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HomeMy WebLinkAboutFARMSTEAD - Filed GC-GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE - 2005-10-28July 31, 2002 Ken Scavo Cactus Rose Development 5720 Buena Drive Fort Collins. Colorado 80525 Subject: Property on Southwest Corner of Taft Hill Road and LaPorte Avenue Dear Mr. Scavo, The purpose of this letter is to provide the requested clarification of re -pays applicable to your property located at the southwest corner of Taft Hill Road and LaPorte Avenue, and also to provide a commitment from the City that the Taft Hill Road Bridge #61 will be rebuilt wider than the existing structure to accommodate future improvements on Taft Hill Road. In the mid 1970's, your property was part of Special Improvement District #71 which widened Taft Hill Road and installed curb and gutter, street lights and sidewalk. As part of the District, your property was assessed for its Taft Hill Road frontage. Therefore. no future assessments on the Taft Hill Road frontage, with the exception of the bridge, would be required of your property. There are two scenarios in which repays could apply to your property. The first scenario is that the property is platted and developed as a single family home site. Repays for the bridge and the Laporte Avenue frontage could, under City code, be assessed under this scenario. The City, however, would not assess repayment fees for a bridge on a single family home site, but fees for the LaPorte Avenue frontage are likely since the property is not platted. The second scenario is that she property is platted and developed as a multi- family or commercial site. Repays for the bridge ana Laporte Avenue frontage would then be assessed. The City 's (-urrently designing the Taft Hill Road Bridge #61 replacement wider than 'he existing structure. The proposed structure will 'lave two northbound 'ravel !anes_ a1 :eft turn 'sane onto Lanone Avenue, two southbound travel lanes. a northbound end a southbound bike lane, ana a sidewalk on each side of the structure. 7hese features will meet 'he --oreseeable future our -lane arterial seeds for -aft mill <oad. Construction ;s anticipated for :ctober. 2002. Marc Virata - Explaination Page 1 From: Mikal Torgerson <mikal@architex.com> To: <mvirata@fcgov.com> Date: 5/7/04 4:03PM Subject: Explaination Mark, I wanted to follow up on a conversation that you and I had during the waste water coordination meeting on Wood Street a few weeks ago. At that time, you told me that I could not excavate a hole on my site in preparation for a ditch crossing that was not quite approved yet. If you recall I responded rather strongly indicating that if the city would like to stop me that they should go ahead and cite me. While I concede that my cavalier attitude was inappropriate, I wanted to give you some background as to why I responded this way. During the construction of the new Taft Hill bridge, the city and their contractors literally took over my property with their heavy equipment and dumped an enormous quantity of fill across roughly 1/3 of the site without any permission from me until it was done. Now the city is replacing a sewer line or something like that in Taft Hill. Again they have parked their equipment and trucks all over my site and continue to dump fill on my site without any permission whatsoever. On another project of mine, I have been attempting to gain permission to build a bridge from the opera galleria lofts to the parking structure for over nine months now. The city however went ahead and built a similar bridge from the second floor of the structure to my partners building (the opera galleria) without any easements. The point I am trying to make is that it would be nice to see the city treat the city equally to the development community. I do apologize for the way that I snapped at you that day though. Mikal Cam McNair Fort Collins Engineering Department 281 North College Ave. Fort Collins, CO 80524 January 6, 2005 Dear Mr. McNair, This letter is in reference to the "repay" that is listed on page 8 of the draft Development Agreement, section II.D.3 for the Farmstead Subdivision. The draft language states"The Developer agrees to reimburse the City the sum of $76, 544.40, plus a percentage added to recognize the effects of inflation, for the cost to construct Laporte Avenue and the bridge on Taft Hill Road ($23,140.00 for Laporte Avenue and $53,404.40 for the bridge on Taft Hill Road) adjacent to the Property." In talking with Matt Baker verbally on 1/5/05, he indicated that the $23K specified for Laporte Avenue is an escrow for sidewalk and landscape improvements. We are happy to escrow for this although it seems high for these improvements. I am very concerned, however, that the $53,404.40 that is supposed to be for "our share' of the bridge is completely unreasonable for two fundamental reasons. First, imposing this fee would be charging us twice for the same improvement. You already acknowledged that it's not fair to impose a fee such as this when, in your e- mail to Troy Jones on 12/30/04, you stated "Two years ago, in recognition of the extra burden placed on developing properties that are adjacent to bridges and similar structures, we adjusted (increased,) the Street Oversizing fees to spread the total cost (including the local street portions) of bridges and box culverts among all fee payers." I'd like to point out that no building permits have been pulled yet for this project, therefore, the street oversizing fees for this project have yet to be paid. When the street oversizing fees for this project are collected in the future assuming they will be based on this said new adjusted fee, we will be already paying our share for this bridge. Charging us the new increased Street Oversizing fee and charging us the repay for the bridge would be charging us twice for the same improvement. Second, considering "our share' of the cost of the bridge to be $53,404.40, greatly exceeds our impact to the bridge, and therefore constitutes a taking. Whenever local jurisdictions impose conditions on land use permits, they must be aware of constitutional limits, particularly the "nexus" and "proportionality" requirements of the Fifth Amendment's takings clause. According to the U.S. Supreme Court, while local governments can place conditions on land use permits, the Constitution requires a 'nexus" between the permit conditions and a legitimate regulatory interest. A "nexus' exists where the permit conditions are connected to and further the regulatory interest. Even if there is a "nexus" between the conditions and the regulatory interest, the Constitution also requires that the permit conditions be "roughly proportional" to the projected impacts of the land use development. The "nexus" requirement was established in Nollan v. California Coastal Commission, 483 U.S. 825 (1987). In Nollan, the United States Supreme Court held that permit conditions must be sufficiently related to the government's regulatory interests. The Court added the "proportionality" requirement in Dolan v. City of Tigard, 512 U.S. 374 (1994) In Dolan, the Court held that when governments impose permit conditions, there must be "rough proportionality' between the condition's requirements and the impacts of the development. Mal S, lorgerson, All, NCARR 223 N College Eod Collim, CO 80524 970 416.7431 988A16.7431 fax: 970.416 7435 Email: mikol&ichilee.rom hffp://we orehilecxom Although the City of Fort Collins has traditionally required developing properties (as part of the development approval process) to repay the local street portion of costs of improvements adjacent to such developing properties, we argue that in this case, because the $53,404 repay for the Taft Hill bridge exceeds a proportional nexus, the repay constitutes a taking. The $53k fee imposed to pay "our share" of the bridge cost is simply not "roughly proportional" to the impacts caused by the development of this property. The City already has made the improvement, and the simple fact that this property is next to the new bridge doesn't create any more impact on the bridge than any other non-contiguous development in the vicinity would. The current traffic across the new Taft Hill bridge is 6,500 northbound trips/day & 4,200 southbound trips/day (according to Traffic Operations September 2003 counts). Our traffic study for the project states that: an additional 78 trips/day would be added to the bridge traffic as a result of the Farmstead development. Our impact adds approximately 0.72897 % to the usage of the bridge, and therefore, this project should only be charged a fee based on this proportionality. The City is clearly exceeding the "rough proportionality' test as established in Dolan v- City of Tigard, and therefore this repay constitutes a taking. Section 24-95 of the FC City Code states that the City "may" require a repay for the local street portion of costs of improvements adjacent to developing properties. We suggest that in the case of the Farmstead Subdivision, the City should take advantage of the fact that the standard says .'may", rather than "shall," and avoid violating the 5'" Amendment of the United States Constitution_ We would be happy to pay our roughly proportional share of the cost of the adjacent improvements, which would either be to pay the newly adjusted street oversizing fee, or to pay the old street oversizing fee plus an additional 0.72897 % of the total bridge construction cost for the project's proportional impact to the bridge. Our attorney has advised us to exhaust all administrative possibilities to resolve this issue before we formally apply to the City of Fort Collins for a Takings Determination. We are confident that we would be successful in a Takings Determination, however it would be very time consuming for us and unnecessarily take up a lot of City staffs time and energy. We encourage you to follow the legal precedence set by Dolan v. City of Tigard without having to be forced to do so through the formal Takings Determination process. Sincerely, Mikal Torgerson, Architect M. Torgerson Architects CC: Darin Atteberry, Steve Roy, Paul Eckman, Ron Phillips, Gary Diede, Gregory Byrne, Eric Bracke, Cameron Gloss, Steve Olt, Mike Herzig, Matt Baker, Sheri Wamhoff, Marc Virata, Troy Jones, Lucia Liley From: Gary Diede To: Cam McNair; Don Bachman; Sheri Wamhoff Date: 2/4/2005 9:41:16 AM Subject: Re: Farmstead information Excellent work, Marc'!! John Lang; Marc Virata; Please get Don a copy of the Sept review letter and let Don know what process we should folow to talk to SW so we can develop a plan to go back to the ditch company for a redesign of the box which would include Mikal and anyone else he wants at that meeting. gary >>> Marc Virata 2/4/2005 9:32:12 AM >>> I was going to communicate this to Cam, but I see he's out today. I spoke with Basil and Rodney in Stormwater regarding the potential redesign of the structure through the New Mercer. They don't have an objection in redesigning the structure to be more straight. The hydraulic calcs may change as a result but it shouldn't be of concern. Also a straighter section would reduce the likelihood of sandbars forming on the inside curve which they Lhi_nk the Ditch Company might see as a positive assuming their apparent couch rule test is met. I also did give Cam a copy yesterday of the conceptual review letter for Farmstead back in September 2002. It's in the letter that I did make the comment that a repay for the bridge on Taft and Laporte would be assessed. The letter was addressed to Mikal who was at the meeting. Let me know how I can further follow-up or clarify anything on this project. Thanks, Marc Marc Virata - Re Fwd: Presentation for tomorrow Page 1 From: Gary Diede To: Don Bachman; Marc Virata, Sheri Wamhoff Date: 6/8/2005 10:33:10 AM Subject: Re Fwd: Presentation for tomorrow That sounds good. Mairc, I'll see you at 4:00 in my office with Mikal gary >>> Sheri Wamhoff 06/08 10:20 AM >>> Gary If this works for everyone - Marc will attend the meeting at your office on the Farmstead (he was the engineer and can bring the draft agreement which has the dollar amount and language for the Taft Hill repay The repay numbers were calculated by Matt Baker by numbers provided to him by John Lang). I will attend the meeting here regarding platting. Thanks Sheri >>> Gary Diede 6/8/2005 8:29:59 AM >>> Sheri, if you have another meeting, I can deal with Mikal alone. I will need the repay info so I can talk to him about that It seems like it was about $50k for the repay on the bridge and I'm not sure what responsibilities and local costs he has for Tat Hill. gary >>> Don Bachman 06/07 6:26 PM >>> He'll probably be looking for some relief on his repay on the Taft Hill project. >>> Sheri Wamhoff O6/07/05 4:40 PM >>> I can be there - I'll forgo the meeting over here I was going to attend Anything I need to know before the meeting to be prepared? Sheri >>> Gary Diede 6/7/2005 3 09:57 PM >>> Don, that's OK. Sheri, can you come over to my office at 4:00 to meet with Mikal and me? gary >>> Don Bachman 06/07 2:32 PM >>> FYI.. this conflicts with the meeting time Mickel T requested on Farmstead. This taping is a command performance. Can I have Sheri represent Engineering? and Planning and Zoning Mr. John Walz President Farmstead, LLC PO Box 1344 'Fort Collins, CO 80522 Subject: Farmstead PDP one-year extension Dear John, Services November 29, 2007 The City of Fort Collins has reviewed and approved your request for a one year extension to the Farmstead PDP #8-03 officially approved and recorded on June 24, 2005. Based on this extension, all engineering improvements (water, sewer, streets, curb, gutter, fire hydrants and storm drainage) must be completed no later than June 24, 2009. Pursuant to Section 2.2.11(D) (4) of the Land Use Code, I am authorized to grant an additional one year extension should you find that the above new deadline cannot be met. Application for such extension must be requested in writing no later than June 17, 2009. Please note that additional requests beyond the two consecutive one year periods fall outside my purview and may only be authorized by the Planning and Zoning Board. Should you have any questions or require additional information, please feel free to give me a call at 970/221-6765. Sincerely, Carfieron Gloss, AICP ° Planning and Zoning Director cc: Steve Olt/Project File Marc Virata 281 North College Avenue • P.O. Box 580 • Fort Collins, CO 80522-0580 • (970) 221-6750 • FAX (970) 416-2020 and Planning and Zoning Mr. John Walz President Farmstead, LLC PO Box 1344 'Fort Collins, CO 80522 Subject: Farmstead PDP one-year extension Dear John, Services November 29, 2007 The City of Fort Collins has reviewed and approved your request for a one year extension to the Farmstead PDP #8-03 officially approved and recorded on June 24, 2005. Based on this extension, all engineering improvements (water, sewer, streets, curb, gutter, fire hydrants and storm drainage) must be completed no later than June 24, 2009. Pursuant to Section 2.2.11(D) (4) of the Land Use Code, I am authorized to grant an additional one year extension should you find that the above new deadline cannot be met. Application for such extension must be requested in writing no later than June 17, 2009. Please note that additional requests beyond the two consecutive one year periods fall outside my purview and may only be authorized by the Planning and Zoning Board. Should you have any questions or require additional information, please feel free to give me a call at 970/221-6765. Sincerely, Carfieron Gloss, AICP ° Planning and Zoning Director cc: Steve Olt/Project File Marc Virata 281 North College Avenue • P.O. Box 580 • Fort Collins, CO 80522-0580 • (970) 221-6750 • FAX (970) 416-2020 City of 281 NorthoolgCege Aveneet• P.O. Box 5 0 •rtFort Collins,r Fort Collins CO 80Pla in 522 05 0 \..- (970) 221-6750 August 7, 2008 Mr. John Walz President Farmstead, LLC PO Box 1344 Fort Collins, CO 80522 Subject: Farmstead PDP additional one-year extension Dear John, The City of Fort Collins has reviewed and approved your request for an additional one-year extension to the Farmstead PDP #8-03 officially approved and recorded on June 24, 2005. A previous one-year extension was granted this past year. Based on this additional extension, all engineering improvements (water, sewer, streets, curb, gutter, fire hydrants and storm drainage) must be completed no later than June 24, 2010. Pursuant to Section 2.2.11(D) (4) of the Land Use Code, I am not authorized to grant any further time extensions to the Farmstead PDP approval. Any additional requests would be subject to the review of the Planning and Zoning Board. Should you have any questions or require additional information, please feel free to give me a call at 970/221-6765. Sincerely, Cameron Gloss, AICP Planning and Zoning Director cc: Steve Olt/Project File Marc Virata The City appreciates your cooperation with this project. If you have any questions, please contact Marc Anderson, John Lang or me at 221-6605. Sincerely, Cam McNair. P.E. City Engineer cc: Carrie Daggett, City Attorney's Office John Lang, City Engineering Dept Marc Anderson, City Engineering Dept Ralph Campano, City Real Estate Services Marc Virata - Farmstead Development Page 1_ 1 From: Ward Stanford To: Cameron Gloss; Dave Stringer, Marc Virata; Steve Olt Date: 10/15/03 1:27PM Subject: Farmstead Development 1 discussed the left and rights w/ Eric and he agrees. Our error and we are not going to push it One point I feel I need to make( and I'm sure it has been made before): I fully agree with the validity of late aspect, we had a responsibility and failed to perform it in a timely manner. But to default to a position that a developer/architect/engineer/planner has no responsibility to also meet the same codes... the codes of the City they work in every day ... the codes of the City that much, if not the majority of their work is performed in ... is unbalanced in the burden of providing a safe and quality addition to a community. That's all folks I (stated to the Merry Melodies cartoon melody) CC: Eric: Bracke Interoffice Memorandum, Date: 01 /29/04 To: Cam McNair, City Engineer Thru: Dave Stringer, Development Review Manager r), V1 From: Marc Virata, Development Review Engineer '^ RE: Variance Requests for Farmstead DM W Civil Engineers, on behalf' of Mikal Torgerson has submitted two variance rests pertaining to the Farmstead development. These requests dated January 28, 2004 are in regards to horizontal alignment criteria for Pennsylvania Street specified in Chapter 7 of the Latimer County Urban Area Street Standards. It is my opinion that these variance requests can be supported. Pennsylvania Street is a road proposed within the Farmstead development designed as a connector street to serve this site and future parcels south of the site. Currently it has a measured tangent distance of 55 feet from the intersection of Lanorte Avenue._ Additionally, further south of this intersection across the New Mercer Canal, Pennsylvania has a tan gig nt of 50 feet between two curves. In both cases a variance approval is required as 100 feet of tangent is re tired in accordance with the Latimer County Urban Area Street Standards. I disagree with the justification provided by the design engineer. He states that in order to meet the tangent requirements, the crossing of the New Mercer Canal for Pennsylvania would be greatly skewed. In fact, the crossing of the Canal is currently skewed and this amount of skew could be reduced if Pennsylvania was realigned to the west approaching the canal instead of to the east. However, in aligning the roadway to the west, the road does not align directly with the Pennsylvania design shown with the Cherokee Flying Heights development further south. In addition (and secondary), this skew was likely introduced to increase the developable area, which results in the ability to place dwellings on either side of the roadway. Given that the street locations are fixed at both ends of the property, there appears to be limited options to make this street design meet all our requirements. Despite these substandard designs, 1 believe these variance requests are worth considering. For northbound movements, these short tangent lengths are approaching an intersection that will require a stop condition at Laporte Avenue. As such, we've justified in the past that this stop condition results in less of a need to meet standards. An example of this is Cambridge Avenue south of Harmony Road. When HP proposed to align Cambridge in such a way that tangent lengths are not being met, we granted the variance request with the viewpoint that vehicles will have to slow down when approaching the intersection heading north. When heading south on Cambridge, speeds are also likely limited from the standpoint that vehicles are likely moving slow having just completed a turning movement across the intersection. I believe one can make a similar case here for Pennsylvania Street here. DMW notes that sight distance requirements are being met in the current design and given that flowline street grades are not steep along this area (2%), this provides further reasoning that these requests can be supported. Unfortunately, the accompanying street design information used for reference is not the most recent but the design has remained the same for the purposes of evaluating these variance requests. Please let me know if I can provide any additional information. Transportation Services Engineering Department City of Fort Collins February 17,2004 Mr. Jade P. Miller, P.E. DMW Civil Engineers, Inc. 1435 West29`' Street Loveland, CO 80538 Re: Farmstead Variance Requests Dear Mr. Miller: Please allow this to serve as notice regarding your variance request letter dated January 23, 2004. Your letter was evaluated by the City Engineer and on February 12, he approved both of your requests regarding minimum tangent lengths between curves and intersections. Please ensure that general note regarding approved variances is revised to reflect these approvals. Let me know of any questions or concerns. Sincerely, Marc Virata Civil Engineer cc: project file �bl \;ortuk__�Ilege,\venue • '0. Box580 • Fort Collins, CO80522-0580 • i971'1 221-,,005 • FAX f9701"_1-o378 w�.w.fcgov.com March 22, 2004 Steve Olt Current Planning Department City of Fort Collins 281 North College Fort Collins, CO 80522 Dear Mr. Olt: I am writing to request a modification of standards for the Farmstead PDP on Laporte and Taft Hill Roads. Section 3 6.2(C) of the Fort Collins Land Use Code says: Except as provided in (B) above for cul-de-sacs, no dead-end streets shall be permitted except in cases where such streets are designed to connect with future streets on a0acent land, in which case a temporary turnaround easement at the end of the street with a diameter of at least eighty (80) feet must be provided_ Such turnaround easement shall not be required if no lots in the subdivision ne dependent upon such street for access Because this proposed PDP includes a full hammerhead turn around at the termination of Pennsylvania Avenue, it is my position that this project as proposed without a 80 foot diameter temporary turnaround easement would not diverge from the standards of the Land Use Code with regard to section 3 6 2(C) except in a nominal and inconsequential way since a temporary turnaround is provided in the form of a hammerhead. In addition, I have visited with Ron Gonzalez of the Poudre Fire Department regarding this requirement for the PDP Mr. Gonzalez indicated in this meeting that the 80 foot diameter turnaround would not be required by the Poudre Fire Department, as we are providing a full fire lane loop from the temporary termination of Pennsylvania Avenue east to Tafl Hill Road. In addition, because The Farmstead PDP application is a qualified affordable housing project, it is my position that the granting of this modification from the strict application of the standard would, without impairing the intent and purpose of this Land Use Code, substantially alleviate the existing, defined and described problem of affordable housing, which is a city wide concern. Therefore the Farmstead PDP would result in a substantial benefit to the city by reason of the fact that the proposed project would substantially address an important community need specifically and expressly defined and described in the city Comprehensive Plan. Sincerely. r Mikal S. Torgerson i1N3A9 313)dVl 8 OVOtl 111H li�Vl dOd MISWMVf �4 a Steve Olt - Farmstead turn around Modification Page 1 From: Dave Stringer To: Marc Virata; Ron Gonzales; Ward Stanford Date: 3/22/04 2:49PM Subject: Farmstead turn around Modification Marc, Ron and Ward, Mikal just submitted his modification for the Farmstead project asking to not build the turn around at the end of Pennsylvania Street. This will be a Type I hearing with the hearing officer from Denver presiding. I told Steve we can process this with a one week turn around time since we all know what is being proposed. Dave CC: Steve Olt