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HomeMy WebLinkAboutUPPER MEADOW AT MIRAMONT PUD - PRELIMINARY - 54-87G - DECISION - MINUTES/NOTES (2)PLANNING AND ZONING BOARD MEETING MINUTES June 29, 1992 Gerry Horak, Council Liaison Tom Peterson, Staff Support Liaison The regular meeting of the Planning and Zoning Board was called to order at 6:35 p.m. in the Council Chambers of City Hall West, 300 LaPorte Avenue, Fort Collins, Colorado. Board members present included: Vice Chairman Lloyd Walker, Jan Cottier, Joe Carroll, Laurie O'Dell and Rene Clements - Cooney. Chairman Strom and Member Klataske were absent. Staff members present included Planning Director Tom Peterson, Deputy City Attorney Paul Eckman, Kerrie Ashbeck, Ted Shepard and Georgiana Taylor. (Identification of citizen participants is from verbal statements and not necessarily correct since none signed in.) AGENDA REVIEW Mr. Peterson reviewed the Discussion Agenda. The Discussion Agenda included: Item 1 - Oak/Cottonwood Farm - Amended Overall Development Plan, #54-87F; Item 2 - Oak/Cottonwood Farm, Upper Meadows at Miramont - Preliminary PUD, #54-87G; Item 3 - Stoneridge PUD - Overall Development Plan, #21-92B; Item 4 - Stoneridge PUD, 1st Filing - Preliminary PUD, #21- 92C; Item 5 - Dakota Ridge PUD, 1st Filing - Preliminary PUD, #60-91D. OAK/COTTONWOOD FARM - AMENDED OVERALL DEVELOPMENT PLAN, #54-87F OAK/COTTONWOOD FARM UPPER MEADOWS AT MIRAMONT - PRELIMINARY PUD, #54-87G Mr. Shepard gave the Staff Report on the Overall Development Plan recommending approval with the condition that if the development of Parcel S results in evaluation by the Auto Related and Roadside Commercial Point Chart of the Land Development Guidance System, then the design guidelines found in the Neighborhood Convenience Shopping Center: Design Guidelines, Policies, and Criteria (an element of the City's Comprehensive Plan) shall be the pertinent valuative criteria in order to promote the desired level of site, landscape, and architectural quality. Mr. Shepard also gave the Staff Report on the Upper Meadows at Miramont, Preliminary, recommending approval with the condition that, at the time of Final, for only 14 lots necessary to reach 65% compliance, the applicant shall provide additional techniques to accomplish the intent of the Solar Orientation Ordinance. Such techniques may include, but are not limited to, maximizing glazing on the southern exposure, placing garages on the north side of the structure, or siting the structure on the lot so that the home itself is within 30 degrees of a true east -west line. Such techniques shall be demonstrated on the Final P.U.D. Mr. Jim Knight, a resident of Fossil Creek Meadows immediately adjacent to the property, asked about the change in density being proposed. Mr. Shepard replied there were a variety of parcels that had some subtle changes in density. Overall in the entire 271 acres there was an approximate reduction of 242 dwelling units from the 1989 plan which was the plan of record. There was about a 06 acre differential in multi -family and that amount of multi- family was being reduced out of the 1992 amendment. The applicant was here tonight and could give June 29, 1992 P&Z Board Meeting Minutes Page 2 a presentation on those actual parcels and which parcels have changed in density. Overall in the basic 271 acre master plan there was a reduction of about 242 units. Mr. Knight asked if it would be possible at sometime to see the 1989 plan. Mr. Shepard replied that all the plans were available at the Planning Department and that he would be happy to make some prints. Chairman Walker asked if we had slides of them. Mr. Shepard replied that the applicant had prepared a presentation. Vice Chairman Walker asked if the variance that the Board was granting was to the 3 units per acre on the preliminary plan. Mr. Shepard replied that was on the Miramont project. Vice Chairman Walker explained that what they were considering as a variance was the fact that 3 units per acre is the minimum number of dwelling units and this project proposed to have a lesser density than that so they had to get a variance. Eldon Ward, Cityscape Urban Design, stated he thought a good place to start would be the question that came up about how densities had changed in the plan of record. As the plan evolved over the last five years and have gotten into more detail with both changes in the market place and changes in the planning standard, a whole variety of things have come up with a number of variations as Ted had said. The Oak Cottonwood area has generally evolved into four different planning areas. The Harmony Market commercial area, which they were all familiar with, which is parcel R, and parcel S, which is also commercial fronting on Harmony Road and with the proposed development of Miramont Residential Area which is basically parcels A through L, generally everything south and west of Boardwalk up to a point there. Parcels T, U, and V were a transitional area between the existing Fairway Estates neighborhood to the west and the more intense uses at Harmony Market and Oakridge to the east. There have been restrictions placed on the master plan for uses in that area and also some private agreements between the property owners. The central area between Boardwalk and Lemay which forms a transition between the residential neighborhood and the more intense uses to the north and east. Many of the changes in this were somewhat subtle although they have accomplished a lot of things from a planning standpoint. They have a street system that no longer creates a major thoroughfare between Southridge Greens Boulevard through Southridge Greens directly over to Fossil Creek Parkway and up to College Avenue. They had made some other changes that would be able to keep the smaller residential neighborhood clusters a little more self contained in terms of circulation and not need as many connections to the Fossil Creek Meadows neighborhood to the west. One of the ongoing traffic discussions over the past years had been access to Werner School, while they could not do anything about where Werner's parking lot and their main vehicular access was, they have proposed a drop off area on the east of the school which should reduce a lot of the day to day trips and be able to keep a lot of that drop off traffic to this school making this loop through rather than everybody going over to Mail Creek Lane. June 29, 1992 P&Z Board Meeting Minutes Page 3 The density was generally lower as they looked at more of the realities of what the market would support these days and the other changes which they understood had gotten a lot of discussion was the label on parcel S between Boardwalk and the Front Range Baptist Church. When the original master plan was done in 1987, land use labels on master plans were a little more general in nature and we weren't yet doing what we do now. We typically label land uses according to land uses in the Land Development Guidance System so that in the current Master Plan the parcel was labeled retail office which was not an LDGS category and there were lengthy notes describing non- residential uses that might be proposed in different areas. Included in that description it stated that auto - related and roadside commercial uses would be considered on this map on parcel lA and 1B only which was essentially parcels R and S. So with general notations that were put on the old Master Plan in 1989, it was part of that determination that those were the parcels where auto -related and roadside uses could be considered. As they were preparing the new Overall Development Plan, there was and still is an active use looking at that parcel. As they looked at this narrow piece at its location, fronting on Harmony, with a really limited east/west dimension, they felt that it was most likely that the uses that would work there were typically found in the auto -related and roadside commercial area. Vice Chairman Walker asked Mr. Ward to point out where the Upper Meadows at Miramont was on the Overall Plan. Mr. Ward pointed out first phase of the Miramont project and that the preliminary was parcels F & G which would be the first two filings. The first final was essentially parcel G which was on track to be at the July board meeting. Member Cottier asked on proposed amended ODP what was the overall density of all residential parcels together. Mr.Ward replied that all residential parcels together were about 5.5 units per acre. He had to be a little vague there because it was hard to give a good answer because parcels N & Q were proposed for business services, multi family or a mix of both. In their statistics for land use breakdown they made an assumption of a mix so it was a little fuzzy there. If they looked at the Miramont residential area, Parcel A through L, they were currently planned right now at right around 4 units per acre. Member Cottier asked about the designation of Parcel S, the old lA and what exactly did the note on the old Master Plan say with respect to auto -related and roadside commercial. Mr. Ward replied there was a list of non-residential uses to be allowed at the Oak Cottonwood Master Plan. The exact wording is that "auto -related and roadside commercial uses would be considered on parcels IA and 1B only." Mr. Carroll asked Mr. Ward if the school drop off site accommodates school buses as well as passenger vehicles. Mr. Ward replied it wasn't designed to do that right now. They have had some preliminary discussions with the school district and at the time they were still looking queuing their school buses around at the front of the school. It was more of a parent drop off area. It was for parent drop off and pick up, which was the real traffic congestion problem as the parents lining up there at noon and 3:00 p.m. to pick up their kids. 0 June 29, 1992 P&Z Board Meeting Minutes Page 4 Member Carroll asked they have a one mile walk in radius before bus service is provided. Mr. Ward replied that the student population within the one mile radius will go up and that will mean less busing in general. A higher percentage of students would be walking in and less of a demand for parents to be driving over here. They were not opposed to facilitating bus movement there, but had not gotten to that level of detail yet. Vice -Chairman Walker asked if Mr. Ward Could discuss what the changes for Boardwalk and the area south and west of there and were there any appreciable changes on the other side of Boardwalk. Could he characterize how this was different from the existing plan. Mr. Ward replied the two or three things that dictated changes here. Boardwalk had made a subtle change to slightly more to the east than on the old plan where it was much closer to the Mail Creek Ditch and much more parallel. They wanted to make that change both to get more area to work with between Boardwalk and the ditch and to make that less of a race track through there. Where they have enough of a curve that you can't see for 3,000 feet as you're coming into that. They pulled the anticipated neighborhood park out as per the Land Use Policy Plan to have access from a collector and not be buried back in the section so much which has led to a little bit more of a straight forward arrangement of business service, multi -family pieces. The connector street had been realigned to cross the ditch at a better location, to provide the ability to make the drop off work. They had the ability for a much more remote pedestrian walk -way in the past and it also let them create parcels which could be somewhat self- contained. For example parcel H could be served with cul-de-sacs, whereas under the old plan in order to make two points of access in this area, they would have had to have had at least one street connection going through to Fossil Creek Meadows. Also from a neighborhood planning standpoint and a phasing standpoint, they were seeing parcel sizes that were doable in the 15 to 20 acre range and finding that you can create something of a contained neighborhood cluster in areas of this type as opposed to more of the old fashioned streets and lots for miles and miles. The bigger parcels were a little more restrictive and maybe a little bit more monotonous in terms of planning the low density neighborhoods. Those things and then the third element gets in to some details of how sanitary sewer service works. Boardwalk and the northerly part of the site above the Mail Creek Ditch is served by Fort Collins the lower part is served by the district. There is a sewer over towards Southridge Greens that is needed to serve an area here. There was an existing in sewer in the Mail Creek Lane that is needed to serve this and this particular circulation route lends itself to sewer service a little bit more. So, at a glance, the changes were not substantial, but it was the ability to do some good things from a planing standpoint. They were significantly better in their opinion. PUBLIC INPUT Harold Swope, president of the Fairway Estates Property Owners Association, stated that it was good new and bad news as far as they were concerned. Overall, they were very much in favor of the plan. They highly supported the Miramont development. They were very pleased with the changes that were made in the Boardwalk configuration. Also, they were very pleased to see that there was going to be a park in the neighborhood. They did have vigorous opposition, however, to the 2.9 acres. They were very disappointed in that frankly. I thought most of them were on the board at the time that the Harmony Market was approved and you know the whole discussion at that time. There was a great deal of discussion. There was the transition, the buffering between Harmony Market and Fairway Estates. That was a very crucial issue, in fact, it was so crucial that this is a copy of the written agreement that they have with the City, with GT Land, with the church, Front Range Baptist Church, which is right adjacent June 29, 1992 P&Z Board Meeting Minutes Page 5 to this 2.9 acres and Fairway Property Owners Association and this restricts development in that area adjacent to Fairway Estates to single family housing. What they were doing was addressing that land they were promised that the land west of Boardwalk would be a buffer and transition between Harmony Market and Fairway Estates. Now they were a little bit shocked, although, he would certainly acknowledge that this did not included this 2.9 acres. Legally this was not included in this agreement but ethically it certainly was. There was never a mention of any auto -related businesses going in there at all. As he said, and he emphasized, this was to be a transition and buffering area, everything west of Boardwalk. To come in and ask for a more intense use in the buffered area, even than was allowed in the Harmony Market really disappoints him personally and he thought as a Board in the Fairway Estates Homeowners area with the Land Developers there. He was really surprised and disappointed that they would come in with auto -related. They highly object. This was as he said, a buffering area and they certainly object with this continuous drive -through traffic that you get from automotive. There was already so much traffic over there the noise pollution had certainly increased considerably and this was considerably closer to Fairway Estates than Harmony Market. They also object to the highly volatile fuels that would be placed there, likely it would be a 24 hour station. That was something they wouldn't know until later on, but there would be cars in and out all day and all night. There was a portion of that, he knew they said, well the church is between us and Fairway Estates, the church did come between Fairway Estates and this proposed 2.9 acres, however, this area extends far south of the church and they did have residences that look right into this same area that they were talking about. So they certainly do, he thought if this was approved, he would get the message that it sends them, don't trust anything that you are told, be sure to read all of the fine print. When you get a written agreement, get an agreement on every little area and make sure all the is are dotted and the is are crossed. Mark Thomas, who also lives in Fairway Estates, stated he had a couple issues, first that he was directly adjacent to the proposed development Miramont and they were pleasantly surprised with the proposal that Mr. Nordick brought them and they were very pleased. There probably wasn't anybody in town that did a higher quality development than him and so the good and bad news of it was, he wished they did not have to address these two issues together because they were not related. They would like the opportunity, he is on the board as well, and he did talk with several of the neighbors that were going to be adjacent to this proposed amendment on parcel S. He would like to do this in a manner that sounds more technical than anything. It was hard not to be emotional about this issue because this was not the representation that was made to them during the Pace procedure. It has been a couple of years ago, but business service was the related issue and he thought they could look on the original 1989 master plan and it did not make any mention in the overall representation of auto -related. If that was true, they wouldn't be here today asking for an amendment, this would just be a preliminary site plan for some applicant, but that was not the case. There was not even an applicant so it could not even be discussed. If the Board amends the plan, then when it was time for the applicant to come, the issues they would like to raise would not be able to be addressed because it would already be zoned commercial and the Board would refer back to that issue that happened previously. He thought it was very important for the Board to understand that he was not new to the process. For several years they have worked with this. He has spoke with the PFA on the issues of underground hydrocarbon storage. He came to tell them tonight that there are glaring problems with this issue. If the Board approves this, then the LDGS as it stands today was not going to work. This was a site that did not need to have this intense of a use placed on it and that was not the representation. June 29, 1992 P&Z Board Meeting Minutes Page 6 When the Overall Plan was changed to accept the high density development of Pace, Builders Square and now Steele's Market, it should have locked in various other uses. The logic is that at that point, the business related services that were designed for parcel S should have been locked in. That was the transition, that was the only buffer they expected. That's how it was represented. They should not have to come back two years later and defend the very decision that was made that night. He felt uncomfortable. He understood the system, but he did not like the logic. There are four criteria in neighborhood compatibility. He worked on the workshop this year with Sherry Albertson -Clark and he knew how confusing these issues are and he knew how tough they were to answer, but he thought there were some glaring answers in this one that would not work. In social compatibility, he had a hard time defining that. He was not sure anyone knows what that meant, but under that particular compatibility he would like to refer that to criteria number 3 and use that to address the church issue. Under physical compatibility, He was not sure how to define that in relation to this request, but as we move on down to Criteria 3 and 4 some very interesting things did come up. Criteria number 3 Land Use Conflicts, he would like to ask the Board's help in this if he has misinterpreted this. Under land use conflict, the church was exactly ten feet away. This was a Bible school. There are students of a young age there on a daily basis, basically 24 hours a day when the dormitories were finished and various classrooms were there. Under auto -related uses he wanted to read to them the particular things that could be done 10 feet away from the church. This would include adult book stores, eating places with adult amusement or entertainment, adult photos, adult theaters and any such intended use to provide adult amusement. Under that very criteria on page 19 of the LDGS, it says, if the project contains any uses as intended to provide adult amusement or entertainment did it meet the following requirements. He knew what they thought, that it was going to be a Pit Stop, that's what came in on the original application to the public hearing that we all went to. They now seem to have vanished, but he thought they were in the wings waiting for this to be approved. They would sell pornographic magazines and beer. Your are exactly 50 feet away from a church. He felt an auto -related use that close to that church was unacceptable. They had to answer yes then to paragraph A, where it says, was the use established to operate or maintain no less than 500 feet from a residential neighborhood, church or school meeting. No it is not. Was the use established to operate or maintain no less than 1000 feet from another similar use. No it was not, it is 200 feet from a 7-11. He has a problem, it says in the book that you have to answer yes to every one of these criteria. You cannot answer yes to those unless he was missing something. That was why in the original Master Plan it was business services. The next issue in criteria was traffic. He thought there was no question that an auto -related use on this parcel was going to change the traffic pattern. On Saturday and Sunday he would like to see the traffic studies today for this auto -related use. He thought it is only fair that they provide them now with the current traffic count that Pace, Builders Square and Steele's was providing to that intersection at Boardwalk and Harmony. On Saturday and Sunday it was impossible to make a left hand turn there. He goes there and he could tell you first hand you have to stay clear back in the parking lot in front of Pace, you were not even allowed to get on the frontage road at Boardwalk because there were so many cars lined up in the left hand lane. It won't work. An auto -related use in the front of that whole problem will simply complicate that already unbelievable complicated traffic pattern. And, when you finally connect Boardwalk on over to Lemay you will have that traffic to add to the Harmony cut-off. You have no applicant here tonight that was wanting to have it as auto -related. They were told it was businesses June 29, 1992 P&Z Board Meeting Minutes Page 7 services which was a various assortment of, look at the point chart of retail office uses, which sounds considerably less intensive than auto -related. So, the traffic issue and the land conflict so close to the church to me raised great issues of why do we want to create another problem for ourselves. Tonight we can put a stop to all of that by simply saying it was not auto -related, it was business services, it makes all of that go away. The other issues that he wanted raise just from a public point of view was the safety of storing of hydrocarbons underground. He has not gotten any good answers on this issue and he has to tell you it was disturbing because you can say to yourself that there are people who are qualified to make this decision that have been involved in this process already and have helped them to decide that this was a safe place to put gasoline underground. That was not true. He has already asked those questions. Have they seen a copy of the soil test? Well, he did not have to bring up the issue because there was great documented evidence of the water sand problem between the pierre shale and the very shallow 4 to 10 foot depth water sand in that neighborhood. That specific neighborhood has a tremendous water problem. From basements which run water, as his did, to various surface problems which Mr. Nordic has run into with his development. All of the houses in parcel G that you pointed out here, would have sub surface drains under the foundation, in Mr. Nordic's development, there was so much water present there. Well, this was just up the road from that and what they were going to do there was the drainage at Harmony breaks to the north and to the south at the road and he would read to them from the Harmony Corridor Plan where it discussed the run off issue in this particular location of parcel S. It says, " Harmony Road to Lemay Avenue south side of Harmony this area is called the McClellan basin and it drains to the south and the southeast. On site detention is required with a dual release rate of allowable range of a ten year storm." He did not need to read any further because this particular parcel did not have enough area to have a detention pond. There was no way to put a Pit Stop with an auto-lube and a little convenience store that sells gasoline and a detention pond which was required because of the drainage issue in this area. There was going to be 2 acres of asphalt with gasoline dripping off cars, it was a related use, we know the issues, and they were going to run off into this basin. That is just the surface problem, now we were going to add that to the already complicated issues of drainage, containment and detention of the area. Do they want to put hydrocarbons into the detention ponds over there that Pace and Builders Square Built. He did not think they did. On the underground issue, this was the part that amazes him. He worked on the workshop for neighborhood compatibility and they all raised this issue. He had to tell them they would be amazed how little data was actually out there. Mr. Shepard has not had to deal with this issue. It was not part of his job, it was passed off to the Poudre Fire Authority. That seemed fair in a way, except he was the man that had to make the decision and he did not have the technical data on what was going to happen on this under ground hydrocarbon storage, he did not have it. It was maintained on the following basis. When and after those tanks have been buried by the supervision of the PFA under the latest high tech development of double lined epoxy resin tanks, they would then have a system that they believe is safe. The point was that you won't know that it has failed until a neighbor, that has a basement, and all those properties do along Fairway Estates where there was already a known water sand problem, has got gasoline in a sump pump. Now that's a considerably dangerous situation to be in. The owner of the property would not have to notify the landowner of that problem until the land owner himself has determined it exists. Even if he had to monitor the property, he would not be requested to provide any leak data to those neighbors until they had discovered the problem themselves. That was the current state statute. He would not know that there had been a gasoline leak until it got into his basement, even though there had been monitor wells that had been placed on that property, even though the private individual who own that gas station knows that there was gasoline missing. That could not be right. It June 29, 1992 P&Z Board Meeting Minutes Page 8 was illogical, but true. The double lined epoxy resin tanks, well they have connections. Where they come in and out of the tank were standard fittings. The fittings leak. There was no system today that will totally confine hydrocarbon. The data was out, and it was available for all of us to read. Every truck that comes up and fills those tanks would have to drain the hydrocarbon in the hoses. It did not sound like much, but every hose, every truck, every week, day in and day out was drained into a catch basin for that product. That product was directly adjacent to the water sand. It was not in the double lined epoxy resin tank. It was available in the water sand in the gravel network called the catch basin. Over a period of ten years, that was a lot of gasoline. Gasoline was permeable, it liked to go everywhere water does only ten times faster. He spoke from experience on that because he is an engineer for an oil company and he was telling you this was no place to put a gas station. But, that data had not been supplied yet, even to the City Planners themselves. They would not know that until one of the neighbors hired an attorney and sued the gas station. That brought up an issue, who would that be? Well, the first applicant would be the Pit Stop, a small independently run company from Nebraska. It's not Conoco, it's not Texaco, it's not anybody, it's just a small independent. The point was when it came time to settle on all the homes that had been damaged by this use, he was not the kind of Company that was able to settle that kind of financial problem. They did not look at that as the issue, but they should be looking at the fact that they were now going to bring one of the most toxic fluids that we come into contact with on a daily basis, into a residential neighborhood, in an already known water sand problem area. All of that was true, and yet none of that had been considered in the recommendation tonight to amend this to an auto -related use. That was a flaw in the system but he though that was something they had to decide because now they were the ones that were faced with the ultimate decision. In summary, right now they were going to use a business service point chart to evaluate property S, he did not see any problem with that, that's what they were told, that's what they expect. This jargon tonight about it being all auto -related, he was sorry, that was not what was said. Now, there were a lot of people present and was all on tape. They had all looked at the Pace appeal and it was all there because that was when it was discussed. There was never any mention of the auto -related use there. Even if there was, why were they amending it then? If this was the time to stop that this was the best time in the world to do that. They really need the help. They implore the facts were there, everything stands against this as an auto -related area. It was too small. It was going to create traffic problems, It was going to add additional issues to the development of a small parcel that they did not need to address. Why? He thought there was only one reason for why it was being addressed tonight. First of all, it was attached to a very respectable request to build a great residential area in Fort collins. It would not stand on it's own, that was why it was here tonight. The other issue was of economics. It was obviously to the developers point of view, it made more sense on the return of the dollar. It was not their responsibility to do that. When they accepted the plan with Pace in the heart of their development they also knew that they intended to put business services on this parcel so they shouldn't have to address that issue for them. Let them find somebody to use that. They knew that at the time. Thank you very much. William Knight, resident of Fossil Creek Meadows, immediately adjacent to the proposed development spoke. He noted he was also on the Board of Directors for Citizen Planners and he was on the Storm Drainage Board for the City of Fort Collins. As such, he would like to point out that the City had listed in its Natural Areas Plan that Fossil Creek and Mail Creek were both sensitive areas that should be protected. They had already sustained a fair amount of stability erosion type problems along both of those drainage areas in their neighborhood. He did not see any provision for catching additional drainage and run off to minimize this problem he only saw the problem accelerating as a function of the planned development. He thought a serious look needed to be taken of that. About a year ago, the City had June 29, 1992 P&Z Board Meeting Minutes Page 9 commissioned some engineers and some geo-technical people to come down and look at the problem, they have done that and made some recommendations, to date nothing had been done. He could only see the problem increasing and he would like to see that addressed before this plan was given any further consideration. Because it was a sensitive natural area there were a great number of wildlife species that they had come to love and appreciate down there. They have Great Blue Heron, they have foxes, we have Red Tail Hawks. They have a lot of wildlife that provides pleasure to themselves and a habitat for those organisms. He would like to see them be considered in the Overall Development Plan. Any impact on Fossil Creek and Mail Creek could be expected to impact those things as well. If the quality of the drainage water diminished Mail Creek or Fossil Creek water quality any further, the aquatic life in those areas would be further threatened. He would like to see that whole issue addressed. The second thing was,, he had some questions, comments having to do with the Solar Orientation Ordinance. He would like to know if a full 70% of the homes proposed were going to meet the Solar Orientation Ordinance. It was tough for him to see in some of the higher density areas, how that was going to be accomplished. If it was not, what good was the ordinance. He also wanted to reiterate what the gentlemen had to say very eloquently and forcefully about the change in the plan having to do with the Pit Stop type of an arrangement. Ms. Lindy Conrad, resident of Oakridge, addressed parcel N. They bought their residence in Oakridge in 1988. They did not come down and look at any Master Plans, so they were naive to that, but at the time they were told that the land behind Lemay, Parcel N, was all to be single family homes. In 1989, it was rezoned for business services, they had seen some really nice development with business services. At the same time, there were neighbors who were told there was a height restriction on the hospital there and the height restriction was that it would not go over one story. That is not the case, as the building is standing two stories with the gym over there. Now, in 1992, it looked as though it was going to be rezoned as business service, multi -family, but as a resident of OakRidge, neighborhood cohesion was not there. Putting these higher level buildings in as multi -family could mean apartment buildings. She saw that they were not helping carry the property values that had been established within the Oakridge development. The people that do have views of the mountains and fields across would be lost if they go in with higher buildings again. She preferred to see that parcel N stay as business services. Granted, there were quite a few uses that they could anticipate for that area, but Q seems like a large enough area to accommodate it all. Ms. Laurie Pesetto, also a resident at Oakridge, asked about the actual connection from Mail Creek Lane to the road that connects with Boardwalk. Mr. Shepard replied no, there was a former proposal that was brought to the neighborhood information meeting that did show a local street connection to bring vehicular traffic to the front of Werner School via Mail Creek Lane. That local street connection had been deleted off the Master Plan. Ms. Pesetto suggested that if they did not connect it might be beneficial to add a parking area in addition to the drop off area for programs that occur at the school for all of those that attend from the eastern side. She also asked about the neighborhood park and how much of an area surrounding the park was it intended to serve. Mr. Shepard replied that neighborhood parks were intended to serve the square mile section in which they were located. In this area, this particular park was situated that it would serve Oakridge, Fairway June 29, 1992 P&Z Board Meeting Minutes Page 10 Estates, Miramont and possibly Fossil Creek Meadows. The reason being was that there were not any park sites. The available park site in Oakridge was a privately maintained detention pond that did not have the type of facilities that were anticipated for this park. That was one of the reasons Parks and Recreation would like to locate this park on a collector street so there would be easy access from both sides of Lemay Avenue. Ms. Pesetto asked if that meant it would have a higher density use than most neighborhood parks? Mr. Shepard replied the uses that were going in the park had not yet been determined. The park had not yet been acquired although negotiations were proceeding. There had to be a few years that go by so enough development occurs to generate the parkland fee to design and construct the park. After that period, Parks and Recreation has neighborhood meetings and they take input from the citizens as to what type of facilities would go into the park. Ms. Pesetto commented it was her understanding that each lot sold in Oakridge contributed part of the money to purchase this land and she just wanted to be assured that when the time came to develop this park, that Oakridge had a voice into how the park was developed and what equipment goes into the park. She would also favor a closer location to Lemay for this park so that it would provide better access to the families off Lemay in Oakridge. The kids that live in Oakridge would be crossing a major artery, which would be Lemay, which was not as large as any of the roads on the other sides of the park and that would also help to ensure that property values were not affected as highly as the business and residential multi -family use would give. She also wanted to know what the total overall unit number would be for the entire development. Mr. Shepard replied the land use breakdown on the ODP that you have before you tonight was listing a total of 848 units recognizing that several of the parcels had dual designations, that parcels N, parcels Q and A could go in a variety of densities and they caution folks at the ODP stage the Master Plans did not guarantee any densities. No vested rights are vested at this stage. Depending on how these parcels develop out, that 848 could change quite significantly. What we do was we try to get an accurate snapshot at this time as to what the proposed land uses could be and try to plan accordingly. So, we have an 848 on the ODP and recognize that this did not guarantee any kind of density and it could change over time. Ms. Pesetto asked if when they say significant number changes, did they mean it could go down or up? Mr. Shepard replied that was correct. Ms. Pesetto asked if it could be 1200 instead of 800? Mr. Shepard replied that was difficult to answer. Ms. Pesetto went on to say, if Oakridge moved back to Werner this year she saw that with this much development they would need another school within the time period that this development was completed. She believed that it would be wise to designate or save an area that might possibly be the site for this school. She also asked what the white section was that had no designation. Mr. Shepard replied that was the psychiatric hospital. June 29, 1992 P&Z Board Meeting Minutes Page 11 Ms Pesetto replied no, south. Mr. Shepard replied that was a private out parcel that was being held by a private owner. Ms. Pesetto asked if there was a plan to attempt to purchase this land. Mr. Shepard replied he did not know, that would be a question for the applicant. Ms. Pesetto asked if the land was purchased, would they be notified for a zoning change for that property? Mr. Shepard replied that for that parcel to be brought in to the ODP, it would have to go through an amended ODP process such as they were having this evening. Vice Chairman Walker also replied that if there were a PUD development on that, they would go through a similar process as we are doing now, and at this time that particular parcel was not part of their deliberation. Member Carroll asked about Mr. Knight's question concerning storm drainage into Fossil Creek and into Mail Creek, and was it addressed at the time of the Overall Development Plan. Mr. Shepard replied that the ODP did not specifically address drainage issues. That was determined at the time of the site plan review whether it is determined through a PUD, use by right through our drainage criteria, through the erosion control plan, which we did have requirements for, and for the drainage and grading plans that were required. These were generally reviewed by the Storm Drainage Department, the Engineering Department, and the Department of Natural Resources. Member Carroll asked about the concern that was raised about the redesignation of what is now shown as parcel N from business service to multi -family or business service and he thought the concern, if he remembered it correctly, was that the new designation would allow a greater height than just business service or if that would be something that they would address on a preliminary review. Mr. Shepard replied that the ODP level did not grant a vested right. There were no assumptions of density in terms of what could actually be proposed in terms of a site plan review and height would be one of the issues that would be addressed at the time of a PUD application for a multi -family project. Member Carroll asked that by allowing multi -family, the applicant was not automatically entitled to a height of X number of feet to where there was nothing they could do about that. Mr. Shepard replied that was correct, that would be part of a site specific PUD submittal. Member O'Dell asked if there was a wetland area on parcel N and had there been any thought to putting the park onto the wetland area. Mr. Ward replied that was an anticipated detention area as opposed to a wetland. It had been discussed, but the Parks Department, as they have done consistently in other sections, was fairly adamant against purchasing neighborhood parks with arterial frontage. Both because of the safety factor, and they have June 29, 1992 P&Z Board Meeting Minutes Page 12 higher development costs because they have to do the Developer's share of the arterial street improvements. Member O'Dell asked if they were interested in locating the park there so that the City would have to develop Lemay or did they have some other motivation as well. Mr. Ward replied they were not particularly motivated, they just wanted to have the options that they talked about. It was unusual that it was serving Oakridge on the other side of the arterial. They looked at a central area that would be combined with the large open space in the unoccupied psychiatric hospital, and they looked at several different configurations in terms of utilities, drainage, patterns and all of that. Again, one of the objections that the Parks Department had was that for the basin above the Mail Creek Ditch, storm water exits the site into the large drainage swale into Oakridge at that point and the Parks Department had specifically not wanted to combined parks with detention ponds if they could avoid it. So they had no particular motivation for N versus P versus part of Q there were just a number of alternatives that they had talked about. Member O'Dell stated it seemed like it would take care of several of the concerns of the neighbors concerning the view and the accessibility to the park. She could understand the safety concern. She thought there was probably some solution to that and she would hope that there could be some creative solutions to who could pay for the development improvements to Lemay. She thought that it would not make a difference to them whether they were building multi -family there or if they were building multi- family somewhere else to have to improve Lemay and she did not know if anything was ever creatively done with the Parks Department or the City in terms of development and who pays for the development or the improvements to the arterial. Mr Shepard replied the Parks Department was considered the Developer if they owned land adjacent to an arterial. As development pays its own way so shall Parks pay for their arterial frontage. That was why they sought internal frontage off collector streets. The corner of Boardwalk and Lemay would be signalized as warrants generate the traffic so it would be a safe crossing to get to it but, they just did not want that arterial frontage. Member O'Dell still hoped that they could talk about this again with the Parks Department. It certainly seemed that if the Developer was willing to chip in with the development along Lemay that may be a possibility. Mr. Peterson added we would be happy to raise the issue again with the Parks Department because this was one of the more difficult square miles because the location of the elementary school had already been chosen and he thought that the Board realized that their cooperative arrangements with the School District these days was to try to locate elementary schools and neighborhood parks together. He thought Mr. Shepard touched on some of the things about how the Parks Department views neighborhood parks in terms of the costs. One of the things that he had to tell them was that the $625.00 per unit for parkland fees was rapidly getting to the point of not being sufficient for both the acquisition and development of neighborhood park sites. He would urge the people that were concerned however, because this was a very similar situation to what they had in Clarendon Hills to open a dialogue with the Parks and Recreation Commission and Park Department about the location of the park. It was going to have a major impact on the neighborhood. Quite frankly, having the neighborhood express interest was a good way to bring the issue to a head as they go through the acquisition. They had not committed to this point June 29, 1992 P&Z Board Meeting Minutes Page 13 to what they were going to acquire. They had been in negotiations a considerable amount of time with the land owner. Member O'Dell encouraged the neighbors to talk to the Parks Department too because they could not make that decision. The Board could make a recommendation but certainly no decision. Another issue, She sort of painfully remembered all of the Pace discussions and she very clearly remembered the discussion about the buffering between Fairway Estates and the Pace development, Harmony Market. She was opposed to any kind of change up there in the designated use. She thought to change it without an applicant was irresponsible on the Board's part and going back on something they assured the neighbors. She would not support that change to the Master Plan. She thought the changes in terms of density and the realignment of Boardwalk made sense. She also clarified that the Solar Orientation Ordinance called for 65% of the lots to be solar oriented rather than 80%. Vice Chairman Walker asked why there was no neighborhood park in Oakridge. Mr. Shepard replied no he could not, he did not know the background. He did know that the detention pond was developed as a mini park site, but he believed it was maintained by the Oakridge Homeowners Association and they were paying for the irrigation. Perhaps the applicant could expand on that. Mr. Ward replied there was not a neighborhood park on the City Parks Master Plan and they were not interested in pursuing a park site as Oakridge developed. There was an attempt by the Oakridge developer to try to do something jointly with the large detention pond. He did not know if they had been by there, but they planned it with a number of recreational facilities, not as extensively as the City would have typically done in a neighborhood park. But because of the dual purpose of the detention pond, the Parks Department wasn't interested in getting involved in the ownership or maintenance of it. He thought part of the complication dealt with Southridge and the Southridge Golf Course being more of a community recreational area in that section. With the railroad tracks and the extensive industrial business park in Oakridge, the number of units to generate the figure to do a neighborhood park did not appear to be there for the section east of Lemay on its own and he believed, that their decision was that they could generate parkland fees in order to do a better park in this section with the existing lower density county subdivision than to try to do two very small parks on either side of Lemay by sizing the parks and facilities around the parkland fees generated. It was discussed intermittently as the Oakridge filings came into the City, but that was always the conclusion that Oakridge on its own would not generate enough fees to justify a neighborhood park and the Parks Department was not interested in joint venturing or getting involved in the detention area recreation area. Mr. Peterson added that because he thought there were a couple of other reasons that needed to come out. He thought they had a number of large lot county subdivisions occur a number of years ago so there were no fees collected there. Also, the City had acquired 60 - 70 acres around Portner Reservoir for not a neighborhood park, but a community park which was south of the property that they were talking about. There had never been any funds appropriated for development, but the acquisition had been accomplished. The thought of the Parks Department at that time was that some of those neighborhood park features that you would see would be built in that Portner Reservoir Park and since that had not come to fruition they had been looking to the north. He thought most of them remembered Paragon Point which was the development south of the Southridge development. The Parks Department was looking at another smaller scale park to service two square mile area. June 29, 1992 P&Z Board Meeting Minutes Page 14 Member Clements -Cooney asked about the potential for a bike path or a trail system along Mail Creek, do you know if the Park Department is pursing that. Mr. Shepard replied no, that would be a Homeowner's Association path. That was not part of the Fossil Creek bike path that was being funded out of the lottery funding. The Fossil Creek bike path would go to the park that Tom just referred to, Fossil Creek Community Park. But, along Mail Creek that was more of a little neighborhood connection, not part of the Parks Master Plan. Member Clements -Cooney added that Parkland Fees were not adequate to throw road improvements into the equation. Although, if the neighborhood would like to pursue that, she thought the Parks & Recreation Department would be open to discussing those options so feel free to pursue that. Also, a comment regarding parcel S, she would also not be supporting the change of parcel S to auto -related roadside commercial and would like to agree with what Member O'Dell said and just second what she said. Member Cottier talked further about the buffering issue and the discussion they had with Pace. Her recollection was that they made some very strong commitments to Fairway Estates, but she couldn't remember exactly if they applied to the new parcel designated S or just to the residential parcels south. She went back looking at the minutes and it did not tell her the answer to those questions. From their discussion tonight, she was disappointed to hear that there was a note on the Master Plan to hear that auto -related and roadside commercial were acceptable here because that was not her recollection. Another point she would like to make in going back and looking at the minutes from this meeting, in 1989 when the then Master Plan was approved she had asked about the restrictions on the then parcel G & H. The minutes said that G would be zoned RL and H would be treated as though zoned RLM and that they were giving up the right to come back later and amend the Master Plan but reserved the right to seek things such as a day care center and residential scale office buildings on H. She did not remember anything about that, but with that right in the minutes she was kind of wondering was there any kind of a commitment that the Master Plan would not be amended. That aside, apart from parcel S, she thought no one was objecting to the other amendment because they did reflect improved treatment of the specific situation out there. She also was opposed to changing the designation on parcel S, and would be opposed to an auto roadside use on that parcel even though she realized that, that particular location was acceptable. She would be opposed to it based on what she thought were the Board's commitments at the time when they were trying to compromise on Pace. With respect to parcel N and the designation or changed designation there, she thought multi -family could be appropriate, but she would suggest that they might add a height restriction if they wanted to say multi -family or business services there. Vice Chairman Walker commented on parcel S and by making this proposed change it seemed like they were closing out a number of options and they saw no point in doing so this time. He believed that Mr. Thomas made the point very well, that the business service designation was it now stands we have quite a number of options that could potentially be looked at and I see no reason why we need to foreclose those options by changing that designation at this point in time. Member O'Dell asked about the drop off lane on the east side of Werner Elementary School. Someone tonight in the public input part suggested there be a parking area there and there were lots of times that parents go to the school and stay for extended periods of time rather than just dropping of their kids. She was sitting trying to figure out how could they use that in a way to serve the school and serve the needs of the parents on those occasions when they would go there, and maybe it could be designated as an June 29, 1992 P&Z Board Meeting Minutes Page 15 overflow parking for special event kinds of things and the rest of the times it could be a basketball court and roped off so that cars could not park there. Had there been any discussion with the School District to put any kind of parking area there and any kind of creative ideas of what else it could be. Mr. Ward replied he talked to the School District about their parking needs and they admitted that in the elementary schools they were building now they did build more parking. There were also limits to how many of the School District problems that the private Developer could afford to solve here. The school did recognize that they were short on parking. He did not hear any firm plans on the School District's part to add any parking. In addition to the things that they talked about before with certainly the ability for evening users to walk in from a, practical standpoint, that did not happen a great deal. Their main circulation streets, although, not needed to be designed as city collector streets, were intended to be done with predominantly, if not, entirely side yards with houses that would front and take their access off of local streets that come off of that and there would at least be a fair amount of on -street parking available that wouldn't be diminished by people's driveways and a little bit less of a burden on a neighborhood than when you get on street parking up and down the local streets that were also houses. That may not address it as well as a nice new parking lot, but it was something that is available that the School District has talked about. Mr. Shepard added that they were very interested in controlling the vehicular and pedestrian traffic in front of the school and isolating it to just one location. That way the back playground area was free from vehicular conflicts as much as possible. That was why they had a separate bus lane in the front and a separate parking lane. That was where they figured all the conflict was and that was where they wanted to control it and not add another area of conflict on the east. Vice Chairman Walker stated he thought as he recalled this discussion and again he thought the School District was the one that had very strong ideas on that. Mixing pedestrians, particularly short pedestrians, and cars was not a good idea. Member O'Dell commented she wasn't suggesting that the Developer build a parking lot, she was hoping that the school would see that as a possible solution that they could get involved in. Mr. Ward replied they had talked about that, if the best solution in this area requires more room than we can provide, given the street geometric and grades out there that he saw some willingness from the School District that this existing fence was not an immovable barrier, that if they needed some more room to make the right solution happen that they could get some cooperation from the School District both in terms of encroaching into their area and possibly picking up some of the expenses. He felt like the meetings they had, had been with a cooperative spirit. Member Carroll moved the approval of Oak Cottonwood Farm, Amended Overall Development Plan with the exception that Parcel S remain as shown as the same use as this parcel 1A previously which I believe is office retail. Member Clements -Cooney seconded the motion. Member Cottier commented that since other Board Members did not seem to be particularly interested in any sort of a height restriction on parcel N, that they certainly would consider that whenever a PUD did come in on that parcel. June 29, 1992 P&Z Board Meeting Minutes Page 16 Member Carroll replied he wouldn't say he wasn't interested, he would say it slipped by him. He thought, the way he understood his response was there was no particular height restriction with either business services or multi -family, so whatever ends up there they would address at that time. He was very concerned that by allowing the additional multi -family, they were somehow approving a higher height, but that having answered by concern he did not mean that they were not interested. Vice Chairman Walker commented that was that he thought that if that was an issue of concern, that it would probably be more appropriately addressed at a preliminary plan that they might see on that site and it might be considered in that context. Mr. Shepard commented for the benefit of the citizens, that might not be aware, there was a building height cap in the entire city of Fort Collins, the forty foot height limitation. No building could exceed that unless they went through a special approval process that had to come before this Board. The motion was approved 5-0. UPPER MEADOW AT MIRAMONT, PRELIMINARY, #54-87G Mr. Shepard gave the Staff report recommending approval with the following condition: At the time of Final, for only 14 lots necessary to reach 65% compliance, the applicant shall provide additional techniques to accomplish the intent of the Solar Orientation Ordinance. Such techniques may include. but were not limited to, maximizing glazing on the southern exposure, placing garages on the north side of the structure, or siting the structure on the lot so that the home itself is within 30 degrees of a true east -west line. Such techniques shall be demonstrated on the Final PUD. Member Cottier asked if they have had that same condition on previous solar variances. Mr. Ward had a brief handout regarding their position on the extra conditions on the solar access for the Board to look at. He would briefly say that this was a plan that they thought had been very well thought out in terms of a number of goals that they had and as far as achieving things like quality streetscaping along Boardwalk, having to meet the on site detention requirements, but also to do it in a pleasing aesthetic manner, as opposing to designing around to a more efficient but less attractive squarish detention pond attempt to come close to the city minimum of 3 units per acre, but still have lot sizes that they felt were necessary here and they felt were more"compatible to the existing large lot subdivision to the west. He thought, unless there were other questions, the real focus of the discussion was probably towards the extraordinary condition on the Solar Orientation Ordinance. Those of them that were involved in the formulation of the Solar Orientation Ordinance, the question came up repeatedly that if there were sight conditions or if it would require to dilute the quality of the plan to force a solar orientation, were they going to require solar orientation regardless of other valid planing concepts, or was it one of many criteria in planning and they were repeatedly told that was why there was a variance procedure. If they had conditions like an existing drainage way, from Mail Creek Ditch, predetermined street alignments, drainage patterns that, particularly because of the flatness of the site, needed to do certain things, those were exactly the reasons why there was a variance process. 0 June 29, 1992 P&Z Board Meeting Minutes Page 17 If they did a plan that was equal or better than a solar plan, that was why there was a variance process. There was never any qualifier to that, that said but, we were going to make them do extra things that nobody else in FTC has to do. In fact, it was also represented that the Solar Orientation Ordinance was not intended to force lifestyle changes or specific design elements on houses. It was to try to get people to make a better attempt on achieving solar orientation of lots so that those opportunities would be there. He thought in other plans that they had been involved with, they had achieved, and exceeded the Solar Orientation Ordinance on sites that leant themselves to that. He thought staff agreed that their request to a variance were valid. They felt that because they were valid, they did have some unique site considerations. They did have a plan that was equal to or better than a plan that would force a higher percentage of lots to be north/south that should, in the spirit in which the ordinance was presented, simply have a variance and be done with it, and not have some sort of punitive condition on another fourteen lots. In this particular development, it was further complicated because there were custom and semi -custom homes, so it was not a matter of modifying some off the shelf tract home plans, they would have to choose which fourteen lot buyers were going to have some special burden put on them as far as what they did with their lot and their home. They did not feel that this extra condition was acceptable and they asked that the Board not place it on the project. He said that what they would see in the first filing, north of the drainage area, where they had some room to work on the preliminary plan, that area achieved 64.5% solar orientation. Actually, with some revisions to the final they were right at 65%. In the southern area where it was simply good planning practice to respect the natural site features, the angle of the Mail Creek Ditch and Boardwalk largely dictated the lot orientation over there and in what would be the second filing, was where they really come up short in meeting the requirement. Vice Chairman Walker asked for more elaboration on the southern part. Were they suggesting that the problem they were having there was that because of the way Mail Creek flows they were attempting to orient the lots facing or backing onto Mail Creek? Mr. Ward replied yes, the Mail Creek Ditch. That was not the natural Mail Creek. There seemed to be a little bit of confusion on that earlier. Vice Chairman Walker asked if they were just trying to make some alignment with the ditch, was that correct. Mr. Ward replied yes, that and the Boardwalk alignment and the need for what was labeled as Highcastle Drive to interest both the ditch and Boardwalk at a right angle. Vice Chairman Walker asked about the odd shaped detention between the two elements in the plan. Mr. Ward replied that the layout was actually drawn around the detention pond. He did not know how clear it was on the screen, but if they looked closely to the contours, the natural settled low points through there swings through the site in this alignment. Without getting into a lengthy discussion to the grading complications here, the detention for this site needed to leave the site at points between Boardwalk and the intersection. The site was designed around this detention pond. They could have squared it off and done a more rigid box -type detention pond in that area and possibly gained a couple more lots north/south and would have ended up with more lots out towards Boardwalk because of not June 29, 1992 P&Z Board Meeting Minutes Page 18 wrapping the detention around that way. In their evaluation it did not make a significant difference in the number of solar oriented lots. Member O'Dell asked if they had given any thought to having the two southern most cul-de-sacs come off of Boardwalk so that most of the lots would be north/south? Mr. Ward replied the problem with doing that with the natural low point here was that they had to bring the streets across where the drainage wanted to leave the site which meant it chops it up and you get into complicated culvert crossings and that sort of thing. From a drainage standpoint it did not work as well. By doing that given the alignment we have you get two cul-de-sacs that swing down this way. We're getting toward the maximum length of a cul-de-sac here. By coming off of Boardwalk it was a little longer it was a poorer plan besides the adding complications to the drainage system. Member O'Dell commented that lot number 1 should qualify as a solar oriented lot because its southern most boundary was a detention pond, right? Mr. Ward replied it was and he believed'in the ordinance on side yards, like 47 counts, she was talking about lot 1 in second filing? Member O'Dell replied yes. Mr. Ward replied they could try that lot so that they swung it around. On these kinds of side lots the lot line had to be within 30 degrees of the east/west. He thought they were a few degrees off. They could manipulate that lot on the final so that it did in fact meet the letter of the law in the same way that lots 11 and 12 did. Also on the final, they looked at it and found that the lot in this location did meet the letter of the law because it had an unobstructed solar access because of the open space. There were some subtleties like that, but not enough to bring them to the 65% number though. Member Cottier wanted to pursue the condition further and asked why they were now adding a condition here and secondly maybe ask for legal counsel. Could they do a conditional variance? Deputy City Attorney Eckman replied he thought they could approve a variance on some conditions. He did not see a problem with that, but reading this particular condition, if they were inclined to go with any condition at all, he thought that he saw some vagueness in this condition. At least he had some trouble understanding what it meant when it may impose the mandatory requirement that they provide additional techniques to accomplish the intent of the Solar Orientation Ordinance. His first question was what intent, because it seemed like the specific intent was to accomplish a 65% orientation which seemed to be an impossibility with this development. At least with the suggestions that came later in the condition one of them being extra glazing, another one placing garages on the north, He did not see that, that would accomplish the orientation. The third one perhaps, which was turning the home itself on the lot might accomplish that. To him at least, this condition was a little bit contradictory unless they asked for, accomplish the general intent of the ordinance, which he thought and he would try to paraphrase it to enhance the opportunities to residential occupants to avail themselves to solar energy. He guessed that was kind of fluffy, but that was the overall overriding intent and to get specific might get difficult with this development. Member Cottier asked if this was a condition that they were suggesting they might consider with all future solar variance requests, or why? June 29, 1992 P&Z Board Meeting Minutes Page 19 Mr. Shepard replied, this condition was on all three items tonight that were on the agenda that required the variance to the 65%, and the reason it was on there was, because they, as a staff, were feeling their way as was the Board was on this. This was a new ordinance and they were not sure what the Board's reaction would be to see three variances in one evening. Staff took a stab at trying to lessen the pain about that a little bit and the spirit in which it was offered was for their consideration. Mr. Peterson also added that Staff was trying to figure out how well it was working and they were trying to look at unique conditions as they come up and he thought the Board had heard some testimony from the applicant tonight that they had got some unique conditions here and he thought they would hear this later on this evening with some of the other applications because of the layouts of their development. Staff had put down some fairly conservative conditions, Mr. Eckman's wording helped it a little in terms of making it a little more legalistically structured. The Board also has the option of looking at this and weighing the applicants arguments as they have in months previous and saying, yes either what you say makes sense or no we think there needs to be something else. We had just now, with this month, reached the magic number of 300 lots having gone through this solar orientation and are in the process of developing a report for both the Planning and Zoning Board and City Council and just weighing how it has worked. He suspected, as the report evolves, Staff was going to come back and make some recommendations in terms of how it has worked. Solar orientation was only one of a number of elements Staff has to weigh in making a recommendation and one of the number of elements the Board had to weigh when evaluating a proposal through the Land Development Guidance System, as Ted suggested, the question that kind of faces them was this the most important element they had to weigh or did they have to balance it against some other things. What they tried to do, as he said, was be kind of conservative about it because it was a relatively new ordinance. It was really in the Board's lap tonight to try to give some direction in how we handle these things. Deputy City Attorney Eckman added that although his suggestion eliminates what he saw as an internal inconsistence in this condition or an internal conflict. It did not help from the legal standpoint of objectivity because it was very subjective. If they were talking about meeting the general intent of the ordinance that was a very subjective and it would be easy for the Developer to say they met the general intent. From purely a legal perspective if they had some specific things that they could enumerate that they want done by way of a condition, he thought he would recommend that, but he could not think what those might be. As Mr. Peterson has suggested this was just something that they could measure and weigh the Developers arguments against the variance criteria in the Solar Orientation Ordinance and make their decision as to whether the a variance was appropriate without a condition. Member Cottier commented that she thought a variance was appropriate and thought that Eldon's comments about the intent of the solar ordinance were valid. Specifically, the condition of the punitive conditions was not the intent of the ordinance. She would suggest, and would take this position on the other three conditions also. She did not think it was appropriate to start adding in a condition when they had been approving a number of different projects for a solar variance. She thought the appropriate time would be after this review and then she thought they might make changes in the ordinance if that was appropriate but she did not think it was appropriate half way through, to start adding in a condition. Member O'Dell agreed with Member Cottier. She was also on the committee that helped to develop the Solar Orientation Ordinance, and this kind of situation was one that she felt like this would be fairly easy to meet the ordinance where the situations that were smaller lot developments, she meant smaller developments within sort of in -fill would be more difficult. Did they anticipate that they were going to have this same kind of problem on future tracts in this area and were they going to be asking for June 29, 1992 P&Z Board Meeting Minutes Page 20 variances based on views, based on drainage, based on whatever, throughout this whole Miramont Development? Mr. Ward replied when they first looked at Miramont, all of us involved, it was even part of the thinking in the 1987 plan before it was a requirement by ordinance and certainly as they had gotten more serious about planning throughout this year, everybody's first inclination when they look at the site, was well they shouldn't have any trouble with the Solar Orientation Ordinance. They had these beautiful south facing slopes, you generally want to run streets with the terrain and not against it, it should not be a problem. But, he was hesitant to tell them that they were not going to run into this again. There were some subtle things, on the ridge between the second filing and the school there was a very pronounced slope which was directly perpendicular to a view of Longs Peak and it was slightly more than 30 degrees off the north/south. It was about 40 to 42 degrees. They may come back in that area and try to make a decision. Again, in the original draft of the Solar Orientation Ordinance, views were listed as a legitimate reason for a variance. They were going to be faced with the decision, they could probably skew these lots enough, even though the streets, because of the terrain, needed to run parallel to that ridge at about 42 degrees or so, they may have the option of skewing the lot within 30 degrees to the north/south, but then they were also skewing them to the view of Longs Peak. Fortunately, that was a very small percentage of the total lots in Miramont and the schematics of lot layout throughout Miramont, lead him to believe that they were going to be okay on the Solar Ordinance. But, until they got to this level of detail he did not want anyone to think that he was sure that they were going to be okay. The site generally tended to lend itself to solar orientation, that was their perception. There were some special areas, one of the phases they would see in the next couple of years was the sloping area between here and the school and that was one area that was a little iffy. The rest of it, as you come along toward Lemay really very much lends itself to solar orientation. Member O'Dell commented one reason she asked was that there looked like there were sort of outlines of lots immediately adjacent and they didn't seem to be solar oriented also, so she was concerned that if that was going to be the standard throughout the whole development, it would be more difficult for her to support this variance at that point to kind of say, well the whole development warrants a variance. She thought this particular tract probably did based on the just the drainage issues that they had discussed. Mr. Ward replied his best guess was that this tract and possibly one or two others would be difficult. The bulk of the site was going to work very well for solar orientation. Member Carroll commented the Solar Orientation Ordinance was becoming somewhat perplexing. At the time that it came through Planning and Zoning, it was his personal opinion that it be adopted as a recommendation or a criteria, but City Council having spoken, it was now an Ordinance, it was not just a criteria to look at. And so, his personal opinion was that every PUD that came in really should meet the 65% compliance because then again it was an Ordinance. What he seemed to be seeing however, was that for whatever reason, they never meet it. That's nothing against what has been done here, but they run into, well in this particular case where the drainage lies, and he guessed it was just maybe, it was something they would have to take a look at or Council would have to take a look at in a few months or at the end of the year to see if there just were not so many conditions that it was going to prevent the solar orientation to go into effect unless that was just the natural way it was going to be anyway. With that in mind, he agreed with Jan, the Ordinance could have provided that if the plan did not meet the 65% orientation compliance, the plan would then provide whatever, as Staff had recommended and it did not. The other thing that he was concerned about was that they as a P & Z board had never gotten into the actual designs or placement of homes on residential lots and he was not too included to do so at this June 29, 1992 P&Z Board Meeting Minutes Page 21 point. He guessed his inclination was to accept Staffs recommendation that the variance request was justified and it seemed to him that it was not to impose the conditions. PUBLIC INPUT Jim Knight stated being a member of the public, the biggest thing, he felt some real dissatisfaction with the hesitancy to follow through with this Ordinance, he understood there were some fuzzy aspects to its interpretation and if variances were legitimate requests and those requests be granted. What he hoped they were not doing was setting a precedent and a pattern for continuing this sort of thing. Otherwise, why did they have the Ordinance? With respect to this particular thing, he was having a tough time seeing what the punitive conditions were. He could see the natural drainage, but he could also see that the slopes through a couple of the areas were not so significant that they were talking about major earth work. They could do a little more creative earth work on the drainage. He thought it was natural to want to take advantage of historical drainage patterns and do some of that but he did not see the thing as being so dramatic as to require extraordinary expenditures of manpower and equipment to do a little more creative work on that. He would like to see that addressed a little bit further before they closed the case on indeed having some punitive conditions as a function of some minor alternations in the drainage pattern. The other thing was the 14 lots that represents, what 16 or 17 percent? That was a sizeable number they were not talking about 5% or 6%, they were not talking about a little bit of a variance, they were talking about a pretty hefty change from 65%. He thought 65% itself, represented a compromise. He thought the people that probably pushed this thing in the first place would have wanted a 100% and that seemed a bit ridiculous, so we would back off to 90 to 80 to 70 to 65 and now they were settling for 40 something. Vice Chairman Walker stated this project was just short of 50%. Mr. Knight replied that was another 15% down. He thought some more creative ways to look at this could be explored. Before they closed the book on this they could, He wanted them to explore those things. With respect to the drainage thing, living in that neighborhood, Mail Creek Ditch did not look all that red hot either. There were some serious erosion problems going on there and he knew it would carry the capacity of this but it was not all together attractive. This indeed did not dump directly into Mail Creek or Fossil Creek, right? But there would be some development on this sloped land just to the south, was that right? Eventually, those considerations valid and it was brought up in the Overall Development Plan. so he did not think it was a misconception. Mr. Harold Swope stated his comment was unrelated to the Solar Ordinance, but it felt so good to be able to really support a development adjacent to Fairway Estates finally, that he did want to say that they were whole-heartedly behind this. They knew that Gary Nordic built quality homes and that he was a Developer with integrity. They felt that they could work with him to solve any border problems, and minor problems that they might have there. Vice Chairman Walker stated his opinion was that the Solar Ordinance was meant to be a land use decision -making Ordinance and they were obviously, as staff pointed out, trying to define the bounds of this thing, the envelope from within which they could operate. He guessed the conditions that they had suggested on these, what really amount to design criteria for certain number of houses on the lots, went beyond the extent of this. As a Board Member, he would like to suggest, as Mr. Knight has said, maybe they need to look again at the way the land is laid out. His feeling was that, that should be the extent of how far they went with the Ordinance. If it did not meet it because there were some legitimate June 29, 1992 P&Z Board Meeting Minutes Page 112 reasons, such as Mail Creek, the lay of the land with respect to drainage, then they should grant a variance because it did not meet it. He had a little problem dealing with it did not meet it but, lets do some design things. Personally, he thought that would be awfully difficult to administer and he did not want to get into the nit -picky details of doing that, he thought either they did it or they did not and they had a good reason for it. His feeling on this one was that he was reasonably convinced of the hardships that had been stated here. He tended to agree somewhat with Mr. Knight, they could do some different things here, although it was a close call and he guessed that was what they were up here for was to make that call and he was comfortable with granting a variance because of what are hardships. They grant variances on hardships for a variety of things. He thought the Solar Ordinance, things they were trying to feel their way through it. It was probably more complicated than some, because they had all these conflicting issues of drainage, of slopes, of street lay outs and so forth. He guessed as far as guidance to the Staff, they needed to focus this on land issues and not get into design issues. Member Clements -Cooney moved approval of Upper Meadow at Miramont, Preliminary PUD with the following variance to absolute criterion #1 regarding minimum density, and #2 the variance to requirements for solar orientation, because of exceptional topographical conditions peculiar to site Mail Creek Ditch, hardship would be caused to the subdivider by the strict application of the solar orientation ordinance. Because of exceptional difficulties regarding the access alignment of Boardwalk Drive and 90 degree intersections with local streets and Boardwalk Drive, hardship would be caused to the subdivider by the strict application of the solar ordinance, and C because of the incorporation of the design features that meet other city policies and objectives the plan is equal to or better than a plan that has met the 65% requirement. Member Cottier seconded the motion. The motion was approved 5-0. STONERIDGE P.U.D., OVERALL DEVELOPMENT PLAN. #21-92b Mr. Shepard gave the Staff report stating they had gotten their packet tonight, that reflected and administrative change to the Pinecone ODP that they reviewed back in April which showed lightly dotted lines as a potential future connection. That was now upgraded to a full blown local street connection so they gave you a PMT of that reduction that showed that they were still coordinating Stoneridge PUD with Pinecone PUD for vehicular and pedestrian bicycle connections. There was also another item that was included in their packet that asked for a condition on the approval of Stoneridge PUD and the next subsequent item that the second reading was to take place by City Council on July 7th for the Webster Farm Annexation. That annexation was scheduled to take place at the second reading in June, but due to a cancellation of the City Council meeting that had not occurred yet, so that would take place the first Tuesday in July, which was July 7. Staff saw that as a housekeeping issue, a minor issue, but wanted to bring that to their attention. Staff was recommending approval of the Stoneridge Overall Development Plan. Vice Chairman Walker asked if they needed to take any action on that? Mr. Shepard replied yes. He believed they did need to enter that into the record.