also requesting that if additional conditions are to be imposed, that the alternate
31 design submitted by the applicant be adopted. The alternate design includes elements including
32 that the top level of the garage as originally submitted be removed, reduction of the average
33 height along the south elevation to approximately ten feet, four inches, introduction of additional
34 green screening, vertical trellis screening, along the south elevation of the garage facing
35 Creekside Park, parking spaces in the garage reduced from 440 to 335, or 345, excuse me, for a
36 net total of 442 on-site spaces. Section 3.2.2(K)(1)(a) of the Land Use Code, the interim TOD
37 overlay zone parking regulations adopted by the City in 2013, would require a minimum of 364
38 on-site spaces.
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1 The order of proceedings tonight will follow that set forth in 2.2.7(C) of the Land Use
2 Code. I have completed my overview of the proceeding tonight. The next step will be to turn it
3 over to the applicant for their presentation. Seth Lorson, the City Planner, will then have an
4 opportunity to present. We will then open it up for public testimony. If you do intend on
5 testifying tonight, I ask that you sign in on the sheet that’s been provided with your name and
6 your address, speak clearly so that the recorder can pick up the recording, and please do state
7 your name and address for the record. It’s my historical practice in all of these hearings to limit
8 public comment to three minutes; however, I don’t see an awful lot of people here tonight, so
9 I’m going to be a little bit liberal with that time limit. However, I would encourage you not
10 repeat any issues that have been raised; I’d like to avoid any repetitious testimony if at all
11 possible. My…it’s not my intent to limit public testimony in any way; I just don’t want to hear
12 the same thing over and over. So, again, please come up to the table, sign in and then state your
13 name and address for the record. And with that, I think we’ll…we’ll go ahead and get started.
14 The applicant and staff will both have an opportunity to respond to any comments that had been
15 raised during public testimony; however, I would ask that your testimony and the comments be
16 directed to me as the Hearing Officer and not to staff or not to the applicant. If there’s questions,
17 ask me, we can get those hopefully addressed during the rebuttal period. So, with that I’ll go
18 ahead and open the public hearing and I’ll turn it over to the applicant.
19 MS. CAROLYNNE WHITE: Thank you Mr. Hearing Officer, good evening. My name
20 is Carolynne White, I’m land use counsel for the applicant, which is Fort Collins Associates LP,
21 including developer Capstone Development Corp, who’s present here on behalf of Fort Collins
22 Associates LP. I’d like to introduce a few of the members of our team who will part of our
23 formal presentation tonight, in addition we also have several other members of our team who are
24 experts in various areas who are here this evening, and if they are called upon to answer
25 questions or to testify in response to something, we’ll introduce them at that time. The principal
26 members of our team who will be testifying and presenting tonight are Jeff Jones, who’s with me
27 at counsel table, Executive Vice-President of Capstone, Hoshi Engineer, who is an engineer with
28 Desman Associates, and Brian Williamson, who is our landscape architect with TST,
29 Incorporated here in Fort Collins.
30 As you already pointed out, the reason we are here is on a remand by City Council of the
31 administrative approval of a major amendment to the approved project development plan for The
32 Summit on College, to add a parking structure to serve the existing multi-family and mixed-use
33 building that’s already there. Can you switch to the next slide?
34 You already covered the procedural timeline that I was planning to cover to provide a
35 little of the background and history of how we got here, so I won’t cover that right now other
36 than to mention that the scope of this hearing is set forth, as you mentioned, in City Council
37 Resolution 2014-063, which limited this remand hearing to the two issues that you mentioned.
38 Next slide please. And those two issues are: the impact of the major amendment on Spring
39 Creek viewsheds as provided in 3.4.1(I)(2) of the Land Use Code, and consideration of the
4
1 possible reduction of the size of the parking structure building and the reduction of the number of
2 parking spaces in the structure to a number closer to the minimum parking requirements as
3 established by Ordinance 121, codified at 3.2.2(K)(1)(a) in the Land Use Code. The vast
4 majority, 99.9% of what we plan to present to you tonight is on those two issues; tangentially it
5 may relate to other issues that were previously addressed in the hearing, and we’ll mention if
6 that’s the case. But we will not be presenting the full scope of the entire Land Use Code and all
7 the criteria, because in our view, based on City Council’s remand, those issues have already been
8 addressed. So we’ll be focusing our testimony and presentation on both how the original
9 proposal meets these two particular issues raised by City Council and the sections of the Land
10 Use Code that City Council mentioned, and also how the additional information that we’ve
11 provided depicting an alternative design for the parking structure also meets these two issues,
12 and all the original criteria in the Land Use Code.
13 But to that point, I will just state here for the record, that the record does incorporate and
14 include all of the previous testimony, all of the previous exhibits, from the first administrative
15 hearing on the original structure and its compliance with the Land Use Code, as well as City
16 Council Resolution 2014-063, which expressly notes that, in its view, the proposed project as
17 they saw it, met all of the other criteria in the Land Use Code in conformance with your original
18 decision, and we’re just remanding for reconsideration based on these two issues.
19 For ease of reference, I want to clarify that I will be referring to the before and after, or
20 the original proposal…the original structure which had three elevated levels of parking, or the
21 alternative design, which has only two elevated levels of parking. That’s the terminology that
22 we have used to describe these things, and the original proposal, the original application, remains
23 exactly as it was, exactly as it was approved, appealed, and remanded back. There have been no
24 changes to it, nor have there been any changes to the actual application. The additional
25 information that was provided, exactly as set forth in the Land Use Code, which is the purpose of
26 a remand hearing for the Administrative Hearing Officer to consider additional information on
27 the issues raised by Council.
28 One of the issues raised by Council was a concern that they felt the parking structure may
29 be too large, or may contain too many parking spaces relative to the overall goals of trying to
30 minimize reliance on individual cars for transportation within the TOD district. So, in order to
31 attempt to provide additional information about that, we have provided the materials that were
32 submitted to City staff back at the beginning of August and that have been provided to you as
33 part of the packet, illustrating what a two elevated level, or an altered garage that was reduced in
34 size and scope, would look like if you were to approve the proposal with the additional condition
35 that it be reduced in size and scope. The other point I would make is that the alternative design
36 removes an entire floor of the structure and reduces the number of parking spaces from 535 to
37 442. And to be a little more precise about what I just said, Capstone submitted the alternative
design for the parking structure to City staff on August 5
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38 , City staff reviewed this additional
39 information and their staff report, which is in the record, does recommend approval of the
5
1 proposal as modified by the additional information to be reduced in size to a two elevated level
2 parking structure. So with that, I’d like to turn it over to Jeff Jones and ask him to cover just a
3 few background…a little background summary of why this parking is still needed in this location
4 and why we’re back before you on this remand with this proposal.
5 MR. JEFF JONES: Thank you Carolynne. Just as a recap, The Summit was developed in
6 2012, delivered and opened in August of 2013. It is comprised of roughly 220 apartment units
7 which have 665 beds. We developed The Summit with the encouragement and support of the
8 City and with the encouragement of CSU as a way to add approximate student housing, quality
9 student housing, that was approximate to CSU to accommodate the ongoing growth at CSU, and
10 to provide alternative living areas for CSU students and help maybe take the pressure off of
11 single-family neighborhoods which were being impacted in the community. Our parking
12 approach for The Summit included both on-site spaces, about 191 vehicle spaces and 390 bicycle
13 spaces, plus off-site parking that we had worked to arrange. The off-site parking arrangement
14 did not prove as productive or sustainable as we had hoped, so soon after we opened The Summit
15 in August of 2013, there was a shortage of parking that became a source of frustration for student
16 residents of The Summit, it became a problem for area merchants and residential neighbors
17 because of the spillover impact of the student parking into the community. We recognized that
18 we had a problem.
19 Our analysis led us to the understanding that about 75-80% of CSU students bring a car
20 with them when they come to school here. In our case, they don’t use those cars every day, they
21 don’t use them necessarily often, but they do need a place to store those cars. So as we began to
22 analyze how to address the parking shortage at The Summit, we undertook a pretty wide-ranging
23 evaluation of what those options might be with the goal that we find a solution to the parking
24 challenge that was workable for our student residents, that would allow the property to be
25 marketable over an extended period of time. It would also be workable for the community and
26 most importantly, that would be a sustainable, permanent solution, not just a stop gap solution.
27 We did undertake some stop gap measures in the first operating year. We did…we were able to
28 lease some additional off-site lots and that helped us get through the first year, although it was
29 not the most successful year…our residents were very dissatisfied with the parking situation and
30 that manifested itself in a very low renewal rate from year one to year two, one of the lowest
31 renewals we’ve ever had in any of our…any of our projects. But I think it was directly
32 attributable to the parking shortage.
33 What we basically decided after working with the City officials, CSU, local landowners
34 and brokers, and exploring a number of options for where and how we might meet the parking
35 challenge, we concluded that building an on-site parking structure was really the only workable,
36 sustainable solution. And we began in the fall of 2013 working closely with the City to try to put
37 together a proposal and an amendment to our land use approval that met the Fort Collins Land
38 Use Code, and it was a long and very intense and very meticulous effort to design and site a
39 parking structure on our property in a way that met the Land Use Code. We worked closely with
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1 a lot of the people in this room, with the City, and came forward with our proposal. As
2 Carolynne said, that initial proposal had three elevated levels and continued to use the ground
3 level. We were pleased that the City staff supported that, we were pleased when the Hearing
4 Officer approved that original proposal, and it was only when there were appeals filed and the
5 Council raised a couple of objections, that we had to pull back on our plan to try to build that
6 garage in the summer between year one and year two. So, we’ve had to cobble together short-
7 term, stop gap solutions for parking for year two. Fortunately, and to their credit, Colorado State
8 University stepped up and allowed us to have 225 on-campus storage parking spaces for the year,
9 but made it very clear that was the last accommodation that they would be able to make for us.
10 We…cobbled together a few other short-term leases but remain very committed to the
11 completion of this garage as our permanent solution to the parking needs. And, furthermore,
12 have been listening intently and trying to work in good faith with the City and the community to
13 offer up potential modifications to our original plan that might be less objectionable to some. So,
14 we’re pleased to be back here to present both our original and our alternative proposals tonight.
15 MS. WHITE: Thank you. So, as previously noted, the original parking structure, as
16 originally proposed, the three elevated levels, was found to have met all of the criteria; it was
17 remanded back on these two criteria. And I want to emphasize and clarify that, in the remand,
18 Council did not state that they believed it did not meet those criteria; rather they remanded for
19 further consideration of the project in light of those two criteria that are referenced here. One of
20 the reasons that appeal bodies sometimes do that is where they want to see a more extensive
21 record developed on those particular issues because they couldn’t make a determination of
22 whether or not the criteria were met in the absence of additional findings, hence the reason why
23 additional information was provided as part of this hearing and why we will be focusing on
24 trying to put everything in the record that we think you, and ultimately if it gets appealed again,
25 City Council might need in order to make a good determination about whether or not these
26 additional criteria that are being referenced here, and the additional concerns that Council has
27 raised have been met. We want to make sure that, if you have any questions about the original
28 design…feel free to ask them and we have all the people here to answer them and all that
29 information is still present in the record. But we will be focusing the majority of our
30 presentation on the alternative design since it’s clear that the concerns Council expressed wanted
31 us to reconsider the size and scope of the parking garage, and that’s why this additional
32 information is being presented.
33 In order to discuss how the alternative design addresses these issues, I’d like to ask Hoshi
34 Engineer to come forward and give you a summary of the characteristics of the alternative
35 design. Hoshi…is this alright or do you want him to go over there? Is that okay?
36 MR. HOSHI ENGINEER: Thank you Hearing Officer. My name is Hoshi Engineer with
37 Desman Associates, 7900 East Union Avenue, Denver, Colorado. And the primary
38 purpose…that I want to kind of present in this slide over here is the difference between the
39 original scheme and the alternate scheme. And I want to primarily focus on the table that’s on
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1 the right hand side of the slide, the parking structure slide that is. And Carolynne…the TOD
2 parking requirements. So if you can focus on that slide, on the right hand side, if you look at the
3 first column that primarily…that’s shown in red…it depicts what the current conditions are on
4 the site. And the first row represents the parking count as existing today without any
5 development in terms of the parking structure. So this is what we have currently on-site, 191
6 spaces in terms of the parking counts.
7 MR. MCASKIN: Can I ask you…because I’ve seen the number 185 referenced a lot in
8 different reports in terms of what the current on-site parking is…so?
9 MR. ENGINEER: I think…not I think…this is the right number. We have gone back and
10 recounted the number of spaces and this is the…updated count.
11 MR. MCASKIN: Okay.
12 MR. ENGINEER: Okay, going down that column, the second row really represents a
13 ratio, which is a ratio of total spaces to bedrooms as existing today, and it’s only 29%. And then
14 the last row in the first column, it really represents a ratio of resident parking spaces to
15 bedrooms, and the small nuance that you see between 29% and 24% is because of the visitor
16 parking, short-term parking, and staff parking. If you go on to the second column under the
17 parking structure, this considers the original proposed scheme of three elevated levels for parking
18 structure. And if you see that row, it represents an additional 344 spaces under the original
19 scheme, and if you take the sum of 191 and 344, that kind of represents the total car count of 535
20 spaces. And again, this is with the original proposed scheme of three elevated levels. Moving
21 down that column to the second row, that represents a ratio of total spaces to bedrooms of 80%,
22 and going down, the ratio of resident parking spaces to bedrooms is 70%. Now, having said that,
23 based on the concerns and issues that were kind of presented by the Council and by the others,
24 we came up with an alternate design. And primarily I want to illustrate the difference between
25 the two, between the alternative scheme and the original scheme, for your consideration. And
26 the alternate scheme is for two elevated levels, a much smaller garage. We have removed the top
27 level, and after careful engineering analysis and circulation pattern, this is the new car count
28 summary that we have come up with. And again, going back to the two elevated levels, it’s just
29 an illustration and for your consideration. The total car count with the smaller garage with the
30 roof level removed would be 251, for a total of 442 spaces. The second row down in the last
31 column, it represents a ratio of 66%, and that’s a ratio of total spaces to bedrooms. And
32 obviously the last row represents a ratio of resident parking spaces to bedrooms of 56%. The
33 highlight of this slide…just below the tabulation…the alternate scheme results in a reduction of
34 27% in car count.
35 Okay, this view is really taken from the South College Avenue, and again it kind of
36 depicts the three elevated levels, which was proposed in…original scheme. And you can see the
37 mass and scale of the structure and you can compare that with the next slide that we have
8
1 over…this is the mass and scheme for the two elevated alternative design as viewed from the
2 same viewpoint from the South College Avenue. And…the next slide has a better depiction of
3 the comparison of the original scheme versus the alternate scheme. You can see significantly the
4 smaller size of the garage, of the two elevated levels versus the three elevated levels, keeping in
5 mind that we have kept everything else the same in terms of architecture, aesthetics, and visuals.
6 This is the elevation from the Spring Creek Park on the south side, which we felt was an
7 important elevation based on the concerns that were raised by the City Council and by the
8 others…at the City Council hearing. The first elevation, the top elevation, represents the
9 alternate design, two elevated levels, versus the three elevated original design. And one thing
10 you can see…again, the texture and visuals are pretty much we have kept the same; the flavor of
11 the garage has not changed in terms of the exterior aesthetics, but we have added significant
12 green screening as…requested by the Council. You can see the density of the green screen,
13 significantly more than the original design. Let’s move on to the next one.
14 Well, I just want to say, can you go back to the original slide please…the one before it…I
15 think there are some important things that I want to bring up regarding the architectural
16 aesthetics and the visuals. Like I said…I want to re-emphasize this point over here, that we are
17 maintaining the natural colors that were proposed in the original scheme, as in the elevated
18 design. We are keeping the siding, the windows, the cornices and overhangs similar to The
19 Summit residential complex, similar materials as The Summit development, and the most
20 important thing is we have reduced the scale, the height and mass of the structure significantly,
21 to improve the view corridors from the Spring Creek Park.
22 MR. MCASKIN: And I saw in the materials that that reduction on the south elevation…I
23 think I mentioned it in my opening comments…was ten feet four inches. Is that correct?
24 MR. ENGINEER: That is correct…in fact…our floor to floor height, if I’m not mistaken,
25 Scott please? Is it ten foot four or eleven foot four?
26 UNIDENTIFIED MEMBER OF THE APPLICANT TEAM: It’s ten foot four.
27 MR. ENGINEER: It’s a ten foot four reduction in height, floor to floor, and really, in
28 compliance, or per request of the Council hearing, really if you look at three sides, the north, the
29 east and the south, it’s primarily a two elevated structure okay, with the average roof height of
30 only twenty-six feet, compared with thirty-six foot four.
31 MS. WHITE: Thank you. So coming back to the table for a moment, I’d like to take the
32 information that Hoshi shared and talk about how that brings us to the criteria that Council
33 articulated relative to an attempt to reduce the number of parking spaces. The left side of this
34 table demonstrates the evolution of the parking standards as they have been in the Fort Collins
35 Code over the last several years. And, as staff is aware, when this project was originally built, it
36 was under the TOD overlay zone, which at the time required no minimum parking for residential
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1 within the TOD. This is really a mixed-use building, there’s also 7,000 square feet of retail on
2 the first floor, but even so, the parking requirement was very, very minimal. There was no
3 minimum nor was there any maximum at that time.
4 In late fall of 2013 after the project had already opened, as Jeff Jones mentioned, they
5 became aware that there was going to be a need to add additional parking. And similarly, some
6 of the discussion in the community around this project, along with other similar examples within
7 the TOD overlay zone, highlighted for the City the fact that they may need to revisit the TOD
8 parking requirement not requiring any parking, and conducted a parking study. And in the
9 meantime, they instituted an interim TOD parking requirement. So the middle column on the
10 left hand side of the table represents what would have been required under the current standard,
11 right now, today, which is the interim TOD parking standard. Had this project, The Summit that
12 is, not the parking structure amendment but the original Summit project, been brought forward
13 for City approval after this interim parking standard had been approved, this number in the
14 middle is the number of parking spaces that would have been required. I think you said 364…I
15 think it’s 358 and I think the staff report now has 358. I think the old table had 364, I think we
16 both recalculated….358 is the right number.
17 CITY PLANNER SETH LORSON: Three fifty-eight is the number that I have.
18 MR. MCASKIN: Okay so let me…let me just make sure I understand that number. So,
19 under the interim parking standards that have been codified at 3.2.2, if this project were…would
20 have been submitted under those standards, the required number of parking spaces, the
21 minimum, would have been 358.
22 MS. WHITE: Correct.
23 MR. MCASKIN: We’ve heard testimony that…the current condition is 191.
24 MS. WHITE: Correct.
25 MR. MCASKIN: Okay, so there’s a…167 additional spaces would be required to bring
26 the project to the minimum?
27 MS. WHITE: Yes, yes. Now, the interim TOD did not apply even though the parking
28 garage amendment to the PDP was brought forward post adoption of the interim standard
29 because the interim standard would be applicable to the original application to build The
30 Summit, not to the major amendment to build the parking. So, this is not the applicable standard
31 by which to judge it, but if it were, whether the original proposal or the subsequent proposal, we
32 would have met it because we’re way above 358 in both cases. So…but the standard is not
33 technically applicable. The reason we present it is because Council’s direction was to try to
34 bring the number of parking spaces closer to the minimum required under 3.2.2(K)…(I)(2),
35 which is this, 358. So, I read Council’s direction in 2014-063 Resolution as being, try to reduce
10
1 the parking closer to this number, 358. And just as an aside, that number, 358, represents
2 approximately 55% ratio of total spaces to bedrooms.
3 Now, the City has, since the interim parking standards were adopted, continued to
4 undertake a very extensive parking study, very extensive reports, review of the scholarly
5 literature in this area, review of other cities with similar parking situations, other cities with very
6 progressive parking regulations, and a variety of recommendations have been made to Council
7 for their consideration, which actually I believe were originally scheduled for adoption right
8 around now, although I think they’ve been delayed somewhat, so we’re still…the rest of Fort
9 Collins is still under the interim parking standard today. But one of the recommendations in the
10 proposed package, if it is adopted, is a minimum parking standard that is higher than what the
11 interim parking standard is. And if that standard were in place today and applied to The Summit,
12 the number of parking spaces required would be somewhere between 499 and 574, depending on
13 how you calculate it because there are a couple different options in the proposal. But, it would
14 be somewhere in that range, 499 to 574. And that would represent somewhere between 75% and
15 86% ratio of beds to parking spaces. I mention that for a couple of reasons…one is that, if that
16 standard were in place today and The Summit came forward today, and if the original parking
17 structure were part of the proposal for a total of 535 spaces, it would be exactly right in the
18 middle of that range under the standards that are under consideration but not in force today. It
19 would still be more than the minimum required under the interim standards, and it would be in
20 compliance…the original garage would be in compliance with all three of those standards.
21 If the alternative design is approved and the parking structure is constructed with an
22 additional 251 spaces for a total of 442, that would be in compliance with the old standard, the
23 interim standard, and it would be, as Council directed, closer to the minimum required under the
24 interim standard. But it would actually be under parked relative to the proposed standard that’s
25 under consideration. In fact, it would be a legal non-conforming use. It would have been legal
26 when it was built, but it would not be legal at the time that new parking standard is approved.
27 So, I mention that only because it’s clear that the City itself is wrestling with this issue of how to
28 right-size parking in the TOD area, trying to adjust the land uses and the zoning mix in and
29 around the BRT just like the developers and the property owners in the same vicinity are
30 wrestling with that same issue. And, in similar fashion, everyone…the City and the developers
31 and the property owners, are trying to do so prior to the BRT having come into operation, so
32 without having the benefit of knowing how it’s going to work and, you know, what it’s going to
33 do. Nonetheless, even knowing that information and in light of all the experience of this project
34 and other projects that have come forward, the current recommendation on the table is the City
35 swinging back the other way towards requiring a higher ratio of parking, 75 to 86%, which
36 would be more in line with what the original proposal was.
37 The other criterion that City Council asked us to look at in this hearing had to do with the
38 impact on Spring Creek, the viewsheds, and the landscaping. So, in order to discuss that, I’d like
39 to bring forward Brian Williamson, the landscape architect who designed this landscaping plan,
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1 and who designed the green screen that we’ve showed you, to talk a little bit about that
2 landscaping plan and how it buffers Spring Creek and addresses that issue of the visual quality
3 and the visual character of the natural features.
4 MR. BRIAN WILLIAMSON: Good evening, I’m Brian Williamson, I live at 1433 Beech
5 Court in Fort Collins, and as Carolynne mentioned, the Council has also requested that you, the
6 Hearing Officer, consider the impacts the parking structure has on the Spring Creek viewshed.
7 Go to the next slide. I’m going to summarize how we’ve addressed the viewsheds in the design
8 alternative, and Carolynne will address how these design elements satisfy Section 3.4.1(I)(2).
9 This is a rendering that we have prepared of the garage. It shows, to the north, which is
10 on the right hand side of the screen, the existing Summit building, and then center in the
11 rendering is the garage. You’ll see the landscaping that we’re showing on the north and east
12 sides of the garage and then…what I’d like to call your attention to is what’s happening on the
13 south side of the garage. If you’ll look, you can see the path that runs through Creekside Park
14 there, and there’s two red dots where we have done some simulated viewpoints from. And then,
15 on the north side of the creek, you can see the buffer planting that has been proposed through a
16 fee in-lieu opportunity with the City. Really the impetus behind that is that, right now that’s in a
17 floodplain and the City is currently working on kind of reshaping that area. So, rather than have
18 us go in and make any improvements to that area that would eventually be just torn out, we’re
19 going to say, these are the reasonable improvements that we’ve worked through with City staff,
20 and Capstone is going to pay for those improvements, and then they’ll be installed when the City
21 makes the larger-scale improvements to the area.
22 MR. MCASKIN: Right, and I’m assuming that…that the City and the applicant, you
23 guys, have agreed on a figure of what that fee in-lieu would be?
24 MR. WILLIAMSON: That’s correct.
25 MR. MCASKIN: Okay, and what’s that amount?
26 MR. WILLIAMSON: I have that amount…
27 MR. MCASKIN: And what’s the…what’s the projected timing of the City’s
28 improvements to the…
29 MR. WILLIAMSON: I don’t have that answer…through the process, it seems like it’s
30 gone from further in the future to closer in the future, but we haven’t really had any…any
31 definitive timeframe on the improvements…I don’t know, Seth, if you know more than we do?
32 MR. LORSON: We can speak to that.
33 MR. WILLIAMSON: The improvements that we’re showing here, including irrigation
34 and ten years of water, are in the order…of $25,000. You can see the property line between the
12
1 City’s property and our property…or Capstone’s property here, depicted. It’s kind of in the
2 center of the screen, but really if you were to follow the parking lot from Dairy Queen…the
3 southern boundary of that, that’s the southern boundary of our site as well…right where Mike’s
4 indicating there. On our side of the property, there is a pretty dense utility corridor that includes
5 storm, electrical and a few others, that really limited the amount of planting that we could do on
6 our side. At the southern end…oh, sorry, excuse me, the eastern edge; you can see that we did
7 plant some trees down there. But, really we’re too close to those utilities to plant trees on the
8 western most part of the garage. But we have done…over there…is we planted large shrubs that
9 will grow to mature heights of twelve to fifteen feet. So, really…they’ll really kind of anchor the
10 landscape…anchor the garage into the landscape. Really…I think that we are ready to go to the
11 next slide.
12 This is a slide that we’ve looked at before, and I just want to call attention to the green
13 screen that Hoshi had pointed out. We’ve basically doubled the green screen that’s on the face
14 of the garage. Part of that is that the garage has shrunk in overall height, but we have added
15 multiple panels that really will…will disguise more of that…as you’re viewing it…from Spring
16 Creek. Those green screens are going to be composed of vines. There’s a couple different types
17 of vines…they’re living vegetation…they will be on there year-round; they don’t die back. But,
18 some of the species will lose leaves; others will retain them through the winter. They won’t
19 remain green through the winter, but they turn a nice red, bronzy color for that time period. And
20 then, we’ve selected a range of vines that will flower throughout the season; some will flower
21 early spring, mid-spring to late summer, and then another that will go in late summer as well.
22 So…kind of keep that interest happening. The ones that flower early will green up early; the
23 ones that flower late will stay green later, so that kind of bridges that season. Also, we want to
24 emphasize that the structural lighting will be improved from the current surface parking lot. The
25 protection of the night sky will have no spillover into Spring Creek. Now we can go to the next
26 slide.
27 So these are a couple views showing the existing vegetation from Creekside Park. These
28 really…we’ve done two renderings, but really these kind of show the rest of the park and what
29 you see in both the right…the upper right and then the lower two on the center and the right,
30 are…that’s the path and those are looking towards our building. So you can see that there’s a
31 fair amount of vegetation already existing on the…that’s on the south side of the creek between
32 the path and the creek. So those…that’s the view today and you can see, then, some of these are
33 the ones that we actually used for the renderings. This is the first rendering that we’ve
34 done…this is from the southeast corner of the building…or, sorry, this is from Spring Creek
35 looking at the southeast corner of the building. These are…they’re not the specific plants since
36 we didn’t do a specific plan for the fee in-lieu; however, these are the plants…these plants are
37 shown in the locations of the approved fee in-lieu exhibit. The shrubs and the trees you can see
38 really run the full gamut from Spring Creek all the way back to our garage. And you can see
39 how…how really that the garage is really no more visible than the other buildings that are…that
13
1 are over there, and really we feel like creating any more dense of a screen than that would really
2 provide a buffer that wouldn’t really be appropriate for this…for this area. You know, it’s a park
3 in an urban area. If we were to do a really strong vegetative buffer, it’s never going to be a
4 hundred percent, but really we feel like this is the most appropriate and, you know, working
5 through it with City staff, they’ve agreed. Can we go to the next slide?
6 So this one is a little bit further west, standing on the path looking directly head on at our
7 building. And you can see that, in the original picture that’s inset in the bottom corner, you
8 know, there’s some existing vegetation. That vegetation will also continue to mature, but we
9 haven’t shown that; we’ve shown the existing vegetation in the current state. So really this view
10 would crowd in with the existing vegetation and then the proposed vegetation would further
11 buffer the building.
12 MS. WHITE: And, if I might add one more comment while we’re on this slide…it’s
13 noted on the slide, but for those the audience who might not be able to see it, the sort of grey
14 figure that you see above the top of the parking garage…that’s the existing Summit building
15 that’s there today, and it’s visible over the top of the parking garage, or will be visible over the
16 top of the parking garage, just as you can see that sort of angled upward feature in the lower left-
17 hand corner of how it looks today. So the parking structure does not block any more of the sky
18 from the park than what might be blocked today by the existing development that’s already on
19 the site; it’s lower than the existing development when viewed at that angle. Does that conclude
20 your testimony?
21 MR. WILLIAMSON: It does.
22 MS. WHITE: Okay. I’d like to tie Brian’s testimony to the criteria, but before I do, could
23 we just go back to the table for one second…the parking table…sorry. I want to correct
24 something I said about the proposed standards that are under consideration. It’s not that it’s a
25 range depending on how you calculate it; it’s a range of what is allowed. In other words, the
26 proposed standard has something that’s not present today, or in the interim, or in the previous,
27 which is a maximum. So, if The Summit were built today and if the new standard were in place,
28 the standard that’s presently under consideration that has not yet been adopted, the range of
29 allowed parking would be a minimum of 499 spaces total, and a maximum of 574 spaces,
30 somewhere in that range. So, I just want to correct that.
31 Okay, just real quickly, to relate to Brian’s testimony about the green screen and the
32 landscaping…what we’re getting at there is the…is Council’s direction to address this issue of
33 the Spring Creek viewshed. And I want to be precise about the language of the criterion that
34 we’re trying to address because it’s important. Section 3.4.1(I)(2) provides…projects shall be
35 designed to minimize the degradation of the visual character of affected natural features within
36 the site and to minimize the obstruction of scenic views to and from the natural features within
37 the site. Spring Creek, which is the natural feature with which Council was concerned, is not
14
1 within the site; it is on an adjacent property. Technically, this criterion is not truly applicable to
2 Spring Creek. Nonetheless, as you can see, this project and the project team have taken great
3 pains to address the views to and from Spring Creek and the visual character from Spring Creek
4 as if it were a natural feature within the site to which this criterion should be applied, in order to
5 be certain they are properly and thoroughly addressing Council’s concerns.
6 So, in light of that, some of the steps, to recap, that Capstone has taken in order to attempt
7 to mitigate any potential degradation of the views to and from Spring Creek, or the visual
8 character of Spring Creek, include: the extensive landscaping plan which has already been
9 approved by staff, including both on-site plantings and off-site plantings through the fee in-lieu
10 that the City is preferring to plant itself as part of its overall plan, all of the features that were
11 originally included in the original design, such as using natural materials, natural colors,
12 articulation on the building, building form, architectural features and so on, and then, finally,
13 doubling the amount of green screen vegetation on the south side facing Spring Creek, and
14 ultimately reducing the overall size and scale of the garage in order to better maximize the views
15 towards the north of the open sky from Spring Creek. So, while that criterion, we believe,
16 doesn’t technically apply since Spring Creek is not on site, it has been more than adequately
17 addressed by the additional mitigation measures proposed as part of this project.
18 So, at the end of the day, the only question for the City and for you as the Hearing Officer
19 is whether or not the proposed amendment to the PDP meets the requirements in the Code. We
20 heard a lot of testimony at the first set of hearings about whether or not everyone was in
21 agreement that this is the right choice of which type of parking solution should be applied to
22 solve the parking problem, but the question of whether or not this is the right solution is really
23 not the right question to ask because this is a property that’s owned by this property owner, this
24 is how they are proposing to solve the parking problem. And the only question for the City is,
25 does it or does it not meet the criteria in the Code. And the record and City Council has
26 already…the record has already established and City Council has already affirmed, that all of the
27 other relevant Code criteria have been met, even with the original structure, and we’re just
28 addressing these two additional criteria relative to the viewshed and the visual character of
29 Spring Creek and a potential for reduction in the total number of parking spaces to get closer
30 down to 358, which is the interim TOD parking requirement in 3.2.2(K). And we believe that
31 with the additional modifications provided, there’s no question that it meets both of those
32 criteria. We actually believe that the original design still met those criteria, but the applicant is
33 prepared to accept conditions which would require it to reduce the total number of parking
34 spaces, which doesn’t completely solve the problem for them, in order to try to propose a
35 compromise that addresses the concerns articulated by Council, and to some extent, those
36 articulated by members of the public and adjacent property owners. So, with that, we would ask
37 your approval of either the original structure as you see fit, or with the additional conditions to
38 approve the alternative design, and would be glad to have any member of our team answer any
39 additional questions that you have. Thank you.
15
1 MR. MCASKIN: Thank you. I don’t have any additional questions at the moment, but I
2 might later. So, at this point I’ll turn it over to City staff.
3 MR. LORSON: Thank you Hearing Officer, my name is Seth Lorson, City Planner. This
4 is the remanded hearing for The Summit parking garage. I’m just going to go quickly over the
background, as I have this prepared. We had an administrative hearing on March 5
th
5 , it was
appealed to Council, there was a hearing on May 20
th
6 . Council’s direction, as we’ve heard from
7 the applicant, was to reduce the impact on the Spring Creek viewshed. In that it says…and this
8 is per the Resolution of findings for that appeal hearing…it says the possible reduction of the
9 size of the parking structure building in order to reduce that impact on the Spring Creek
10 viewshed. They also said that it does not meet the Land Use Code in that they should have a
11 parking amount closer to the TOD parking standard…the minimum parking requirements…as
12 we heard also from the applicant. Additionally, Council said that, except for those provisions,
13 they…that the approval that interpreted that the application met all the other sections of the Land
14 Use Code, was actually upheld, and that’s in section six of the Resolution.
15 So, what we as staff did, is we only reviewed the additional information that was
16 provided to us that brought the parking structure down to two and a half stories and 345 parking
17 spaces within that structure. We only reviewed that because City Council has already
18 determined that the original proposal did not comply with the Land Use Code. So, what we see
19 here up on the screen is that the original proposal had 440 parking spaces in the parking structure
20 for a total of 535 for the entire project, a three and a half story structure…we call it three and a
21 half stories because there’s three levels, and then there’s parking and activity happening on that
22 top level, on the roof, with a parapet, and so we just called that a half a story. That was a total of
23 80.8% of bedrooms to parking spaces ratio. On reduction, it’s 345 parking spaces within the
24 parking structure; that’s not a net number, that is the total within the structure, and 442 parking
25 spaces total for the entire project, bringing the building down to two and a half stories and a total
26 of 66.5% as a ratio of bedrooms to parking spaces.
27 So here is the elevations as requested by Council, that the impact be reduced from…from
28 the south end here, closer from Spring Creek and Spring Creek Park. These are the renderings
29 that we’ve already seen from the applicant that include the parking structure and the landscaping.
30 I have invited Lindsay Ex, our Environmental Planner, up to talk…speak to the fee in-lieu
31 process that was talked about earlier with Brian.
32 SENIOR ENVIRONMENTAL PLANNER LINDSAY EX: Good evening, Linday Ex,
33 Senior Environmental Planner with the City. I’m going to touch on one part of your question
34 and then I’ll ask Mark Kempton with our Utilities Department to speak to the second. The two
35 questions that I heard during the process were, was the amount that’s proposed and within your
36 packet agreed to by the City? That was $23,906 and that was agreed to by the City. That’s still a
37 preliminary estimate, so those numbers could change, but that amount was agreed to by the City.
16
1 As far as the timeline for when the City is going to do the restoration work on Spring Creek,
2 that’s what I’d like to turn over to Mark.
3 STORMWATER MASTER PLANNING MANAGER MARK KEMPTON: Good
4 evening, my name is Mark Kempton; I’m the Stormwater Master Planning Manager for the City
5 of Fort Collins Utilities. So, right now, our goal with the project is to start in on the permitting
6 and design winter of this year, so winter of 2014. Anticipate doing construction in the creek, in
7 conjunction with CDOT; we’re also going to do some repairs around the Highway 287 bridge, so
8 we’ve combined with their project. Construction will be fall, winter of ’15-2016 and then we
9 anticipate planting along the creek in the spring of 2016. That’s our projected schedule right
10 now…I would caution that a lot of that is contingent on collecting permitting through FEMA
11 and…permits from the Army Corps of Engineers, which are kind of beyond our control.
12 MR. MCASKIN: Okay, thank you.
13 MR. LORSON: So, subsequent to our review of the additional information provided by
14 the applicant, staff finds that they meet all the standards in the Land Use Code with the exception
15 of the modification for request…which we feel they meet the modification standards in the Land
16 Use Code, of course as shown in the Resolution. The Hearing Officer, yourself, has already
17 determined that they met these standards, and City Council has upheld those, except for the two
18 standards we’ve been talking about. So, staff recommends approval with the conditions as
19 existed before for addressing floodplain compliance.
20 MR. MCASKIN: Okay, great. So, at this time I think I will go ahead and open it up for
21 public hearing, tonight, and again, I’d invite you to come to the table, sign in on the sheet with
22 your name and address and then state your name and address for the record.
23 MR. RICK ZIER: My name is Rick Zier…Z-I-E-R…and I’m an attorney in Fort Collins.
24 My office is located at 322 East Oak Street in Fort Collins. I represent Jeffrey Leef and his co-
25 owners of the Laboratory restaurant, which is a tenant in the building located at 1801 South
26 College, immediately east of the site. And I now represent Lester Kaplan as well, who is the
27 owner of that building.
28 This is proceeding kind of in a vacuum because what has not been mentioned is that there
29 is a lawsuit pending concerning the decision of the City Council. A number of other things have
30 been omitted from the history; for your benefit, I’d like to mention a couple of them. After the
May 20
th
31 meeting, or hearing, there was an attempt by the applicant to introduce new evidence
32 and to try to get the City Council to do something different from what they had resolved to do on
May 20
th
33 . There were written materials including new evidence submitted to the City Council;
the City Council considered that request on June 3
rd
34 , which was the date set for the issuance of
its resolution of findings of fact in support of its May 20
th
35 decision. It determined not to do what
36 the applicant proposed. We objected at that time, and it determined not to do what the applicant
proposed, and it issued an initial Resolution on June 3
rd
37 , which is not part of the staff’s
17
1 background here. A lawsuit was then filed at the end of June, toward the last part of June. In
response to the lawsuit, the City Council convened another hearing on July 27
th
2 , engaged in a
3 series of supposed continuances and adjournments to justify, evidently, a position that that was
an outgrowth of the same hearing on June 3
rd
4 , and issued the amended Resolution, which is now
5 the resolution that is mentioned by the staff in its comments. So, there…there have been a
6 number of things that are going on. The lawsuit is still pending. The applicant was listed by the
7 staff as being a certain entity…was identified by the attorney the first time she appeared before
8 you as representing a different entity than the entity that was represented tonight as being the
9 owner. So, I’m amending the core complaint to reflect the true owner of the property, which was
10 not ever listed as the applicant by the City before you or before the City Council hearings that
11 occurred. As a result of that, the answers are not due yet from the City or from…excuse
12 me…from the applicant in that lawsuit. I don’t know what they’re going to say about this
13 hearing, or about the record or anything, so I would like to introduce into the record of this
14 hearing, just so that you have it, a series of documents including the verbatim transcript of this
15 first…the first hearing that you had in March, all three of the City Council hearings, and our
16 amended complaint that contains exhibits, a number of which are, again, background for you. I
17 don’t expect you to make a ruling one way or another now, I just want to make sure that the
18 record of this hearing contains those things, because it’s possible that…I don’t know what the
19 record of this hearing is going to be regarding if it should be appealed further, so I just want to
20 make sure that it includes the same kinds of things as are included in the other record before the
21 court. So, I’ll give those to you in just a moment.
22 MR. MCASKIN: That’s fine…and I don’t have any problem accepting those, except that
23 my…my job tonight is really to identify the two criteria in the Land Use Code that have been
24 specifically remanded to me for consideration by Council. So, you can give them to me, but in
25 terms of making a ruling on whether or not the original application, the revised application,
26 satisfies those two criteria…I mean they’ll be part of the record, and that’s fine, I don’t have any
27 issue accepting them, but I probably won’t be referencing them in any level of detail in terms of
28 making a decision.
29 MR. ZIER: That’s your call, and I don’t want to make arguments as if we were in court
30 about relevance and irrelevance and things, I just want to make sure that those things are part of
31 the record of this hearing, so I appreciate that, thank you.
32 The other thing that I would say is, the…and one of the reasons that I’m concerned about
33 that, is that one of the main claims in the lawsuit is that the entire decision by the Hearing Officer
34 and by the City Council was flawed for a number of reasons, and it’s possible that if that…well,
35 if that were sustained, it would be a certainty that this hearing would be rendered meaningless.
36 So, it’s strange to have things proceeding on two different tracks. We asked the City Attorneys
37 to encourage the City Council not to allow this remand; their response was, we should file a
38 motion for a stay of proceedings in the lawsuit that requires us to undergo and incur greater
39 expense, post a bond, and other things that we don’t think it’s our responsibility to have to do
18
1 here. I’ve never seen a city allow something to go forward partially when there’s a claim already
2 pending in court to, among other things, totally overturn the entire decision, including the parts
3 that are complained about focused on tonight. So, I just want to make that clear for the record.
4 The other thing that I would say is…the other five-hundred pound gorilla in the room that
5 hasn’t really been talked about is, the reduction in the number of parking spaces is encouraged in
6 the TOD zone because of the advantages of public transit. The MAX public transit system went
7 into effect sometime in the mid or latter part of May, just when all the students at Colorado State
8 University were leaving town. It was a free service all summer long, and it’s only within the last
9 week or two that it’s now something that riders have to pay for. The students have just come
10 back to CSU within the last two weeks. The applicant is essentially saying they can cut in half,
11 without any data of the effect of that transit system, what they originally said they needed. They
12 now say they didn’t need what they originally claimed, which was way over-reaching in our
13 opinion, as if it were not a TOD zone development. And we don’t have any information on
14 whether or not the transit system is actually going to make a difference for them. If a year from
15 now it doesn’t, then let them come back and ask for something in excess of what the interim
16 resolution calls for. The City Council told us all to look at some number that was closer to the
17 number of the interim resolution; well that could be one space less. However, if you look closely
18 at the tenor of the discussion of the City Council, you’ll see that they really wanted to get it down
19 to that number, or very, very close to it.
20 So I would encourage you to deny this request because I think the only thing that really
21 will be unimpeachable about what the City Council wanted, was to get it down to that number
22 fully, not cut the baby in half. There’s no evidence that the MAX system isn’t going to make a
23 huge difference. In other words, they could cut it down. And that’s what the TOD zone
24 encourages. That’s why there wasn’t a minimum to begin with, and that’s why the minimum is
25 so low, and that’s clearly what the City Council had in mind. So, thank you…
26 MR. MCASKIN: Great, thank you. If anybody else would like to come up and sign in,
27 now’s the time.
28 MR. JEFFREY LEEF: My name is Jeffrey Leef, I’m one of the owners of the Laboratory
29 restaurant at 1801 South College Avenue. And, one of the…one of the things in this proposal
30 that’s not addressed at all in their speech or in their photo presentation, is the views from Spring
31 Creek as they pertain looking northwest; they just show directly north. From Spring Creek, you
32 have mountain views looking northwest.
33 MR. MCASKIN: Unless you get close to the MAX line, right, in which case you’ve got a
34 twenty or thirty foot concrete wall?
35 MR. LEEF: Yes, if you’re standing next to the wall, you won’t see over it; but, Spring
36 Creek is quite long as you go east-west, and there’s quite a bit of mountain views looking
37 northwest. Green screening the side of their building is no replacement for these mountain
19
1 views; you still will be obstructed by their building. The mountains will not be seen at all by this
2 thirty plus foot structure, and they do not address that. It directly impacts the views from Spring
3 Creek in that manner. It also addresses…you know, they don’t address the different sky views
4 and sunsets in that direction.
5 MR. MCASKIN: Right, but if you were…and I did visit the site on a couple of occasions
6 following the initial hearing and in advance of the hearing tonight…and I would…if you’re
7 further to the east in Spring Creek, in the park or on the footbridge that connects the park to, you
8 know pedestrian pathway to the 1801 building for example, and you look due west, there’s
9 mountain views there, right? You’re saying, if you look to the northwest, there might be
10 views…
11 MR. LEEF: Yes, in fact they would be significantly reduced. I’m in that park every day.
12 I look at those views every day. Those views would be completely taken away; they’re not
13 addressed by putting some twelve to fifteen foot trees growing next to the parking garage. I
14 mean, it’s a thirty plus foot building as designed, and some screening and some trees are not
15 going to take away the fact that it will take away the majority…as you ride your bike on Spring
16 Creek Trail, you’re looking west if you’re heading west. A lot of that view would be very much
17 narrowed, and that is not addressed at all by the applicants, and certainly was a major concern to
18 the City Council. And I also agree that, you know, that the reduction in spaces…the feel of the
19 City Council during their remand was to get closer to that minimum number. They’re over that
20 number by approximately 30%; I mean it’s quite a significant percentage higher than the overall
21 total spaces that the TOD was designed around. And so the scale of the project is still greater
22 than, I feel, what the City Council was…was trying to get them to come back with.
23 And, as of six weeks ago, when I called The Summit management, they said that that
24 building was over 92% leased, and that was six to eight weeks ago. So, they’re not having an
25 occupancy problem. I look at their parking lot every single day and it’s never full. I mean, I was
26 just there before this meeting; there was probably 25 to 35% available parking in that lot. So, I
27 don’t believe there’s a parking problem. I believe there was one last year, and I believe it was
28 self-created by Capstone for a number of reasons. A lot of the residents I spoke with had no idea
29 they weren’t supposed to bring their car, they were never told that. This year, with the new
30 residents that are coming in, they seem better informed and there seems to be no parking issue
31 whatsoever. And so, I’d like to put that on the record as well.
32 MR. MCASKIN: Okay, thank you.
33 MR. LEEF: Thank you very much.
34 MS. NATALIE PARSON: My name is Natalie Parson; I live at 1707 Remington Street.
35 I have a small and nervous voice so I’m going to read from this paper here and, sorry about lack
36 of eye contact…I’ll try to project.
20
1 MR. MCASKIN: Great, and if you can sign in too for me.
2 MS. PARSON: I did.
3 MR. MCASKIN: Oh, you did, great, thank you.
4 MS. PARSON: There is still a parking problem, just to be noted by the homeowners on
5 Remington and surrounding streets. This is our second August of dealing with students moving
6 in to The Summit and the parking problems that come with that, not just to my street, but
7 surrounding streets that are affected by the overflow parking. While the decision-making
8 process on this parking structure continues, I’d like to please ask the City Council again for
9 serious consideration of a residential parking permit program for the blocks affected by Summit
10 housing overflow. While some general improvements have been made, including fire lane
11 painting, congestion problems have not subsided. Not only do we battle students for parking
12 available side street in front of our homes, but also the employees of the businesses that are near
13 The Summit restrict their employees from parking on-site and tell them to come park in our
14 neighborhood, taking up spots around our homes, which is fine, but…by the time we get home
15 from work at five and between eight AM in the morning, it’s…challenging to park around your
16 house.
17 Recently when I was leaving my home, a Summit resident addressed me about a parking
18 ticket on his vehicle. He asked where he could park without getting an expletive ticket. I said
19 it’s a public street, so anywhere as long as it’s in compliance with City parking laws, you can
20 park anywhere, and suggested that he review the City parking laws so he doesn’t get another
21 ticket. He proceeded to ask me how I would feel if I paid monthly rent, had no parking. I
22 laughed and replied, and said I understand, I pay a mortgage and property taxes at this address
23 here and can’t park in front of my house after a ten hour work day. The Summit provides you
24 alternative lots and shuttle service; the City of Fort Collins does not provide that to me or have
25 they offered to widen my one-lane driveway. Point is, whether there’s a parking garage or not,
26 Remington Street and surrounding areas such as Stuart and south of The Summit on the other
27 side of Spring Creek where residents…home owners exist there…are going to suffer during,
28 especially during the construction of this structure, and continue to afterwards unless the parking
29 fees are rolled into the rental rates. Those kids don’t want to have to pay it, that’s flat out…they
30 don’t want the extra expense so they come park on our side. Which, I know it’s a public street,
31 but I’d still like to have the freedom of my home. It would be really a great courtesy to us as
32 homeowners on the surrounding streets to have a return to normalcy in our neighborhood, and to
33 approve neighborhood permits for the affected homeowners; not just my street, but also those
34 around it.
35 The City’s staff and the parking program has told me several times that there’s no
36 problem on our street and there isn’t funding to monitor our street outside of five PM and before
37 eight AM, which is when the parking issue really…they’re all coming back from class at the
21
1 same time we’re coming back from work, so when we get back from work then there’s no place
2 to park. But, I can tell the City Council now that if they are having a problem with funding in
3 looking into our program, they can access the call log to the City of Fort Collins Police non-
4 emergency line…it should suffice as my neighbors and I are constantly calling in parking
5 violations…and a ticketing record would also do as every day I see new ones. I would
6 personally volunteer to document activity to alleviate your budget issues between the hours I get
7 off work and before I leave my home in the morning by providing you pictures or call logs or
8 whatever you should need, because all of my neighbors are in favor of this also and I’m out there
9 dealing with the blocked driveways, loud noise, trash, my yard and other violations anyway, so I
10 might as well write them down. I’m representing over thirty names and addresses on my street
11 and several other streets around our block. I’ve provided those names and address of the
12 homeowners and/or landlords on those streets to Jamie Moyer twice now, so you can contact all
13 of us if you’d like to discuss what we can do about a neighborhood parking program. Thanks for
14 your consideration.
15 MR. MCASKIN: Thank you very much for your testimony. And I just want to be clear
16 that, you know, my jurisdiction is limited to this remand hearing, and I don’t have any
17 independent authority whatsoever to help you implement a parking program, but I would
18 encourage you to continue working with City staff if there is a concern…
19 MS. PARSON: Sure…I came tonight even though I’m just one resident on the street
20 because nobody is getting any answers or any response. Other areas closer to the campus seem
21 to be the main concentration. But, in the meanwhile, all this is going on and nothing is helping
22 our situation out and we’re into year two of this so…somebody needs to be made aware that
23 even though the decision process has to take its course and go its own way….in the meanwhile,
24 we’re the people that are feeling the effects of this.
25 MR. MCASKIN: Right, well thank you for coming tonight and thanks for the comments.
26 MS. PARSON: Thank you.
27 MR. LESTER KAPLAN: My name is Les Kaplan, I live at 140 Palmer Drive. I also own
28 the property that adjoins this proposed parking structure to the east. I’ve really struggled with
29 how to make this…make my comments tonight…but I’d just like to begin with some general
30 comments. I was probably the most outstanding supporter…outspoken supporter…of this
31 project when it was originally proposed. And, as a member of the South Fort Collins Business
32 Owners Association, as an adjoining property owner, and as a developer in Fort Collins, and as a
33 former Planning Director in Fort Collins, I stepped forward and embraced this project and
34 described it to the City Council and to the Urban Renewal Authority as a catalyst project and
35 probably something that I thought would really be a stimulus for midtown redevelopment.
36 The…my change of heart on this project came about because the representation by the
37 applicant that he in fact had taken care of all his parking requirements was not true, and
22
1 regardless of what the circumstances were of CSU reneging or whatever, the applicant decided to
2 go forward with this project not having the off-site storage parking that he recognized from the
3 very outset was critical to the viability and success of this project. And the City staff failed in
4 making that a criteria for approval. So this project had a very unfortunate birth. The problems
5 that we have today with parking could have very easily been avoided with a five second insight
6 by a staff member saying, we are making your off-site parking a condition of approval. If this
7 were an easement, an off-site easement, it would have been required. But, as off-site parking,
8 which the developer recognized was critical, which the City recognized was critical, was never
9 put in place. So…that’s what I think is the tragedy of this project. And I know that Mr. Jones
10 regrets it, the community regrets it, the City administration regrets it…speaking to the City
11 Manager, there’s going to be an investigation in terms of how this situation actually arose, that a
12 project could be approved with representations that never came to pass and which have caused
13 problems for the neighborhood and an embarrassment to the City and economic problems for the
14 developer. So, I just want to say that I am not here tonight as someone who…who is an
15 opponent of this project; I was very strongly in favor of this project and it’s extremely regrettable
16 that what happened has happened.
17 So, that said, I’d like to make the rest of my comments based upon the items that you are
18 presented with by the City Council.
19 MR. MCASKIN: Okay, and before you get into that, can I just see a show of hands out
20 there from other folks that are intending to testify tonight? Okay…
21 MR. KAPLAN: I just need about eight minutes. This is a copy of the verbatim transcript
22 and I have some items marked.
23 MR. MCASKIN: Is this a copy of what I already have from…?
24 MR. KAPLAN: Yeah, but you don’t have one with my markings on it.
25 MR. MCASKIN: Okay.
26 MR. KAPLAN: Okay, so I think that to really understand what the intent was from the
27 City Council when they made this motion, to really understand the language of the Resolution,
28 you have to go kind of from the dining room back into the kitchen, and you have to see really
29 how this came about, what the thought process was of the City Council…
30 MR. MCASKIN: Mr…I don’t mean to interrupt you again, but I’m going to ask if your
31 testimony is going to be relevant to the two…
32 MR. KAPLAN: Yes, of course.
33 MR. MCASKIN: Land Use Code sections…okay so which one are we going to get into
34 first?
23
1 MR. KAPLAN: Parking…okay so I’d like you to…and I have markings before we get to
2 this, but I’d just like you to turn to page forty-five of the verbatim transcript, and if you don’t
3 want to, I’ll just read it to you. There is an evolution of thought, a development of thought, on
4 this project. The City Council, when they were discussing it, they tie together the issues…
MR. MCASKIN: I’m sorry, this is the May 20
th
5 hearing?
6 MR. KAPLAN: Yes.
7 MR. MCASKIN: Is that what we’re looking at? The Council hearing?
8 MR. KAPLAN: The appeal.
MR. MCASKIN: Okay…May 20
th
9 ?
MR. KAPLAN: Yes. Okay, it’s dated on what I gave you. You see it’s May 20
th
10 ? Okay,
11 so in going from what the very generalized language was of the Resolution and going into what
12 the Council’s intent was, we have to look at some comments that were made by
13 Councilmembers. Most of the discussion was led by Councilmember Campana, and what he
14 really struggled with was trying to come up with a resolution that addressed the parking problem,
15 the massing problem, and the view from Spring Creek. And so he said, after numerous
16 comments, before he got to this one, he concluded that, quote, I would be fine with…I could
17 support a reduction in spaces to the 352 or whatever our minimum is there…about 364 spaces
18 and the transition on that south wall. So, that’s his mindset, this is the person who made the
19 motion. This is the person who is leading the development of thinking by other Councilmembers
20 on how all these issues regarding massing and parking and views could be addressed. So he
21 said, I can support the minimum TOD parking. Now he wasn’t sure what it was, and you still
22 hear different things from the staff on what it is…numbers are bounced about all over the place.
23 He said 352 and a staff member said 358, then he thought it might be 364, so I’m just going to
24 use the number as the minimum of what it is, I’m going to use 358 because that’s in the staff
25 memo. Okay, so that thought was introduced and he’s saying, this is where I’m going with this.
26 I’m going with supporting the minimum of…358. To that, the Mayor responds, and very
27 favorably she says, rather than having the closest part of Spring Creek being thirty-seven
28 feet…thirty-seven and a half feet high, it would be lower for a distance of one or two stories. So
29 the relationship between parking and mass is then established…the relationship between the
30 amount of parking spaces and how it affects the impact on Spring Creek, and her mindset is, well
31 now we’re going to get a smaller building. It’s going to go down one or possibly two stories. To
32 this, Mr. Jones…to this Ms. White responds with some concerns as to whether or not that’s
33 really going to meet the demand of what this project has. And then Mr. Jones speaks, and he
34 speaks at length and very knowledgably about what his parking experience has been over
35 twenty-three years and how much parking is really needed. He sees this vote, or this motion,
36 going in a direction of 352 or 358 parking spaces, going to what the minimum of what the TOD
24
1 parking minimum would be. So…both Ms. White and Mr. Jones try to get the discussion off of
2 going…of bringing the parking down to that level.
3 To that, the motion maker, Councilmember Campana, responds on page forty-seven, the
4 number of parking spaces is, you know, obviously coming up here with what the market
5 conditions are in competing with the market. I don’t think this project was ever intended to
6 compete directly on every aspect with the balance of the market, particularly with regard to
7 parking, when it was built with 185 parking spaces to begin with. To compromise our design
8 standards, our Land Use Code, so that we can have this project compete on every level with
9 other projects in the city doesn’t make sense to me. I think the project was always intended to
10 have less parking than what is taking place outside the TOD. The investment was made based
11 upon that. I think the behavioral changes that are going to be required, I think that marketing
12 that’s going…marketing is going to be required, and perhaps you won’t achieve the same rent
13 levels if you can’t get the same. So, the motion maker then comes forward and reiterates the fact
14 that this parking should not exceed, and he would support it being in the range of what the
15 minimum parking is for the TOD.
16 Before the vote is taken, Mr. Horak, hearing this parking amount of being the minimum
17 says, on page forty-eight, then that takes…that deals with more of some of the viewshed issues
18 as well as the massing issues and basically makes it closer to a two-story building, which again,
19 in that area as I remember, is not unusual. So, what I’m trying to do here is I’m trying to take
20 this Resolution, which is generalized words, which says, bring it closer to, and try to give it some
21 specificity…try to give it some life in terms of what the discussion was that led up to it. And if
22 you do that, you can see that the mindset that the Councilmembers had when this motion was
23 made by the motion maker, who said he would like to see the parking be 358. Other
24 Councilmembers chimed in in support thinking that that would solve the massing problems; you
25 bring it down to a two-story building. The vote was taken and the vote was passed.
26 Now the vote did say, very clearly, when the discussion came up with the City Attorney
27 as to whether or not you, as the Hearing Officer would have latitude, they wanted to give you
28 latitude. They wanted to give you latitude because they didn’t want to have to design the
29 building at a Council meeting. So the latitude that they gave you, I interpret as being latitude in
30 terms of what design approach they would…they would take in order to meet the intent of that
31 Resolution. And the intent of that Resolution, based on the discussion that led up to it, was 358
32 parking spaces in a two-story building. So, that’s my comment.
33 MR. MCASKIN: Thank you.
34 MR. JOHN STEFFE: John Steffe, I live at 1820 Remington Street in Fort Collins, and
35 with respect to your need to not go into issues that have already been stated, I will just reiterate
36 everything that’s been said already about the problems on Remington Street. And, also add to
37 that the reiteration of the need for the City to address the parking issues in our neighborhood and
25
1 to institute a parking program, possibly parking permitting, on residential permits for residents of
2 Remington Street or streets on that neighborhood. To address the issues of this hearing, I would
3 like to make a comment that I do not believe that the reduction in parking spaces from 80% to
4 66% will result in adequate parking to alleviate the problems in the neighborhood, particularly
5 on Remington Street, which are very real whether or not the City has been able to monitor that or
6 not. I live on that street and I will reiterate again that they are definitely a problem and exist in
7 conjunction with the return of the students and initially coincided with the residents moving into
8 The Summit facility originally…their first year of occupation. I would also pose the question of
9 what…what information or studies have the City or the applicant done that would suggest that
10 the new proposal to 66% coverage would be adequate to provide enough parking such that it
11 would alleviate the issue…alleviate the parking issues in the adjoining neighborhood? And
12 based on the comments before, I don’t believe that’s possible since apparently the comments that
13 were made from the other resident on Remington…the City has not been monitoring that and has
14 no solid numbers on what that…what that parking problem in the local neighborhood is. So I
15 don’t know that the applicant or the City could actually say that the reduced parking capacity
16 from 80 to 66% would alleviate the parking problem. So, those are my comments. Thanks.
17 MR. MCASKIN: Thank you.
18 MR. ERIC SUTHERLAND: Mr. McAskin, my name is Eric Sutherland and I’ll sign in
19 when I conclude my comments. I’d like to assure the Hearing Officer that there is indeed a
20 pretty solid nexus between the comments I’ll be offering up and the purpose for this remand,
21 although it might take me just a minute or two to get there. The main reason that I have interest
22 in this project is because I’d really like to see some value returned to this community for the
23 enormous subsidy that was provided to this developer, which has come at the expense of our
24 schools and social services, government services, even those provided by the City of Fort
25 Collins, by the diversion of property tax increment…lump sum of $5 million payment. And I
26 think that one of the overarching considerations here has to be a return of that value to the
27 community in a manner that is consistent, commensurate with the level of subsidy that was
28 created here. Mr. Zier previously mentioned the fact that he felt as though perhaps a lot of the
29 conversation to that point had existed in a vacuum; I feel the very same way about this issue. We
30 should be expecting something that is a little bit beyond average, a little bit freer of problems,
31 considering the enormous subsidy that this…this project had. And that’s my motivation here.
32 My actual content of my conversation here reflects comments that I made at the original
33 hearing in March. This should never have been a Type I hearing. I’m really opposed to the City
34 engaging a contracted Hearing Officer to do Type I hearings. That was never the intent of our
35 Land Use Code, it was always to have somebody who’s intimately familiar with the planning,
36 mechanics, infrastructure…our city as it gets built out…to administer this process and I don’t
37 think it’s really quite serving the people well of Fort Collins to have people contracted in to that
38 category. Because, unless you live here, you’re just really not going to keep pace with all the
39 things that are going on, MAX and everything else.
26
1 And…the specific Land Use Code conflicts that are associated with a Type I
2 hearing…situations, go strictly to the results of your previous opinion in which you said this
3 could be an accessory use under our Land Use Code if indeed the City executed a contract that
4 maintained sole use of the facility for residents of The Summit. Without that contract, without
5 that assurance, without that guarantee, this really would have needed to be a Type II hearing. I
6 think we…we do not want to burden our City government with executing and enforcing such
7 contracts, and furthermore, we just have to look at the expansive view of this whole thing. Is
8 that really the highest and best use? Does that give us the best value that our community should
9 be expecting for the $5 million lump sum that we put into this thing to begin with? No it
10 doesn’t; that’s because transit-oriented development needs some flexible parking element to
11 really make it work. Building a parking garage that is dedicated entirely for the sole use of
12 residents of a single apartment complex doesn’t create the sort of flexibility that encourages
13 other parking options. It really doesn’t even do justice to the parking needs of the apartment
14 community itself because people need to come in there and park for various reasons without a
15 permit. And so, when we restrict and tie this thing down to just a single use of this facility,
16 we’re nowhere near highest and best use. And I’m not here to prescribe what highest and best
17 use would be, but it wouldn’t be application specific entirely for this infrastructure.
18 And so therefore, my nexus here, my comment, is that Mr. McAskin, you should not be
19 sitting here this evening in a Type I hearing. This should have been remanded back to the P and
20 Z in recognition of the fact that it should have always been a Type II hearing just for that one
21 particular reason. I could cite other reasons as well…case law associated with, you know,
22 whether or not elements of process in land use decisions can be grandfathered in as opposed to
23 elements of design or elements that are existing in the built environment, the way the courts have
24 handled that situation. All of which would recommend this should have been a Type II hearing
25 to begin with. So there’s my nexus that I think the remand was probably ill-advised to come
26 back to a Type I hearing. And, you know, I’d be very anxious to see at this point in time, a little
27 break from the constraints that maybe have come together in the contentiousness of this issue, to
28 be looking at what is highest and best use? How do we best return this value that this
29 community has invested? We don’t go around giving $5 million to everybody. Well, the former
30 Chief Financial Officer of the City managed to make off with about that amount of money, but
31 that’s a different story. I’ll get that. Where’s the value come back to the citizens? …care about
32 the concerns of the neighbors. I share the concerns. I’m…I say that unless we’re flexible in our
33 approach to how this structure would be used, unless we’re creating opportunities for car sharing,
34 opportunities for people to do flexible parking opportunities. I mean the parking problems that
35 they’re going to be experiencing in that neighborhood are not completely due to the fact of The
36 Summit. I mean there’s growth in the entire city; the entire city is experiencing parking
37 problems. It doesn’t discount the pain that they are experiencing at all. But until we start
38 looking at all those things…we are just in kindergarten in this town in terms of dealing with
39 parking issues and looking at the range the whole entire spectrum of solutions that are being
40 offered up as information technology makes the ability for, you know, two hundred people to
27
1 share thirty cars efficiently, and that sort of thing. That has to be part of the whole deal, and
2 really quite frankly, you know, constraining this to an approved accessory use so that it’s a total
3 work around to get away from the necessity of a Type II hearing; this is doing us a disservice and
4 I’d really like to see a little bit more imagination and creativity come out of this part of the
5 process. Thank you very much.
6 MR. MCASKIN: Thank you. And I see the badge says candidate for Council so good
7 luck with it.
8 MR. SUTHERLAND: It’s actually a County position.
9 MR. MCASKIN: Oh is it? I can’t read it.
10 MR. SUTHERLAND: County Commissioner.
11 MR. MCASKIN: Well, good luck with that.
12 MR. SUTHERLAND: Thank you very much.
13 MR. MCASKIN: Are there any other members of the public that are here tonight that
14 would like to address me and have your comments as part of the record? Going once…okay,
15 seeing none, I’m going to close the public comment portion of the hearing and before we get into
16 the opportunity for applicant or staff rebuttal or being able to respond to questions, I do just have
17 a couple of quick questions myself. And, Lindsay, what is your last name again.
18 MS. EX: It’s two letters…EX.
19 MR. MCASKIN: I had ECHS so…okay, and I guess the one question I have is, we heard
20 some position from the applicant that 3.4.1(I) may not be applicable because Spring Creek is not
21 technically within the site. But I’m looking at 3.4.1 of the Land Use Code, Natural Habitats and
22 Features, Section A, Applicability, says this section applies if any portion of the development
23 site is within five hundred feet of an area or feature identified as a natural habitat or feature on
24 the City’s Natural Habitats and Features Inventory Map. Is Spring Creek on that map?
25 MS. EX: It is.
26 MR. MCASKIN: And sub B of that section states that the purpose of this section is to
27 ensure that when property is developed consistent with the zoning designation, the way in which
28 the proposed physical elements of the development plan are designed and arranged on the site
29 will protect the natural habitats and features both on the site and in the vicinity of the site. And
30 so…Spring Creek, I mean I was out there this afternoon. It’s very close to the site, I mean, in the
31 opinion of the department, is 3.4.1(I) applicable to the development proposal?
32 MS. EX: Well, I think…so 3.4.1(I) has two sections, and so I think it’s important to go to
33 specifically the subsection of two with the visual character of natural features, which is on page
28
1 seventy-four, just at the top. I think what the important part of this for me when I was reviewing
2 this was that, within the site, to me, I think that the buffer zone that applies to Spring Creek
3 applies to this site. And so certainly the visual character of the Spring Creek viewshed should be
4 protected as well.
5 MR. MCASKIN: Okay, great. And then, Seth a question for you. We heard testimony
6 from Mr. Sutherland that he believes that this should be a Type II proceeding and not a Type I.
7 What’s your position on that?
8 MR. LORSON: This is a Type I hearing because it is proposed as an accessory use, being
9 that it’s accessory specifically to The Summit on College housing development. We believe as
10 staff, is that if it were to be a shared parking structure amongst the developments all around it, it
11 would cease to be an accessory use to that one use. So, that’s why it is a Type I. It’d be a Type
12 II if it were a stand-alone project serving the other developments in the area.
13 MR. MCASKIN: Okay, great. Those are just the couple questions that I had at this point,
14 so I guess at this point I can turn it back over to the applicant to address any of the issues that
15 were raised during public comment if you feel that’s appropriate at this time.
16 MS. WHITE: We would like to take that opportunity. Would it be appropriate for us to
17 take a short break to organize our thoughts? It might result in taking a shorter time to address the
18 rebuttal.
19 MR. MCASKIN: That is fine with me; let’s take a five minute break. We’ll be back here
20 at about ten to.
21 (**Secretary’s note: A brief break was taken at this point in the meeting.)
22 MR. MCASKIN: Alright, it’s just a bit after 8:50; we’re going to go ahead and get back
23 on the record here. Again, this is Marcus McAskin, Hearing Officer, coming back from a short
24 break. I’m going to now turn it over to the applicant to address any of the comments that were
25 raised during the public comment portion of the hearing.
26 MS. WHITE: Thank you Mr. McAskin, again for the recording, it’s Carolynne White,
27 land use counsel for the applicant. We have just a handful of points that we want to make sure
28 are clear in the record. The first one, and I am sorry to take issue with staff on this…on this
29 issue, but I think it’s really important to be precise about what the remand Resolution actually
30 said. And it’s not technically correct to say that City Council found that the project did not
31 comply with the Code. What City Council said was, that the Hearing Officer failed to properly
32 interpret and apply Section 3.4.1(I)(2) of the Land Use Code with regard to the impact of the
33 major amendment upon Spring Creek viewsheds, and Section 3.5.1(J) of the Land Use Code
34 with regard to the number of off-street parking spaces. And the remand said, the decision is
35 hereby remanded to the Hearing Officer for further consideration of the impact of the major
29
1 amendment on Spring Creek viewsheds and for consideration of the possible reduction of the
2 size of the parking structure building and the reduction of the number of parking spaces in the
3 structure to a number closer to the minimum parking requirements, et cetera, et cetera. So, had
4 City Council desired to dictate a maximum at that time, as was implied by some of the
5 testimony, they certainly could have done that. What they said was, consider, in light of these
6 two Code sections, a possible reduction to bring it closer to the minimum, which is the 358
7 number that we’re talking about. But, Council did not say that it doesn’t meet the requirements
8 of the Land Use Code and they did not direct a particular number, nor did they direct one story of
9 two story or any particular reduction; they directed that it be possibly reduced in size, and that is
10 exactly what has been proposed here…reduction in size and reduction of the number of parking
11 spaces to bring it closer to the minimum requirement.
12 Understanding that there are a lot of competing interests that are being…seeking to be
13 balanced here…the interest of City Council as expressed through the Resolution, the interests of
14 the neighbors and expressed through their testimony tonight and in prior hearings, the interest of
15 the individual property owner who is bringing forth this proposal in order to solve their parking
16 problem…all of those interests are competing and we’re trying to balance them. But, ultimately
17 the governing factor here is the objective requirements in the Land Use Code. And the Land Use
18 Code, as it stood at the time this was approved, did not have a minimum and did not have a
19 maximum for parking. This could have been built and approved with zero parking spaces. It
20 was not, and the developer recognized at the time that that would not work and they proposed
21 and built it with the number they built, which is the 191 that they see today. But, it would have
22 been improper for staff to require at that time a minimum number of spaces when the Code
23 clearly says there is no minimum in the TOD. And, similarly, under the interim Resolution,
24 there is a minimum but there is no maximum. And so, it is in compliance with the Code as long
25 as it meets the minimum number of 358. Now there are other considerations where particular
26 parking demands may require, and that’s where we come to that 3.5.1(J) and that’s how we get to
27 3.2.2(K), which is how we’re here today. But, I just…I want to point out that we have two sets
28 of constraints within which we’re operating, one of which is the competing balancing interests
29 and the desires of the community and the desires of staff and the City Council, but we also have
30 the black and white constraint of what’s in the Land Use Code, and ultimately that’s the…what
31 governed the decision before and should govern your decision today.
32 One minor comments about the record…no objection to entering into the record the
33 transcripts. It’s my belief that they’re already part of the record, but no objection to that. No
34 objection to entering in to the record the information about the prior City Council hearings; I
35 believe those are also properly part of the record. We must register an objection to introducing
36 into the record information related to the lawsuit, which is not part of this proceeding and is not
37 relevant to this proceeding in our view. We’re not going to spend any time on it; I just wanted to
38 note that objection for the record.
30
1 And then the final comment that I’d like to make, for those folks who testified about the
2 parking concerns on Remington Street and the last gentleman who said that building a parking
3 structure which provides 66% parking ratio of parking spaces to beds is not going to alleviate the
4 parking problem the same way one would have which would have provided 80% parking
5 structure…spaces to beds. We agree with you and we…Capstone very much would like to build
6 a parking structure as originally proposed which provided that additional ratio. Clearly the fact
7 that we have been appealed and come back on remand with direction to address that issue and
8 attempt to reduce the number of parking spaces indicates that the City is not inclined to approve
9 a parking structure at an 80% ratio. And so, this 66% is offered in spirit of compromise to try to
10 build a parking structure that will at least mitigate the parking problem even though it won’t
11 completely solve it. But, as Mr. Jones testified earlier, Capstone continues to, and will continue
12 to, explore other options to try to close the gap and meet the parking needs off-site and in other
13 ways, and that’s not going to stop regardless of whether this structure is approved or not.
14 Because even if it’s approved at the original level, it probably won’t 100% completely alleviate
15 the parking problem. So, with that, I would ask you to approve the proposal, the original
16 proposal, and if you’re inclined to impose additional conditions in order to address the concerns
17 raised by Council, then we would ask you to approve the alternative design with the reductions
18 as shown in the additional information provided. Thank you.
19 MR. MCASKIN: Thank you. And Seth, is there any additional information or…that staff
20 would like to present at this time in response to either the applicant’s presentation just now or the
21 public comments that were raised earlier?
22 MR. LORSON: Staff has no further comments. I simply want to reiterate that our
23 recommendation of approval is based on the additional information and the revised version that
24 we’ve seen, and that’s all we have.
25 MR. MCASKIN: Okay, great. Well at this point I will go ahead and close the public
26 hearing, and again, under the Land Use Code, I have ten business days from the close of this
27 remanded hearing tonight to enter a written decision. If you have signed up on the sign-in sheet
28 you will receive a copy of that written decision when I have provided it to the City. And again, I
29 would like to thank all of you for attending tonight and participating in the process. And, maybe
30 I’ll see you again.
31
32