 Mayor Bagley, I see you are here. Councilmember Christensen. Here. Councilmember Douglfairing. Here. Councilmember Martin. Here. Councilmember Peck. And Mayor, you may begin. All right, great. Since we're with the public online, I'd like to know, I would like to now call the April 13th, 2021. Longmont City Council regular session to order. Can we please start a roll with a roll call? Mayor Bagley, I see you are here. Councilmember Christensen. Here. Councilmember Douglfairing. Here. Councilmember Peck. Here. Mayor Pro-Tem Rodriguez. Here. Councilmember Waters. Here. Mayor, you have a quorum. All right, all lead us off with the pledge. I pledge allegiance to the flag. United States of America. United States of America. And to the Republic of Public, stands a nation. A nation. A nation. A nation. A nation. A nation. A nation. A nation. A nation. or the public, anyone wish you to provide public comment during the public invited to be heard, let's go ahead and watch the live stream of the meeting and call in when public comment is made available. You'll call that number, follow the information on the screen, and then everyone will have three minutes to speak. Unfortunately, the chair will have to cut you off three minutes, no matter how much I love or hate what you're saying. So, all right, let's go ahead. Do we have an motion to approve the minutes of March 30th, 2021, a regular session meeting? So moved. Second. All right, it was moved by Council Member Christensen, second by Council Member Hidalgo-Fairing, seeing no revisions, dialogue, or debate. All in favor of the motion say aye. Aye. Opposed, say nay. All right, the motion passes unanimously. Do we have any agenda revision, submission of documents, or motions to direct the City Manager to add agenda items to future agendas? All right, seeing none, let's go on to City Manager's report on COVID-19. Carol. Mayor and Council, actually, I'm going to ask Eugene to join us today and talk about the changes that are going to be taking place in terms of the state rules and the county rules. The county adopted their new order last night. The governor's made some changes, and so I wanted Eugene to take a second to really ground us on what the world's going to look like now as we move forward for the coming month. And then I'll just have some just quick updates on high level on where we are in vaccination. Next week, Lexie's going to be here and she can really provide you with more detailed information on the vaccine piece. And by then, Carmen's going to have some information about how we may use you all as your work talking to your constituents to help us ensure we're getting people into the system. That'll be next week. Eugene, do you want to talk about all the changes that are happening this week? Sure thing, Harold. Eugene May, City Attorney. So last week I previewed with Council that we were expecting some big changes this week in the dial. And it's starting to come into focus now what our next couple of months are going to look like. Today at Governor Polis' press conference, he announced that the dial is going to go away on Friday, the state-level dial, and not be replaced by anything else, except for large indoor events. Think nuggets as those sort of, you know, thousands of people indoors. I think the state is still going to have some involvement to make sure those are conducted safely on a separate independent track, the masking order, the public indoor space mask order is still in effect at the state level. And that was adopted on April 2nd and good for 30 days. So we can expect that to continue. The real movement was last night, the Boulder County Board of Health adopted a new public health order in general adopting the state dial framework. And it's going to be effective on Friday, the 16th, and there's two phases. The first phase, starting on Friday, the county will go down one level and we're firmly in yellow. So, you know, by all expectations, we're going to be in blue come Friday. That first phase will last for one month, not moving around. We will stay in blue. And most of the capacity restrictions in the state dial are going to be applicable in level blue. So I think that really reflects being responsive to the input they've heard from stakeholders and businesses that we don't want the dial, you know, jiggering around and going between levels. So we're going to be firmly in blue for a month. You know, they still have 22 industry specific categories with different capacity levels. Couple of highlights, restaurants can operate at 100% capacity with six foot distancing. That's really a theme that's throughout all of their capacity restrictions. Still want people to distance, still going to mask, and try to keep with your own households. Offices and retail generally at 75% capacity. And then on down the list for the different types of industry categories. For large outdoor events, greater than 500 people, the county is requesting that organizers submit plans to Boulder County Public Health. No approval is required to conduct that event. Boulder County Public Health wants to have the opportunity to have notice and review to make sure that mitigation measures are adequate for that size of event. Come May 15th, we will move into phase two for three months. There is a new level clear, which has no restrictions, no capacity restrictions. But it's level clear with a snapback provision, which if our hospitalization rate increases, then we would move to the appropriate level based upon our hospital admissions. And they changed it from a raw number to a rate per 100,000 for seven consecutive days on a 14-day rolling average. So that's really going to sort of even out the peaks and focus on the metric that's most important, which is hospital capacity here. Incident rates is being taken out, number of cases per day. And so that'll get us into the fall and hopefully everything will be going well by then. Boulder County did reserve the right to move the county to a different level if circumstances on the ground changes. On the masking side, this is important or relevant to Council's desire to get back in person. I think the masking requirement is going to be the sort of constraining factor under the combination of the state and local masking orders. City Council, if they want to be unmasked, I think our speakers to an audience or for broadcast. And therefore you would need to be 25 feet apart from non-household members, so from each other. That would also apply to staff. I know Harold is typically a speaker and it would require a 25-foot bubble around the podium and things like that. So based on those logistical challenges, I think we would be looking to wait until we're in level clear in May, in the middle of May, before really going in person and then sort of planning maybe on a hybrid or something like that before that because of his distancing requirements. We would also have to manage the public six-foot distancing requirements in the audience, the seated event. And I don't think the capacity of City Council chambers is over 500, so that that part won't apply. So that's kind of a high level summary of changes. Happy to answer any questions or have Harold continue on with his COVID update. Mayor Pratam Rodriguez. Thank you Mayor Bagley. My question is for non-public meetings such as executive sessions. Would the 25-foot rule, is this specifically a Boulder County issue versus the state? Because obviously we see press conferences with the governor and other members of his staff and they're within six feet of each other. So I'm as curious as this is a Boulder County initiative and when we're not having public meetings, could we maybe have an in-person meeting? So yes, the 25-foot masking requirement is a local public health order. Boulder County order applies to speakers to an audience or for broadcast, 25 feet apart from non-household members. For executive sessions, if there isn't an audience or broadcast, the guidance release starts at 10 or more. And so I think there is some flexibility there. We would have to, I would have to think a little bit harder about if there was just counsel, no public. Is that what you were asking? My question was not, my question was not pushing back, it was just clarification. But I could look at that. For instance, yes, an executive session meeting would be an example of that. Okay, I'll take a look at that a little further. The order just came out this morning and I'll look at it with that scenario in mind. That's from the waters. Well, thanks, Mayor Bagley. Just to clarify, early in the pandemic, we agreed that we were going to follow whatever guidance came from the governor. And I'm trying to recall, I think we did that by a vote. Did we not? Did we vote to follow that direction? Should we assume now that relative to guidance here, we're not going to get more guidance from the governor? Is that fair assumption or not? And if we don't, do we need to then take another formal action on what guidance we're going to follow so we're not in a debate about distances and protocols and how we're going to move forward? Well, one thing, I may not have been totally precise. The governor did say the dial will stop being regulatory mandates and will just go into guidance status. So we won't know exactly what he has in mind until Friday. And I think a lot of the social distancing, say, for outdoors and masking is now recommended. It's not required. And so that may factor into how we want to define who and what we're following. I think part, I think when we did this, if I'm remembering, we had a couple of conversations. I think council said CDC governor CDPHE and then Boulder County Hill in that order. We'll have to look at it. The thing that Eugene's talking about that's important is the masking order is still a state order. And so that's the nuance in this in terms of how you sit up and whether or not you have to wear a mask because you could theoretically be in the council meeting together based on the rule, but you have to wear your mask as you're sitting at the bias throughout that meeting. And so that's part of the nuance of the orders we're trying to figure out. So is it so we can sit next to each other within 25 feet so long as we're masked and then to be unmasked, we have to be with with the 45 feet. Correct. All right. Well, I'm not going to comment because we could be here forever, but it looks like we're going to just be on zoom meetings for a little while because that's a lot easier than spending time fighting with the county health department. All right. We think there will be clarity in a month. This I think is really in between now and May 16th. If there's anything in our mind starting to say May 16th right in that time frame is when we come out of it. Well, when we have a major league baseball all-star game, we'll reassess. All right. Councilmember Dr. Faring. So actually Harold had answered what I was about to say with in regards to what our original statement was, was CDC down through the county. So I don't think we need to revise any of that. I did have a question though. So I mean, really before we can make any assess the situation or make any decision, we're going to have to wait until after the 16th. Is that correct? We can't really make a decision tonight. No. Well, no. And we'll be as we get closer, but it looks like we will be in level blue now until May 16th. And the plan is at May 16th to go into level clear as they're defining it. What we don't know is what masking rules will be in play because those still exist at the state level and the county level for indoor activities. Even though the state's relaxing, the masking order we know for a fact is still in play until I believe May 2nd. May 2nd. Okay. Correct. Yeah, the masking orders are on a different 30-day time frame than the new dial. The new dial is 16th to 15th and the masking order was April 2nd. So presumably to May 1st or 2nd. All right. Well, with that, it sounds like thanks for the update. And if we need to take action, we'll do it in a couple weeks as we learn more and we'll go from there. I've got all kinds of things to say, but the reality is we walk into stores and we're all used to masks and we're free to travel where we want and see life's getting better, I think for all of us. So in this way, we all get to see each other's beautiful, pretty, shining faces every week. So let's go ahead and go on to special reports and presentations. Anything, Harold? Nothing, right? Well, just real quick. May 16th is also critical because of where they think they'll be with vaccinations and next week Lexi will show that to you all. At this point, we have about 53% of the eligible people and people that are eligible for vaccinations to be they're vaccinated. 53% of the total eligible population. And when we look at 92% of the 70 plus are vaccinated, 79% of 60 to 69. And we're seeing that move through. So as they're opening up, we're seeing more. So that's what everybody's focusing on is really that piece. And they have a really good presentation to give you that data. We still really are working with our traditionally underserved populations. We're still seeing differences. And hopefully by then we'll have some more information for for you all. But that's going to be our ask next week is where we're probably going to need some help and assistance on this. And but we'll cover that next week. All right, great. Thanks, Harold. Let's go on to first call public invited to be heard. So what I'd like to do, we'll take a three minute break. But when we come back, okay, keep the list open for the first call that will allow us to do a three minute break and allow people six minutes to get in line. And then after that, cut it off. And then we'll have our list. Is that okay? Council member fairing? That is fine as long as the public has time to call in. That'll give us six, six minutes. It's a win-win. All right. Okay. That's all right. That's all right. But we'll take at least a three minute break. And we'll be back in three to start public invited, first call public invited to be heard. All right. Bye. Okay, folks, you should see on the screen now the number to call in for public invited to be heard. That number is 1-888-788-0099. When prompted, you will enter the meeting ID 852-6677 9573. Press pound when it asks you for a participant ID. When you are let into the meeting and you can hear through your telephone, my instructions, our instructions, please make sure that you mute the live stream. The live stream is delayed a few seconds. Hey Susan and council that's on. I'm having some wonky banded with it, banded with issues right now. Okay. I may have to keep my video off and then only come in when I need to to make sure I can hear, but I'll try to figure out what's going on. If you need to leave the meeting, now would be a good time to try it. It's not this. I think it's my router. Okay. Very good. Susan, I'm going to try coming in on my computer. So I'm going to log out on my iPad, but that's all right. Stay on your iPad until you log in on the other device. That would be your your safety. Okay. All right. Thanks. Hey Susan. Well, we're waiting. Is it possible to overtext your overtext your router? Occasionally, I have to unplug the next light and the router and then start the next light modem and then start my router again. So yes, you're, you're, if you haven't done that in a while, you may want to do that, but tonight's probably not it. No, no, no. I'm just saying if you, oh, I mean, I've got kids that have been in school, you know, just think of a router more quickly. Yes. Devices do not last. I don't know how old your router is, but if it's more than three years, you have the potential of it just dying on you. So yeah. You may want to look into QoS settings, quality of service, and assign it to a, to you or your device so that you have more bandwidth. You, the system gives you more bandwidth over the other occupants in your house. That's another option. Okay. Right. That's almost four minutes. Mr. Mayer. Yes. We had the wrong sign up. I hope that hasn't confused anybody. We had sign up that says not qualified, not time to call in. We'll take. Oh, we have to. Thanks. That was not very good on my part. Was it? Let's take another three minutes. Sound good? Loader in the queue. All right. Back in three guys. I think my mouse must have stepped me back in my slide deck. I think we're good now. We do have two callers, Mayor, and we are waiting for... Actually, let's do, let's, let's actually come back. Can everybody come back? Why don't we just go ahead and take these two callers, leave it up for the next, leave the list, leave the, leave it open for the next. Actually, actually, let's take the three minutes because they're going to need to call the number, right? Well, the number was on the other slide. So all the information is still the same. It just... Just, just leave it, let's just, let's just leave it open then for, let's, let's go ahead with public invited to be heard once. We'll stay here. We'll wait till Aaron and Marsha are back. We'll do the, we'll do the first, we'll just leave it open for the first call and let's, let's go for it. All right. I'll leave the screen up while I unmute the first caller. So the first caller I'm going to ask to unmute your phone number ends in 139, 139. Are you there? You should be able to hit, there you go. Can you hear us? Good evening. I can hear you. Great. Go ahead and state your name and address for the record. You may begin. Yes. I am Elizabeth Topping speaking on my own behalf at 4007 Florentine Drive. Good evening, Mayor and Council. I am in favor of the Inclusionary Housing Amendment to the Municipal Code, but my comment today is a call for attention to critical needs type of residents in existing infrastructure and more specifically residents of mobile homes and manufactured homes. For today I'll refer to both as mobile homes. Mobile home parks are the nation's largest source of non-subsidized affordable housing and they serve a variety of family demographics whose needs are not met in the traditional homeowner market. Mobile home prices are significantly less than single family homes in Colorado, making mobile homes a viable option for low and middle income households. Yet the increasing cost of renting the land under one's mobile home threatens affordability. The city should explicitly protect the viability of mobile home living as a part of the broader affordable housing effort. To begin the city might analyze whether the Municipal Code protects or takes for granted critical needs residents in mobile home parks given the unique tenant relationship and renting pad sites. The city should engage in community outreach with mobile home stakeholders to understand affordability needs. It could then utilize existing research findings from our close neighbors in the city of Boulder to translate to long months particular needs. This research is public and Boulder's manufactured housing strategy and action plan. Finally and separately the city should increase accessibility to information on rights related to mobile homes with a simple link on the city's website. In amendments last summer to the Mobile Home Park Act the state has added protections for mobile homeowners including an express prohibition on retaliation from park owners. The city should help avail its residents to their rights with a link to the Mobile Home Park Oversight Program where residents may file complaints and enter dispute resolution with violating park owners. In summary my request tonight is to sustain the viability of living in long months mobile home parks. If the city is to prioritize affordable housing then existing mobile home parks should not be overlooked. Thank you for inviting me to be heard today. Thank you. Next caller. All right mayor the next caller your phone number ends in seven six five. I'm going to go ahead and ask you to unmute and mayor I'm going to go ahead and lock the meeting so no other callers come in. It's been about another three minutes here. Caller seven six five. Are you able to unmute? There you are. Hello. Hi. Hi. Hi thanks. My name is Anna Lee Jensen and I'm here today on behalf of the East County Housing Opportunity Coalition and we are a group of affordable housing advocates in the eastern part of Boulder County including Longmont. We have two Longmont members on our board of directors and we wanted to just make some comments on your inclusionary housing ordinance revisions. First I want to say that Longmont is doing a lot of really wonderful things with its inclusionary housing ordinance and having done a lot of research into inclusionary housing years is one of the most interesting and creative and thoughtful in terms of trying to balance both for sale and for rent and also the middle tier program that you have is really unique and we applaud that and thank you for that. It is kind of hard to get good data on what's going on with your program in terms of how many units are you producing and when they're going to come online. I understand that information is available. It's just not easy to find so I would ask you to try to create a little bit more transparency about that so those of us who are trying to follow it could follow it easily. I wanted to also say that in your conversation when you last reviewed the ordinance you made the decision to do a five-year limit on charging back when a developer converts a for rent unit to a for sale unit and we don't think that's probably enough time to create the disincentive that you want to get to keep the developers from paying the lower rate and I know you considered 10 years and we think 10 years is probably better and I would ask you to reconsider that item. We appreciate the changes in the de-restricted housing that protects homeowners from possible crashes and we thank you for changing your AMI to 50 percent of AMI on the credit that developers can get for the voluntary agreements and then lastly I know you're not voting on it tonight but you went to your last council you looked at items number 10 and 11 and 10 was the update to the sales price formula. We think this does need some additional work if someone is paying 40 to 50 percent of their rent in housing because you haven't adequately accounted for the HOA dues or property taxes or insurance that is not the intent of an affordable housing program. Everyone has sort of agreed and HUD has put guidance forward that 33 percent of an income is what people should pay no more than so we urge you to support this change in the formula that your staff are suggesting you look into and we think it does need to be changed. Thank you ma'am that was over three minutes but we have to cut you off but thank you point well taken thank you. All right was that it for our callers? Yes mayor that was the last caller. All right if you go ahead Ms. Quintana and read the consent agenda for us that would be great. Of course mayor item 9a is ordinance 2021-22 a bill for an ordinance amending chapter three of the Longmont Municipal Code on personnel rules rules public hearing and second reading scheduled for April 27 2021. 9b is ordinance 2021-23 a bill for an ordinance amending chapter 1404 of the Longmont Municipal Code on meter and water line maintenance for arterial right of way public hearing and second reading scheduled for April 27 2021. 9c is ordinance 2021-24 a bill for an ordinance authorizing the city of Longmont to lease the real property known as Vance brand municipal airport hangar parcel h50 to Gale shipper public hearing and second reading scheduled for April 27 2021. 9d is ordinance 2021-25 a bill for an ordinance approving the first amendment to the Vance brand municipal airport parcel h14-b lease public hearing and second reading scheduled for April 27 2021. 9e is ordinance 2021-26 a bill for an ordinance approving the first amendment to the Vance brand municipal airport hangar parcel nh-g2 lease public hearing and second reading scheduled for April 27 2021. 9f is resolution 2021-33 a resolution of the Longmont city council approving the intergovernmental agreement between the city and boulder county public health for its genesis project 9g is resolution 2021-34 a resolution of the Longmont city council approving an amendment to the intergovernmental agreement between the city and boulder county housing and human services for parent education services 9h is resolution 2021-35 a resolution of the Longmont city council approving a fifth amendment to the intergovernmental agreement between the city and boulder county for repair and read mediation from flooding 9i resolution 2021-36 a resolution of the Longmont city council approving an amendment to the intergovernmental agreement between boulder county and the city of Longmont for the environmental sustainability matching grant program for sustainability projects in 2021 9j resolution 2021-37 a resolution of the Longmont city council approving the intergovernmental agreement between the city and victim assistance and law enforcement board of the 20th judicial district for 2021 grant funding for victim services 9k is resolution resolution 2021-38 a resolution of the Longmont city council in support of immigrant families of the city of Longmont to access occupational licenses through senate bill 21-077 and benefits through senate bill 21-199 9l is approval letter to the attorney general regarding allegations that managers in the colorado air pollution control division ordered their staff to falsify data and strongly urging an immediate and thorough thorough investigation into these allegations phew all right well done i'd like to pull i'd like to pull l anyone else want to pull any all right do we have a motion for the council mayor peck thank you very badly yes i'd like to pull i great okay all right let's go ahead and do we have a motion yeah i'll move that we uh prove the consent agenda minus l and i second all right i want to pay for the consent agenda minus l and i say i i i i oppose say nay all right the consent agenda minus i and l pass unanimously let's go on to ordinances on second reading and public hearings on any matter and actually this i let's go ahead can we is it possible to address i and l right now i mean what i'm saying is can we put up the number on the screen so that people can call in for the opportunity to speak on the ordinances so we can we don't have to take another break is that possible don mayor we certainly can when the screen is up you you may not see all of council's videos though right well let's let's see what happens but let's let's invite the public to call in if you want to speak at the public hearing on any of the ordinances to be discussed and voted on pertaining to their second reading go ahead and call in now please councilmember yagafaring um yeah i just wanted to um so i'm following the live meeting on my other laptop and i saw that the items that were pulled were i k and l was that a typo did you mean to to add k in there no just i and l okay so i just want to make sure that that gets corrected for the record all right i don't want to discuss it but i'm i'm gonna move approve i'm gonna move approval of item l do i have a second second all right all in all in favor of item l say i i i oppose say nay nay all right the motion i carry six to one okay um let's go on to item i i apologize mayor who was the nay on that vote i i'm sorry i was you were okay thank you um can we go on to item i councilmember peck please mayor badly i i'm curious as to why you voted against it i would like that discussion i'm just i just i just don't think we should be telling the state i think that i personally think that this i don't want to have the discussion meaning that the i mean we could spend time on it and the whole point was we waste too much time on state issues which are important but this council i think has really important work that we could be focused on here locally that that's it so i don't want to waste more time i just wanted to know what you what you thought that was it thank you i think i think the attorney general should should do that but i just don't think that we need to weigh in on all the issues that are going on outside a long line that's it okay thank you but why don't you go ahead and take the floor keep the floor and talk about item i please councilmember peck oh okay thank you uh yeah i just have a couple of questions um so this grant is for a list of category there was a list of categories that this funding can be used for however when i look at the grant and what it is being used for it looks like it is either for new hires or for salaries can somebody clarify that for me yeah uh mayor badly and councilmember peck please and i'll block sustainability program manager with public works and natural resources so the list of categories that you see there is coming from the ballot language that was included in the sustainability tax where this funding is coming from and it doesn't explicitly state in that list of categories staffing or salaries but it is included in like sustainability planning or if there is staffing support that support any of these specific categories and the the funding requests that we have are for second year of the grant and residential program coordinator that we've funded through the sustainability tax last year with it which is a two-year term limited position as well as a new similarly two-year term limited position that's an equity and engagement specialist that's helping to implement equity in our climate action recommendations as well as a project that's not staffing that's focused on the climate risk and vulnerability mapping which is part of one of the climate action task force strategies around a public health plan around the impacts of climate change could i answer your question it did but at least i'm in that list of things that we want to accomplish i'm curious as to where the funding for some of those things and do you have projects for 2021 that these people are actually going to be working on because what i would like to see is something out of this you know something that is going to affect our our sustainability in our city for our clients but if it's only if it's only grant money to hire people and to get more studies and that's frustrating for me so do you have a list of projects that you're going to be working on for 2021 in a timeline for those uh council member peck uh yes and i'll be coming to you in the coming weeks or so with an update on that list of projects from the climate action task force and what the status on each of those is the staffing support that we're requesting through this funding that the staff capacity is is one of our limiting factors right now and implementation of those projects so those staffing requests will specifically help support implementation of some of those projects that have been identified um such as well the implementation of the equity recommendations the equity checklist that the equitable climate action team formerly the just transition plan committee put together that's using to that we're using to advise as we get into the implementation of climate action strategies to make sure we're doing those in an equitable way and the project that is listed here the climate risk and vulnerability mapping project yeah is specific to one of those climate action recommendations the the public health plan this is a data gathering focus that'll help feed into that plan that our oem folks didn't really have the capacity to do in 2021 so we'll be focusing on that portion in 2022 but this is helping together data that will inform that project okay thank you very much and i look forward to uh that presentation of where we're going to go with this and yeah so with that i'm going to move 2021 36 second right council member peck uh made the motion council member christensen uh second of it all in favor of item i of the consent agenda say i i i opposed say nay all right the motion carries unanimously all right let's go ahead and go on to items on uh ordinances on second reading let's go ahead and just keep keep the keep the line open uh mayor pro tem no you're good sorry okay all right thanks all right let's go ahead to item 10a ordinance 2021-18 a bill for an ordinance emitting chapters 15.05 sections 15 15.05.220 and 15.10.020 the lombard municipal code on inclusionary housing are there any questions from council all right seeing none let's go ahead and open the public hearing on ordinance 2021-18 is there anybody on the line mayor we have no callers that have called in during that time okay we'll just keep it open all right we'll go ahead and close the public hearing then um can we have a motion pertaining to ordinance 2021-18 uh dr waters yeah i'll move approval of ordinance 2021-18 all right it was moved by council member water seconded by council member martin all in favor say any dialogue or debate on this anybody want to speak against it council member christensen um i do think we need to make some other additions of specifically having to do with um um the land donation portion of it but we can do that um at another meeting thank you all right um all in favor say i i i pose say nay all right ordinance 2021-18 passes unanimously let's move on to item b or item 10b which is ordinance 2021-19 a bill for an ordinance emitting chapter 4.79 the lombard municipal code on fee reduction or subsidy um any but uh Kathy Fedler sorry to interrupt so on this particular one there are a couple additional changes um that we caught um today actually um they're not substantive they're cleanup items and it is on um 4.79.030 um item a it's changing it says currently each person or organization may apply for fee reduction subsidies along with building permit application using the form supplied by the director of planning and development services we're changing that to city because planning and development services doesn't provide that form and then everywhere that it says the director of planning and development services department we're changing to just director of planning or planning director and i think that is pretty much all of the changes so um that's kind of throughout the rest of the um that code section okay all right do we have a motion so do we need to make a motion as amended by that's what we need to do tim poll mr. mayor i believe you'd have to make a motion to amend and then and then vote on all right i'm i'm going to move that we amend ordinance 2021-19 as explained by Kathy Fedler second all in favor say aye aye aye opposed say nay all right the amendment uh the motion to amend uh carries unanimously and i will move i will move to pass ordinance 2021-19 as amended second all right i made the motion dr. waters seconded it all in favor say aye aye aye opposed say nay all right the motion carries unanimously let's move on to 10c ordinance 2021-20 a bill for an ordinance proving the lease agreement between the city of longmont colorado on the oligarchy irrigation company um are there uh actually i don't know if i had time out a second was there anybody on the line no mayor we have no callers the media is still unlocked all right i don't know if i opened it for public hearing i don't recall that you did and i don't either but um i didn't and so i will if anybody was on the line i would open it for public hearing right now and we'd revote if that was the case but they're not so we'll continue all right we'll go on to ordinance 2021-20 a bill for an ordinance proving the lease agreement between the city of longmont colorado and oligarchy irrigation company are there any questions from council all right seeing none let's go ahead and open the public hearing nobody's on the phone call so let's go ahead and close it we have a motion for ordinance 2021-20 so moved i'll second it all right uh seeing no further discussion from council all in favor say aye aye aye post say nay all right uh motion carries unanimously and then uh finally for second reading we have item 10d ordinance 2021-21 the bill for an ordinance designated to heil melanger silo at 2000 u creek drive is a local historic landmark i know some people are gonna be happy there all right um everybody's pretty much familiar with this issue i think but um seeing no questions or comments from council let's go ahead and open it to public hearing sorry council member christensen um i just wanted to thank the public for bringing this forth i know you thought we weren't listening to you but we actually were and i'm glad we could work with the me that the neighborhood could um get uh say in what they want to have happen in their neighborhood thanks thank you all right so let's go ahead and there's nobody in the on the call right that is correct perfect and we will open and close the public hearing on ordinance 2021-21 do we have a motion i'll move ordinance 2021-21 second all right it's been moved by dr water seconded by uh council member dago farang seeing no further discussion or debate all in favor of ordinance 2021-21 say hi hi hi post n a all right the motion carries unanimously all right we've already dealt with the items removed from the consent agenda um so let's go on to general business so we've got three items tonight or four four three of substance we've got so for 12 a we're gonna start with the annexation referral which is weird simply giving staff permission to explore whether or not annexation should occur we're not actually voting on annexation tonight so this is pertaining to 10161 highway it is a request for city council to refer the the property located to this address into the annexation review process um do we have a presentation by staff mayor bagley members of council erin fosick principal planner um you have information in your communication in your pocket um i do have a staff presentation that i'm happy to go through to give an overview and i also have the applicant um so i'm happy to do whatever council would prefer because does anyone have any specific questions before we take a motion dr waters you know i don't know i don't know if these are questions or simply messaging but i looked at the materials um i saw the i saw the letter i saw a reference to uh addressing drainage and detention issues as an extraordinary benefit for the community um i'm i'm not an expert enough on on that or what is or is not an extraordinary benefit to form a judgment but i but in the concept plan unless i miss something all i saw was a map with a and then a description of general reference to how the types of housing stock without many specifics so the messaging here for me i'm assuming well this will get approved or for referral but i want that whoever the the the applicant when this comes back for approval personally um i'm going to want to see that this how this helps accomplish our housing objectives um because i i could not make that judgment if there are extraordinary benefits i'd want to see how they're explained beyond what i saw in the application number two number three we've got we've got two referrals tonight and um and i've shared this with staff i i will remain concerned when we annex properties and i by the way i see this quite differently in terms of what we see for information from the one we're going to address in just a minute um on the south side of town but if if we're gonna if we're going to annex especially at the edges of town which is going to contribute to sprawl i want to be really clear on housing objectives and i'd like to see at least a 30 year if not a 50 year impact analysis of what it's going to cost the city the developer is going to pay for infrastructure for initially but the city is going to pay for maintenance and replacement or rehab over an extended period of time and i understand housing doesn't always pay its way but i'd like to see some evidence that we've done that kind of economic impact especially when we're annexing at the edges of town that that it's going to be it is not going to be a drain on the city over the over the long run so when it comes back i just the the the apple god i know those are going to be questions i'm going to bring to the to the discussion um mayor bagley councilmember waters i maybe should mention this wasn't my presentation but just for everyone's benefit um i think it was in the communication but i do want to mention that this property is north of highway 66 in the state highway 66 um mixed use area that formerly the cherry lake neighborhood um it is within the long mount planning area so it is it is planned for eventual annexation and development within the city of longmont um the comprehensive plan does show um a mix of land uses that are really articulated more in that framework master plan and that's what the applicants concept plan is based on so we would at this point expect to see that more general information and we can see at the time of annexation if the applicant is prepared to provide that level of detail but often we don't see that until later phases in the development process so we can certainly have them if you do refer this have them include even some more narrative in their application materials i also want to mention that there is some additional infrastructure that would be required obviously at this area develops and there's some planned collectors shown on the comp plan that this applicant would be responsible for a portion of so if if you want more information on any of those items tonight we can provide them but certainly i think the applicant heard your messaging of of what you would be looking for at the time of annexation if referred you're muted i make one more comment and then i'll be quiet sure i mean i saw the i saw the narrative already about housing stock um nowhere in our objectives do i see housing stock that addresses or that that that asks for executive high-end housing uh we're pretty clear on the need for mid-tier working class homes and and uh an obligation on our affordable housing agenda or objective so um just to be just to refine the message in terms of what what you might be following up with i'm done councilmember christensen um in the nearly eight years i've been on council i think this is the third time this property has come back and like the mayor said with the um the sugar mill we keep you know this has always been previously um agricultural land it was perfect for agricultural land because it had a lot of water but the problem is when we started building houses near it it causes there's a lot of flooding it's got a huge problem with drainage and it would be good if you know potentially if uh we could resolve this problem at working with the developer however i just you know once again we're looking at something that uh i don't want to see it again um and i i would hope as um as councilman water said i would hope to see more detail next time around i understand this is just early and you're just doing bubble charts and things like that but um uh i would like to see i'm tired of seeing us uh annex good agricultural land which was purchased cheaper than usual because it was agricultural land and then we annexed it in and then it'd be then we rezone it and then we give waivers and yeah so this is a problematic piece of land and i know they know that but i'm just saying it's gonna be difficult but thanks for trying and i guess in in in mismore sorry uh mayor pro tem oh thank you mayor bagley i know that you know i might have a different outlook on this but i've i've said for a long time ever since i've been elected to council that i am generally pro annexation because that puts it in our jurisdiction if it's not annexed it's in somebody else's jurisdiction and they can decide what they feel is appropriate there versus what the city of longmont decides is appropriate there um and i will just make one example in the sense that tonight we have a uh appeal of a planning and zoning commission decision and completely different in concept but at the same time it still puts that in our jurisdiction whereas if this was say bolder county's land we would have no uh no dog in the fight if you were um so i'm always pro annexation to bring things into our jurisdiction to make those decisions as we see fit as a city council um as the elected representatives of longmont whereas if it's not in our jurisdiction then bolder county can do it it's the same kind of argument that we had about the compost facility for instance in the sense that we wanted more say about the compost facility but we don't technically have it because we're not bolder county and so i think these you could say that if it'd be hyperbole and i'm going to say it because just to make the point is that bolder county could technically stick a compost facility in terry lake we don't have control of that at this moment i i don't think they will and i guarantee you they probably will not uh but at the same time we don't have control of that property and so i always like to refer things to annexation with the understanding that we will then have further uh oversight over what gets developed or not developed in that particular piece of land i don't think that necessarily equates to urban sprawl because we also have uh you know a footprint that's set out for us by dr cog i i believe the the metro region and so i don't i don't particularly fear urban sprawl as a result of this uh because i mean any of us have driven in multiple directions from longmont and there's there's plenty of agricultural land that has been protected by conservation easements as well as open space uh purchases so i'm not worried about open sprawl so much as i am about what gets developed in either adjacent to us or within our our footprint and so i'm always uh proponent of taking control of that footprint as much as possible and so i will agree with this uh annexation but uh i will also say that what end up what ends up uh being proposed by the developer will be of great consideration to how we go forward this. councilor peck. thank you mayor bagley um i agree with uh the comments that have been made but it's always amazing to me that people that developers or whoever buys land that cannot be developed the way they want it to be and then come to the city and and say this is what we want we know that it has all these problems etc can you make it work for us um it i find that very interesting concept instead of buying the land and using it for what it it could actually support so i will vote for this i agree with uh the mayor pro tem completely that we need to have these under these annexation parcels that need to be annexed within our control. councilor martin. yeah i just like to say that i think we do make progress in every branch of engineering and just because it's been turned down before is not a reason why we can't see a solution brought forward by the developer um in such a way that it's accessible the next time so i will also vote to refer. and i'm going to vote on this too lauren but i just wanted to let you know that so if it's the land i mean i i seem to recall talking to a previous owner and it's going to be eight to nine million dollars to fix the drainage issues and so i i'm going to vote for this too but i don't want you guys to waste money and time i would not vote for it i've said this to previous owners if the developer is expecting or hoping that the city somehow contribute cash to this project with without explaining what the reason would be so just just uh just i just putting out on the table that it's not again i said it not only for council but for you and your your clients that uh this is only council's blessing to explore annexation it is not approval of the plan so listen to staff and don't waste money or time please i guess that's my just friendly advice all right so uh i will actually move 12 a uh the annexation referral of 10 161 u highway second i made the motion and it was seconded by mayor pro tem rodriguez and everybody it sounded like but we'll go with you erin all right all in favor say hi hi hi oppose say nay all right the annexation referral is approved unanimously so congratulations lauren or maybe not we'll see thank you all right let's go into 12 b it's also an annexation referral same process summer set village canovato estate it's a request for the city council to refute the summer set village canovato estate's property into the annexation review process and i'm assuming all our comments still hold true for this one right okay councilmember christensen um i won't be voting to approve this although it looks i mean there's a fabulous um uh brochure our presentation it makes me want to move out there right away however this is um land that has always been agricultural it is currently being farmed it is also an open space land it is also um has a conservation easement on it and we're being asked to overturn all of those and annex it and i can't vote for that sorry councilmember waters yeah i'm going to vote for this um as i read the the developer is going to have to deal with with bowler county and and whatever it's going to cost to buy out of the conservation easement that's explicit but i wish every every annexation application brought this kind of detail number one and this kind of commitment to the housing stock to the mixed use to to a child care center that's designed into this if we want to grow that capacity this for me this is this epitomizes what could be considered extraordinary benefits to a community um to this community through an annexation and and as the concept plan gets advanced and we had a chance to to approve or pnz approve a development so i'm not to make the point i was trying to make earlier if i'm annexing at the edges of town i think has implications um and more implications for long term cost but when when the value or the the benefit to the community is is what we will see reflected in this proposal it's an easy vote for me to refer it forward all right uh councilman martin yeah um i've been waiting for this development to come back in the form that has has come back it is a positive contribution to the vision that we have for a sustainable city and um it it supports other things that we have um through advance long not 2.0 and uh yeah i i think it's a positive con conversation contribution and even an extraordinary one if the concept that has been described is fulfilled all right so i'm gonna actually move annexation uh approval of the annexation referral of Somerset village second all right it's been moved and seconded now before we vote on it um is there anyone else so councilmember christensen hold on one second has anyone else who has not spoken would be like to speak against the motion i know councilmember christensen did okay councilmember christensen do you have another comment before we vote yeah i'm sure this will pass and i do think it looks like a lovely uh thing and it has and as uh councilman waters said uh they have a great detail and uh everything looks just terrific but when someone puts a conservation easement on their land they do that in the good faith that it will stay in perpetuity and i don't think we should take lightly just getting rid of it so that we can you know create a development that spreads things out and is in contradiction to our alleged commitment to um supporting agriculture in the uh in our comp plan all right so there's motion on the table to approve the annexation referral all in favor say aye aye aye opposed say nay nay all right it has been uh passed uh six to one with councilmember christensen in the dissent um all right let's go ahead and go on to 12 c um let's take a five-minute or three to five minute break as we let staff and our uh the appellees the appellors and all those people get ready so we'll be back and let's shoot for three but we might bleed over a little bit and then uh herald if or don if you could make sure that we announce how much time we have so i can keep track and keep everybody um keep it all fair and keep it on lockdown that'd be great so we'll see in three okay guys all right let's start coming back just hang tight for aaron paulie you what while we're waiting um don what is the time limits you want to run those by us again mayor i would ask ava to come on and give us those if you don't mind i was looking at the council comment i don't see those there so i just saw ava ava good evening mayor bagley council members ava prehazevsky planning and development services i am looking for that right now so um i believe the time limit so um staff's gonna make the presentation give you the background the appellant is going to come on um they have a limit of 35 minutes uh and then you would open the public hearing and the limit is two minutes per person on any public discourse that if anyone calls in um and no more than 60 minutes total um according to the script that we typically use um i don't anticipate that we would go that long um and then there's a rebuttal um part after questions um and the rebuttal uh is limited to 15 minutes all right so like so 60 minutes total for this process we're 60 minutes for public hearing 60 minutes for public hearing yeah that's for the more acrimonious ones where you get a lot of uh people coming to public invited all right so the uh i was is it Eugene can i ask you a quick question far away mayor all right so my question is just so just so as we as we get going here we're going to have a so at the end of that 35 minute period and at the end of the public hearing in law um when we're having a trial before we offer a defense you know it's possible just to say look your honor have they proved have they met their burden and we can go ahead and have a vote uh or the the judge can say no they didn't the defense does not even need to put on a defense we're done is it possible to have such a conversation after that meaning is it if they if they do not convince us do we if they do not convince us do we need to have the rebuttal but this is a procedure i mean i have no idea what's gonna happen no i don't think you do we have to have the rebuttal no i don't think you do okay they can present their case in chiefs if you do have the rebuttal you need to get both sides the opportunity correct so what so what i would like to do is uh before we have the rebuttal um uh if there's somebody who anyway i just want to have a discussion prior to the rebuttal and if we don't need the rebuttal we won't have the rebuttal but if we need the rebuttal we will have the rebuttal does that make sense i would make that clear at the beginning of the hearing so that all parties and the public and that is the that is here the contemplated process correct are we not back are we not are we not live right now i don't know i think yeah we are so i'm making that clear okay so i'm making that clear i just don't want to uh if if they don't meet their burden and they don't persuade us then i'd rather you know i'd i mean no need to to have a rebuttal if it's not needed but anyway so let's go ahead and start with the appeal the planning and zoning commission decision regarding southmore retail plaza conditional use site plan and variances from landscaping and building design standards we've got two options tonight um i guess we have three but we have two presented in our packet um we have a resolution basically upholding the planning and zoning commission and we also have a resolution saying that we are going to overturn i imagine there would be a third option which is some type of hybrid uh but who knows what but we'll see what happens uh during the hearing and so let's go ahead and turn the time over to staff with the presentation and then we'll go in and give the appellant an opportunity to take up to 35 minutes to present their case and then we'll have the the public hearing and we'll go to that point in today's regularly scheduled program all right so staff ava do you want to start sure uh thank you mayor bagley and council members uh we're going to pull up the slideshow here again this is the appeal of the southmore retail plaza uh conditionally use site plan and variances next slide please um so i'm just going to give you some background on this and the applicant will discuss further um their point of view i'm just here to give you the background on it so again this is an appeal of a planning and zoning commission decision that was back in february of this year um and i'm going to go into more detail about what this application is but in general uh they sought an approval of a conditional use site plan for a 15 000 square foot commercial building uh and they had to conditional use means that you have to get approval from planning and zoning commission um with that request they also requested two variances the first one they asked to plant less than the required number of trees per code and i'll get into that in the next couple slides and the second request was to provide less than the required windows on the south side um the north side facing ken pratt boulevard was fine uh it's it's on the other side of the building so um we had a public hearing um the commission approved the conditional use site plan but they denied both variances uh all of this and the minutes are in your packet uh in the resolution um they stated that the reason they were denying the variances is that is that they were self-created hardships next slide please so again i'm just going to give you a brief orientation on the background of this project so i don't have a pointer but um there's the red box there and if you know this property if you've lived here long enough you know it's very unique because there's a ranch house in the middle of a very busy commercial area on ken pratt boulevard there's the southmore plaza at the corner at the southwest corner of ken pratt boulevard and main street and this would be just immediately west of it and then there's like a there's a 7-11 there at ken pratt and pratt parkway and this would be just immediately east of that um and so the site for development is uh just short of two acres the zoning is mixed use uh commercial and um there's and again there's just an existing ranch house i'm sure you all familiar with it um it's current configuration it looks like a square a rectangle in this picture but it's actually three lots and i'll get into that in the next slide next slide please and so their proposal that they took to the planning commission uh was two things one was to again develop the property with a one-story 15 000 and some changed square foot commercial building you see it right here thank you Susan and so what drove the conditional use now normally this would be a use by right and they would do a site plan review with uh the city's development review team and it would move through the process but what drove the conditional use is that um on the right side of the building which would be the east side of the building uh thank you Susan uh so they were proposing a drive through uh type of coffee shop there and so um that's a conditional use under that zoning so uh they had to get approval from planning and zoning commission um just some other factoids about this the the remainder of the tenant spaces were planned to be some retail and a couple of sit-down restaurants uh they had 81 parking spaces as you can see it kind of goes all around the perimeter um and the project met all of the development standards except for uh i don't know why it says former code i'm sorry about that it's the current code uh except uh two things one was um the building design standards in our code say and i'm gonna get into that in the next couple slides but uh essentially uh the the south side which is the bottom right there thank you Susan um that is um planned to be grand avenue it's not built out like that grand avenue actually if you're coming in from pratt parkway it dead ends right into this property so if you were to go there right now you'll see nothing but vacant land thank you yes Susan and so um on that facade or that side they were supposed to have a certain percentage of windows um and then the other variance again was to plan a little bit less trees than required in the landscape buffers uh and within the right of way next slide please um so that first variance that we were talking about um comes from our design standards in the code um there were a couple areas um the code says that when you have a building facade that faces onto a public street and for them even though it doesn't appear so as you saw from the aerial grand avenue is planned as a public street uh those must have um arcades windows entry areas awnings etc on 60 of the horizontal length and in addition the ground floor facing a public street must provide 50 windows and doors so essentially they need to provide a minimum of 50 windows and doors on grand avenue plus maybe another 10 percent of you know awnings and other dressy features as you can see here um and so if you look here on the right the building elevations the one on the top is camprate boulevard it meets all of our code standards the one on the bottom is the one on grand avenue that faces the south and they're proposing eight percent um and the basis for their variance request is they said you know the front facing camprate is where you know that's where the public's invited the backside off of grand uh is more for deliveries the way we do floor planning for commercial buildings they say that would be the delivery room the bathroom the stock room the kitchen area for the restaurant and therefore uh those types of um spaces uh aren't really you know they're not amenable to having a bunch of big display windows where people are working and you know stock rooms uh and so one of the staff recommendations is we said well maybe um we can add some awnings uh to the back of those exit doors for some additional treatments next slide please and avid while you're giving that next slide just a quick question on process what you're explaining now has all been approved it's not de novo right it's that this is this is all this is the eight everything was approved by planning and zoning that we're hearing right now that's no the so the site plan to have I guess the building footprint and everything else there was approved what was not approved is if you saw on that back slide the grand avenue facade they're doing eight percent uh transparency if you will where they need 50 and and 60 with awnings um so as you as you're explaining can you make it clear what I mean because right now we're just approving or unapproving so if it's what you're saying is that so planning and zoning said they asked for eight but they declined it correct so your role would be to decide whether planning commission made an error in denying that variance and did they have the grounds uh for approving it what they're requesting got it and so who who is appealing the opponent is the developer correct and they'll come on next and and discuss further I'm sorry I'm just trying to go through the background that's all right keep going sorry I just wanted to be clear sure it was for me I just wanted to understand sure no problem all right and then that second variance request again we required landscape buffers along street facades so in this case at the top is camprat boulevard we require a buffer up there and then at the bottom because grand avenue will be a street they have to provide the buffer there and so they've got it you know they've got the buffers that's not a problem but the code then has very specific amounts of trees and shrubs that you have to stick in each buffer and so on the camprat frontage at the top they would have been required to have 10 trees but they can only provide six and and I'll get to that next because there's it's the same reason for all of it at the bottom the grand avenue frontage they're supposed to have 10 trees they could only get two in there in the right in the new right of way tree lawn area they should have seven trees they weren't able to get any in and then this water quality perimeter it's actually not to be confusing but it's inside the landscape buffers and so the code would have said you need 14 trees which could have overlapped with that buffer on that side but they only provided seven and so the applicants justification for all of these variances is they said look in in every and on camprat and on grand avenue we have a utility constraint and long lot power and city of long lot public works and the planning department's landscaping consultant have all said he can't put trees there because the roots will conflict with our utilities so they had to be creative in planting their trees and they couldn't get that full number because of these utility constraints similarly on grand avenue in the right of way the city that there wasn't enough width of right of way and so there wasn't enough room to facilitate tree planting and the way the applicant tried to mitigate that loss of trees is so again there's a prescribed number of shrubbery and so whatever that number of shrubbery was the applicant tripled that amount in their plan so if there were supposed to be 10 shrubs they provided 30 in each case to try and mitigate that down so that the neighbors to the south and the north they can still get that landscape buffer it just won't be all trees as much next slide please so in summation so they have the public hearing in February the council voted five to two again they're approving that conditionally use site plan they just denied both of those variance requests on the grand avenue frontage of the architecture and the trees in their resolution pz r 21 1 b which was in your packet their basis for that denial states the variance requests do not meet the review criteria for approval in that they are self-imposed hardships it did not go on to elaborate but you do have the minutes in your packet so the site plan itself was approved with two conditions and one of which was staff's suggestion that they add awnings over the exit doors on the grand avenue side to sort of provide a little bit more you know detail on that facade to kind of bump up their percentage from 8% to something more and that the applicant complete any outstanding red lines from the development review committee when we did the site plan review there were just a few loose end engineering comments and so they just that's a typical boilerplate condition when we take a site plan up that hasn't been fully approved by our staff team so again the minutes are in your packet and so now what i'm going to do is turn it over to tom davis from pwn architects and he's representing the applicant and with him is scott ohm of grounded by design and he can talk about your new landscaping questions and the constraints dain abuses here he's representative for t-bow properties and lastly i just want to let you know that chris huffer from public works engineering is here from our team to answer any of staff's questions about the engineering and the utilities related to this so i'll turn it over to tom and before we and so tom i'm going to click the i'm going to start your 35 minutes as soon as i point to you but councilor martin do you have a question or comment quick yes i do i think this question is for ava um i live near harvest junction and uh they don't have that transparency on the backs of their buildings and there is a road that goes behind there could you please explain the difference especially since there was a lot of discussion in the pnz minutes about that section of grand not going through ever and so i i don't understand why uh why this requirement sticks sure um so when harvest junction was developed that was probably 15 18 years ago maybe more um we now have our new our new and improved uh zoning code that was enacted in 2018 so we have new and different and sometimes stricter design standards than what we had in the old code so that was not a requirement when harvest junction was developed it is now a requirement under the current zoning code uh and just for clarity um it i don't think we ever said that grand avenue is never going through what we said was it's going to stub out to the end of this property and when the city's public works department can get the right of way from the property ownership on east of that they will continue to work through getting grand avenue moved all the way to mainstream all right all right with that tom davis you're on the clock go for it good evening good evening everyone can you hear me yes excellent uh well let me just uh preface uh first let me uh say thank you mr mayor and members of council for your time tonight uh preface this presentation that the project team believes that these are very uh simple reasonable and unavoidable asks uh that's why we're having appeal uh and also that we've been working with uh engineering and planning for 15 or 16 months to try and uh develop the best possible project for the city and and for everybody um so without we get started uh next slide please okay so our request uh for city council is to approve uh planning staff's 217 21 recommendation uh in their staff report for the planning zoning meeting they stated conditional approval of requested variances due to hardships for existing site conditions because applicant meets the variance request criteria for approval uh so we're quoting that out of uh avan her group's recommendation next slide please uh so let's take these one at a time uh first is the inability to meet the the landscape requirements as avid described in that uh as to try and make up for the inability of the existing utility site conditions the applicant proposes us 60 additional shrubs as kind of a substitute for what we could do because of the risk the existing condition restrictions that we were up against next slide please okay so a landscape buffer is uh 20 foot buffer from the property line okay so that's nothing this is where we're having a real struggle with a self-imposed hardship because uh that's just the given condition uh of the code 20 feet from the property line so what we're showing this slide is first of all number one there's an existing tree screen that's in the right of way on ken prab boulevard which is kind of the intent that we're not able to meet but we feel obligated to point that out that we're kind of being met um that there's a condition a contextual condition of a tree screen that is between our site and ken prab boulevard um and then the two white horizontal areas at the north um there are utility utility easements preventing uh tree planting and um on the south side on grand which doesn't exist today and we're going to get into this but the the land dedication the payment for the extension of grand is is by our project team is it their power line so um we're going to show some other slides on grand why there's no trees because there's power lines there it's um hopefully that's easy to understand or we'll try and illustrate that with slides next slide please okay so here is a little bit of what's going on today and really the prominent element on grand avenue right now are power lines and you can you can see that there's many of them and uh there shouldn't be trees around them for safety standpoint and um that's why we can't get the trees in this area even you can see in photo two at the bottom where you know there are trees and it's kind of probably a safety concern for those power lines so i think the simple argument here is that their power lines they're going to stay we can't plant trees around them because they're power lines there um so hopefully that's you know understandable enough i don't know how to explain it um in a different way next slide please and then this is what i was mentioned before um if you look and plan up top in the right of way there's a nice uh landscape buffer that's in the right of way with uh sidewalk and a tree screen it's not on our site it's adjacent to our site but it's kind of filling the bill of the intent of the landscape buffer with the trees to create a tree screen to the arterial street next slide please okay now we're on the north part of the site by ken prapple of art you can see uh the right of way green space i was just describing um so here's where we're bound by the utility easements as abel was alluding to where we cannot plant trees because the rules of utilities and water quality uh so red is a water easement uh yellow is a gas easement and green is a sand filter um we uh as i said in teamwork with engineering we asked them about underwater detention water quality as an option that was denied they wanted on the surface so this was pretty much mandated uh we tried to negotiate and we were told this is the way that the water quality should be designed so we did so you can see the leftover areas is the area we did get the trees we could get in um but again we find it hard to understand it's a self-imposed hardship because we're not allowed to plant trees there um from a standpoint of their and utility easements next slide please so this is just in conclusion for uh variance request number one that it's reasonable uh longmont planning staff believe the applicant met the criteria for variance request and stated so in their staff report um which you you all have and and that's their conclusion at the end they recommended uh approval of the variance because of the existing site conditions next slide please uh this is variance request number two and uh hopefully we're starting uh to understand from avis explanation hopefully we can add to that um in 2018 there's a new part of the code that says there's a transparency which means windows and doors to face the major street and you know we believe the intent of that was so that if you were on uh you know typically there's one major street condition and that's really emphasized and welcoming and transparent and open and communicating to the community um but what we have is a unique condition where we have two fronts and we have a building type that just can have one front um so that's why we're asking for consideration of of an exception and then the other part of this is that the grand avenue uh it doesn't exist today and we would need to meet that requirement except for our client is being asked at their own expense and dedication of the land to extend grand avenue uh behind our site uh so it somehow seems a little bit ironic that um we're being asked to provide the street and then being held to a standard which the building can't really be developed by uh functionally next slide please uh so this is just a graphic straight out of the land development code so hopefully it helps illustrate the issue that a um that the transparency is defined by the windows and doors and there should be over 50 percent on a major arterial next slide please the other thing that wasn't brought up yet but uh as part of the land development code for the drive-through is um we're required to put a six foot opaque fence which uh we also see the trash enclosure which essentially is a similar thing so uh maybe counterintuitive to transparency because you know seated in a car even if it's there over 50 percent of the rear elevations is screened on purpose because there is a car queue there um so we felt like that was a compelling argument against transparency because um you know it's it's not really visible you could say you know you can see over six feet and you know this and that but you know seated in a car or walking you're probably not going to see the back of the building from grand avenue due to this screening condition that's required by the code for the drive-through next slide please uh this is just an elevation uh of the rear uh facade to show how that uh opaque trash enclosure and opaque six foot screen impact the rear elevation in terms of uh you know its transparency we've also discovered through this process that we calculated the transparency wrong um the eight percent is just the windows and the intent was to try and meet some of the intended code by getting some transparency back there and I think it is effective in terms of creating a front presence but the way it's actually calculated is even with those opaque doors so we're actually at 19 percent still not near 50 but better than eight uh so we that was our own error in calculating that I wanted to point out um now also just that you know as part of the functional of the building in the back there's a water entry room and that's you know full of engineering stuff and and you know doesn't really want to be seen through transparency and we've got to put it somewhere and we can't really put in the middle of the building but there's a natural front and back like there's a shoe that has a place where your foot goes in and a sole where you know meets the bottom and it's it's a pretty standard um solution next slide please uh this is the kind of functionality diagram for a retail planning that uh Ava alluded to uh you know basic retail planning um and again it's maybe one of the council members suggested 99 percent of these types of buildings do have opaque backs uh I think she mentioned everything except for security securities a big issue the idea of bring transparency and confusion of which way to come in is problematic for the tenants they want to control through through one access but the the back of the lease space needs to be secure receive deliveries and house storerooms restrooms kitchens and utility rooms making it you know problematic and difficult not impossible but um antithetical to this this building type uh to have transparency on the back next slide please and additionally when we talk to our structural engineer about this um this building type is also designed specifically to have a shear wall which um supports you know lateral loads by having a solid wall so if you see the blue line on the slide there's a specific structural approach to this building type to be solid to support the building to punch a lot of openings in it we have to create a steel brace moment frames which is a lot of steel to interact loads again kind of counterintuitive to how these buildings want to be designed to have them transparent on both sides also from a structural standpoint next slide please and then the other thing is just asking everyone to take in context grand avenue um that we're not going to be able to save the world here um as I mentioned before the most prevalent aspect of this elevation and the will be are these power lines which aren't particularly attractive um at the other existing buildings even though it's a new code and we applaud it and we support it really but um the reality is this is always going to be kind of a back uh to ken pratt and um historically for blocks and blocks um we have opaque facades no landscaping power poles and uh we think that context should be taken into account with what we're trying to do to make it a presentable designed facade and meet the intent of addressing grand avenue um been in a way that's that's realistic to the function of the the building next slide please uh further down grand avenue again no landscaping no transparency really it's it's a service um it's it's a service uh road uh next slide please uh just more the same uh existing grand avenue next slide please and again see another problems with the trees and and the prominence of the um the power lines really creating with the side for grand avenue um um so we just thought that context was important in terms of consideration for our variance request next slide please uh and lastly we'd just like to end on uh what we believe is a strong design value proposition to grand avenue and different from the previous four slides that you'd seen a lot of efforts been made to make this a three-dimensional building with canopies on all sides there's three distinctive material transitions so that we have different colors and variation and trying to make it look very presentable to grand avenue unavoidably we can see we have the the scuppers and the drainage which is it's going to be there uh there's contrasting decorative bands we do have 19% transparency we have a roof height variation so we've tried to take some architectural um interests to this facade and care about it um we propose to add the decorative metal canopies per um the conditional approval that planning uh proposed and we think those really help add to um creating a front elevation without uh functionally um hurting what the building wants to do uh that the fact that transparency was added and you know obviously we'll have to likely that a glass will be filmed so there'll be some light shared but uh from a security standpoint it wants to be not see-through um the massing has been articulated with protruding volumes it's just not one elevation like we saw a bunch of those other buildings and the care was taken in the design the grand avenue wasn't forgotten but it was it was articulated in a similar way but in a way that functionally supports the building type and again we already talked about the the landscape walls next slide please uh and similarly um to the first zoning request uh the planning staff I did recommend for conditional approval and they thought that the project met the very um met the criteria for variance requests and stated so in their staff report next slide please so again our request is for city council to approve the planning staff's recommendation for conditional approval of requested variances due to hardships for existing site conditions because the applicant meets the variance request criteria for approval thank you the chair would like to thank uh Mr. Davis for leaving us 20 minutes left in your time so I'm I'm aware of how quick and condensed that was we appreciate it so I would like to hear the rebuttal um so I mean I'm assuming if we were to vote vote one way at this point um because it's the the applicant is the developer it'd be a little a little strange so let's go ahead who's going to provide the rebuttal is it city staff uh mayor council we can rebut um again this is a unique situation because this isn't being appealed by a third party citizen uh maybe saying staff made an error or something in that case uh you know I don't really have anything to rebut um we do have to open the public hearing we are obligated to do that as well right but my point is that there is no private citizen or group saying we don't want this it's just no one is I mean staff is staff doesn't care right uh mayor I don't I don't know that we don't win my my my point I guess just just to just to recap what I'm hearing again not to argue but just to recap what I'm hearing is they asked for the variances staff agreed with those variances planning and zoning said no and they appealed and I guess the rebuttal would be planning and zoning theoretically if they were here to offer rebuttal right right uh all I can say is other I know that in the discourse of and again it's in the minutes uh they felt it was a self-imposed hardship um I think the applicant has demonstrated that um they didn't create the utility easements they didn't create the overhead power lines they um didn't say we want to build right away on grand avenue they were told by the city to do that so in all those instances um I don't know that the applicants uh created that so so if we if we if someone moves and so I see the hands we're gonna we're gonna everybody's hands up okay so if we so if we I just want to understand by process right so if we someone moves resolution 2021 39 b it's basically saying let the developer proceed with the 19% transparency the limited tree space is a for all the reasons they said right the number two option right okay just want to make sure we understand so what we're going to do is we're going to go Mayor Pro Tem Rodriguez then we're going to go council member peck then we're going to go council member martin then we're going to go council member christiancine I think council member redargo farang and then dr waters if you want to say something thank you mayor bagley I just want to okay I just want to disclose that I'm the liaison for planning and zoning commission and was also party to the arguments that staff has alluded to as well as uh the appellants um in the sense that I was there I listened to all of it I may not agree or disagree with it as a decision maker on this point of view I just want to make sure there's disclosure there that I was there unlike my fellow council members who are not necessarily present for the discussion by the planning and zoning commission um I'd be happy to opine on it at the appropriate time but I just want to make sure that uh it is known that I was party to all of those arguments in the sense that I was present thank you mayor pro tem and I don't think it's inappropriate for you to participate and be here so appreciate that all right we're going to go with council member peck so mayor bagley this is time when we can make our our comments about about the presentation about well you can I I mean so when I say a lot of times I know that council members have gotten frustrated when I say someone make a motion so what I'm really saying is if there's not a motion all we're doing is sharing our opinion and in in our opinion doesn't really matter and we need to have four people that direct staff or in this case four people that make a decision in a quasi-judicial capacity saying proceed forward so I don't so I mean we can either you can either move resolution 2021 39 a which says sorry developer um you can go ahead and build a project but you got to do it um but but the variances are denied and you have to figure out a way to come up with more windows and more trees or number two resolution 2021 39 b which is we agree with the arguments as presented by staff and yourself you can proceed with your project with the 19 window space and the limited trees do you have a motion to make I do I'd like to move 2021-39 a resolution yeah did you second that council member christensen all right so there's a there's a motion on the four resolution 2021-39 a and it has been seconded by council member christensen all right so Joan do you have any other comments to make I do and I wanted to explain why I said that you know I read everything in the packet and there were a couple of comments made one that one comment that was made was that they think transparency has been a hiccup in the code and the other thing is about grand street it's not a hiccup in the code it was put there specifically um so that we can build differently in this city um the land to the south that is behind your development is open space I mean undeveloped land I don't mean open space um and more than likely that's going to be residential more than likely and in the plant the comp plans grand grand avenue is going to go all the way through um then we just need to get the right aways so your development will be there 20 30 years we we don't uh no I shouldn't say we I like the Envision Longmont plan because it's about equity if we build behind these buildings that are all commercial then we are not being equitable to people who have to are going to be buying affordable housing or lower income housing because chances are those will not be million dollar homes um and it's already got habitat for humanity homes behind it so I understand that the other buildings the other commercial buildings on grand don't have this transparency but that was before the code was changed so um I I don't want to give you the variances on on that the other uh the other issue was the um here where is this oh the windows I also read in the uh in all of the discussions that you don't have to put huge big windows display windows in the back that's not what it's about it's about um people who are living in those homes are not seeing a big commercial building as they're uh what they're looking at so yes right now grand avenue is not going to go through but in 10 years 15 years when those residential homes are built it will go through to 287 so um those are my two those are my two uh issues right now right so we're gonna keep here talk we're gonna hear from council um once we're like I would just ask that we make our comments then we're gonna have a public hearing but when we hear the public hearing I just don't want to redo all the comments can we agree on that okay then councilor martin you're muted yes um I actually don't know which way I'm going to vote because I have two questions that I need answered in order to determine how I'm going to vote um so first of all is there anybody from lpm here I'm going to ask the question anyway if maybe dale's here um although what I what I'd like to just as a point of order so if we allow them so I would like to ask if it's possible if we could get staff to answer the questions that would be great because my understanding is if we allow the applicant to say more I mean theoretically there's no rebuttal but I wanted to ask staff go nuts dale okay um staff uh I know that we have a long range plan to bury a much greater percentage of our power lines and those power lines look like prime candidates um and that has a lot to do with whether we take uh when we take grand through right because I'm thinking that it's going to be easier to bury those power lines before grand tries to go through than it would be to build them to bury them after so uh am I correct in that assumption and do we know uh when we're going to get to burying those power lines council member martin I've got chris huffer here on the line from public works engineering he can take that yes uh mayor and council member martin chris huffer public works and national resources um I am not in lpc I'll say that first um and I'm basing my answer here on comments that they made on the the plans um from what I understand uh the power lines that are back along grand avenue right now um are transmission lines and they're costly to underground and we would need to underground a larger section of it than what is being platted right now with this development so yes it is intended to be under grounded in the future um they have reserved the uh easements on the plat in order to do that and it will be outside of grand avenue but it will most likely be going through um the landscape area that they're showing on their plan right now um but uh it's also my understanding that we can implement boring uh type processes to not have to dig all that up at the time that that goes through okay thank you and and my other question because I really don't like asphalt and I think we need to be pairing that um how much of of our city is is paved down um uh the staff suggested that rather than than um adopting item one or item two that we could split the difference and I would like to suggest to others that what we should do is is say they don't need 81 parking places let's put some more trees in the little in the little park let areas in some of those parking lots and and you know have 75 so if I had a fate you know uh what what my current preference is is to vote no on this and suggest that we make them put in some more trees but leave the rear facade where it is right Ava do you want to take a moment thank you yes I'm sorry mayor and council member Martin I just wanted to add to that um that is that is obviously an option for council to require them to put trees in their parking lot what I just wanted to remind council is that would not remove the variance because the variance uh the landscape buffer has to be that first 10 15 feet right off the the property line so um that's where the trees are required to be so you can ask them to put trees in the parking lot but um they would you know that it'd be a condition of a variance approval because the trees are required in the landscape buffer not in the parking area I just wanted to clarify that thank you thank you um is it something that we can do or not it is okay sure that can be a condition of approval all right you done Marsha sorry all right councilmember christensen and then council member dowell fairy um you know I've gone through several quite a few of these actually and um what frustrates me is that we never actually do have a rebuttal because we have staff percent basically for the developer and then who recommended this to go to planning and zoning we never invite planning and zoning to um explain themselves although we have the notes and I think they did a very uh thorough and thoughtful um conversation and discussion about this I particularly liked what uh and I appreciate both the comments of uh councilman martin and uh peck because we have to think about uh this is an infill project and we all know that's much more difficult and I appreciate uh Tebow properties for doing this and I think it will also enhance their uh property to the west uh it will be helpful for them to be able to tie the two of them together however um Tebow property it's my understanding that they also own the property just to the south and intend to build residential there so we have to and and the intent is for Grand Avenue to go through so the intent is really to create something that is workable and also safe in terms of if they do build residential to the south it will be important for grand to go through for safety purposes because the there is a really nice little neighborhood to the south of that and south more and in popular grove and um a lot of those houses are habitat I've worked on a couple of them and people have you know built those with their own hands and hammers and we want a neighborhood that's healthy and safe for everybody we don't want people looking at the back of a warehouse so it is important to have I understand the the explanation from the architect about the steel continuity and all that but you know you're taking a giant building that faces south and you don't want to put any windows in it we're talking about passive solar and really trying to think about how to make buildings and all of our use is more not only more equitable so that people aren't facing a warehouse but also more uh sustainable so that even you know if you had some passive solar windows higher up uh it would it would be helpful and it wouldn't be so bleak to look at and um so you know if that is indeed a warehouse it will need deliveries on Grand Avenue which will really heavily impact the people in southmore park and the people in that residential area that will be built there pretty soon um so we're I think this council is trying very hard like the planning and zoning board to think about the future and something that is really good for southmore park for poplar grove which is that little uh part of that sticks to the north there and create something that's really wonderful and I'm sure that Tebow also wants to create something that's wonderful so I think we can work together but I I am not inclined to change our code for this I do see the problem with the trees to the south but you know bushes are not the same as trees they don't provide any habitat for birds they don't provide any shade for the buildings so their um trees are not the same um I think that's a problem though that it would be worth us trying to think about uh how to make it possible for them to put more trees put the required number of trees in um given that they have to put them maybe too close to overhead lines that's the only problem I have but I'm not inclined to overturn planning and zoning thank you all right let's go to council member the other fairing and then dr waters and then Erin I saw your I saw your hand again okay we'll get there thank you mayor so my question is for Ava around um the code revision so you said that the code was changed in 2018 and I just want to know what the rationale was for those particular areas why why was it needed why do you feel like it was needed to to change yes uh mayor and council member hodoggle fairing uh yeah you know um Brian Schumacher worked on the code update but I think the intent of the additional requirements on building design was again uh to provide some sort of interest on a street frontage uh and again um you know some of these buildings that we're talking about harvest junction and the neighboring properties you know in that case Grand Avenue wasn't really a fully built out street so I don't think it was maybe required of those projects again we just wanted some more um architectural interest uh facing a public street something that looks more inviting okay okay and so you know I do have a comment so this area is actually actually so I'm a full-time teacher and the school that I teach at which is above 94 percent free reduced lunch so a lot of our students come from families in poverty and time and time again they are dealt the short end of the stick with quality of living with with you know just how where they live um you know so I I think that you know for aesthetics you know and meeting the needs of our our um people who don't necessarily come in and and voice like we heard a lot of people coming in from Erie and look out road who we were able to have the time to to call in and make a case for their concerns a lot of our families are working two and three three jobs in order to sustain any kind of quality of living so I feel like you know our our responsibility and my you know I speak for the people of our community who live our residents and you know I just I and I also have a lot of trace faith and trust in what the planning and zoning commission say so yeah this would be one where I would I would side with them because I believe that they are the experts in this in this issue I read through the comments I read through the minutes and you know I I'm inclined to lean towards their decision rather than than making a variance and also speaking for the people who don't necessarily come in and call and say hey you know I'm I'm not good about this and you know then these are my families that I I'm their teacher to a lot of these students so you know I so I also feel like I have a a moral obligation to to at least in this sense to advocate for them right dr. waters thanks for your bag like yeah this one this one is an interesting appeal because what I hear the council members saying is that the the staff analysis and the staff recommendation to planning and zoning was off right that the staff recommended approval because of what we were expecting from the developer in terms of grand avenue because of utility easements what I what I what I read on page 16 I think of the staff recommendation the staff did not see a self-imposed hardship and the staff's recommendation was approval I could find nothing and maybe I missed it uh because I I read it I could not find what the planning and zoning commission members specifically identified or named as the self-imposed hardship and maybe it was the size of the building or maybe it was the drive-through I couldn't find it I saw the reference to it over and over again without definition so I don't know what to do with that other than scratch my head but I will say this there are both moral obligations and ethical obligations and when I I would before I came on this council I was sitting in the gallery when I saw Brian and Aaron make the initial presentations of the code updates and if I heard one word over and over and over again during those presentations it was flexibility one of the reasons and I if if Aaron or Brian if they're if Aaron still dialed into this wants to come back in and comment on that I'm not certain that that's appropriate in the hearing um but but I raised questions about what's the what's the vision what are we really trying to get done with these code updates and and there was never a really good response to that ultimately when I came on the council but I do recall how important it was that that flexibility giving staff and us flexibility with the new codes was kind of the mantra and in an objective we were trying to accomplish now the staff is making recommendation applying that that principle flexibility or that option and PNZ rejected it and now I hear the council rejecting it as well which doesn't make a lot of sense to me um I I do wonder when I look at the I don't know anything about I saw that the house was built in 1956 I don't know who occupies the house I don't know but I look at that land and think is that the best and highest use of the land as it sits right now and and my answer is I don't think so um and I'm not certain you know what's the what's the imagination that that somebody ought to bring for what goes on that land and I understand the property behind is owned by Tebow as well then I know there's been discussions about the kind of housing that might go there yeah she seems to be in terms of fairness to say we expect you to donate the land and and and finish grand and now when you do that you gotta you gotta apply this other standard it's just a gotcha it's it sounds to me like and I just I understand the kind the arguments made by by other council members and um in consideration of site finds and those kinds of things um but but that but whatever we do with this is not going to change what they're looking at in the rest of those buildings and I look at that piece of ground and think what's a better use we ought to we think we have a an imagination for the imagination for the or a recommendation for the better use maybe we ought to offer that up but um gosh it seems to me we do this people bring forth ideas and then we want to we do everything we can to catch them so we can say no to what they were proposing the last thing I would say is this um well I just let it go with that so I I want to hear more discussion if we're there's gonna be more discussion um but I but I'm I'm I'm inclined not to I'm not I'm inclined to support the staff recommendation originally which would be I guess resolution be here right um Erin I'm before I'm just gonna say my two cents before I call on you because I have it said I'm I'm gonna vote against it only because I'm gonna vote for resolution be only because uh the the the window argument uh what I heard was you know the design of the building is a bunch of storage space at the back because it's commercial retail or commercial space in general and putting the only way to do that would be what put storage in the middle of the building it just doesn't make much sense the building currently exists the buildings next to it already have you know less transparency than 19 percent and the the actual plot itself it sounds like you can't fit a bunch of trees on unless you actually substitute for shrubbery so I'm I'm gonna I'm gonna vote against it and if there's a motion for resolution 2021 39B I will vote for that um mayor for them thank you mayor bagley could I just get a reminder from staff there are three criteria that allows for an applicant to appeal the ruling of planning and zoning commission can I get a reminder of that as well I believe the uh appealing party is only asking two of those items not all three if my understanding and recollection is correct mayor and council qg may city attorney uh so the permissible grounds for appeal from a decision by the p and z is decision not supported by any competent evidence in the record decision is plainly inconsistent with review criteria as shown by clear and convincing evidence or three decision maker exceeded its authority or jurisdiction as contained in the municipal code as you saw in the materials the uh appellate is proceeding under basis I believe two and three repeat those review criteria and exceeded jurisdiction repeat those again in detail Eugene please sure uh three permissible grounds for appeal uh one decision of p and z is not supported by any competent evidence in the record but they're not arguing that they're not arguing that two decision is plainly inconsistent with review criteria as shown by clear and convincing evidence higher standard than preponderance of the evidence and three the decision maker exceeded its authority or jurisdiction as contained in the municipal code thank you uh city attorney may uh so number one was not being appealed uh number two I think the code is fairly clear so I do not feel that uh the variant or the the denial of the variance was outside with clear proof uh that it was outside of the authority of the planning and zoning commission and outside of the code as stated clearly and I also think that based on um how our city government is set up especially considering the authority of the planning and zoning commission they were not outside of their jurisdiction this in my opinion is is a clear case to vote for a to uphold the planning and zoning commission's authority uh I will state clearly that I don't agree necessarily with what they decided in that meeting for instance I think that the landscaping variance that they requested was reasonable and not self-imposed that's one example but that is not what we're deciding here today and as such I will be voting in favor of upholding the planning and zoning commission's authority as well as their decision regardless of the fact that I may disagree with it I was just convinced by mayor pro tem I think he's absolutely right I would have I don't want to but you're right mayor pro tem so let's go ahead and open this up to public I hear I see Dana raising his hand I need to use the restroom so let's take a just a break let's open it up for uh the public hearing so while we're gone let's get people in the queue and then Mr. Buce when we come back we will we will let you it sounds like a dress maybe some of the concerns that I just heard you that that hand was going up so let's take a three-minute break we'll be back all right thank you we all start coming back all right don't we have anybody in the queue mayor no one has called in okay so we're going to go ahead and open the uh open the public hearing and we'll close it as soon as the rest of us are here I guess well that's all of us isn't it all right so let's go ahead and there's nobody so I'm going to go ahead and close the public hearing at this time since nobody called in and uh does anyone object to me permitting uh Mr. Buce to have a comment to address some of mayor pro tem's and my own comments Mr. Buce do you want to go ahead and say something sure I appreciate it and hopefully um I won't bore you by repeating some of the things that were previously said I just I wanted to sort of look at this from a longevity perspective and that we've actually been working on this project for over 36 months so when we started the code was not changed as it is now I think I think councilman Waters brought up a good point and that's when they were talking about uh the change in the transparency for the second street or the rears of buildings uh or however you may define them that the intent was pretty clear and that is you know we don't want to uh put up an offensive front to other neighbors that may have access to the to the vision of the back of the buildings and so look we're all we're all good stewards of the community or we tried to be and and certainly when you're a large property owner you want to do your best to be part of the community and contribute as much as possible and so we took uh a lot of those changes that came into the code you know we had to because it was changed in the code but we had to redesign the entire building from the way it was previously designed and so we did our best to take into consideration all of those changes and and I think we did a pretty good job um obviously 19 percent transparency or or glazing or however that it's defined is not 50 percent but when you look at the back of the building it doesn't look like a back of a building it looks like a pretty decent architectural aesthetic facade that anybody should be interested in looking at we talked about the land of the south the habitat for humanity has a development there now and I would hope the town would be pleased to know that we're talking with them on the vacant lot as well and so part of working with habitat is also more concessions and more contributions of land at no benefit to us but to the town and of course to the development for that and it's the right thing to do but my understanding and Tom can correct me if i'm wrong but Grand Avenue is private property on our section of the property right now we had not designed this building to take Grand Avenue into consideration because it was not a street and there was a long time coming for when it was going to be a street the city really stepped up and said you know what even if you build the street there we still can't get the street all the way to 287 because there's other owners that haven't done anything with their portion of the land and so it can't be a right of way right meaning that the property between us and 287 on the south side so they they asked over a long period of time if we would consider donating the land and of course we stepped up and did the donation more importantly than they asked if we can build the property build the the street so not only are we donating the land but we're also constructing the the street for the town at our own cost for those who were interested in the overhead utilities we also proposed to underground the utilities for the city and they refused to let us do that because we were looking again at the long-term planning for the city so what's interesting is that and i know it's difficult because i've been on planning board councils for years and city board meetings as a member and i know it's difficult to come in and listen to a 18 to 24 month back and forth between city staff and a developer how can we help this is what we need to do so a lot of time and energy and effort went in and to be able to sit and make a decision in in 45 minutes to take into consideration everything that was was reviewed and conceded to over 18 months is a difficult thing to do so mr boost i guess that so i mean sorry to cut you off but essentially though i mean if i was on planning and zoning i would have approved the variances you know i understand i think i think mayor protam also would have approved the variances but but based on the criteria that u g may just said right what i would be interested in hearing is what is your argument for that we've got to find it based on one of these two things and usually so i'm gonna have Eugene go ahead and say the two different criteria and what is the developer's argument that planning and zoning got it wrong i mean again i am with you i'm looking for a way to vote for it but if this is the legal hook what is the what this is the legal hook tell me how to vote with you with this criteria okay go ahead mr may that's all right no i'm just looking for an answer i'd love to vote for you you know or with you so the two criteria the pz's decision is plainly inconsistent with the review criteria criteria as shown by clear and convincing evidence and what was that right what was that criteria Eugene the review criteria uh they're pretty lengthy uh if you want me to uh the basis of their review criteria was that uh for a variance uh the variance has uh cannot be because the applicant uh did a self-imposed hardship in essence they created a project that created the problem and staff feels that that is not staff's opinion that's not true correct uh the existing utilities and and the overhead lines and all of that uh are requirements of the city they weren't created by the applicant that is the hook okay okay that that's what i was looking for so at least so yeah so the answer that the second scenario is that the the review criteria was made by the staff and that we you know it was certainly not it was certainly not self-imposed can i jump in here because um it's part of our appeal letter we address that and i can read it verbatim just real quick uh so for uh it's a belief of typo properties that the combination of criteria two and three become the basis of the appeal criteria two in the review criteria response provided by the applicant in the form of a written variance request as required by the city of longmont planning staff stated they believe that the variance request was met the roof met the review criteria for variants and stated so in their planning report so that's kind of our explanation for number two and number three was the applicant believes that the provision for variance requests are provided in the land development code for situations where the requirements cannot be feasibly met the applicant believes that in the submitted written variance request review criteria responses evidence was credibly presented why the project was unable to meet the letter of the land development code due to existing site conditions and conflicting site planning requirements by the city and not a self-imposed hardship okay and that's in the appeal on page two all right and uh mayor pro tem do you want to say the last thoughts have you been convinced at all before we vote um you know i hope that all of my colleagues here on council and i trust that they did read through the minutes and the discussion the debate of the planning and zoning commission and i think it would become clear to anybody that did read those minutes that it was a tricky piece it was a tricky piece because um certain things like i said in my opinion were not self-imposed there are other things that i could argue are self-imposed um that becomes an argument amongst whichever deciding body that is which in tonight's case is not us we are hearing an appeal we are not hearing you know it's not our turn to necessarily weigh in on specific legislation or policy ideas that are pieces of the code we are simply hearing a quasi-judicial hearing based on an appeal and as such i don't feel that the planning and zoning commission was out of line or incorrect in their arguments i just happened to disagree with some of them not even all of them but some of them and so my point of view is that i do not have a position to overrule their decision based on any information that was provided tonight um while i may disagree with them as i said there are some i guess some may argue uh broad language that would allow you to argue that it's not self-imposed but you can turn around and say that it is based on as already stated highest and best use well i'm sure that the developer did a highest and best use analysis but did it you know was that all presented to planning and zoning was it all presented to us this evening because they've already you know have an architectural design that they've paid a lot of money for and so they're not going to present us an alternative for that because it would make economic sense for them even though there could be an alternative obviously based on what was presented us tonight they asked for a conditional use that was approved that was that being the drive-thru and the extra i guess fencing or shielding of sight lines for the drive-thru that these all technically could be argued one way or another as far as self-imposement is concerned so i still just don't feel that there's enough evidence to overturn the planning and zoning commission's decision on this factor but you know i i'm one vote of seven so right so so i was going to say there's a we'll let marsha or calcimer martin say something but we've got a motion currently on the floor which is resolution 2021 39 a it was made by councilmember peck it's a resolution along our city council upholding the decision on the planning and zoning commission approving the southboard retail plaza conditionally use site plan and denying the variances from landscaping standards in code section 15.05.040 and building design standards in code section 15.05.120 based on the criteria previously mentioned by by eugenie so calcimer martin maybe in the wrong here um but the way i feel about this because i do feel like this is uh i give a lot of weight to mayor protem's argument that uh this is probably wrong decision but we are not empowered to overturn it the reason that i think it's a wrong decision are two things um but one is about councilmember idago faring's argument i actually think that the likely um you know the the restaurant the coffee shop and small retail that would go into this building would uh do the have the opposite equity effect that it's likely to be something that would enrich uh a low to moderate income neighborhood and so i don't understand why um you know if if that had any weight in the decision i think it would weigh the other in the other direction and say this would be a good thing for the neighborhood behind the installation um and the other thing is i think that the planning and zoning board was remiss in not providing uh any information about in what way this was a uh a self-imposed hardship because i i think that that they had a duty to um you know possible future quasi-judicial hearing to explain just exactly what they meant by that i don't see it um you know i think we should go on with the vote because there's no more information to be had but i just wanted to get those out there councilmember waters thanks mayor bagley i i i agree i appreciate beer pertin's uh logic on this and in the rationale it's it is persuasive and compelling so before we vote i i do need to ask the staff i think would disagree with whether or not there's sufficient evidence um uh i would i based on you know tonight's presentation i would vote differently than than the majority of p and z on this but uh is it fair for me to ask does the number two the decision plainly is inconsistent with review criteria shown by clear evidence i don't would the staff be um appealing or the staff recommendation to planning and zoning must have been that it did comply or was consistent with review criteria and there was evidence to support that if that's the case that's the counter right uh to the argument on number two it'd be i would appreciate hearing a response from staff uh mayor and councilmember waters um i think uh you've read the record uh staff obviously made a recommendation for approval we felt it met the review criteria but ultimately um this is council's decision based on the record that you're hearing tonight and so before we vote i was just going to say one thing i'm going to actually vote against it because i think that the hook was met and i i totally respect what councilmember or what mayor pro tem is saying i see that but we can i mean we we can we can't approve this um there is nobody objecting to it meaning there's no citizen there's no group there's no there's nobody here i mean staff is saying you know it was it was they think it was the wrong decision um and the crate staff is not saying that mayor uh mayor pro tem i would like to just specify if they're actually saying it was the wrong decision or that it met the criteria to request a variance correct that that's what i'm saying and who approves the variance the planning and zoning commission absolutely and i all i'm saying is that we're acting as a judge and there's nobody here nobody here is telling us not to to do anything so one more thing sorry sorry you said there were two two options there are actually four options go ahead in the sense that we agree with uh the planning and zoning commission's decision we disagree and completely throw it out we modify it or four we send it back to planning and zoning there are technically four options here what would you want to do mayor pro tem oh lord uh i think because we're about ready to vote and so if we're gonna vote there's a motion on the table so let's see how that motion goes okay all right all right so let's go ahead uh councilmember christensen and then what's what's vote i would like to point out that no one was allowed to um oppose this from planning and zoning i mean you know we we had staff essentially supporting this and we had we didn't hear it any opposing view because we weren't allowing any opposing view we only heard from the developer side and from the staff side who sent it to planning and zoning we didn't hear from planning and zoning that's true that would be that would be like a district court judge showing up and arguing for the appellate court that that just doesn't happen but but let's go ahead and vote and i know you want to say something mr busa but but unfortunately before you vote one last thing unfortunately i mean we we already yeah go ahead what the hell anyone object okay go ahead go ahead mr busa no you're you're muted though you need to hit your space bar if there were an option i heard mostly that people would like to see more trees uh and that they'd be more likely uh apt to vote for the the 19 percent um skin that we put on the back and so forth and i think we would certainly support that decision because as long as the the code allows us to take away a couple parking spaces and so forth you know we want as many trees as possible too there's just no room to put them so if we could approve the the the facade in the back because we made more than enough attempt to make it look more than presentable and habitats from humanity also likes it just want to throw that in then we would we would be in favor of that type of vote that's all right thanks so right now the motion is though for option c1 again uh uh upholding the decision of planning zoning commission straight out so all in favor of resolution 2021 39 a say aye aye opposed say nay all right that was a aye from you right councilmember ilago farang okay so the motion passes resolution 2021 39 a passes four to three with councilmembers christiansen uh ilago farang peck and uh mayor pro tem rodriguez four so the motion passes so um that's it so thank you very much and i know that's not what the appellant wanted to hear but that's how it went so all right let's move on to 2021 legislative bills recommended for city council position hello mayor bagney members of council sandy cedar assistant city manager we have three bills for your consideration today the first one is house bill 1233 concerning modifications to the requirements for claiming income tax credit for the donation of perpetual conservation easements currently people who donate conservation easements can have up to a 50 percent tax credit this bill would actually increase that up to 90 percent which honestly gives people more incentive to be able to donate those conservation easements to the city um so our staff recommendation is that city council support senate bill 1233 councilmember martin want to make a motion i move supporting it second all right let's vote all in favor of supporting this and following uh staff's recommendation say hi hi hi the post na all right the motion carries unanimously next mayor second bill is house bill 1238 concerning the modernization of gas energy efficiency programs had to read this one a few different times to make sure i understood how the bill actually works but it updates the methods used for cost effectiveness for demand side management when it comes to public utility selling natural gas essentially it currently we don't reflect any of the future benefits of cost avoidance in this demand side management formula and so this bill if it passed would actually put that as part of the way that the formula goes and so it really takes into account um you know some of the avoided costs of having natural gas when they're taking a look at the formulas for um computing costs and efficiency moving forward so it does benefit our climate action plan and so staff recommends that city council support senate bill 1238 i move to support second it's been moved by council member ilago farang second by council member martin that we support the bill upon count uh city staff's recommendation all in favor say hi hi hi okay close say nay all right motion carries unanimously the third bill is sort of the same um vane house bill 1253 concerns of general fund transfer to the local government severance tax fund to fund grants to local governments for renewable and clean energy currently dola has a plan a program like this to be able to give grants for planning for sustainability programs we've been part of that in the past this bill would transfer five million dollars from their general fund into these grants for local governments to be able to move forward on sustainability efforts um so because this supports the council's climate action plan um city staff recommends that city council support house bill 1253 we'd like to make a motion council member martin i move to support house bill 1233 i'll second it all right all in favor say hi hi hi i was opposed say nay all right the motion carries unanimously thank you mayor cedar thank you very much all right let's move on to all right so let's let's mix it up just a little bit the good news is about this whole weight thing for final call publicly invited to be caught her anyway so the good thing is let's move on to mayor and council comments but in the meantime throw up the screen and if people would like to call in let's see if we get any uh by the time we're done with mayor and council comments let's see if we get some people who want to speak it public invited to be heard so if you'd like to speak call in and let's start now with uh mayor and council comments does he don't want to say anything and if not then we'll just take a three minute break and we'll wait i don't speak up if you want to say something because i can't see everybody anybody i i do council member peck council member peck why don't you go ahead and take the floor okay um i i want i don't talk about my children because they're pretty private my son said i could share this with you because it's kind of important um last the end of last summer he contact he contracted the covid virus and became pretty ill he got over it but um he had what is generally known as fog brain but we decided it was cement brain um and it was pretty devastating um and i won't go into any of the details of it but we uh with the recent research and data that came out is said that if you if you had had the virus then you got some antibodies so you only needed one shot and it would act as the second shot which would give you the added antibodies so um needless to say i was been pretty scared for about nine months for him because of some of the things that happened during this time time period with his brain so um he got the shot on april fifth last monday and um my other son called and said have you talked to to my brother and he's he's different he was totally different and um he was excited he is he told me he said all the stuff's going on in my head that like it used to um and uh he's a cyclist and has not been able to get on his cycle his bicycle at all for nine months um but this weekend he went on a 90 plus a ride 90 mile up ride with three over 3 000 feet elevation um i am so excited for him because it totally got rid of the lingering effects of the virus and the reason i am saying this is to the people who are afraid of taking the shot um who don't think that it is worthwhile or that it helps or that it's a conspiracy theory that the democrats or the republicans are doing this or bill gates or whatever it is that um it really works this is a real thing that we all need to get vaccinated to protect each other so i'm really excited because shonis is signing up for the um uh a big ride in august and some little rides in between and he's so excited about it that he's back he's got his mojo back and it was just because of this shot so this is a message to go out to our residents that we shouldn't be afraid of this we should just do it and protect everybody so thank you thank you councilor peck and uh just my comment for the night is i have my first shot scheduled for monday so um i will follow your advice and all my council members examples so thank you council member martin uh thank you mayor bagley um first of all i am happy um for for council member peck and and her son so that is a great local proof that that what we've been reading in the national news is accurate and i'm just delighted to hear it um um i can't help looking back um to all of the times that we have uh interviewed people for the various city boards and commissions and i remember when we interviewed people for planning and zoning um the question always was asked will you apply the code exactly as written and that seems now to be inconsistent with um with us with the staff's uh eager promotion of the new codes that they were intended to be flexible so um i wonder if we don't need to fix some disconnect because i think we have just um you know reversed what would have been a good project and a good project for the neighborhood um and i am i am sorry that it had to happen that's all all right so i do not see anybody's hands up because i'm just going to try to get the first call by the final call taken care of and then we'll get our screen back is there anybody here don anybody in the queue may or sorry uh there is not i mean i was trying to get back to my other screen there that's right so let's go ahead and close the okay i'll call public invited to be heard and get me my screen back anyone else have their hand up anxious to say something perfect that is that look look at that i'm just look at that we're just using time left and right the fact efficiently all right so let's go ahead then city manager do you have any remarks no comments mayor council okay and then Eugene made do you have any comments no comments mayor all right great then do we have a motion to adjourn move a move second a move second in let's go home no let's get out of here all right it was i'll say the motion was made by councilor christensen the second right seconded by council member waters all in favor say hi hi hi i'm sorry was that an eye councilor christensen or do you have a comment i just hold my hand up to okay anybody opposed all right the motion carries unanimously we're we are concluded for tonight we're adjourned we'll see everybody next week and then i'll stop by and sign things in the morning all right thanks guys good night