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HomeMy WebLinkAboutBLEVINS SUBDIVISION LOT 9 PUD PRELIMINARY - 42-91 - MINUTES/NOTES - CORRESPONDENCE-NEIGHBORHOOD MEETINGSUMMARY The following are QUESTIONS, CONCERNS, and RESPONSES expressed at a Neighborhood Meeting for Lot 9 at Blevins Court. The applicant proposed a four-plex with 3 bedrooms per unit on the .25 acre lot 9 of the Blevins Subdivision. Each unit would be approximately 1,120 square feet and would be a rental unit. The property is located north of West Prospect Road and west of South Whitcomb Road. The property is zoned R-L, Low Density Residential. MEETING PLACE: Plymouth Congregational Church MEETING DATE: June 6, 1991 MEETING TIME: 7:00 p.m. to 9:15 P.M. CITY PLANNER: Kirsten Whetstone QUESTIONS, CONCERNS, COMMENTS Q- 1. How tall will the building be? How high above the existing homes will it be? Will it be one or two stories? The proposed 4-plex will have a basement or garden level with a story over that. It will be I and 1/2 stories in height but because of the design it will be 2 to 3 feet higher than most of the existing one story homes in the immediate area. There are several very tall trees in the area and they will provide a good amount of screening. Q- 2. Will there be just one building housing all 4 units? The proposal is for a single building with 4 units with outside access for each unit. Q- 3. Will there be 3 bedrooms in each unit? Yes. C- 4. I am concerned about the number of bedrooms. With three in each unit there could be anywhere from 12 to 24 people living on that lot which is platted now for one single family house. I am concerned about the density in terms of people, -even -if -this -project makes the so called density point chart for units. C- 5. I feel that 3 bedrooms in each unit is too many. They would be pretty expensive to rent, therefore several students would share them in order to afford them, and there would be too many people living on that lot. Q- 6. What would the setbacks be from the side lot line? Setbacks would conform to the RL zoning district, they would be 5' on the side yards. Q- 7. What about fencing? Will it be 6' high stockade? We are not proposing to fence in the entire property. The proposed fencing would be sections of stockade or shadowbox fencing with sections of hedging and shrubbery to break up a continuous fence line. The concept is to make these units a part of the neighborhood, not to wall them off from the neighborhood. But we would screen the parking area and trash enclosures. The front side yards would likely not be fenced or would have low fences and shrubs. Q- 8. Will the parking lot be designed for storm water detention? Yes, and the run-off from the parking lot detention area will be at the historic rate. Q- 9. Will the driveway be oversized? The driveway will likely be a 20' drive to allow cars.to come and go simultaneously. It will not be "oversized" in the sense that it will be any wider than most driveways for two car garages. Q- 10. How will the building face? What will be visible from the street? The building is designed into the site. The view from Blevins Court would be the corner of the first unit. You would not see the front of the building square on from the street. The attached units will angle back in an off set manner so the apparent scale of the building will be sized back. Q- 11. Will these units be rentals? Who will you rent to? These units will be rentals. The applicant, Kint Glover, proposes to manage them and will likely rent them to students, married student couples, or young families. C- 12. I think the 600, 700, and 800 blocks of the south side of Prospect are trashy looking because of the student rentals who don't care about the neighborhood. I think more student rentals in this area will just contribute to the problems. Q- 13. What will the likely rents be for these units and will families be able to afford these rents? The rents will likely be in the range of $650.00 to $700.00 per unit. C-14. I have a real concern with the number of bedrooms. I think 3 bedroom units will rent to more than three students. C-15. The number of bedrooms is a real concern, there is no way to really enforce the number of people living in each unit, unless we file a very lengthy complaint and keep a record of the activity going on for a month. We, as neighbors do not want that responsibility. It seems like 2 bedroom units would decrease a lot of the likelihood of overcrowding. Q-16. What about parking? Will you be able to get all the parking you need on the site? There is no street parking available in the area, because students from CSU are parked in front of our houses all day and all night. Often we can not even park in front of our own houses. Sometimes we have to carry our groceries for a block or more to our homes. Where will visitors to these units park? We are following the city requirements for parking and we propose to have all of the parking off-street. We can meet the City parking code with this design. C-17. We don't feel that the City Parking Requirements are adequate for this site. We would like to see a parking space for each bedroom as well as one additional space for each unit for visitors. That would be 16 spaces on site. Q-18. Would you, the developer or the architect, want to live next to this project as you propose it? We can understand your concerns. We understand that who lives in these units is a concern. Q-19. I have an interest in property on the north property line of this project. What do you propose as far as fencing or screening of the project from the house to the north, there is a bedroom in this house that looks out onto this property. We don't have all of the details worked out at this time, but we will be adhering to the 75% opacity requirements for screening between different uses. C-20. I have a concern with the increase in density. Density should be based on the number of humans, in this case 3 people times 4 units is 12 people per this quarter acre. This is definitely an increase over the number that would be in a typical single family house. This means more cars, more activity, more noise, more of everything. Q-21. How will you guarantee that there will be only 3 unrelated people per unit? That would be our management principle, but it is. difficult to enforce the number of visitors someone might have. We like to believe that our management practices would control the number of people and cars as well as the amount of noise and activity generated by the property. We have an interest in keeping the area looking nice and in being a good neighbor. Q-22. How will a four plex like this affect our property values? If the place is kept up nicely and is a positive contribution to the neighborhood, we like to believe that it can only cause an increase in your property values. It will certainly be an improvement' over some of the properties in the neighborhood which I am sure are not contributing positively to your property values. C-23. I bought a house in this neighborhood to be a part of a neighborhood. This proposed project will destroy my neighborhood, it is out of character. Why can't you build a single family house and allow another family to join our neighborhood, instead of allowing these four units to intrude? C-24. I don't want to lose the "quality of life" that we have in this neighborhood. We have a good neighborhood. Owners and renters in this neighborhood have worked hard to keep this a neighborhood, in spite of the problems created by CSU, with parking and traffic. Q-25. How can the planning department even consider a four-plex in a single family zone? The City of Fort Collins has a flexible zoning system which theoretically might allow any use in any zone, with each project being reviewed by its own merits. All negative impacts of a project have to be mitigated before the planning department can recommend approval of the project to the Planning and Zoning Board. The underlying zoning acts as a guide, and a developer may propose a four-plex in the RL zone if the project is a Planned Unit Development reviewed under the more stringent requirements of the Land Development Guidance System or LDGS. Some of the requirements include a traffic impact study, a storm drainage report, a landscape plan, a neighborhood meeting to address compatibility issues, scoring the appropriate number of points on the Density Chart, and meeting all of the criteria of the All Development Point Chart, including parking, design, landscaping, buffering, lighting, circulation, and compatibility concerns. Q-26. How does this project score on the Density Chart? How many points does it have to have? This project is proposing a density of greater than 10 units per acre and therefore would have to receive 100% on the chart. The applicants say they can meet this. The planning department has done a rough calculation and it looks like it might be close, but the project likely can meet the 100%. Q-27. Is this sort of density (greater than 10 units per acre) unusual for such a small area all being single story homes? In a typical single family neighborhood the density ranges from 3 to 6 or 7 dwelling units per acre. This is an unusually high density for a single family neighborhood. Q-28. Do you have to have four units to make it financially? Why can't you build a single family home or a duplex? Could you break even with those? Could you decrease the number of bedrooms? We felt that the four plex could be designed to fit well onto this lot and still be compatible with the neighborhood. We also feel that this area near CSU is going to be a higher density area and that there is a demand for this kind of housing near CSU so that students are within walking distance and do not have to drive their cars onto campus. C-29. Please do not make the assumption that it is inevitable that this neighborhood will become a high density area. We are a single family neighborhood and plan to keep it this way. We have seen some of the rentals turn into owner occupied houses by young families and even•by students who used to rent in this area. We are working with the landlords to get their cooperation to keep the area looking nice and to care about the appearance of the neighborhood. Just because we are near CSU and have to deal with all of the traffic on our street and all of the parking and parties, doesn't mean we are doomed to become a high density rental area. C-30. Renters and owners can be compatible and, are in some cases in our neighborhood. Sometimes the difference is in the pride a person takes in where they live, whether they are a renter or an owner. C-31. We want a neighbor on lot 9, not a business. C-32. What about utilities and fire access? Light and Power will be undergrounding the electrical power in the area, we will coordinate our power needs with their schedule. They may underground the entire neighborhood with this project. Fire is required to have a minimum of 150' for access to fight a fire from the truck. Our design will meet all fire code and access requirements. C-33. I want to make a comment that the building not be two story. This would not be compatible with the neighboring homes. I like the design and think it would probably look nice and would be an improvement to the vacant lot and would probably be an improvement over another single family home that is run down by a bunch of students. I would like to suggest that the units be 2 bedroom units. There would be more of a chance of getting married students, or young couples if there were only 2 bedrooms. C-34. From my experience in this neighborhood, the more bedrooms, the more students. With students you have no control over dogs, cars, parties, stereos, noise, boyfriends, girlfriends, and the number of people living in each unit. I encourage you to look at both the number of bedrooms and the number of units and to consider the impact on the neighborhood, because we are a neighborhood. We are used to students and are trying to get some control and help from CSU on the parking and traffic problems. I am not saying that something other than a single family home won't work here, I am just saying consider the impacts, not the dollars. � PROJECT: TYPE OF MEETING: Alelgll6ol-ky(Z lklkllwo�oll— • •• ADDRESSWRITTEN NOTIFICATION , III OF � r , A � ON KAW,lop 7 r I 40M`