HomeMy WebLinkAboutPINECONE PUD FORT COLLINS HIGH SCHOOL SITE PLAN ADVISORY REVIEW - 60 91B - CORRESPONDENCE - CITIZEN COMMUNICATION (2)February 26, 1992
Poudre R-1 School District
Sally Weisser
3525 Juanita Road
Fort Collins, CO 80524
Dear Ms. Weisser:
The Citizen Planners land use planning committee would like to respond
to the recent decision made by the Poudre R-1 School District regarding
the Fort Collins High School.
Members of Citizen Planners have attended numerous public meetings
since it became evident that the school board was ready to present
options to the public for review and discussion. What we found was a
single proposal for land acquisition that needed an immediate response and
was clouded with many important and unresolved issues.
Citizen Planners believes that the public input process on this
project has been very poorly handled. It is our understanding that many
meetings have occurred with educators to determine the present and
future needs of the building and that committees have invested much time
in site selection studies. However, the open campus community education.
and commercial shopping center concept has just recently been introduced
to the public and has obviously been given very little consideration
beyond the possible development and economic benefits. This project, a
city high school, is being funded with capitol construction money allotted
by a bond issue voted on in 1988. Tax payers certainly were not prepared
for this novel approach to education when they voted their approval. It
would seem that a more comprehensive effort should have been made to
help the Fort Collins community better understand what the intent of this
project is and how our tax dollars are being spent before moving ahead!
While the land uses in this project are innovative and we can support
many of the concepts being proposed, Citizen Planners questions whether
there is a consensus that this makes sense educationally or whether this
decision was driven primarily from a business perspective. We find it
very worrisome when school officials talk more of helping business and the
commercial needs of students than whether this is a sound educational
plan for the future of our children. The education/commercial plaza plan
may initially help defray the high costs of building the high school but
what price do we place on the values which we instill in our young people?
This plan has been presented as the future, yet no attention has
been given to the 'transportation' issues ;of this project. As proposed
this plan will create more congestion and further decrease the quality of
our air at a time when the future is in looking for alternatives. It is
yet to.'be proven that providing more traffic lanes and parking places
solves traffic problems. This approach does nothing to encourage people
to change and sets a very poor example for our youth. The area wide
transportation plan has as a goal decreasing automobile miles driven in
Fort Collins and encouraging alternative modes of tranportation. Citizen
Planners strongly encourages the school district to address these issues
for our future now!
One of the most intriguing and problematic arguements used to
persuade the public that this project will work for our children is that of
"rights of governance". This concept as presented takes the form of a
covenant agreement to regulate the location, maintenance,' and
compatibility of buildings which will be built later and could easily be
handled under the PUD process by the city of Fort Collins. Additionally,
restrictions might be placed on certain land uses described as attractive
nuisances and the school district would share the responsibility for
governing thestudents outside of the school. We would foresee that the
businesses that would be most interested in locating near a built in
market would be of the attractive nuisance variety. Most troublesome
though is the question of whether the school district should be involved
in the "business" of these matters at all. We doubt that most tax payers
and voters expect that the job description for our ,teachers. and board of
education should include governing commercial development sites.
Perhaps many of the plans and concepts as delineated by the school
board are workable and in the best interests of educating our children,
but it appears that we have only just begun to visit the hardest
questions. In the spirit of open communication and public discussion,
Citizen Planners hopes that the school board will step back for a moment
and consider the ramifications of moving forward on this project without a
firm base of public understanding and consensus on this very important
community project.
Sincerely,
Land Use Planning Committee
Citizen Planners
cc: John Drennen
Mayor Susan Kirkpatrick and City Council
City of Fort Collins Planning and Zoning Board