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HomeMy WebLinkAboutLAURIE SUBDIVISION PUD - PRELIMINARY - 44-89D - DECISION - MINUTES/NOTES0 0 PLANNING AND ZONING BOARD MEETING MINUTES August 26, 1991 The regular meeting of the Planning and Zoning Board was called to order at 6:40 p.m. in the Council Chambers of the City Nall West, 300 LaPorte Avenue, Fort Collins, Colorado_ [bard members present included: Chairman Jim Klataskc, Bernie Strom, Jan Cotticr, Laurie O'Dell, Joe Carroll, Lloyd Walker and Rene Clements-Cooncy. Staff members present included Tom Peterson, Paul Eckman, Sherry Albertson -Clark, Steve Olt, Kirsten Whetstone, Mike Herzig, and Gcorgiana Taylor. Identificationof citizen participants is from verbal statements and not necessarily correct since none signed in. AGENDA REVIEW Planning Director Tom Peterson reviewed the Consent and Discussion Agenda. The Consent Agenda included: Item I - Westbrooke at Platt Properties PUD - Final, #3-900; Item 2 - Sunstone Village Subdivision PUD, 6th Filing - Preliminary and Final 057-863; Item 3 - Raintree Extension, #146-79B; Item 4 - Resolution PZ91-11 Vacation of Utility Easement at Foothills Apartments PUD; Item 5 - Resolution PZ91-12 Utility Easement Vacation, Lot 15, Clarendon Hills. Discussion Items; Item 6 - Poudre Valley Hospital PUD - Preliminary Plan Continued until September 23 meeting; Item 7 - Laurie Subdivision PUD - Preliminary, #44-89D; Item 8 - Falrbrooke PUD, 5th Filing - Amended Final, Continued until September 23 meeting. Member Strom moved to approve consent items 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. 0 Member Walker seconded the motion. Motion was approved 7-0. I AURIE StinDiVISION PUD - PRELIMINARY. #44-89D. Sherry Albertson Clark, Chief Planner, stated that this request was for preliminary approval for 9 lots on 6.4 acres. The property is zoned RLP, Low Density Planned Residential and was located west of Shields Street approximately 1/2 mile south of Harmony Road. The site is part of the approved South Shields Veterinary PUD Master Plan that was approved by the Board approximately 2 years ago. The project was evaluated by the Land Development Guidance System as a single family Planned Unit Development. The density proposed was less than the minimum required 3 dwelling units per acres as required under the Land Development Guidance System. The applicant has requested a variance to the density requirement, which Staff was recommending that the Board approve. Staff believes that the lower density was consistent with the surrounding development occurring primarily to the north and west of the property and that the lower density was appropriate given some of the topographical constraints of the site. Staff has evaluated this project under the All Development Criteria of the Land Development Guidance System and Staff does believe that the project meets all of the applicable criteria in that section of the Guidance System. Staff believes the applicant has done the best job possible given the limited alternatives. or seemingly limited alternatives for access to the property, particularly the western porton of the site. While it is Staff's preference not to cross a ravine that exists on the site that is an area of high sensitivity, a very 0 sensitive environmental area, Staff believes that given no other alternatives at the present time to access the western portion of the site, that the applicant has done the best job possible. Staff is recommending approval of this request with a series of conditions: 1. That the language of the proposed conservation easement, including maintenance be reviewed by City staff during final review. (This conservation easement Is proposed for the natural area that is primarily includes the environmentally sensitive area on the site that runs from north to south through the central portion of the site). 2. Lot 7 be deleted from the final plans and this area be added to the open space. (That lot is located just to the east edge of the natural area). 3. Building envelope lines on Lots 8 and 9 be reduced to restrict disturbance below the 5484 foot contour line. 4. Tree and shrub removal plans be submitted for approval for Lots 8 and 9 prior to the issuance of a building permit. 5. Individual erosion control and revegetation plans be required for Lots 3. 6, 8 and 9 prior to the issuance of a buildin=. permit, to ensure adequate treatment during construction and revegetation with compatible plant materials. On -site inspection, by City staff, throughout the construction process will be required, to ensure these plans are adhered to. 6. Rip rap areas be designed to allow revegetation and that detailed plans for these sites be submitted for approval at the time of flaal review. 7. Detailed plans and specifications regarding rip -rap materials, placement, size, etc. and other erosion control methods be submittedfor final review. 8. A detailed analysis, along with plans and specifications for rip -rap materials, placement, size, etc. and other erosion control methods proposed to stabilize the ravine be submitted for final review. Ms. Clark stated that Staff's recommendation for approval was contingent on these conditions. Staff feels that these conditions were necessary in order to protect the unique qualities and characteristics of the site. Ms. Clark ran through a series of slides, pointing out the lots that were stated in the conditions, also highlighting the ravine and the private drive to access the lots, the approved Master Plan, the existing approved veterinary clinic, the Ridge Subdivision located next to the proposed development, and site shots from all directions on the property. Hill MUSSIewhite, developer of the property, stated that 18 months ago they proposed the development of the land. The first time he saw this property he fell in love with it and he wanted to build his house and his animal hospital that they were expanding into Fort Collins. Finding out that it was annexed into the City, therefore, development would have to occur and the horse raising opportunity they were looking at was basically nullified. In doing so, they had several proposals they looked at as far as trying to develop the property as they thought would maintain the environmental consistency with the way the property now existed, which was with tree cover and a lot of the naturalness that the ravine presented, including the water 2 • 0 flow itself. They looked at several opportunities, one of which would have been to acquire access across private property coming off of Hepplewhite Court and develop those four homes through a private drive or similar situation through an easement that they would have at the time been able to acquire with the efforts of one of my lawyers approaching the homeowner's association. They were inflexible as far as allowing us to achieve such easement and their building codes are such that they would not allow us to build something like that without a lengthy court battle. Therefore we arc unable to approach the property at such an angle, which of course would have avoided crossing the ravine at all. And so, with that I would have assumed that they were more concerned with not allowing this development than the true environmental statutes and that was one of our arguments. If in fact the homeowner's association was concerned with the environment why not allow us the simple access. Their only statement to the effect was that it would increase traffic patterns and realistically how much traffic is four homes going to create. So, we arc left no other alternative other than to cross the creek and in doing so we have proposed several plans, of which we felt was the best considering again the wildlife situation and the topographical lay of the land. We approached the Corps of Engineers to make sure that our crossing into the wetlands did not create any type of a problem as far as they're concerned. They had no problems at all as far as significant impact and they approved our program. We approached the Colorado Wildlife Department to see what type of impact this would be and try to mitigate that. They mentioned the wildlife migration through the area including deer, but by staying with a private drive following the topographical high of that hill they felt that it would have very little impact if any. We also approached another biologist from the State Wildlife Department to comment on possible endangerment of bird species in the area. He did an on -site survey finding that the only raptors that were on the property were sparrowhawks and that they live quite easily with city limits and with people. There was no nesting. There was possible migration, but one of the arguments we have heard in the past was the bald eagle sighting which I rather doubt and he rather doubted too. Bald eagles require a large body of water in which to feed because they . eat fish so if there was a true sighting, it was a touch down. He said that this area was not considered wildlife sensitive by either the State Wildlife Department or the Federal Wildlife Department. So, basically what we are then working upon since we had mitigated the problems with the wildlife migration, etc., we are trying to appease the environmental department of the City. Basically their concerns have been the tree Cover and also erosion and also the vegetation in general. By presenting this as a private driveway we have eliminated basically any tree destruction at all. To be specific, there's six total trees, only two of which are above 8 inches in diameter, both of those being wild willows and with our revegetation plan as it sits, we arc replacing those trees three to one. As far as the brush, we are mitigating three bushes as we pass over the ditch area and again replacing those with a multitude of more brush in different areas that are actually environmentally sensitive. If you look at the map you'll see where the road crosses. Those arc natural tree openings and we do with the fill disturb those two willows that I mentioned and at the very top of lot seven there, if you see where the road hits that one drainage area, we remove three trees in that particular area and one in the next area and so thus the six trees. Anyway, we've tried to alleviate basically the environmental department's concern with tree damage. As far as again, touching then on the lot delineations, we tried to design the lots such that the lot lines themselves were within the trees and the building envelopes were within the natural openings that now exist. And, so as you can scc lots seven, eight, and nine mainly arc the ones that arc in discussion even with the trees appearing as they now do, there is going to be little or no tree removal depending on where they build the house and I might make comment these are building envelopes of course, not how large the house is going to be and realistically this is not going to cover the entire building envelope. The building envelopes themselves on lot seven, there is one tree on the border and we went with great lengths with the City Forester to prepare a map of all trees, brush, identification of such 0 trees and brush, of where. they now exist and how they would fit upon the property and building envelopes. So we are looking at one tree within the building envelope on lot seven, two touching the edge of the building envelop edge of lot eight, no significant trees on lot nine. There is one apple tree that is small and kind of roughed in there in the corner as you can see and that is an apple tree and not considered environmentally sensitive. Basically the way we designed this, we were looking at developing an executive home type of development, leaving the lots rather large. leaving especially the sensitive lots and environmentally stable basically not disturbing the environment at all. All access for these lots for the general construction stage is planned to come off the road of course. We have proposed that all the area not adjacent to the road be left in the same environmental state that it now exists, in other words including the natural grasses, brush, yucca plants, etc. Basically the open space that we now have on our map is a little over one acre which is one sixth of the entire property that we are trying to develop, 16% if you will. That is probably much more than most of the open space on subdivisions that pass across your desk. What the Planning Department is proposing is that we donate another acre of land by eliminating lot seven and in reality, basically eliminating lot eight, too. Their proposal of the five -zero -eight four topographical will eliminate the building envelope on lot eight down to twenty by forty or twenty-five by forty, excuse me. So in other words, you could only build a house on one thousand square feet and that includes the garage. In an executive, home situation, that is totally unrealistic. You are not going to find an executive home in fact on the original code that we tried to draw up for the homeowners, we're suggesting a minimum of 1400 square feet for the first level, so therefore lot eight is being eliminated, too by their unrealistic view of the property. My understanding when we approached the environmental department on this was that when this was set aside and again there is a great deal of discussion on how this was proposed as an environmentally sensitive area, that it was to not stop development of the area, but rather limit development in a manner so that we take into consideration the natural aspects of the property. I feel that we have accomplished that quite well. I personally am involved with lot seven and I will make this as kind of an emotional statement here, this was the place that my wife and I had picked when we purchased the property to build our home because of the view, because of the fact that it nestles into the side of the mountain, because it sits within the trees, not disturbing the trees, but easily sitting on a natural plateau as the one slide was able to demonstrate and also the way our three-d model demonstrates. Lot seven does not interfere with the natural area to speak of at all. In fact, it is higher elevation wise, higher than lot three. It is or I should say it does not dip down as deep as lot three into the ravine, nor does it come as close to the creek as lot three, but the only reason that lot three does not come into question is the fact that it sits on a dry land grass area rather than the trees. I might bring out one other point here and that is that the trees arc created from natural water drainage that now exists. It's a very poor ditch, it has flooded out several times and been rebuilt. It has natural seepage and thus these cottonwoods have grown in that particular area and you can tell that by now well you can almost pin point where the ditch has leaked by the way that the flow of the trees come down off of that hillside. The thought that this is a naturally created area is pretty bogus, it is all created simply from wastewater coming out of the irrigation ditch and if that irrigation ditch was for whatever reason to be removed. shut down or otherwise, it's only natural to assume that once the water stops these trees will disc back naturally. In fact that is one of our arguments that we pressed the environmental department suggesting that in reality, privately owned lots in those particular areas would maintain those trees regardless of whether the water flow still exists or not. Also we are being required by the irrigation company to move that. irrigation ditch and you can see that kind of half circle up there by the cul-de-sac and pyt that under ground. So in fact, when this land is developed whether the water flows through the property or not, the majority of the seepage is going to be eliminated and thus the trees will be dying off unless they are protected. Now one other thing that has kind of clouded this entire issue 0 0 has been the fact that the City Council has voted on possibly acquiring this property as part of the City. In fact, one of the reasons that we have been so late in coming to the board is that this was proposed in December of last year and we delayed this project six months so that the environmental engineering department could look into that exact avenue. In doing so they found that the parks department was not interested because of limited access to the property as well as limited use simply due to the topographical lay of the area. Also the appraiser for the City evaluated the property at five to ten thousand dollars per acre which in reality is considerably less than what I purchased the property at, but the reason why he appraised this is again because of limited public need or public want. In other words, if the public cannot use it then it is not worth that much to the public. So those avenues have already been expressed. Also, when we were approached with the open space and with the concern that the City may feel uncomfortable with loosing control of an environmentally sensitive area, I have offered to donate that ravine area to the City and Mr. Shoemaker's response was that the City was more than likely not interested in a donation for they felt that it would be better maintained by the landowners themselves leaving it as a private entity and now they're asking us to donate another acre of land so that the remaining six or seven property owners would be maintaining more land Icft open for whatever reason he can self -justify. So our feelings here arc that we looked at this project in a realistic manner as far as development, trying to keep the density low so that it blends in with the neighborhoods that now exist, both Clarendon and The Ridge. Being realistic as far as the size of the lots, trying to change the size of the lots from large to small as it approached Shields, trying to formulate plans so that the natural areas will be private land and houses built within the trees and join that natural area and yet not destroying or damaging significantly that natural area and allowing, I think, one of the nicest subdivisions within the City limits of Fort Collins today, given the type of area that exists as far as views, vegetation and the size of the lots. I think that realistically these lots are going to attract the type of people that will probably build homes of equal caliber if not better quality than The Ridge or the Clarendon area put together. Yet they will not have the ability to be side by side or totally destroy the environment as Clarendon has done with their green grass overlay of the entire area. And so I think that as we have proposed, we are looking for approval as it is now, rather than deleting any lots making it unfeasible for us to continue to develop. Thank you. Member Walker asked if there was going to be covenants on these lots and could he elaborate on that. Dr. Musslewhite replied that there should be a list of tentative covenants already in there, but basically they took the covenants as far as the size, the type of shingles used and the outer decor similar to what Clarendon did, because they felt as though they fit into their class of houses or executive type homes they were dealing with. They also took into consideration The Ridge's covenants, one of which he knew they expressed concern with as far as fences. He was not any more a fence advocate than they are and frankly he did not care for their three rail fences. What they have proposed to do, and this was in the final stages, was to only allow fences within the building envelopes themselves and not any fences on lots 3, 7, 8, 9 and 2. In other words, the only fences and the privacy fence that will probably exist will be between the hospital and lot 1 realistically. He could not imagine anyone wanting to fence any of 4, S, 6, at all because of the size of the lot. They were flexible on that, if they wanted to eliminate all fencing all together, they definitely would discuss that with them, but again they were leaving a good 30 foot buffer on the cast side of the property which is adjacent to The Ridge open space so their open space would be 40 or 50 feet, in reality, the closest any fence could come to a property would be about 100 feet from their building sites. If in fact someone decides to build a fence, they were going to put restraints on how much area is actually fenced. More than likely we were looking at a small area fenced around a patio or possibly a dog run or • something of that nature. As far as other ordinances are concerned, they have suggested that once these lots were purchased that any tree disturbed and they would consult with the City Forester, they would replace those trees two fold. If In fact they decide on lot 8 or lot 7, that particular tree just did not fit into the architectural plan, then they have to be realistic and replace that tree with a similar type of tree within their property. In reality, those types of additions to the homeowner was irrelevant. These types of people that were going to be building on here more than likely will be putting up 10 times more trees than required, especially on the western hill. Once this develops there will be more tree cover than now exists and that was true of any urban development. Member Walker asked given the site is adjacent to the ravine, was there any consideration of any sorts of covenants regarding what could be done in landscape treatments, particularly abutting the ravine. Dr. Musslewhite replied other than the land between the road and the house, not the building envelope but the house, they cannot disturb the property whatsoever. The only area they could grass or if they want to leave it in a natural state by putting in landscaping, would be between the house and the road. Between the lots and into the ravine area or to the southeast will go totally undisturbed, they will not be able to touch that. The same way with lot 2 as it goes down the hill out of the building envelope and the same way with lot 3. Member Walker asked if they were going to have to down cut the road to get to the ravine so there was a reasonable slope on the road, just cast of the ravine, there will be a cut to accommodate the road elevation. Dr. Musslewhite replied it would be from 4 to 8 feet and would be rounded off. The largest cut would be at the irrigation ditch, which in reality, was built up at least two feet to allow the irrigation ditch to flow where it is at. They could accomplish that without changing and they were talking about right between lot 2 where the small bushes are just south of that. We accomplish that with very little change to the general overlay of the land just by rounding that off mainly toward lot two where it is the high point. Member Walker asked on lot 7 it appears to have alot of slope and what was it going to take to build a house within that envelope. Dr. Musslewhite replied that their engineer from Utah sent out a possible plan of what the house would look like on lot 7 and they had the three dimensional map made up that you could get a better idea at the topographical lay of the land. Lot 7 is less steep than lot 3 and there is a natural flatness to the plateau. There has been some changes on the model because they had it made up during with the normal proposal when they were running a public street all the way through, so there has been some recent cuts and they tried to show it as close as possible. It shows the contour in rod that they arc suggesting they cut it back to and you could see how it eliminates 7, basically eliminates 8 and it does touch into lot 9, too. The line is totally arbitrary, he did not know where they came up with this particular topographical, which is extended over on the west end of the property. You can see that it would destroy all 3 lots and most of the building envelope of the other. As far as the steepness of the slope, both engineers and architects alike have been consulted and basically it is an excellent lot for a walk out basement. Depending on the width of the house you were looking at walking out at the existing ground level. It drops something like 8 to 10 feet in a 35 to 40 foot span and thus basically an 8 to 9 foot difference in beams allowing single level on the top and double level on the back. One of the concerns that was expressed was a tree that was on the building envelope was in the 6 0 0 drainage area just to the north of lot 7 and they have suggested to the City that they could narrow that building envelope and probably eliminate that tree loss, or that interference with that drainage area thus somewhat limits the architect's ability to fit it into the hillside but none the less he did not think restrict it to any significant amount. Chairman Klataskc asked what was proposed on building heights. Dr. Musslewhite replied that it was suggested to keep the roof levels low so that they would not have two and a half story buildings blocking the view and mainly concerned with along the hill blocking lots 1 and 2 and 1 and 2 blocking the houses that at sometime might exist sometime to the north of those. Lot 4, 5 and 6 are basically going to be ground level homes and so allowing just two story development, no more than two story development on those properties. The same way with lot 3. The concern there was with the property owner to the north, though the house that now exists, the trees actually block their view of any of the building pads on the western hill and they have no windows to the southeast and the only view out that side would be their eight foot satellite dish. They have tried to take into consideration their views and at the same time they were more concerned with the views from the particular lots they were developing. Taking into consideration that these were going to be executive homes and they are going to want a view of the mountains. They have limited the lower hill lots down to a minimal size. Member Walker asked what was to be done with the fact that there will no longer be the ditch water seepage to water these trees. Dr. Musslewhite replied that the trees they were talking about there arc due to seepage from the tributary that runs from the crest of the hill. Those particular seepage areas will be almost mainly on private property. They would have to maintain those themselves, then again, the kind of people that were going to be attracted to home lots would definitely make sure that was taken care of, The seepage area on the main ravine and also the small ravine coming from the north will not be interfered within their subdivision. These are ditch seepages or drainages and at the present time they have no idea whether the ditch company has an easement on the ravine, and they have no control over how much water or whether they would allow any water to cross there or not, but it is a pass between the ditch company, it is not a natural drainage, it is a pass between the ditch itself and Fossil Creek. It is one of the easiest ways to get water from one part of their irrigation system to another and that was to let it run into Fossil Creek and thus into Fossil Creek reservoir. He would assume that water would continue to run at least in a sporadic fashion through the years He could not speak for the irrigation company and what they were going to do and beyond that he could not speculate. They plan on clearing the ditch of considerable debris that now exists that flows downstream from the northern properties, both of natural tree debris and garbage. That was the type of maintenance that they assumed as well as erosion control. Brian Fromme, 1308 Hepplewhite Court, stated he lived just south of the proposed Laurie PUD. He and other homeowners in The Ridge wanted to voice some of their concerns about the negative impacts of the proposed PUD. He wanted to state that he found it presumptuous that the would be developer said to the Board that the City of Fort Collins and the citizens of Fort Collins were not interested in open space. He wanted to state that he was one of the citizens of Fort Collins that was very interested in open space and ih fact have spoken with other homeowners and The Ridge HOA in acquiring this land for open space. One of the concerns he has with this PUD is in regards to the LDGS in Section A, Paragraph 14 under resource protection. That paragraph states that "the sites designated significant by the Colorado Division • of Wildlife should have adequate protection". The applicant has said that as proposed this PUD would really have no disturbance at all to the existing landscape and yet there is a proposed 70 foot fill of the ravine. Certainly it did not seem to him that no disturbance what so ever in this area. Another aspect that concerned him was the road variance. When the developer first discussed with the City Staff and at the Homeowners town meeting was brought up, the original discussion was to have a full City street, a legal City street that would have been a 170 foot coverage across the ditch. As the driveway variance is set today, that was really a compromise to allow as the City Staff mentioned earlier tonight, admittedly limited access to the western slope of this area. Again, he did not feel that addresses a few critical issues, particularly emergency vehicles. He did not believe this driveway adequately covers access for emergency vehicles given some of the situations that might occur in the four units that would be on the western slope of the PUD. It has come to his attention that sprinklers would have to be installed on these four lots to cover protection for fire. He was concerned that proposed a particular danger, not only to those homes but to surrounding area and particular in The Ridge and the open space to the west and to his home. He was concerned about the drainage from that site onto the property just to the south. The developer stated that The Ridge has open space to the west of the site , which is true, but The Ridge does not have open space directly south of the western four units on this proposed PUD. He was concerned that as stated, for the moment, there was no protection for the landowners south of that for any possible erosion and water drainage that might occur. Finally, he was concerned about the property just to the south and there was a little wedge of property now for sale by Wheeler Real Estate that also crosses that ravine and if the Board allows this developer to cross the ravine to get access to the western side, then what was the next landowner going to want to do with the property and how were they going to get access to that. He did not think any of this had been addressed in this particular proposal. It was his opinion that the applicant has made a bad decision to develop on the western side of this ravine. He thought it should be acceptable for the P & Z Board to specify that an applicant had made an inappropriate use for a specific site of land and in particular, if that goes against some of the policies set in the LDGS: He believed that the Planning and Zoning should take environmental issues into concern as strongly as the voice of the developer when revealing these PUD's. Sanford Thayer, property owner to the north, registered Professional Engineer in the State of Colorado and happened to be a former member of the Storm Drainage Board of the City of Fort Collins, stated he noticed that there was no provision on this plan for storm drainage. No site plotted. One of the earlier plans did show a site, however, the new road was now where that particular plan was. The requirements as they knew them was to mitigate the damages to the downstream property owners. It was going to be impossible if you look at that topographical map that the developer has provided for the lots on the west and mitigate the damage that Mr. Fromme has pointed out to those downstream people, that is down slope people. There was no way they were going to put a storm detention pond in. The only storm detention pond they could put in under this plan was from the existing drainage way of the Fossil Creek irrigation ditch. He has cleaned that ditch many times and it always gets alot of debris. The more the City develops, the more debris gets in there. A 4 ft. culvert is going to plug and it was going to overtop the road.The City Attorney, at the time he was on the Board, was cautioning the Board constantly about doing man made structures and the damages that man made structures can cause in the liability the City has and the liability the dcvclopers and others have. He thought that the storm drainage needed to be addressed and unfortunately the developer has provided them with plans and commentary from people who arc not professional engineers, although the Storm Drainage Board will eventually require that. These concepts and ideas that are presented, were not presented by professional engineers as they should be in this situation. If you took in regard to the road, if you look at the contours, you see that it is going to be a very steep road that was going to cut down there_ He thought Member Walker asked the question and he got the response to a different question. He got the response to the slope across the road and not the slope from a high point down to the low spot and back up. He thought one needs to carefully consider the slope that the roads are going to have, particularly in winter conditions and again they are faced with broad brush discussion by non professional engineers that arc making grandious schemes and comments and people including the developer were relying on those and it is incumbent on the developer to have professionals who meet the legal requirements of the State of Colorado to provide that information. Nona Thayer, also involved with the property to the north, wanted to emphasize to the Board the steepness of these slopes. They could see from the slides how steep the property really is along by the ravine. She doubted very much if what was being proposed can fully mitigate the erosion that was going to be opened up by this development. She wanted the Board to think about the City's adopted plans, they were very specific when it comes to protecting sensitive areas such as this. "Land should be developed utilizing its natural contours", certainly is not in this case. "Trees should be retained", we earlier did not have, when they had a neighborhood meeting, a detailed plan of the trees and she was not able to get it and really go out and get a good idea of whether it was adequate now, she was not sure. There is alot of wildlife in this area, this has been put in the record in the neighborhood meetings. The wetlands are important to the south and should be taken into account. The proposal doesn't really deal with the erosion plans and apparently we don't see them until the final plan. She thought that was a mistake. She also wonders if the developer gets part way through and makes these grades and fills and so forth and then the project is not completed. Unfortunately, the City doesn't seem to have adequate collateral plans to make sure that the neighbors don't have to live with something of that type. The County attorney advised the County Commissioners that man made hazards had a much different liability, opening up not only the public body but the homeowner's association in the future and the developer. In the information that she read in the packet and was sure the Board read to, it said that if the culvert becomes plugged, it will overflow a dip in the road. That means that they were really opening up the liabilities if there was an injury instead of an act of God situation. She thought that the safety factors of such a narrow road was something that the Board should think carefully about, it opens up much greater liability problems. We at the neighborhood meeting expressed a concern about low profile dwellings if this project should be approved. She did not understand what Dr. Mussfewhite said about what the limitations were on each lot. She was particularly concerned about lot 3 and 4, she wants low profile buildings if there was to be buildings there. As she reads on copies of the plans, it says in point 5 under F, there would be a maximum height specified on each lot to restrict buildings, but in no case should it exceed 40 feet. She did not know what it is and she would like that as part of the record that there be a single family normal height on those lots. She would also ask that the building envelope be as narrow at the north end of lot 3 as it is on lot 4, it looks like it is 50 feet on lot 4 and she did not see why it should not be the same on lot 3, the terrain is essentially the same at the top of the bluff, let's get that changed. She thinks that Planning Commission members and elected policy makers have a concern that a property owner has a reasonable use of his property. They made an offer to purchase this property, they would make an offer again to purchase this property and add to their agricultural use property. She did not think the Board needed to be concerned about no reasonable use. Ginger Hitz, 1208 Hepplewhite. directly south of lot 6. She felt like if you look at this margin, she was closest to the development. She and her husband have a company and were solicited by Ft. Collins, Inc. to come here. They read our planning guide before coming here and they believed it and would like to still believe that those policies were going to be enforced. They were moving considerable families from California here and they were moving because they 9 • did not like the way people have not listened and followed guidelines in Los Angeles. She would like to see Ft. Collins maintain its identity and its characteristics and not become a Los Angeles arcs. She was concerned about the area because of the wildlife habitat. She thought it was interesting that Dr. Musslewhite kind of glossed over the fact that there was no proof, he doubted a bald eagle. Her neighbors have pictures. Her children have seen the foxes. what about the deer. There are song birds in there all the time. She has seen hawks herself. She was Wended that he would negate that. Maybesomeone came out and spent a few hours, but what about the people that have spent days watching that. She thought that in an area like Ft. Collins, when this is one of the last remaining wildlife habitat areas in the area that it should be preserved and not defiled. She commended the staff for the recommendations that they recommended, however, she did not think•it was enough because she did not think that the western slope ever was intended to be developed by crossing over the ravine. It was going to destroy that area. She could not believe that their provisions for revcgetation and erosion were going to stop the natural wildlife from being disturbed. They will be disturbed. Someone made the comment that well it won't bother them that much, they will come back. She did not agree with that. She also did not agree with the fact that the trees arc based on the drainage ditch. That may be true, however, 50 years or 20 years of that, they are enormous trees. They have been there a long time and to go and destroy that, really offends her. She feels that Ft. Collins is a forward, aggressive area and that we need to be able to have that balance in areas where there is a unique special place in the City like this, it needs to be fought for and preserved. She also thinks that when Dr. Musslewhite found the area and fell in love with it, he knew about the uniqueness of the area, and because of that uniqueness he has a social responsibility to protect that and preserve that and if that means losing lot 7 or whatever that means, based on what the experts say to protect that area, or whatever it takes to preserve the wildlife, then that's what it should take. She was a business person and understands profit margin and understands all the things that people should have a reasonable use of their property and by the same token, there has to be the balance of what one person wants and what could be lost forever. She did not think once they started chipping away at it, they can ever go back and replace it, and once you start chipping away a little piece, then it all starts to fall down. She was concerned about what Mr. Fromme brought up, the property directly south of that envelope. How will that be affected and the other thing was the on -site water retention and how was that going to affect her property. Someone today asked her if it wasn't her property would it still bother her. She replied yes it would. She has weighed this decision very heavily, whether she really wanted to speak out about it. The long and short of it is there is a unique diamond in the rough sitting there, there were no more like this anywhere in the City. To take it and just wipe it away or to not take it as seriously as it needs to be was not right and not fair. She was very strongly opposed to the area that will be destroyed. Member Carroll asked Ms. Hitz about a plan Dr. Musslewhite had that attached these 4 lots to Hepplewhite, they had that before them before in conceptual form. Could she address that. Ms. Hitz replied that she could not address that because she has only been here one month. She was not even aware of an casement on her property until two weeks ago and it was not a very happy situation for her. She did not have enough details for him. Kevin LaMoore, wife of property owner to the north, stated he spent the afternoon walking down through the ravine and his concern was he did not believe the plans or the elevation of the property show the character of the ravine. The closest they got to that tonight was looking at the pictures, especially the picture that looks right down into the ravine. It was easy to look at the plans and see how a road goes up the side of the ravine and he thought if you went out there and stand there and look and realize that the bottom 25 feet of the ravine was going to m i 0 be filled, then you arc going to come across the 25 foot fill and run a driveway down the side of the ravine, you are going to see the character of that piece of the ravine was going to be completely destroyed. Steve Hitz, 1208 Hepplewhite, stated he was opposed to the project. The developer, when asked about the seepage water into the ravine from the upper ditches that will be on private property, said he assumed the homeowners would maintain them. He assumed that because of the type of people that would be building here and so forth and felt that was a grand assumption. He thought those kind of details need to be clarified. He was also concerned about the building height and commented upon how the developer seemed to address that as to the lots within the development not blocking each other's view. Their view directly at the Horsetooth mountains which is one of the reasons they purchased that property, could be blocked if the homes are built too high and he thought that it really needed to be specific. He mentioned in terms of it being a natural wildlife habitat, his word was that was probably bogus. He wondered why it has been designated as such by the City and many others who are professionals in that field, if it is indeed bogus. He mentioned that the cottonwood trees were a result of not the water from the ravine, but seepage water. He was not a horticulturist, but those trees have to be 100 feet high and he did not know how long waste water has been running down that hill, but that statement could well be incorrect. The reason we were here was for fairness and there needed to be a balance. He thought if nothing else comes of these discussions tonight, they had Iearned that this project, the facts that have been presented, were inadequate and if they are approved based on the facts that are present, that would be a real injustice and fairness would not be dealt to any party and he would urge that more details are submitted and this project get a closer look. Randy Wick, Applewood Homeowner's Association, stated that they wrote a letter to a Mr. Price and stated that in the past H & S Irrigation Company in Greeley designed and installed their underground pipeline. This irrigation ditch serves Applewood Estates, all the water from that and it also serves the Orchard and a few other individuals that are north of Applewood Estates. Their president wrote him a letter and he did not get any reply from him at all, the engineer on this thing and he decided, requesting only the flow rate of the pipe. The matter is that they need to know that when this gets developed that the underground pipeline needs to be done by an engineer that is qualified and they feel that H & S Irrigation is qualified since they have put all the pipeline under Clarendon and all of Applewood Estates. The underground pipeline and it is all designed by an irrigation company so that the flow rate is consistent. The ditch has been there over 100 years and when somebody comes in and decides that they want to put a flow rate that they feel will work, he did not think that was fair to them because if something happens after the fact, then it is too late and he feels that it should be totally engineered by H A S Irrigation Company whether they do the work or not. They should do all the design for it underneath the area. They have a 20 foot easement on all of their ditchs all the way to Clarendon Hills, all the way through Applewood a 20 foot easement and he thought they had said they were only going to give them a 12 foot easement here. That was not acceptable to them because they have to do maintenance on it and did they need the full 20 foot easement on this ditch. They need to have complete dctait on the whole pipeline as shown as a package, not piece meal. From the beginning to the end because if you do put it on the ground at the end of the pipeline, whatever property it ends up to be there, there would be a total erosion process going on there, so there would be some sort of diversion structure or something designed by an engineer to handle it all so everything can work correctly along here. The people at Applewood feel that it is very important that this is correctly done by an engineer to design the whole system before this project is approved so their water keeps coming as it has for the past 100 years. 0 Mr. Bob Browning, homeowner at The Ridge, stated he had been involved with this project since the beginning. He has attended some of the neighborhood awareness meetings both in the capacity of a private citizen and a former member of the Board of Directors. They have expressed concerns in the past that have not been ameliorated. He has talked to City Planners one on one and expressed the same concerns and the concerns have not been taken care of. Listening to his neighbors tonight, the concerns were still there. He did not want to get into a discussion of the acsthitcs of the open areas and did not want to get into a discussion on the aesthetics of the wildlife area. What he was concerned with was the drainage area. He is not a water engineer, what he was saying tonight was from observations not from any formal schooling at all. At the current time, the lots at the base of the hill, toward the western most slope are not adversely affected by run off water. They do not have a problem at all down there, which tells him the natural water runoff drainage situation, act of God or whatever is working. They know when it rains the water hits the hill and some of it is absorbed until the ground achieves saturation, at which point it puddles and runs down the hill with the force of gravity, it either runs toward Brian Fromme's house, toward his house, toward lot 23 or it could go down the ditch. They know this is a relatively slow process as it percolates down because there is an awful lot of natural impediments to its flow coming down the hill. He could attest to that, he broke his leg two years ago when he stepped in a chuck hole out there. If things like that go ahead and impede the ►eater flow. Since they know in some point in time they were going to have to address the Board on this issue, he has gone down and observed the ditch filling up in relatively violent rain storms. The ditch does not fill up in a surge, it was not like turning on a faucet. It initially gets wet when the water hits it. If fills up as the runoff from the east side comes and the upper lands and it continues to bubble and run after the rain stopped. This reinforced his thought that the water is percolating through slowly either from the upper area or as it gets past the natural impediments coming down. What were we going to do when we put the Laurie PUD in, if he reads the blueprints properly, they were going to put roughly 30,000 s.f. of hard surface concrete or driveway up there. He will tell you that what they have created up there is a collecting pool. One of the things you do when you build a road is to crown it as such, so the water leaves it immediately so we don't have hydroplaning and things like that so they were taking away the impediments to the slowing process of the water. Certainly no water is going to be absorbed in the concrete, at that point it has to go somewhere, it has to go quickly because they were going to design it that way. When they design houses, we don't store water on the roof, we have peaked roofs. The water is conveyed off the roof and goes horizontally off the gutters. It goes vertically down either out the front of the houses into the street area for run off, or it goes on to the property. We design our houses to get water away from the structures, we don't want seepage in our own basement and we don't want standing water in our yards. That's the way we do things, the way we landscape. One of the other things they do up there because the land up there is not suitable for having kids on it running around and playing, they are going to get metals in their feet, they are going to break their legs, they were going to go ahead and landscape that and put grass in and further go ahead and take away the impediments to the water flow. You can't tell his as they get closer to his house, Brian Fromme's house and other people's houses you can't tell him that eliminating these impediments are going to keep the water from going into their basements or crawl spaces. When the water drains off the ditch or comes off the front of the houses a little bit, it is going to go down to not a storage system, it is going to go down and be dumped directly into the ditch. Effectively as the storm surge comes and passes, they were going to turn on a spigot down there. Is the spigot going to Overflow the ditch. It certainly was a concern if it needs the cleaning that Mr. Thayer says it does. Is the Hepplewhite bridge culvert system designed to take a surge of a turned on faucet? Is the Fossil Cteek runoff area designed to take surges, but if you look at this whole thing on here, you are talking about number one, destroying the aesthetics of The Ridge; two, destroying a wildlife area; three, setting a precedence by saying 12 this wonderful planning document, which he believed they won an award for, is not going to be followed and when the next guy wants to put a 7-11 in the middle of a housing area, they say you didn't do it for the Laurie PUD; and four, you have the potential liability of what is happening in the flood areas. He did not see the potential good that could come out of Laurie PUD out weighs the potential damage it could do to you. He disagrees completely with the project and he was not at ease with just knocking out lot 7. He felt that it was an inappropriate use of the land and he fully agrees with what his neighbors have said. In close, just say no. Richard Lea, resident of lot 26 of The Ridge, it is not one of the adjacent lots to the proposed Laurie PUD, but it is close enough to him to have paid particular attention to this proposal from its very inception. He was in attendance at the very first neighborhood meeting that was so many months ago he could not tell them what year it was in. He has watched his mail box and have watched the developments of this proposal come and go in the mail. He has watched the proposals be put on the agenda and stricken off the agenda for almost 20 months. He thought it would die from its own poor design. He still thinks it will die of its own poor design. He has had conversations very early on with the developer, Dr. Musslewhite. It was quite apparent that his planning processes both personally and professionally having to do with the subdivision were ill conceived. He bought this lot, he admitted on this stand a few moments ago, that he bought this lot without even knowing what governmental jurisdiction it was within. He will tell you that the owner of the lot he bought it from, the seller, didn't even know what jurisdiction it was in. He will tell you that the real estate agents involved in the sale did not know what jurisdiction it was in. It was part of the annexed land to the City in 1989 and it was well known for three years prior to that by all people interested in these matters and by all homeowners and property owners in the area that the City intended to annex all of the area known as The Ridge PUD subdivision three years prior to 1989, which it was annexed on schedule. All of the arguments about poor Dr. Musslewhitc bought this and did not know what he was getting into, wanting to build his home on it, wanted to have a horse farm, can't have a horse farm, so now he wants to profit by selling nine expensive executive size lots on a piece of land that is ill prepared to hold anything near that kind of homes. He has walked this land many times, he has viewed it from the air, he has viewed it on the ground, he has viewed it from every direction . It cannot be developed properly, safely, aesthetically into 9 single family lots, it could not even be properly, aesthetically and safely and environmentally developed into 8 lots or 7 lots all of which have been proposed at one time or another. If it can be developed at all, it could only be developed, in his opinion, to the east of the ravine, to the cast of the open space which we have all been talking about tonight, to the east of the ditch, which despite the lovely slides we saw, do not adequately convey how deep this ditch is, how steep the sides are or how erosion conscious this land will be and how much wildlife inhabits there. He has lived in The Ridge Subdivision for 5 years and they have seen wildlife that has not even been mentioned in these reports. He is not a wildlife expert, he is simply an observer of the environment in which he lives. There is a significant amount of wildlife in this area. There is a significant amount of drainage issues that have never been addressed and they are not likely addressed by the kind of plan and the kind of process that Dr. Musslewhitc has employed. The Board was probably aware that when previous plans have come to them for the Laurie PUD, they have been represented by other engineering firms. Now a new plan comes to them, this time by out of state, a firm out of Utah. Perhaps it has credentials, perhaps he had to go that far away to find anybody who would dare represent that this land could be developed properly west of the ravine, it simply cannot. That is why it has never been developed, that is why the people who sold it, sold it for a song and now he would have us all believe that he will lose money if he doesn't get 9 lots on this. The fact of the matter is the only reason Dr. Musslewhite wants to develop this land is so he can finance and afford construction of a massive animal clinic that was approved earlier, a plan he has no problem 13 0 with. He has significant concerns about whether Dr. Musslewhite, who is simply an individual citizen, much as all of us are and is not a well financed developer, can handle either financially or the professionally or the engineering ends of his whole proposal. He is a veterinarian, he is a doctor of veterinary medicine. He is not an engineer, he is not a building contractor, he is not a land use attorney, he is not an environmental expert, he is simply a private citizen who bought a small piece of land thinking it was in the County, hoping he could throw up an animal clinic in his own time and his own way without alot of governmental interference. He didn't even know that the government he would be dealing with was the City of Fort Collins instead of Larimer County. He has hired one consultant after another and every time someone throws a question at him he brings in another expert and he continues to modify his plan and come up with, essentially a botched up, cobbled up continually modified plan that still has no merit. He has gone as far away as Salt Lake City or Park City, Utah to try to present it to them this time. He imagined the reason Staff had recommended approval, with restrictions and reservations, was to get him out of their hair. It was simply a bad plan. He has nothing to gain whether this plan succeeds or fails. He simply could not believe, having watched it closely for over a year and a half, having followed these proceedings and having addressed this Board before in the very early stages that anybody still believes that any of this has merit. He did not think the issue was whether or not he has a 20 foot private driveway and sprinkled homes, or he has a major 60 foot concrete bridge across the rave or whether he gets access from north, south, east or west. He believed that he bought a piece of land that could not be adequately or properly, safely or environmentally developed on the west side of the ravine and he recommended that they disapprove this plan and any such plan until he comes up with one that has development possibilities only on the east side of the ravine, thereby, protecting a valuable piece of openspace, drainage, ditch area, wildlife habitat and other environmentally parts of the properly until the City of Fort Collins can property determine through its own studies and its own time whether it wants to make any part of this property Official open space. It was his opinion that the open space that the City of Fort Collins should be looking at is not just the ditch and the ravine as described on this map, but the whole 5 acres or 4-1/2 acres west of the ravine. It contains lots 3, 4, 5, and 6. That should be the City of Fort Collins open space or it should be left open and natural as is it under private ownership. Chairman Klataske clarified that the area under consideration was the ravine and the area west of that because of the limited access. So at this point that is what the Natural Resources Board has been directed to look at. Mr. Lea replied that he truly hoped that was right. He was out of town when the City Council asked the Staff to look into this. He just returned yesterday and has not had a chance to look into the specifics of what they were asked to study and so if that is the case, he was very pleased about that. He would again reiterate that because the City Council has asked Natural Resources to look into this and present a thorough plan and proposal and recommendation in early September and this Board should not act in any way tonight on this plan until we have learned what the recommendation and proposal analysis are and digest them and then incorporate them into a severely modified plan, if there was to be any development at all with the Laurie PUD. Chairman Klataske asked Mr. Peterson if he had anything to add on the review of this. Mr. Peterson replied that he was not presentat the meeting and asked Ms. Clark to answer that. Ms. Clark replied that Council's motion was to direct Staff to look at the feasibility of acquisition of the natural areas or the ravine of the site. Based on that direction, Staff would 14 be looking at both the ravine and the properties west of that because as is presently, there was no other alternative for access in the western portion of the site and if the ravine were not to be crossed, then obviously we would need to look at the western portion of the property, lots 3 through 6 as well. Two things that were not defined by Council and Staff will provide several alternatives, was how far cast could the City look for acquisition of the property and if the property were to be acquired for public open space, there would need to be some mechanism providing public access to this side as well, Chairman Klataske stated that as far as whether or not they should be considering this until the City makes a decision on it, they have been presented with a proposal that meets the criteria and the developer has a right to a hearing and a decision. At this point we will not postpone it merely to see what the City Council might or might not do, Mr. Walker asked Mr. Shoemaker, Department of Natural Resources, his opinion on the quality of the habitat and what a road across the ravine and the development of this would do. Mr. Shoemaker replied that there had been a couple of statements made tonight about the relative merit of this habitat and the opinions of various agencies on that habitat. It was important to remember that they are speaking of wildlife habitat in the context of Fort Collins and the Urban Growth Area. It was stated earlier tonight that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has not designated a critical habitat in this area. Critical habitat is a legal term that related to an officially recognized area under the Federal Endangered Species Act. There are, in fact, very few critical habitats and this was not one of them, nor is there any in the, Fort Collins Urban Growth Area. With respect to the designation by the Colorado Division of Wildlife, that also relates to habitats of State wide concern. The Colorado Division of Wildlife does provide maps of areas of State wide concern within the Fort Collins Urban Growth Area. Those include winter range along the foothills west of Fort Collins, they include some sections but not all of the Poudre River and some limited portions of some of the larger reservoirs within the City of Fort Collins. Beyond that, City Council and City programs over the years have looked at wildlife habitat and natural areas as they relate to the context of Fort Collins and he could provide some comments related to that. This area of the Natural Resources Division was supported by two inventory methods. One was a previous method conducted in the mid 80's in which a citizen review panel of wildlife experts mapped and identified areas of importance within the cities Urban Growth Area. This area was identified as an area of high sensitivity by that panel and those criteria and these maps were endorsed by this Planning and Zoning Board in 1988. The recent effort with respect to the Natural Areas Policy Plan, we arc basically consistent with those past maps, except they have endeavored to do additional field checking to learn what was out there. He could say, without hesitation, this area is a unique site within the context of Fort Collins, meaning it is different than other areas within Fort Collins. It's a combination of topographic and vegetational circumstances that makes it really unlike other places within Fort Collins. Is it critical in terms of endangered species, no it is not, there are certainly bald eagles that do stop and perch on large trees in that area from time to time. The areas, based on their knowledge that are most critical to bald eagles in the Fort Collins Urban Growth Area are the large reservoirs and large areas of open prairie, such as the Seven Springs Ranch to the west or the areas of the Fossil Creek drainage to the south. Does the area have wildlife value, it certainly does in terms of its diversity. The overall site is about 9 acres, of which 2.3 or so are sensitive areas located on Dr. Musslcwhitc's property. The area certainly has vegetational diversity that would attract a wide variety of song birds. Othcr species that have been mentioned are fox, deer. They understand from the Division of Wildlife that there was a small herd of about 10 deer that frequent this area. With respect to the question of the road crossing find the concern to wildlife habitat there arc a number of 15 • issues that one would look at and evaluating impacts on wildlife related to a development of this type and he was speaking specifically of the road at this point in time. One would be the potential to form a movement barrier for deer and other animals moving up and down. The previous proposal which had a very large amount of fill crossing the entire ravine would have constituted a barrier to wildlife movements. In their view, this particular relocation of the road would not constitute a wildlife barrier. You are looking at the actual loss of habitat which is fairly small and the disturbance area adjacent to the road would be revegetated with species of grasses, shrubs and trees that would be consistent with the wildlife habitat of the area. Other potential impacts from the road would relate to potential collisions with wildlife species. The traffic speeds are not likely to be significant on that road, and the general nature of human disturbance and its impact on wildlife from the road per say, those arc likely to be minimal. It is the view, albeit an unpopular view, of the Natural Resources Division, that the road per se, with respect to wildlife habitat, that the developer has basically done what he could to minimize those impacts. It is important to state for the record that they believe an alternative access would be much preferable. Member Walker asked if this was to be acquired by the City, the ravine and the area to the west, in general terms based on how Natural Resources would handle such an open area, what kinds of things would you have to do if the City were to purchase, to make it accessible to the citizens. Mr. Shoemaker replied that they would want to be looking at the entire 9 acre site which would include areas to the north and south. Perhaps in terms of conservation casements, leaving them in private ownership, but perhaps in terms of public acquisition as well. In conversations, it has been since April, both with Dr. Musslewhite and The Ridge homeowners, the concept that they were exploring was a joint venture between The Ridge Homeowners and the City of Fort Collins, with the City targeting the acquisition of the ravine per se, or the wooded areas of the site and the Homeowner's Association acquiring the area to the west but insuring some provision for public access would be provided. He would not want to conjecture too much on what type of activities would be projected in this area, except to say they would be minimal. Perhaps some trail activity, but they want to be very careful about the design and management approach to this area because of its sensitivity and two, because there are some very significant steep slopes associated with the ravine and question of liabilities have come up a number of times. There arc certain issues that need to be worked out. Member Strom asked Mr. Shoemaker if he did say that roughly 2.3 acres of this site was considered by him to be sensitive. Mr. Shoemaker replied yes. Member Strom asked him to generally. outline what portion of the site he included in the 2.3 acres. Mr. Shoemaker replied that it was basically the area that includes the wooded vegetation, the association of natural grasses and other plants occurs and it's basically down grade from the existing irrigation ditch. Mr. Shoemaker pointed out for the Board and the audience the area on the map. Member Strom asked if it precluded the City from in some way obtaining protection for that property if the narrow roadway is put across the ravine and the knob on the west side is developed. 0 0 Mr. Shoemaker replied they have not explored that option. In the Staff report there were a number of recommendations related to building envelopes on lots 7, 8 and 9. Those recommendations relate to that concern of how that sensitive natural area would be treated assuming the proposal went through and the road was constructed across. Member Strom asked if they should approve this with or without lot 7 and parts of 8, were they blocking the City from protecting the sensitive area. Mr. Shoemaker replied no, not necessarily, and to an extent, he would certainly want to acknowledge the efforts that Dr. Musslewhite has taken in setting aside some of the ravine and in some of the considerations they have put into their plans in terms of resource sensitivity . They believe they have added to those in a necessary manner in terms of the Staff recommendations. He thought the bottom line was that they would continue to pursue protection to the extent feasible, under existing law, on areas to the north and areas to the south even with this proposal. He thought it was important to stress that there is a draft Natural Areas Policy Plan that is with going extensive public review and part of that lengthy process was evaluating criteria and evaluating relative priorities with respect to public acquisition. That was the question they had to address with Council. Member Strom asked about the 5084 contour line and was Mr. Shoemaker involved in where the line should be. Mr. Shoemaker replied yes he was. He and Mr. Peterson went onto the site and basically did what one of the gentlemen speaking did tonight and that was to spend some time on the site and walk it and get a picture of the whole development and basically what he was looking at when they were coming up with that line and it was not necessarily a magic line, it is their best estimate where that line should be and he will confess to being a wildlife biologist not an engineer. Their thinking on the line was the sensitive area as defined by our mapping basically comes along this area. Our concern was not just with the trees, Dr. Musslewhitc and his consultants have avoided most of the trees on the site, but with the overall vegetative community and the characteristics of the site. They were looking at concerns with respect to the LDGS criteria about blending the development into the existing topography and whether significant existing vegetation had been avoided to the extent practical. They were looking at the extent practical question. What they were trying to achieve was to pull the building envelopes basically back up onto the flatter land before the ravine begins to drop off. They are not proposing to be right in the middle of the steepest part, but it is fairly steep terrain out there and their concern was related to the extent of disturbance that would be required to put a house and associated amenities into that area. The other concern was the extent particularly on lot 7 and how far it encroaches into the ravine itself. This was approximately the narrowest part of the ravine, it is about 250 feet in width and the outer edge of the envelope was approximately 125 feet or half way into the ravine. We are trying to minimize the encroachment, also pull the building envelopes up onto the relatively flat area of the ravine and in their judgement, in the field, there was not room for a building envelope on lot 7. Member Strom asked what kind of assumption were they using in terms of building disturbance when he said there was no room for a building envelope. Mr. Shoemaker replied they were looking basically at a 50 to 60 foot wide area and the concern was with the road coming off there, was it feasible to work a building in there. He understands that Dr. MussIewhite's consultants have presented an alternative that shows a way a house could be worked in there and he just saw that tonight and has not been able to evaluate it. 17 • Chairman Klataske asked if the same criteria was used on the west side for the heights or was that considered. Mr. Shoemaker replied no it wasn't because their definition of the boundaries of that sensitive natural area arc based primarily on a vegetational delineation and the same vegetation does not extend to the same elevation on the west side. Member Strom asked if it was his judgement that the water that supports that vegetation is coming out of the irrigation ditch or did he have any sense for that. Mr. Shoemaker replied that it was partly true and his sense and their judgement, and they have talked to the City Forester, that those trees and shrubs were well established and likely have deep roots andwill maintain whether or not this particular area would have formed in the absence of the irrigation ditch in the past. He thought that the hypothesis that it is associated with the ditch is likely correct. Member Strom asked that assuming that the ditch is moved and piped so the seepage is no longer there but the bulk of the vegetation was well enough established to maintain itself without the constant summer seepage, why would the disturbance on this side of the slope give any greater concern than disturbance on the west side of the ravine where the vegetation is not there. Are we concerned about inadvertently knocking down trees or are we concerned about some of the smaller vegetation communities in there. Mr. Shoemaker replied both of those things and also there was a concern and it relates to the definition that we have used for the natural area and. the type of vegetational community that occurs in there and that is defined by basically the tree shrub, grass community in there which is quite different on the west side. On the west side it is amore short grass prairie type of situation which is decreasing in the Urban Growth Area, but there is still some very large expanses of it. In contrast, a Riparian Woodlands situation is not so common and one in particular the very small ravine and within an upland situation on the sides of it arc not commonly found in Fort Collins. Member Walker asked Mike Herzig, Engineering Department to address the adequacy of the roads, also the issue of storm drainage off the site to the south and also the question of the easement for the ditch. Mr. Herzig, replied it will be an adequate road, it is proposed to be 20 feet wide in response to the fire department that needs a 20 foot access. The design grade which normally doesn't come in at preliminary is on the plan at 8% maximum slope. The turn around at the end of the cul- de-sac is also an 80 foot turn -around for what the fire department needs for their specifications. In that light it does provide for all the emergency services that would be anticipated. Member Walker asked Mr. Herzig about the storm drainage and the runoff on the property. Mr. Herzig replied that the applicant does have an engineer he has hired. He is from Utah. He has satisfied the conditions for the preliminary submittal. He can't give him the specifics on that, however, in the final design phase they do have to go through a much more extensive review of the drainage and come up with the specific designs that address erosion control as well as the storm drainage handling of the water. 18 • u Member Walker asked about the 12 foot instead of the 20 foot easement for the ditch. Mr. Herzig replied he did not know what was proposed, all he knew was that the ditch company, where there is an irrigation ditch involved in a project, is required to sign off on the public improvement plans to assure they arc getting what they need for their ditch to accommodate their maintenance as well as their operation. Member Walker stated that what they heard tonight was it was proposed at 12 feet and it seemed that it would not be sufficient from their stand point and there needed to be a resolution to this issue. Mr. Herzig replied that it would be resolved, normally during the final phase of a project. We usually don't get into the specifics of easement widths at the preliminary. Member Cottier asked Mr. Herzig that it seemed the Staff conditions with respect to storm drainage primarily deal with erosion into the ravine, that that was the concern of Staff. Because the Staff conditions do not address erosion or drainage off of Iots 4 and S that would be going down hill onto properties in The Ridge. From his perspective was that type of drainage not a problem or potential problem in this area. Mr. Herzig replied that it was still a consideration as a part of the drainage and grading plan that would have to be developed at final. Normally the drainage has to be distributed over a historic configuration or else if it is concentrated, then that has to be accounted for. The development on the lots will create some drainage and that will have to be handled. Those specifics have not been looked at at the preliminary phase. The concentrated effort has been with the ravine. Also, there was mention about the concern about the drainage going over the road if the pipe should plug. That is a normal consideration that we think of with most drainage systems. Where is the water going to go if the pipe should plug up especially in a sump area_ That is something they will address with the fill area. Member Clements -Cooney asked if the issues brought up about drainage into Fossil Creek would be addressed at final. Mr. Herzig replied he did not know how that will be handled as far south as that is but for the capacity of the pipe that goes under Hepplewhite Court, that has to be considered in the drainage runoff study. He did know it had to go that far. Mr. Peterson clarified that the irrigation ditch that runs through there is a private ditch that serves the Applewood development, it is not a ditch company ditch in the traditional sense that they are aware of. The ditch, however, has been there a considerable amount of time, probably enough time that there is a prescriptive casement by use for the property and obviously we expect that issue is going to be settled between the applicant and the Homeowner's Association that has that prescriptive right, but it is not, the rights arc not the same you would have with the normal irrigation ditch company. Mr. Peterson also clarified that the drainage master plan requirements that the Storm Drainage Utility has for Fossil Creek is that the drainage master plan does not require basins as you would see in most other drainage basins in the City to be built in Fossil Creek, rather the idea is to get the water there without slowing the water down other that through what ever velocity dissipators and that sort of thing the Storm Drainage Utility would do, but there would not be any requirement for an on -site detention type of thing. That was how he understands that 19 Fossil Creek has been designed to be used by the Storm Drainage Utility Mr. Herzig added that would be unless the runoff created by the development causes a downstream structure to be over taxed, theft there could be some upstream detention that is necessary. Member O'Dell asked if the terrain on lots 3, 4, 5, and 6 is similar to what The Ridge was before it was developed. Ms. Clark replied that it was somewhat similar although it is one of the higher points in that area and probably at least higher that most of the surrounding lots in The Ridge to the south. Member O'Dell asked if the reason it was not included in the original development was that because of ownership or because of the pecularity of the terrain. Ms. Clark replied she could only speculate that it was something due to ownership. Member Cottier asked about the parcel immediately to the south of lots 7, 8, and 9 and was that within City limits now. Ms. Clark replied that it was and ai one time in the past there were some discussions between that property owner and Dr. Musslewhite about potentially including that parcel into the Laurie PUD. That seemed to make sense at the time and perhaps still does because of the configuration of the property and it does face similar environmental issues and concerns because of the topography and the heavy vegetation on the rear of the property, it does have an existing home on the Shields frontage and probably does have some development capabilities near that frontage. About a year ago that discussion took place between the two owners and for what ever reason, that property was not included in this development plan. Member Cottier asked when you stand on the site looking south from about lot 8, where the little structure with the roof is, you see a very large home, is that lot 22 of The Ridge. Ms. Clark replied that was lot 22, that would be the home at the north edge of the cul-de-sac on Hepplewhite Court. Member Cottier asked that it looked like it was in the lower end of the ravine Ms. Clark replied it was in that general vicinity, yes. Member Cotter asked if that was built in the County and now is in the City and so we never would have allowed that house to be built in the ravine given our concerns about the wildlife habitat and the natural resource concerns we have for the ravine now. Ms. Clark replied speculation. Member Carroll asked about the 5,084 foot barrier. He stated Mr. Shoemaker answered the question but other than simply adding to the open space so to speak, why, that demarkation at that particular point as well. Ms. Clark replied that was based on walking the site and doing some field work. She was not involved with that particular visit to the site but went several days after that and also looked 20 at lots 7, 8 and 9. She has been doing some drawing on the site plan since the applicant's response on the 5084 elevation. We would want to maintain a minimum of 20 feet front setback, 20 feet behind the sidewalk so that it allows an adequate size driveway to allow cars to be parking in the driveway, to cue there and not overhang the driveway. It looks possible to shift that envelope somewhat closer to Wooded Creek Court and maintain that 20 feet. She thought that would still provide an envelope that may be useable and may not be ultimately what is desirable for the applicant and thought Staff's sense on this lot is that it still is a buildable lot. Lot 8, she thought we would like to see the envelope reduced over what it is now because it is fairly large and that has been a concern from early on in the project, and thought they perhaps could live with something that might not be as restrictive as the 5,084 foot contour but again we were looking at something that would reduce the size or the extent of the envelope to the south. Also if they would note on their plan, there was also a cross hatched area in between that envelope and lot 9, that was a wetlands area, too, that was an area that needs to be precluded from the building envelope, so she thought that and some of the other topo constraints could still allow the applicant to come up with a workable envelope. It may not be cut off at the 5,084 ft contour but she thought they could be somewhat flexible in looking at several alternatives to still allow lot 8 to be built on. Member Strom asked if it was still her judgement that lot 7 could not be built on reasonably. Ms. Clark replied that based on what they have looked at so far, Mr. Shoemaker and herself have looked at alternatives to down size an envelope there. At least from their perspective to still get a useable envelope and to try to retain what we feel are the fairly severe topographic constraints on that site, we feel that that lot becomes essentially very difficult to develop and again the concerns are related to the amount of terrain change on that site. The lot depth is approximately 90 feet from the street to the rear lot line and you have anywhere from 20 to 24 feet of elevation change on that site. Staff feels that was fairly significant and felt that was probably the one lot when you look at the overall site design that does encroach, has the largest encroachment into the natural area and Staff feels because of that, has the greatest potential for erosion control, erosion problems on the ravine itself. Member Cottier asked about juggling the building envelope for lot 8 and the sidewalk, is the sidewalk required on Wooded Creek Court because it would be a public street. Ms. Clark replied that was correct, we were working with a 4 foot concrete sidewalk and the idea then would be to maintain that 20 foot setback behind the edge of the sidewalk to prevent any cars from hanging over the sidewalk while parked in the drive. Ms. Clark added that 20 feet was typically a standard setback for single family development in Fort Collins and that would also maintain a fairly similar streetscape to what people are used to seeing in the City with a 20 foot setback. Member Cottier asked if there was no sidewalk required for the private drive extension heading out to the west. Ms. Clark replied that was correct. Member O'Dell asked about the height on the homes on the western lots. Ms. Clark replied that there was the general note that talks about the maximum height of 40 feet. That was typically the note that was on most site plans in Fort Collins since that is the PA 0 maximum building height. She knew the applicant has discussed over the past year and a half various alternatives or ideas for limiting building height on different lots. We don't have anything at this point. We would be interested in seeing that if the applicant is still interested in putting some height restrictions on some of these lots. We typically would not require that information or require that commitment, we tend to leave building height in single family developments up to the individual developer. When you get into the whole issue of blocked views it becomes a very sensitive topic and it is also a sensitive issue for the City to be in the business of determining whether someone's view is or should or shouldn't be blocked. Chairman Klataske asked on the lots with potential for walk out basements, arc we talking about 40 foot from grade level. in the front might be a single level and in the back you get 2 or 3 stories, where is the 40 foot measured from. Ms. Clark replied it is typically measured at grade and there's a distance that the Zoning Code defines how far you are from the structure to where you measure the maximum building height and how you measure that up to the pitch of the roof. Forty feet is a typical height of a two and a half story apartment building in Fort Collins. You do not see most single family homes building near that height, you might see something at 28 or 30 or 32 feet and even that begins to be in a single family design to be perceived as fairly tall. Typically we do not see a 40 foot home in Fort Collins. Chairman Klataske asked on a walk out basement would the 40 foot go from the ground of the lowest level to the peak of the roof. Ms. Clark replied that they would still measure that from the front of the structure or from the defined distance from the building. We would measure that from the front facade of the structure versus looking at grade, so what that would tell you is you could have up to a maximum of 40 feet of the structure exposed above grade. On a walkout basement that 40 feet would be measured from the front of the structure. Then from the rear elevation you could conceivably have something that was appearing a little higher. Member Walker stated that basically what they have heard and what they have on the plan, we were dealing with a very difficult site and he was somewhat concerned at the way the plan is designed in the fact that crossing the wildlife area and the ravine: He was also a little concerned by what he has heard by some of the public that talked here because it seemed to him alot of what he heard was very self serving. Primarily the fact that Dr. Musslewhite has attempted to approach members of The Ridge to come up with a different solution for the west side rather than crossing the ravine and he was stonewalled by that. To him that would seem like an obvious solution. He has not heard a good argument as to why that shouldn't be done. The argument that would increase traffic, he can't accept that. Granted it is a difficult site but if he has heard all the environmental pleas, he has not seen any effort on the part of the homeowners to deal with the issue, rather they have kind of obstructed it and now arc complaining about the fact that where is the environmental sensitivity. He was concerned about the fact that lot 7 does seem to encroach and with the irrigation ditch going behind lot 2 and some unresolved question there, it seemed to him that there might be too much trying to be done on that side of it and he thought that if one lot out of five were pulled out of the east side, the road could be realigned and still have an area where lot 7 is platted that would meet some of the issues but yet pull it back up the hill. Perhaps what he was saying was maybe eliminating lot 2 and curving the road back further to the north it would curve to the north in a more easterly location. His best solution would be to see that we did not have to bridge the ravine, but yet this was a good solution, the best solution that could be done given you are 22 0 • bridging it and the fact that there is an easement that will be maintained so the ravine will remain in its wild character, so he felt that given the fact of the constraints on the site, there was a reasonable solution here. Some of the technical issues as far as the road, storm drainage, things like this could be worked out at final. The 5084 thing he has some concerns with. It seems like lots 8 and 9, he did not feel like were going to be much of a problem so that was sort of where his thinking is at the moment. Member O'Dell agreed with Member Walker, it was troubling that the land to the west is essentially like the land in The Ridge and probably it could have been developed at the same time as The Ridge if it had been in the same ownership. At least viewing the property, looking at the topographical map, it did not seem that it was a special piece that should not be developed, so therefore if we operate under the assumption that it was a developable piece of land suitable for housing, then we need to talk about access and the logical access was through The Ridge. Since that has been closed down, Dr. Musslewhite has a right to some kind of use for that property. It is a reasonable use of the property and having heard the Natural Resources Department testify tonight she thought that the amount of disturbance that the road being put in though it will indeed disturb the land, it is a small disturbance and she thought it was a tolerable disturbance considering that there is no other access and she agreed with Member Walker in that there was a possibility of moving the street slightly to the north, eliminating one of the northern most lots and moving back 7 and 8 since those are the desirable places for lots and it seemed to make sense to her. Member Carroll stated that they on the Board have to rely on the Staff and other experts which have been brought in front of them tonight. The only person that he has heard with expertise in the area was Mr. Shoemaker from Natural Resources Division, other people have had comments or have repeated what other people have told them and he has to accept his comments at face value that this crossing of the ravine would not be of great damage to the natural elements in the casements. Reiterating again he was here, too and heard the comments when it first came in about coming up from Hepplewhite which would have alleviated the problems in the ravine. Thats not possible, so to simply tell Dr. Musslewhite that he has bought a piece of land that could not be reached, he did not think was a reasonable thing to say especially when the Natural Resource Division and Planning Staff has indicated that this would not be against City policies, so the comments that they were not following City policies he could not accept. These are always judgement calls, they were required to make the judgements and he felt in approving this they were following City policies. By the same token the same staff has recommended an envelope or non developable area below 5084 feet and he would be somewhat hypocritical if he said he accepted the Staffs comments regarding crossing the ravine, but he did not accept Staff's comments concerning the 5084 elevation. He was somewhat bound to accept that to some degree, although Sherry did indicate that possibly on lot 8 it could be moved down somewhat to make lot 8 developable. He thought Member Walker made an excellent suggestion about moving the road to the north which would eliminate lot 2, he suspected by looking at it. It would allow lot 7 to move up and he thought that would be Dr. Musslewhite's choice. He would like to see that come back on final if that is what he wanted to do but he was not going to sit there and say that he did not accept 5080 but he did accept 5020 or 5000. Again he has to take Staff's advice on that and he sees no reason to disagree with it, with the possible exception in lot 8 which Sherry indicated and he would accept that. Member Strom stated he is in general agreement with what was said. He was a little concerned with suggesting moving the road to the north because it appears to him that they would increase the grade on the street if they do that. He was not trying to belittle of the Staff's judgement on the topo line, he just has spent enough time walking the hills to know it is 23 • difficult to figure out where a topo line is unless you survey it and so he would suggest that if they're going to approve this, that they figure out some way to take a closer look at that before the final and figure out what actually is appropriate to be built on and what needs to be protected. Just from his briefly walking on site, there are some areas there that arc very steep and would certainly be very difficult to build on, although he would not say impossible. Difficult to build on without causing some problems down below and also some of the vegetation would probably be affected. In general he thought this plan was far and away much better than they saw the last time it came to them. He thought the designers have worked very hard to work with a difficult site and preserve the sensitive features of it. He just did not know how to go about protecting the steep area, whether we need to say delete lot 7 or whether we need to say this area needs a closer looJk for, design purposes. Member Clements -Cooney stated that her line of thinking on this was going along with the Board. She thought it was a travesty that we have to put a road through this area, although that given the developer has explored other alternatives and there are no other alternatives, she felt that this was best given what he has to work with, although she does have serious concerns about potential erosion and the storm water drainage of this plan which will come back on final should this plan be approved and that is where she would like to see her concerns addressed. Member Carroll stated that dealing with basically a flat area in Fort Collins, we have storm drainage problems, but erosion is usually not an issue and he expects this, if passed, fully addressed at final with the lots, all the lots to the satisfaction of the Storm Drainage Utility that there won't be any problems, that someone will suffer the consequences in the future. Member Walker moved for approval of this proposal with the conditions to be satisfied at final. Staff has indicated a number of conditions and he thought some of them he would consider to be Important, particularly number I talking about the conservation easement, item number 4 about tree and shrub removal, Item 5 about erosion control plans, item 6 about rip rap areas, Item 7 about materials and placement for erosion control and number 8 a detailed analysis for rip rap materials, etc. The other condition he would add would be the east side of the property, east of the ravine be replatted into no more than 4 building sites, with the intention of pulling back building site 7 and 8 further away from the ravine and these identified sensitive areas, again 5084 would be a starting place, he did not want to impose that as an absolute but that was the intent of what he was trying to get at by his suggestion. Member Carroll asked if the other condition was taking the place of 2 and 3. Member Walker replied yes. Member Cottler seconded the motion. She was struggling and holding back on her comments because she was going to incorporate them Into a motion. She pretty much agrees with what the other Board Members have said and she did feel that given the environmental concerns of this particular site, that the developer has done a good job integrating the natural area Into the plan. She thought the road as proposed minimizes the Impact on the ravine. She did not think that the proposed use would have as little impact as potential public use, In terms of impact on the natural area and the wildlife habitat there. I• terms of some of the technical questions that have been raised, at this point they have satisfied preliminary requirements and what she is going on Is that more detail will be required at final and will be submitted or they will not be seeing a final plan until that level of detail regarding storm drainage, erosion and until that level of detail is provided. She thought those concerns will be addressed later and she was 24 • comfortable with that. Member Walker stated that the reason he suggested the reduction of the number of lots was because while he feels this is a difficult site to work with, he thought putting five lots on the cast side was trying to go just a little far and that was the intent of reducing the number of lots, and that will lessen the intensity so that some of these issues can be addressed satisfactorily. Motion was approved 7-0. Meeting was adjourned at 9:34 p.m. • 25