 Well, it starts by calling you mayor, so that's good. What day is today? August 17th? Okay, shall we call to order the August 17th Planning and Zoning Commission meeting? Jane, could we start with roll call? Vice Chairman Goldberg. Here. Commissioner Teta. Here. Commissioner Kohler. Here. Commissioner Lukach. Here. Commissioner Boone. Here. Vice Chairman, you have a quorum. Thanks, Jane. We'll look for communications from our planning director, Glenn Van Nimmwagen. Thank you, Mr. Vice Chair. I don't have anything for you. Great. We'll just end the meeting now. Okay, great. Next, okay. So for the next section, I'd like to open up the microphone for public invited to be heard. These are for issues that are not relating to anything on today's agenda. This is your opportunity to come on up, address the commission, speak for five minutes about anything not on the agenda today. If you are interested in speaking on any agenda item today, there'll be an opportunity later in the meeting to do that. So I have Jane looking to see if you've signed up. And it looks like we might have one or two folks that have signed up. So we'll call you to the front. Please state your first and last name and your address, and you get five minutes. Jane's in control of the clock, and we'll let you know when you're out of time. Okay. So I think we'll start with Scott Stewart. Thank you very much. Commissioners. Is that appropriate? Scott Stewart, 229 Grant Street. I'm actually here to try and gain some knowledge. There's a business at 1283 Third Avenue. It is located in within a residential zone area. This business operates with a historical use exemption. The issue that I would like to try to resolve here is that the the business's capacity in relationship to its parking. It doesn't meet the demand of its patrons. And in turn, it's turned kind of our neighborhood into a parking lot for a bar. The historical use of the property is not in line with the current use. The seating capacity of the current establishes meant as far greater than what was there historically. I'm not able to retrieve requested information about the exemption. I'm actually just looking for, you know, what was approved, how was it approved, when was it approved, and how did it reference the historical nature of the property. It's kind of some things up. I'm looking for how do we get to this point that this residentially zoned neighborhood is being used as a parking lot for this business located in a residentially zoned part of town. I'm not opposed to the business, but the size of the business is far greater than what was ever there. Thank you, Mr. Stewart. Unfortunately, there isn't kind of back and forth on this part of the meeting. But thank you. We've heard you. It looks like the next one is Aaron Angel. Did I get that right? Aaron Angel? Aaron, would you please remember to come on up during the next section of public invite to be heard when we're covering your agenda item? Okay, that's everyone on the list here. If you didn't put your name on the list and would like to address the commission now would be the time if it's for an item not on the agenda tonight. Okay, let's go ahead and end public invite to be heard. I think next up on the agenda is approval of the minutes. We're looking to approve the minutes from last month's Planning and Zoning Commission meeting. That's the June 22nd meeting. Do we have any motions? As I think I might have been the only one here, I'll make a motion to approve the minutes. Okay, we have a motion to approve the minutes. I think I can second it if there's no one else. C-11 is no one. Forgive me, Jane, do we have enough folks on the panel to approve the minutes if only a few were there? Vice Chairman, sorry, Goldberg. You know, I had spoke with city attorney may before the meeting this last meeting and it is our understanding that even if you weren't at the meeting, you can still vote to approve the contents of the meeting minutes. So you don't have to abstain if you've read the minutes and you agree with the actions in the minutes. You can still vote to approve them. Okay, so I think there's a motion on the table by Commissioner Kohler to approve. I'll second that. I guess maybe we need to take a vote, Jane. Vice Chairman, Goldberg. Aye. Commissioner Tedda. Commissioner Kohler. Aye. Commissioner Lukach. Approved. Commissioner Boone. Vice Chairman, that passes 4-1. Thank you, Jane. Okay, I think that wraps up agenda item number 5 and number 6. And now we'll move on to our actual public hearings here. And so stay tuned for the agenda item that's most important to you. Beginning with the Quail Commercial Center Lot 3 conditional use site plan. Maybe I'll start with Steph. Thanks. Good evening. Vice Chair, members of the commission, my name is Zach Blazik. I'm the environmental sustainability planner here with the city. Here before you this evening to present on the Quail Commercial Center Lot 3 conditional use site plan. So the project is proposed at the property located at the northeast corner of Main Street and Quail Road down by the museum and the rec center to 2.72 acre parcel with mixed use corridor zoning. And currently the property is vacant. The project would include the construction of 2 new mixed use commercial office buildings adjacent to Main Street just to the east. And the construction of one additional mixed use commercial office building that would also include a drive through restaurant. That's the portion that makes this a conditional use today and why we're here. What we have on this slide is an example of the building elevations for the buildings that would go against Main Street. And what we have here is an example of the building elevation as it would face Quail Road with that drive through. The category that falls into that conditional use is restaurant with drive through. The use can be permitted by this conditional use review in the mixed use corridor zone district on a property adjacent to Main Street. That's kind of why we're here this evening and has that use specific standard. With that it's been subject to the review criteria in section 15055 which is for all application types. In our review staff found that the project meets the land development code requirements for a conditional use site plan in the mixed use corridor zone. We looked at things like maximum height, building design standards, exterior lighting, circulation and pedestrian linkage. In with this application there are also 2 requests for administrative modification. Now typically with one of these if it were just a regular minor development review application we would have Glenn sign off on it. But since the conditional use we have you to make the final decision. With these modification requests we have a maximum building setback. The standard is 25 feet. The request is come in at 28 and a half feet. The other one we have is a landscape buffer. The standard is 20 feet and they're requesting a 10 and a half foot. Since this is an infill redevelopment site these aren't necessarily subject to the same standards that like a variance would be subject to. We can come in and review these under that administrative process and have them subject to those standards in 1503080B. Thanks. Community engagement. We had a neighborhood meeting back in the virtual times November 16th of 2020. There were 15 attendees. When the project came in we notified a whole host of referral agencies and heard back from Excel and Parks and Wildlife with general comments. When the application came in February of 2021 we sent out notices and received a whole bunch of comments. The majority of these were related to an additional previous part of this application that included a hotel. In a following submittal that hotel was withdrawn by the applicant and is not up for consideration today. So we don't have to worry about it. And the end of last month I sent out notices of public hearing and did not receive any feedback from the public. So tonight you have the option to either approve the Quail Commercial Center Lot 3 Conditional Use Site Plan and minor modifications finding the review criteria have been met. You can approve the CUSP and minor mods with conditions or you can deny the Quail Commercial Lot 3 Conditional Use Site Plan. Staff is making the recommendation that you conditionally approve Quail Commercial Center Lot 3 Conditional Use Site Plan and minor modifications with the conditions that the applicant will comply with all city requirements for a major prairie dog removal permit because there are prairie dogs on the property at this time. That would potentially include relocating all those prairie dogs to improve property and going through that process. That's everything that I have. Next we can call up Rosie and applicant team to share their side. And you can just click through guys. Good evening commissioners. I'm Rosie Dennett. I reside at 210 Lincoln Street here in Longmont. Also with me tonight, I'm the planning consultant. Also with me tonight is Bill Novel, the applicant representative for MNR LLC, the owner. And then Tom Moore, the architect on the project. So Tom's going to walk you through the site plan highlighting design standards and how we came up with the layout. And then also touch on the two minor modifications that Zach mentioned. And then I'm going to review the approval criteria with you. And then of course we're all available to answer questions. Commissioners, my name is Tom Moore. I reside at 1303 Longs Peak here in Longmont. It is a pleasure to be here and presenting this project. I will tell you that I'm about to show you a little video. It's an older video that used to include a hotel project. So it's been redacted just a little bit for your viewing tonight. But it did capture some of the, I think some of the great elements about this project design. And so I want to, I want to show you this video. And I think I can start it. At the outset of the design, the importance of maintaining the mountain views from the Longmont Museum and the Recreation Center was understood. We began by modeling the site, buildings, and the views toward the west, the Colorado Front Range. This mixed-use commercial center is envisioned to include retail, professional and business services, and residential uses. In stark contrast to much of today's commercial architecture, the Quail Commercial Center comes with a simple pallet of materials and enduring design forms to create a village-like setting. Along Main Street and Quail Road are one- and two-story commercial buildings, scaled to complement the nearby residential neighborhood. The new commercial center creates a vibrant edge of buildings that frame views of the museum and recreation center and invite pedestrians to enter and engage the project. The design of the Quail Commercial Center provides a mixture of buildings and uses that will encourage citizens to come and enjoy this significant location. The project is responsive to the community context, including the museum and recreation center to the east, the left-hand greenway to the north, and the residential neighborhoods to the south. Most importantly, this project supports and enhances the city's original master plan for this development, including circulation patterns, screened parking, and views of the city facilities from Main Street, the Quail Commercial Center. That was a project or a video that we created several years ago, which did at one time include more about the hotel. We are not doing a hotel in this project. This is now focused on Lot 3, which we're creating right now in this process of the conditional use site plan. I wanted to talk a little bit about the design of our site. I think we mentioned that we're trying to create a really beautiful edge to this property as it's adjacent to Main Street and to Quail. Again, we picked materials and forms that had a scale that was approachable, something that was beautiful, materials that are enduring. Part of our site design was to make sure we contained all of our parking away from the views of the streets and especially away from the views of the adjacent residences to the south and any of the businesses to the west. It's been a project that's been ongoing in my office. We've done a lot of work with regard to site design and making sure the drainage is handled appropriately. We're pleased to be at this point where we have everything approved except for these minor modifications that we're here in front of you to discuss. Some of the things that we want to talk about, I want to show you the site landscape plan. The landscape plan really is one of our focuses because we are doing every bit of landscaping required for this project in spite of not providing all of the depth of buffer that's required. All the materials required will be on site and I want to go over some of those modifications that we're talking about. But we're real pleased to be part of this corner. Let me, I think I can go back. What we're talking about in terms of, we're talking about two things, two modifications. We have the requirement that from the property line to the parking lot, we are supposed to have 25 feet of landscape buffer. In this particular layout at the smallest point, which I believe is right here, we have 10 foot 7. Other places were up, I think we're, and then over here I think we're still a little bit more yet. So while we talk about being 10 feet as the minimum, we're really, that is the minimum in a very small space. However, what we did make sure we provided was from the curb to every curb, we do have 25 feet of landscape that is also in the right away. So we are providing 25 feet of landscape space. We are using some of that landscaped area that would normally be in the, that is in the right away to get, to get the landscaped area we really like. And let me emphasize that we did not reduce any of the material requirements. The landscape plan I showed you accommodated everything that's required as far as the material for an arterial or for the streets and for the landscape buffering of a parking lot. So we're real pleased about that. The other thing about this setback, maximum setbacks is new since we did this, started this project many years ago. So this particular site, when we were working with public works, we do have quite a bit of infrastructure planned in here as far as electric utilities. And when we looked at trying to move the building further east to meet that requirement, it really conflicted with what we've really already worked out in great detail. With public works and especially with the electric department. And then we really do like the fact that it is a little bit further off the off the drive anyway. I'm going to have to try to understand maximum setbacks like that. But right now I think what we're proposing is still a beautiful solution to having a building while we are asking for a modification to that setback. It still is an appropriate view and an appropriate place to do that. Are there any questions for me right now before I turn it over to Rosie as far as the design? Rosie is going to talk more about our review criteria. Thank you very much. Okay. Rosie Dennett again. Regarding the approval criteria stated in your code, we've listed them here in really nice. Big print that no one can read. Sorry about that. But they are in your packets also. Obviously we agree with staff's assessment that we are in compliance with the approval criteria. Specifically, this infill project is consistent with the comprehensive plan by providing a mix of land uses that contribute to the balance of residential employment retail commercial and recreational uses in the Quill neighborhood. We're surrounded by a wide variety of uses as you know if you've been by the site. We're talking about being compatible with commercial to the west commercial to the north as well as the greenway along the stream corridor. We have the museum and the rec center to the east and then we have residential to the south. So it's always a challenge with infill projects to be able to create something that will fit that you can drop in and still be compatible and be a nice transition. The proposed buildings and uses are the same as were included in the previously approved preliminary plat. It was probably a different planning commission than the one we have now because it was a few years back. But these uses that we're proposing today in the buildings are all the same, even the drive up window for the restaurant. The proposed low profile of the building. The buildings does provide that transition area we believe that nice transition from the residential to the south up to the commercial areas to the west and to the north. The wildlife species and habitat report provided by our local wildlife biologist Jerry Powell indicates that no habitat exists on lot three for any federally protected wildlife species. The prior to commencement of construction we will have to comply with any applicable Prairie dog removal requirements. As Zach mentioned, let's see the traffic study indicates the traffic generated from the proposed uses can be handled by the existing street system. Recommended improvements are fairly minor. They include removal of a portion of the existing median that is now in quail road so that we can have room for the turn to Kimbark. And then repainting of some of the lane lines on Main Street or the highway to add turn lanes. Multiple modes of transportation will have access to this site. We have an RTD bus stop at the corner of quail and Main Street. We have designed the pedestrian walkways around the perimeter of the site. And we are of course providing the required bike racks at the buildings. The proposal also meets the additional review criteria that you have in your code for secondary uses for a restaurant with a drive through window. The drive through will be well screened from the public on quail road with landscape birming plant materials and a structural trellis screen. The project also meets the modification approval criteria. So regarding the 25 foot required buffer area, as Tom was describing, we are providing the required plant materials and we are providing them within a 25 foot wide pervious surface area. That's between curb to curb. The other modification allowing several feet farther back from Kimbark than what the requirement states is to accommodate the necessary improvements. So in conclusion, we have no objections to staff's recommendation of approval. The one recommended condition that Zach mentioned regarding Prairie Dogs, we believe we'd have to meet that requirement anyway, whether it was in this condition or not so we don't have a problem with that. And we'd be glad to answer any questions that you might have. Thank you. Okay. Let me just check the commission real quick. Any media questions before we go to public invited to be heard? Or shall we hear from them first? Everyone's good with that? Great. Then I think at this moment I'd like to open up public invited to be heard for this agenda item, the quail commercial center. Excuse me while Jane grabs the paper with the names. So again, this is your opportunity to speak to this agenda item. You'll have five minutes. Please say your first and last name and your address and we'll go right through it. If you didn't sign up in advance, when we get through the list, feel free to come on down and we'll let you speak as well. Thanks, Jane. Okay. The first and only name I have signed up is Claudia Bayless. Hi, Claudia. Are you interested in coming down and speaking? I live in the Blue Vista community. I'm sorry. One moment. Would you just pull the mic a little closer to yourself? Say your first and last name and your address. Claudia, can you hear that? Claudia Bayless, you want my whole address? Yes, please. 237 Cardinal Way. I live in the Blue Vista community on the south side of Quail. I went to a meeting, but I can't remember. It was, I think, maybe pre-pandemic because the hotel was still on the drawing boards. And at that time there was another woman through my community and there was a woman across 287 and she's a teacher. And she actually teaches environmental stuff and she walks a long time. A lot of times she walks by the creek and everything. And so she was concerned about wildlife that doesn't have to be on an endangered list for you to, you know, be interested in their welfare. But the reason that I came to that meeting and came to tonight's meeting is my concerns about traffic because we've already had fatal accidents at the corner of Quail in 287. In fact, I was actually at that corner, a few cars back when they were all stopped in the ambulance and I discovered the next day that a driver had been killed. So what I was concerned about was the fact that this entrance and exit is going to be onto Quail, okay? And you say you're going to take away part of the boulevard there to accommodate that. But we've already got buses and, you know, it's not like it's a four-lane highway or anything. So I'm really concerned, especially when they come. I've had people almost hit me anyway because they don't like when they're coming north to wait for the person who actually has the right way, you know, to turn on the south going left-hand turn lane. And they're coming north and they're going to turn right. And I mean, I almost got hit once. So they already at Crazy on Quail. They race on Quail at night. You can hear them gunning their cars. So I'm just concerned about how this is going to be in terms of just what I've noticed living there for, let's see, is it eight or eight plus years? And maybe other people aren't, but I, you know, you've got people getting on and off the bus. A lot of times people don't wait for the bus. You know, they want to pass it. I've just noticed the behavior there. So I'm a little concerned that we're going to have all of that added to what's already happening on Quail. That's all I want to say. I know it took me a while. Thank you for listening. Thank you, Ms. Baylis. Is there anyone else that didn't sign up that would like to come down and address the commission? Please come down. My name is Erin Angel, and I live at 1304 South Terry Street. In fact, you could see my house on that map. It was kind of cool right behind Brandon Iron Lickers, very conveniently located. I don't really speak this language very well, but I'm really not stoked about this development. I spend a lot more time than probably anybody in the city except for the people that call that area home, as in they actually have their tents set up there and live there. I actually spend quite a bit of time on that land. And I happen to know that that land is inhabited. Zach said it was vacant. It's not vacant. There are a lot of things that live there that don't get to vote and don't get to pay taxes. And so we don't really pay attention to them very much. I'm going to get into that in a little bit later, but I'd like to echo what Claudia said. The traffic is crazy. The traffic on 287 is crazy right there. And putting in a drive-thru restaurant where we have so many children with the rec center and the museum and the innovation center and so many pedestrians. Putting in a drive-thru restaurant is crazy. It is not going to be safe. We don't need another drive-thru restaurant. I know people don't care about that because like I've heard, you know, when you talk about planning and zoning, what we need and what the owner gets to do don't always line up, but we don't need another drive-thru restaurant here. We're all fighting obesity as it is. And Longmont declared a climate emergency, but we're putting in and we're approving drive-thru restaurants. The addition and the carbon with that is huge. We shouldn't have drive-thru restaurants being approved anymore. We just need to stop it. We can do this. You can say no, it's your power. You've got that power. I'm going to go into the things that live there. And I've actually addressed this with city council. I sent stuff. Marsha Martin said, oh, the wildlife biologist didn't find it. The wildlife biologist doesn't spend that much time there. I track. I teach tracking. I teach wildlife. I'm the one that Claudia is talking about. I teach wildlife identification. There's tiger salamanders there. I've actually moved them because I was going to accidentally squish them. I teach children in that area for the Longmont Museum. I'm there from 5 a.m. to 9 p.m. a lot. So in the Boulder County Endangered and Threatened species or species of concern list, right there, we've had garter snakes from that list. We have tiger salamanders. We have woodhouses toads. We also have a vernal pond there that has unidentified because I couldn't identify the tadpoles, but they're definitely not bullfrog tadpoles. Unidentified it. And as we know, all amphibians in this area are in peril of extinction. We also have Gray Fox. I had a teen volunteer see a Gray Fox and her kids this one morning cruising through. I also ran into a mink this big in the creek right there. I couldn't even believe. I just didn't even understand how a mink could be that big. But there's a mink in that creek. And then the next year, I found another mink and it's made during mating season right in that area. So there are inhabitants in the area and people think about endangered species like polar bears and elephants. And they think that it's something someplace else. But we have the most endangered species in the world right here. And every piece of development messes with its habitat or the possibility of it coming back. And that's a black-footed ferret. We also have the burrowing owl. Where you have prairie dogs is supposed to be the habitat for that. It is inhabited. And so every time we approve more development like this, this is what happens. So I am quite sure that people will just go ahead and improve more development in this kind of thing. But it is on you. And it is on us to protect it. So I have to speak up. Otherwise, I can't live with seeing all those things go away, seeing the prairie dogs that I say hi to every morning as I walk past them. I just can't live with myself with that. And we have to think, do we actually need another drive-through? Do we need another vacant office building? I mean, all our office buildings have these big vacancies in them. Do we need more development? Does it need to be done now? Can we give these species a little bit longer to live? And can we just chill and just stop building up so much? So that's my two cents on this. It's not vacant. It's there. And I hope that when this gets built, it gets built. At least there's no drive-through. And at least the landscaping is not landscaping. Can we just have it be pocket prairie? At least for the pollinators. Thanks. Thanks, Miss Angel. Was there anyone else who would like to address the commission tonight before we proceed? OK, then I'll go ahead and close the public invited to be heard section of our discussion here. So from here, we'll go on to discussion with the commission. So commissioners, I'll open up the floor here. Let's start with Commissioner Locacci. Thank you, Vice Chairman Goldberg. I would like to open up the discussion about traffic. We heard a lot from the public. And I noticed that the traffic study is impressive, 200 pages. I don't know who has time to go through every page and look at it. So my first question about the traffic is I noticed in one of those charts that the intersection of 119 and 287, might reach the grade E in 2040. Or it's already PM, it's already E. So we assume in 2040 is going to be even higher. What are the mitigations that we're going to do about it? And how are we going to intervene? I don't know who can speak about that from the applicant. We have Mr. Angstatt, our Director of Engineering, and I'm sure would love to describe the plans. Good evening, Chair Polin. Board members, Jim Angstatt, Director of Engineering Services. So, yes, they had a very extravagant traffic study for this development. And noted that I believe in 2040, 2041, the intersection of 119 and 287 operates at a level of service E. So what we're looking is A, B. Yeah, levels of service are how we designate kind of intersections. A is the best, no improvements would be necessary. B and then go to B, C, D, and E. So it's important to note that both the Main Street Corridor 287 and 119 Corridor operate on a adaptive traffic signal system. And both of those corridors are C. Sorry, I should speak into the mic a little better. Both of those corridors are C. And maintained corridors, although the city does have contracts with C. For maintenance of traffic signals. C. Has recently done improvements on 287 for safety improvements just south of the 119 Corridor. But at this time, the city, we're mostly focusing on safety improvements for intersections. Not necessarily looking at capacity. There's really not a lot of abilities to widen out the roadways, either of those intersections. Whether this project moves forward or not, that intersection will continue to be problematic. And does C. Receive these traffic studies that we do internally for city developments? I believe in this case they would, because the applicant will be required to obtain a C. Permit for their access onto 287. And speaking about safety, what about the crashes that happened in the past there? Quail and 287 that we heard from our community member. Do you have a report or crash? So every fall, September, October, time frame, the city issues a crash report. We take the data from the previous year, incorporate it into a five or 10-year time frame of analysis, and look at critical intersections in the city, whether they are signalized at a certain, whether they're arterials, whether they're collectors, certain levels, intersections. And then we use that information to compile future capital improvement programs and safety improvements. So if there's, you know, if we look, if we see that there's a, there are intersections where there are trends, increasing accidents, we program that into our future CIPs to address however, you know, whatever those, to address those issues. One thing to note that a lot of accidents we see whether there's fatalities involved, there are not improvements that could be done. We see a lot of distracted drivers, a lot of alcohol and drug-related accidents and or accidents with people just on their cell phones. So some of those there's not really a lot you can do to fix your transportation system. But correct your original question, we do undertake a crash analysis every year. That will be coming out, I think, in the near future. We usually unveil it in the fall. And do you do anything relating to speeding? Like I noticed even in the traffic study, they measured the speeds of the cars that we're passing through. So there was an 80 miles an hour. Are you looking at any improvements or are you taking that in consideration in your CIPs in the future? So yes, we do. One of the components of things we look at in our traffic unit is if we get complaints, significant complaints, you know, more than three or four, we usually, our processes, we will go out and we'll do a speed study for a roadway. That would, similar to what you see in the traffic report, over a 24-hour period, we will put down a measuring device and we will measure both speed and number of vehicles. And then we will look at if it's above the criteria for what is in the manual uniform traffic control devices, we would then institute some improvements. We have a revolving budget every year for those types of things. We have a neighborhood mitigation program designed for residential streets. Basically, to exclude arterials and collectors, arterials usually don't want to do any type of traffic calming. That's going to be an enforcement issue. But we do look at collectors. Improvements can be flashing speed signs, speed tables, curb extensions. So we have a couple of items in our arsenal to address those and we are, we look at those on a regular basis. So that would be quail would be in... Yeah, and quail has a number of items of traffic mitigation on the meridian. There's flashing speed signs. We've done some curb extensions already. Some of this falls in, we'll fall to enforcement on some of those roads. Okay, so if someone, if the neighbors would like to look more into the traffic on quail, maybe file some more complaints, is that right? Is that what I'm hearing? I can get my number. They can call me. We have a, they can contact the public works. We have a call in center. They can contact us there, or they can contact our offices directly. Okay. Thank you. That is all that I have for now. Thank you. I have a few more questions relating to traffic, but there's other members of the commission that have kind of raised, put their name in the queue. Does anyone else have any questions around the traffic specifically? Let's see if I can do this right. Commissioner Coller. So I had some questions about the development of the Kansas Avenue. I guess it's not clear to me. It's not part of the application that that gets built out. But I'm wondering if, if when it does get built out, if it's would alleviate some of the issues on quail road. And I don't know if that would be a city thing. Like, you know, at what point that gets built out? Currently, the extension of Kansas is not in, in any of the city's CIPs. Capital improvement programs. So at this juncture, I, it would be beyond five years out. Potentially could be when the, the, the area around the museum and the, the rec center develops further. That would tie in it could, could potentially be a bit of a reliever to quail road. But it, it really only extends to the street immediately to the, to the east. So I, I couldn't say, you know, without further study what and projections of traffic, whether that would actually be relieving quail. Sorry. So just a little follow up on that. Do you, does, um, is it, is it, so the only access to this parcel will be from quail road, right? There's nothing, the applicant has nothing proposed on the north to access the site. As I recall, there is an access, um, Kansas road, Kansas will, will come off of 287 and then there's an access north-south access that comes off a quail. So there will be two access points. Okay. So they, you can develop, you, they will develop Kansas, at least to the point of their. Yes. Parcel. Yes. Okay. Thanks. Okay. Would you mind reintroducing yourself? I'm sorry. I'm used to, I'm used to nothing to the things that was going on here. Great. So um, you have a borrower and a compiler, Stamen or another member of the team? Uh, Jim angstatt, director of engineering services. Thanks. Thanks, Jim. I just hate not knowing your name. Jim, would you do us a favor and clarify the rating system? I think it probably has to do with. Um, average weight times at lights and, um, you know, of my head, I would not be able to do that, but it is a time based for weight at an intersection and A being the best in kind of free flow at a signalized intersection and then it proceeds to down from B to C to D to E. Great. And is it measured all day or is it only during peak hours? When is this intersection in E, which is the worst rating? I'd have to look at the traffic study to see what the time frames are. I'm, you know, my little experience with some of the traffic studies I've read, it's usually they look at it as a peak hour level will be what is the worst possible case you'll find. And then in some cases, in some studies, they will average out the time frames for all directions to reach a certain level of service or whatever the level of service is. In some cases, you may have a left bound, you know, turning north two lanes of traffic and then that may operate at a level of service D, which everything else may be at an A, it'll drag down the overall level of service. So it is an average of all movements at the intersection. Okay. So is it safe to assume that this intersection is probably during the morning commute and during the evening commute when it's at its worst level? That's when you're going to see it, yes. Do we know what it is the rest of the time? Sometimes we see bees turn into Ds, you know, during the peak hours. Do you have any experience with this or is there someone here that can address this? It would probably be down to a level of service or up to a level of service D. It wouldn't change significantly for the amount of traffic that travels on those two roadways. Okay. Sometimes the specifics have been enlightening to me, so I think the rating can be, the average wait time is 30 seconds. That might go from an A to a B or 60 seconds waiting for your turn might be a B to a C. Is that a little bit? Is that the spirit of the rating system or can you give us just some context? Are we waiting for 45 minutes to make that turn during an E? It's going to be in seconds. Again, with the adaptive traffic signal systems that are able to make corrections, as you move blocks of traffic, the signal systems are able to be just and coordinated so that when there's less traffic, maybe on 119, they'll be able to move more traffic on 287. Is speeding or frequency of accidents taken into consideration when that intersection is rated? Not for the level of service ratings now. That's just the amount of time we're sitting at the light waiting to turn. It is. Yes. Okay. Did you review this, were you part of Zach's review team in when, in making the recommendation to approve this project? I was not part of it personally, but staff was. Okay. I don't know if I should maybe point my question then back at Zach Blazer, because my question is why do we have a review system, a rating system, if when we have an E, the worst rating, there's a proposal for development, but it still got the green light to go from staff. So could you just clarify, whichever member is the rightest person, give us some confidence in why was this approved despite it being in a poor rating? I have the rating system model at all. Is it one of our review criteria? And I don't know that this, if I were to do an analysis with and without this project, I don't believe that this project will significantly impact that rating at that intersection. I think it's going to be a level of service E no matter what goes on in the community, whether this project is developed or not. Got it. Find confidence in the staff's recommendation to approve in this case, at least as it relates to traffic, because whether this project is built or not, it's not going to have a major impact on the existing traffic conditions. I don't believe so. While you were talking, Donbership walked up, I don't know if you were going to chime in or not chime in. I'll let Don take over. Thanks Don. And thanks Jim. Good evening Chair Goldberg, members of the commission, Donbership Planning Manager, just as a little bit of background, when we annexed this property along with the properties that include the Lowe's as well as the Best Buy, so Harvest Junction North and South, this was all part of the Baker annexation, which this piece was an original part that was the last piece to be brought in when we annexed it. This was brought in. The city council looked at the benchmarks for traffic at that time, and this was back in the late 90s, early 2000s, it was probably 2002, I believe is when I worked on this project. The city council granted an exception for this area, because at that time we identified that the benchmarks were not met back in 2000, and we knew that with any development over time, the benchmark would continue not to be met. The concern and the issue that was raised was that there were no improvements that a single development could do to fix this problem. This is a system-wide, it is as Jim talked about, something that would require most likely city and CDOT going in and acquiring a lot of property to try to fix. It's a regional intersection. We have people that are going from Fort Collins, Lowe and South, we have people out in the tri-towns that are going to Boulder and vice versa, so this was looked at in the council granted a variance for that intersection when that development was annexed and brought in for development. They identified the problem, we identified the problem back when I first started here a long time ago. That's just a little history for you to understand and why we have those. We still do the reports, we still want to understand the impacts, and we want to understand if we're negatively impacting any other areas where we should require turn lanes or A-cell, D-cell lines to make sure that we handle that traffic appropriately and mitigate the problems that are being caused by development and have the development community that is causing that additional traffic and those needs for those improvements to fix those. But as I understand the study without going through in detail, there was nothing identified other than what we have already shown with the development and the plaid and the public improvement plans for the improvements on Quill Road and then Kansas Avenue and I believe that's Kimbark that runs north and south through this development. But that's just a little history for you. Yeah, thanks, Don. Okay, Jeb, I don't think I have any more traffic questions myself, and then I want to apologize to Commissioner Boone. She's been waiting patiently while I jumped in with my traffic questions. No, that's fine. And that was appropriate. Thank you. Does that work? My questions have to do with the setbacks and the landscape buffers. And it seems like both of these things relate a lot to this drive-through piece of the project. My first question is the applicant pointed out that there is a, I think it's 25 feet curb-to-curb along Kimbark, which provides sort of a buffer. It's just that the landscaping would all be in the 10-foot-six portion. Did I understand that correctly? And similarly over on Kansas and that the amount of landscaping required for a 20-foot buffer, and I think the requirement is a 20-foot buffer, not a 25-foot buffer, but the landscape required for a 20-foot buffer in terms of number of trees and shrubs and things would still be there, even though it was going to be in the 10-foot-six portion. Is that, am I understanding that correctly? Yes, Commissioner Boone, all of that is correct. Okay, and then my second question has to do with the setback. And I think this is, this is a requirement that I'm not fully familiar with, and I think it's kind of new, and I'm wondering, Zach, if you can explain a maximum setback to everyone. Sure, so when you think of a setback, it's the distance between the property line and where the building would be required to be, right? Which is usually a minimum setback. Usually it's a minimum, so it would be a minimum, you have to be at least 10 feet away from the property line, for example. This is kind of the opposite. So you have to be within 25 feet of this property line between the property line and the edge of your building. 25 feet, if you meet the standard, is as far back from the property line as the edge of the building can be. Does that make sense? It does make sense by definition, and I'm wanting to understand the reason behind it so that I could get my head around giving a variance for it. Sure, so when you think of the mixed-use corridor zone district, you think of shopping, retail, and here on Main Street, one thing that we're really trying to focus on with our Main Street corridor plan and with future land use planning in general is creating walkable spaces, pedestrian friendly, and a character that is kind of similar to that of our downtown. So when you think of walking up and down Main Street in our downtown, the buildings are right there, you have your walkable space, you have your trees, and you have the street. It's trying to create a similar type of form in that respect, and that's why we have the maximum rather than the minimum. Okay, understood. Seems like it's not real applicable to... It's a long-term strategy. Yeah, well, it's not too applicable to this particular project on the east side. I would agree. It's a different situation. Okay, and then my third question is probably for the applicant. Was there any consideration given, and I know this is not what the commission is supposed to be looking at tonight, but was there any consideration given to a non-drive-through little restaurant, little coffee shop on that corner, which considering that you're right by the library and the rec center in a very walkable residential neighborhood seems much more friendly than a drive-through. Thank you. Commissioner Boone, I'd like to respond to that. This project has been in the developments for almost 15 years, and originally we did have a hotel on site. The brand of hotel does not have a restaurant. And so at that point, we believed what we needed to provide for that particular use adjacent to our property was a mix of the ability to have formal restaurants because we have another restaurant potential in one of the buildings along Main Street, but also something more casual. And in the neighborhood meetings that we had, there was also a desire for some more casual sort of coffee shop type places. One of the things that in terms of marketing for those kinds of users, we needed to have this option. It's sort of market driven. We wanted to do everything we could to make it the least impactful to the environment. And I think we succeeded in that. But the idea was we're providing the potential for anybody for other uses like what could be a, I've been thinking coffee shop, quite frankly, but it could be a restaurant that's more of a smaller scale in terms of what they're doing. It's not a, obviously it's not a big box or a franchise type restaurant. But the idea of being able to market this site with a drive through was very important into the development community that was gonna be looking at what could be built here. What could we buy and what could we produce here? Commissioner Titta. Great, thank you. Okay, I have a couple of questions for either Planning Director Van Nimbuygen or Zack. There was an article in today's paper about the study session last night and the probable eventual elimination of drive throughs in the mixed use corridor and on Main Street or adjacent to Main Street specifically. Could either of you speak to why we would look to eliminate drive throughs and what it is about drive throughs that maybe, I guess my concern is that maybe we'd be a little bit behind the trend right now. Yeah, actually, Zack presented that last night and the goal is from our Main Street corridor study and the idea is just to create a better atmosphere for more pedestrian trips and that means fewer car trips. So that is the goal. I don't think we're at this point eliminating them. We are trying to maybe move them off Main Street so we can ultimately have a more walkable Main Street but in the meantime, they will be like conditional uses on other places on the site. So that's the goal from the plan which I think was adopted 2018. So yes, it's taking us a while to bring it forward but that's the goal. Thank you, Vice Chair Goldberg. Drive throughs, there was just a mention a couple of moments ago that the applicant wanted something casual and I don't see drive throughs as something casual. They're fast, right? You're just in and out and there's no casual chatting, connecting to your neighbor, connecting to a friend over a coffee or something. And when I was looking at the plans and the attachments we received, it was mentioning a coffee place. So now we're talking about a restaurant and eliminating drive throughs as a vision. What other drive throughs are on Main Street in that area? Like I know of two of them already. So this would be a third one at that intersection from what I know. Would you be able to speak about that? How many are around there and why would we approve another one? Ziggy's under the liquor store as a drive through item? I'm unfamiliar with that liquor store. I'm sorry. Is that the liquor store at Main and Second or? No, it's next to Gondolier, yes. Okay, I'm unfamiliar. I know about Ziggy's, I don't know about the liquor store. I would note that our drive through is not accessed off of Main Street or Quail. We are accessed off of the two new streets we're creating which is Kimbark and Kansas and all of our stack spaces within our parking lot. We will, if there's excess stacking space, then it does happen in the parking lot of the development. And I think that's not to challenge your opinion but I think if Starbucks is a very casual place, mostly with a drive through. And I think there could be, there are restaurants that would have a drive through too if they had the ability. I mean, I think of McDonald's, they have a drive through. That's casual to me. But I don't think, I think the location we think is important because it does draw from a neighborhood and from a lot of community activities adjacent to our site. There's no place to have a casual beverage close by to the museum and to the rec center at this point. So casual means sit down, not drive through. No, no, no, it's both. I think it's both. Can people walk through a drive through or are they allowed? No, that's not allowed. They're not. No. I guess we're gonna probably be splitting hairs on semantics but when I think of casual, it's not something that you're gonna book a reservation for you're going to be able to go there and maybe decide to go through the drive through if you've got kids and you wanna go through fast or you could take the kids inside. But it's not a sugar beet. It's not that kind of a restaurant. Now we have places for the sugar beet if they wanted to be down there but this is something a little more casual. And what's the capacity inside? Let me get my notes. I can't. We have in that building, we have a 2,400 square foot space for the restaurant. That's the ground floor piece. We have a second floor for offices that's another 1,600. So 2,400 square feet, that's not a big restaurant. Most restaurants are gonna be at least double that. So I guess my question still stands. Why would we approve another drive-through in that area? And I don't know if anyone has the answer but I'm still trying to figure it out. Well, it could be because it's good for business and it's good for the business base in Laumont. That could be a reason. Maybe before you sit down, Mr. Moore. Yes. Is that right, Mr. Moore? Yes. You mentioned that you were successful in creating a restaurant experience or suggesting that this was the most minimal impact to the environment. And the drive-through potentially was a part of that. Would you just share how you, what did you mean by that? That this was the approach that had the least impact on the environment. Could we, can I get the site plan up? This is the location of our restaurant. And again, one of the things that we wanted to do was to make sure we're not experiencing the kind of things, I have my office on Main Street and I know that there are days when I drive down by the Dutch Brothers Coffee that their drive-through lane is out in the middle. And then I've been to Fort Collins a lot where there's a particular chicken restaurant that just fills up the whole street college. So we were careful that if we're having a drive-through, it's going to impact not the people who are not even wanting to be involved but only the people engaged in the actual project in here. So both our parking and our approach to have a drive-through is fully contained on site. This becomes a very important landscape buffer and we did, I think as Rosie alluded to it in our plans that have been approved for screening that we have berms, landscaping and a trellis element to screen vehicles that are parked in this lane right here. And again, we like the distance of the setback as people come out and then they will be able to choose to go out either on the north end and access Main from this north or again, they can come out here and end up going any direction east or west to the Main Street. The idea was that we were creating something that again had a visually a little impact to the, especially to the residents right across the street here. They do enjoy an outlawed, a landscape outlaw between the curb and their backyards but we again wanted to minimize the impact of this kind of use for where they're living. Did I answer that? Thank you. Okay, I think I'll point my next question at Zach. Zach, by our third meeting together I'll get your last name right, I promise. Zach, this drive-through requires approval is a conditional approval, right? Or conditional use, meaning we got to approve it. This drive-through doesn't touch Main Street. You know, it's all done internal. What is the intention behind the drive-throughs being a conditional use requiring the additional approval? What is the intention behind that? And is this type of drive-through relevant? Sure, so the background of that is kind of going back to that discussion that we were just having about Main Street and about the Main Street corridor itself and the context of the uses that are directly against it, right? The way that the rule is written is it's any property or parcel that is directly adjacent to Main Street. So you alluded to the fact that this is not directly adjacent to Main Street, I'm assuming in the sense that there are buildings between it and Main Street itself, right? So the CUSP rule where we have to come in and have a public meeting still applies, right? Because it's on that parcel. But I see what you're getting at, where does it apply? My answer is yes, because it's a parcel that's on Main Street. But it's kind of up to you guys to decide what to do from there. All right, I see you passing it off. I just had, historically with drive-throughs you have menus and speakers. So a lot of times that's why you get a chance to look at it and you get the opportunity for neighbors to weigh in on it for themselves, basically. Great, thanks, Glenn. Okay, all right, so now that we better understand the reasoning behind it, let's talk about what was in the paper today and what city council is reviewing. So now the intention of the law versus the vision, right? Or the intention of the code versus the vision. What is this, the section of 287 that city council is currently reviewing this no drive-through moving forward policy? Sure, so two comments. To answer your first question, the current thing that is under review with council that I'll be bringing up in the future is for the entirety of Main Street and the Main Street corridor. But I do wanna point out that that hasn't been approved by council yet. And since these guys are currently under review under the current set of standards, that's the standard that we have to hold them to. Great, would you mind clarifying what is the entirety of Main Street? Is that between 119 and 66? Does it include south of 119? What is that full state? The Main Street corridor is Plateau Road all the way to the south. Plateau on the south. Correct, to IY-66 to the north. Okay, including the section that we're reviewing right now. That's correct. Okay, that's helpful, thank you. I'd like to address a comment that Mrs. Angel made about a request to leave this less landscaped and more into a natural, you know, maybe grassland. I guess maybe the question is for staff and would that even be allowed under a current code? Thank you, Commissioner Kohler. I believe the comment from the public was to leave a portion of the land as completely natural, right? That is not something that we would be able to permit with our landscape code. We do have a number of trees that are required. We have specific planting and groundscape requirements that we have to review and ensure are installed correctly. So that's not something that we would be able to consider as staff. All right, Zach, just a couple of quick hits from the folks who spoke. There's concerns about the existing animals there. Can you talk about what sort of animal studies were done and what were the results that are enabling, that was enabling you to recommend approval of this? Sure, so the big item that we request when we have any development review is a species and habitat conservation plan. What that specifically looks at is plant species and any federally protected species, as well as raptors that are in the vicinity. The main outcomes from the species and habitat plan that we reviewed for this project were that there are a, prairie dogs on the property. There's a number of steps that you have to take according to the prairie dog mitigation process. And our commenter did mention burrowing Alice. That's one of the things that you have to go through a process in order to actually get to development on. Again, the species and habitat report for this project did not identify any federally protected species. So that gives the kind of the major green light to approve as well as with any other conditions for environmental that need to be met. So if there's a nearby raptor nest, they have to mitigate for that appropriately. Some of that work happens after approval and prior to construction surveys and things like that. So for us, for staff, all of those hurdles were met in order to approve. Right, I'm gonna approve for you guys. I appreciate the clarification. And then the other item Ms. Angel brought up was environmental impacts. Can you talk about what sort of environmental impact reporting or studies are required to be reviewed before a project like this can be approved? Again, that species and habitat conservation plan is the big one. There was possibly also an environmental, like a phase one environmental report that came in. I was not involved in that review at the time so I can't necessarily speak to what that was. But again, if there were major issues, they would have come up prior to us getting to this step. So I feel confident to make that recommendation of approval now. Okay, thank you, Zach. Commissioner Kohler. Yeah, I guess I have one more question on the hotel. So it was removed from the plan and replaced by the buildings that are proposed there now, is that right? This particular site that you're looking at, the hotel is was to be over here. And it is immediately adjacent to the cord or the same variant cord, the same variant greenway, which I would suspect that's where we found other animals living. I don't think we found, correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't know that the salamanders were over here on the corner. The salamanders were, I haven't, I've walked the site several times but not come across a pond or. Okay, thank you for the feedback. Forgive me, I'd really like to maintain a decorum here. So if we could please keep the feedback to be at the podium to the commission, this is kind of back and forth with the public. Absolutely, Rosie Dennett again, planning consultant on this project. The pond that, there aren't ponds on this lot. The pond is on the lot adjacent to the museum. And the rec center, it's to the north. And then also the, a few references that she made regarding some of the wildlife along the stream. This is lot three. The hotel was on lot one, which is to the north of this site and there's also a second lot to the north of this site. Then you have left hand creek. So the stream corridor obviously is gonna have more impact as far as wildlife movement and various issues there. And as part of the plating process, that was platted as a greenway outlaw that's going to the city. So that stream corridor is actually gonna be owned by the city when the plot is recorded for this. But tonight, this is just lot three. So it's just what you see there. And the hotel that was referenced before is on lot one, was on lot one, which is to the north of this site. And that would have to go through a separate site plan review. And can you say again, which lots being given to the city? The outlaw. So do we have a larger, do we have the plot in any of our? Okay. This is the multimobile plan for the development. We're talking tonight about this site. This is the hotel site, or what was the hotel site? It is no longer a hotel site. And then this is lot one, this is lot two. This is all that's being given back to the city as far as part of the greenway from this property owner. All of this space in here will become part of the St. Frank Greenway, which is part of this development application. So again, we're dealing with this site tonight. This is a future development opportunity, but we do not have it slated for anything at this point. We don't know what it's going to be. But it will not be a hotel by whatever, it won't be our hotel. Won't be the hotel of the developer, the original owner that wished to do that. So that's the scope of the project. There's a great deal of space here that's going back to the city as part of this development application. And there's no trees being removed on this lot? No. There aren't any trees on this lot. Okay. And just to comment, the final plot has already been approved by staff. So I think we're done with the plotting process, but this is just the site plan review for lot three. So we apologize for not making that clear. The other uses were on the other lots. And lot four, you'll see a reference to lot four. That is in the area, can I do it with this? Ha-ha. That is this lot, which is also part of the plot. And that also goes to the city. So as part of the plotting process, which if you'd been on planning commission a few years ago, would have included the preliminary plot review. But this portion of the land is currently owned by the city and we're doing a land swap with this piece and this piece. So the city will now become owners of this lot once we record the replat and the plot, so that that can be used for parking and whatever other uses that they need for their campus. Their quail campus. So that's why there's a long history on this property. We've had a lot of negotiations back and forth with the city on this. Thank you, that helps. Okay, sure. Thank you. I have one more question for the applicant. So currently you have this little drive-through restaurant tucked back behind an office building on a side road. What happens with the signage? Is that going to be on Main Street or is it going to be something huge that towers above the office portion or what? Thank you. Commissioner Boone, we will be creating a master sign program for this project in the future. What we've shown in this development application is individual tenant signage options for the commercial buildings. We're not really talking at this point about signage because it's still up in the air as far as how, what we're going to have, but it will comply with the requirements of the signage requirements with the development application for that signage. Okay, thank you. Mr. Moore, before you sit down, I wonder if I could ask you one last question. One of the things that I really appreciate from applicants is when they make a conscious effort and respond to the public and do their best to be teammates with the community when they bring in a project. And I think you've demonstrated a few times here where you and your project have done that. And I applaud you for that. In order to have a drive-through, you needed a special approval from us, and which means that there's already a little friction. And then our city council, apparently since 2018, have been evaluating the role of drive-throughs on our main street corridor, which includes the area of your project. How important is this drive-through to you? Is it, will this break your project if you are unable to have the drive-through or could your project continue to bring needed housing to our town, provide the casual eatery that you're looking for and kind of enhance our downtown district like you're intending to do? I feel like that's a double-edged sword-type question, Commissioner Goldberg. Let me answer the, let me ask Zach something. I believe that the potential of improving pedestrian access while it's important, it's very important, what I heard last night and I attended the last night's meeting with the city council, what I heard and correct me if I'm mistaken is that the idea, the reason main street is being targeted to limit drive-throughs. And we're talking main street, we're not talking everywhere else. And we're not really, this drive-through is not actually on main street. But the reason they wanna do that is because the curb cuts involved in a drive-through create unsafe environments. And you can go to places on main street just north of ninth and main. I really like Dutch Brothers Coffee, but it's not a great place to walk. You have to keep watching because cars are going in and out on both sides. But the reality is that I think the intent is to create safe walkable spaces. I don't think our drive-through impacts and creates an unsafe, unwalkable space. But I do know that a drive-through option for a development is a big plus when you're out there in the marketplace. And I don't think in this location, I would like to say no, we give up on it. But I think in this case, this really is not a bad place to have one. And this particular project, I don't think flies in the face of what the city is saying they wanna do. That's my opinion, but I wanna know if they concur. I can ask Zach if he concurs. Zach, what's your read on the justification here? I mean, I would just circle back to staff did review the review criteria as it's been said at the time and found that the review criteria were met. That's the standard and threshold that we have to reach to make our recommendation to you. So I would stick with it. Thanks, Zach. How about now, Commissioner Tidda? Thank you, Vice Chair. I'm really sensitive to the need for walkability and connectivity. I don't feel like without development there in that part of town, there's much opportunity for walkability or pedestrian activity on that side of the street at all. I guess what I'm trying to say is I feel like it's gotta get developed with connectivity in mind. And if it doesn't, it's not a place anybody's gonna wanna be walking anyway. So I'm in favor of this. I like this project. Commissioner Coler. Yeah, I think I'd second that in that, you know, there's some concerns brought up by the public. I think the applicant and the staff have done a good job of addressing those with the traffic. And then also with the environmental concerns, I think the fact that this lot isn't currently losing any trees, that there is a buffer between it and the St. Rain Greenway makes me feel a little bit better about that. The condition that they'd have to survey for blowing owls prior to construction makes me feel better about that. So I think I agree that the drive-through itself, because it is off a main street, doesn't seem to impact the walkability. And if anything, it's gonna just bring more business to this area, which doesn't probably have a lot right now as it is. So I agree. I would be in support of the project. Commissioner Boone. Thank you, Vice Chair. So I had a lot of questions, and whether or not personally, I am in favor of drive-throughs, which in general, I'm not. I think they have met all the criteria and they've answered my questions with respect to the things we are supposed to be looking at tonight, which is the conditional use and the two, the two variances. The buffer is explained, and I can get my head around that. There really is a buffer, and they've satisfied that. And the maximum setback requirement on this one corner, I don't think is really applicable. So when all is said and done, and the wildlife is going to have a couple of other parcels to move to, particularly along the creek. And so I feel better about that. The traffic along 287 is always a problem, and it's gonna continue to be a problem. And I don't think that this will greatly impact that. So in general, I support the project too. Thank you, Chairman Boone. Chairman Lococci. Thank you, Vice Chair. So we subjected the staff and the applicant a lot on the drive-through tonight. And I think in the end, they convinced me that this drive-through is not creating an unsafe impact on pedestrians in particular, but also on the traffic that could potentially had if it was closer to 287 on Main Street. So with that in mind, I am in favor of this project. And like Commissioner Boone said, the traffic on 287 and 119 in the area is still gonna be how it is, or even worse in the future. But I'm hoping that with all the transportation plans that the city has to improve the corridor and with transit and potential, and we have the left-hand greenway right there, potentially some of the traffic could move to other modes of transportation if we make a move on that as a city and as individuals. Thank you. Thank you, Chairman Lococci. I guess I'll throw my two cents in there. I largely am supportive of everything that the other commissioners brought up. And I am supportive of this project. I think the drive-through is really what we were here to review. And while I wanna be sensitive to what's happening and what our city council peers are talking about in the current discussions, and I wanna be visionary, I think we also need to be careful not to be too reactionary and too reactionary to a steady session or the cover of the time's call today. And I think Mr. Blizek actually kind of put it best when he said, when he reminded us that staff had reviewed these various items, made their recommendations. This is off of existing code, not code that might be down the road, not rules that might be coming down the road. We'll certainly take those into consideration when they're real and permanent and part of our review criteria. But right now they're not. So I'm able to move beyond the concerns around the drive-through. And I think safe walkable spaces really resonated with me and this is not, I don't anticipate this really impacting the safe walkable space. And I want there to be safe walkable spaces for Ms. Angel and Ms. Bayliss and the whole community and the salamanders. But I think for the sake of this project, I would be favorable of it too. And I appreciate the applicant already revealing their ability to be cooperative with the Prairie Dogs and meeting the criteria or meeting the city's recommendation for how to manage those. So maybe with that, does anyone have a motion? I'd like to make a motion then that we adopt PZR 2022 seven dash seven B with the condition that the Prairie Dogs are relocated or whatever Prairie Dog mitigation gets done. Okay, so we have a motion on the table for approval of PZR 2022 dash 11 B and we'll just use the, I'm sorry, what am I looking at? Seven. Is it seven? I'm sorry, forgive me one second. Seven, okay, seven. And we'll just stick with the copy that's provided in our packet and provided by the city staff. Is there any further discussion? Okay, do we have a second? Chairman Boone. I'll second the motion. Okay, we have a second. Jane, I think we'll take a vote. Commissioner Teta, Vice Chairman Goldberg. Aye. Commissioner Kohler. Aye. Commissioner Lukach. Aye. Commissioner Boone. Vice Chairman Goldberg, that passes unanimously five to zero. Thanks, Jane. In one of my stack of papers is the right thing that I have to read right now, so just give me one second. Okay. So this item now enters a seven day appeal period during this time, any aggrieved party may appeal the commissioner's decision by submitting a written appeal letter stating why the Planning and Zoning Commission's decision should be amended or reversed by city council. All appeals must be in writing and must be received in the city clerk's office and the planning office within seven, the seven day appeal period. It looks like that appeal period begins today, August, tomorrow, August 18th and ends Wednesday, August 24th. I just want to, before we close out, thank the commission for a robust discussion and the applicant and the city staff for their answers. I think we had a robust conversation, reviewed the feedback from the public and I applaud you for getting us across the finish line. I think with that, maybe we should take a five minute break, come back at, what is that, 822? We'll come back at 822 and resume. Is that, or is my clock off? It says, oh, I'm sorry, 852, 852. All right, shall we reconvene? Looks like the next item on, it looks like the next item on our agenda is the Westview Acres annexation. So we'll start with Don Burchett. Thank you, Vice Chair Goldberg, members of the commission. Hey folks, can we go ahead, we're reconvening, can we go ahead and have a quiet in the room? Excuse me, so Vice Chair Goldman, members of the commission, Don Burchett, planning manager for the city of Longmont. I am here tonight to present, Brian is also listed on the application. We were hit by the great resignation as well. Ava, who was with us for a number of years, has taken another job and left. She was the one who was the project planner on this for, through the COVID time and so you are here, you get me tonight and I will do my best to walk you through what's going on and to help everybody understand the process as well as the overall application. And then the applicant, Mr. Bestall, will come up and do a presentation and walk you through more of the detail and review criteria. So with that, I will go ahead and get started. I also wanted to just say that I have Jim Engstet here as well. He is the director of public works engineering and his staff are the folks that work with us on development review. So that is your drainage engineers, your transportation engineers, water sewer and transportation. So he knows it all as you heard earlier. So he is here as well to answer any general questions. So I appreciate him being here. So first of all, I just want to make sure because I know we have a few new members on the planning commission and I'm not certain whether or not this is the first or many of the annexation applications that you've looked at. So I just wanted to kind of walk through that as well as for the public's benefit. So the planning commission's role tonight is one of a recommending body under the development code. You will be making a recommendation to the city council who will ultimately decide whether or not to annex the property into the city of Longmont and whether or not to grant any development rights on that property. So your role as spelled out in the land development code is to obviously review this project against the review criteria, which I've got on the screen or in your packet. Those are specific to the general criteria that are required for all development applications and then specific criteria related to annexations. And I think Jack will go through those when he does his presentation. After I'm finished and after Mr. Bustall finishes up his presentation, obviously we'll have a public hearing where the neighborhood can speak and bring up any concerns or issues. We've noted those in the communication as well as included the items that we had in the file for the comments that we had received from the adjacent neighbors as well as some of the HOAs that are in the area that had concerns with the development application. So after the public hearing is over and after your discussions and answering any questions that you have, then obviously you'll get to make a recommendation. And I do want to point out that as we always know in our presentations, you have the ability to make conditions or make a recommended condition to the council if you feel that there is an issue that is brought up by the neighborhood that you feel needs to be addressed. And so there is that option to adopt a PZR that allows you to add conditions to address an issue that you feel needs to be maybe looked at more in order to meet those review criteria. So that is within your purview. I just want to make sure everyone was clear on that. So on the screen right now we have two insets. The first is an aerial photograph and there's pink dots because I'm not smart enough to be able to draw a line around the property in question. It shows the existing two parcels that have existing single family homes on them. And that is the area that is proposed to be annexed that we're gonna be talking about tonight. The property is adjacent to Airport Road on its east. To the north we have Glenire that goes and comes in and makes us a sweeping curve down to the south and to the west. And we have the Somerset Meadows development that it was developed in the city of Longmont to the east and the north. And then we have the Summerland property which is the properties to the south that was developed in Boulder County. If you look to the left diagram what you'll see there is a cut out from the Longmont area comprehensive plan envision Longmont, the land use map and what we have there where the blue line is kind of makes this jog here. This is the property in question. The Envision Document identifies this property as single family neighborhood. The Envision Document, the comprehensive plan allows for one to eight units per acre with this type of land use designation on the property. And then as you'll note to the south the Summerland area the color has changed as well as across the street to the east of Airport Road. And those are rural neighborhood and those areas are according to our plans are allowed to develop at one unit to the acre. So I know there were some concerns about compatibility that were expressed. And so I just wanted to point out that there are different land use designations in our comprehensive plan for the properties to the south than they are to the north and to the west. So that is some of the difference in sizes that were developed previously when they went through development review was related to that. This area has been in our comprehensive plan since 1996. So this area has been identified for future development before I actually started here. And that was a long time ago. So that's just a little background for you on that. An overview of the proposal is it's an annexation for 7.6 acres approximately. The developable land which includes the two parcels with the existing homes on it's approximately 6.8 acres. And then they will be annexing in the airport road right of way adjacent to the property. So we will have full control over the area that is adjacent to this parcel. Boulder County made a comment that if there are any improvements that need to be done further down the road to allow for ACL diesel lanes or changes to the median that they would ask that we annex those areas so that it's done under our jurisdiction. And obviously, we will do our best to confirm that what is being shown currently on the plans meets the needs for the development that's being proposed. But we are respectful of their requests and understand that the proposed zoning for the property is residential single family that is in the keeping with the designation and Envision Longmont on the land use plan that is the zoning that allows for one to eight units per acre. It allows for single family development. And it also allows for accessory dwelling units either within the basement or within the home as well. But obviously at this stage, we're talking about the annexation and a potential 22 units, but it is a use anyway that is allowed in that zoning district. So I thought it was important to just note that of the 22 single family lots, the lot sizes are shown vary from the smallest of a 5,677 square foot lot up to a 28,795 square foot lot. At least that's based on the current concept plan. Obviously through the plotting process, sometimes these can shift a little bit as we get true and accurate survey dimensions and know exactly the square footages after they've surveyed those. The density that's proposed on this property then comes to approximately 3.2 dwelling units per acre, which is well within the one to eight units for the land use designation. I included the utility plan because I thought it was a little bit clearer and easier to see than the concept plan with the colors for the landscaping. So this is in your packet, but I just wanna wanna walk through here just a few things for you. And the first thing that I wanna point out is that the access to this development is proposed to come off with a public street off of Airport Road. So it would be served by a public street and public streets within the development. The applicant is also able to meet our needs for a second means of access for fire and emergency vehicles within proposed emergency access to the north of the development. They are currently proposing to save the two existing houses, which as we've seen in the past, we think that from sustainability standpoint, it's always good to try to preserve and reuse things instead of sending them to the landfill. So the way that this is laid out right now that would allow for the preservation of these houses and then any kind of remodeling that they may want to do or look at. The next thing that I wanna point out is that while the two existing homes are on the largest of the two lots, if you look at the rest of the way the lots are kind of laid out. Most of the two lots over here on the west side are probably the largest out of the rest of the lots and then they taper to smaller lots as you head towards the south and towards the east, towards Airport Road. A variety of lot sizes are being provided, which while I know there's some concerns with compatibility of the neighborhood does meet some of our recommendations in the comprehensive plan of trying to provide a variety of housing sizes within the community. So this would allow for different sizes of homes to be constructed on the development. The annexation itself, we have reviewed the annexation maps. We've looked at the state statute requirements that the state sets forth for us to be able to annex property in. Our analysis shows that it does meet those requirements that are set out by the state of Colorado. We also believe that it's met the land development code requirements for what's been submitted. And then the DRC, the development review committee, reviewed and looked at the project as well as the information that was submitted that included the traffic analysis, the environmental analysis, the utility and drainage concepts at this stage. We typically do not get into detailed engineering at annexation, partly because we are trying to understand basics. We're not trying to get into the final design because if council does not annex it, then it's a lot of effort, a lot of review time for our staff to go through if it's not gonna be annexed. Those detailed plans would come in during our preliminary and our final subdivision process where we would then get into more of the nitty gritty where we're looking at the calculations and making sure that things meet obviously design requirements and good engineering practices. The last thing that I wanna again just note which I pointed out earlier is that again, our emergency services folks reviewed this and they believe that what is shown right now meets their requirements and their needs for emergency access into the property. So where are we at right now with the annexation review process? As you can see, we're at the Planning Commission public hearing. We have gone through a referral to the city council where the applicant made a request for the council to let them start the annexation process that's required under our code. No one can turn in annexation without the council giving it a blessing to start. There is no guarantee that when you start the process that you're going to be annexed. It is just an ability for them to tell us that they are willing to let a project come into the city. So that has already happened. The neighborhood meeting was held. As you saw in the packet, there was information from the neighbors that was included as well as our staff with some of the information about the neighborhood meeting on the noticing and things that had to occur. We also then had the application submitted after that meeting. We did the formal application, confirmed that everything was there that was required and allowed it to go through our process through Development Review, Committee Review. During that DRC review process, it's almost a year through our process that we've been looking at this to confirm that it meets the requirements for the city and for the state of Colorado. And tonight is the public hearing. So you guys get to make a recommendation to the city council. And then for the folks in the audience's benefit, you know, we at this time are trying to shoot for an October public hearing. State statute has many requirements of noticing and different resolutions that have to be approved and passed by the council in order for them to have a public hearing. We have to notify the county as well as many districts and let them know that the annexation is pending. All of that takes a certain amount of time, about six weeks, and that's on a good day. So October is an estimate right now. It could slip into November, but I just wanted to let the citizens know that. So if they are gonna continue to follow this, that they at least have some idea of when to expect their next letters and when to see the postings going up on the property again. So the neighbors, as you saw, have submitted quite a few letters and identified quite a few concerns that they have. And I'm hopeful that they will go through those with you tonight and provide more detail about those. I wanted to just give a general summary for you besides what was in the packet. But the concerns that I took away with going through those letters and reading through those was that there's obviously the compatibility issue, everything from lot sizes, home prices, home sizes, home quality, proposed density. All of those are very concerning for the people that live in and around this. And I think one of the neighbors made a point, when they bought into the subdivisions, these were not the typical corporate builders coming in, these were individuals that had custom homes built and had unique designs. And they have very beautiful neighborhoods. So I think we can all understand kind of their concerns with seeing some of the development and maybe not understanding what's gonna come in the future, what is it going to look like? There were also questions about traffic impacts on the Rwanda Airport Road. We've looked at the traffic impact report. Jim can speak to that, but we have not identified any issues with that. We sent the referral to the school district to confirm that there's capacity in the schools that are in that area. All of those are below the 125% benchmark that the school district and the city council have agreed on for not exceeding. So there is capacity in the schools for the students that would be generated and that letter from the school district was in your packet. Drainage concerns, there were some really, I thought the ducks in the pictures were kind of neat to see, but I can understand their concerns with seeing water that stays for a long time in an area and then reading about somebody's house getting flooded. I can understand that. I don't know at this stage with annexation that we can tell you what's for sure gonna happen, but I think we understand the concern and we understand what the state laws are requiring with the release of the historic flows and where those go and how we have to make sure those are addressed. So we have looked at those. And then the other one that jumped out at me was a lack of buffers to the adjacent development, you know, the homes to the west as well as to the south, I think, have noted that there's a lack of buffers towards those two portions of the neighborhood. There's an existing buffer in the Somerset Meadows development to the north. And so there is a buffer there, but those are some of the concerns that I took away from reading through and just wanted to point those out for the commission. So finally tonight again, as I always tell you, you have three options tonight. You get to make a recommendation, you can either recommend to approve, can recommend to approve with the conditions or you can recommend denial. The decisions that you make need to be based on the information that you have as well as the review criteria. And if you have any questions on either motions or even conditions, obviously staff is here to always help you with those if you feel that's appropriate. And then staff is recommending approval of the annexation and our analysis of the review criteria looking at the regulations that we have to follow. We believe that the applicants has submitted what is required and meets those review criteria. So we are recommending approval of PZR 2022-8A. And that ends my presentation and I'm happy to answer questions now or later, it's your choice. Thanks, Don. Let's do that later and I'd like to hear from the applicant. Vice Chair Goldberg, would you like me to begin? Yes, please. I'm glad to be here tonight. My name is Jack Bestall. I'm the project representative, the owner's rep. I'm also the planner on the project. We have been working on this for actually two and a half, maybe three years. The last year more intensively, it was a difficult site to acquire and there was some other complexity. So we appreciate this threshold with you this evening. And during the last six months or so, we've worked more carefully and tried to listen to the neighborhood as we brought forth our plan and work with them on that. I think Don has covered much of what I was thinking of doing and I don't wanna be redundant. You already know the location here and the area of this Longmont planning area as well as its adjacency to the service area. Let's go ahead. I'm gonna look at the requirements in a little bit more detail. So these are state standards, not less than one sixth of the proposed annexation area must be contiguous. We have about 76.31%. There's a community interest that exists. That's an important aspect. The subject parcels adjacent land in the municipality and it starts to create that community interest which we can look at in more detail. It was mentioned that this property, of course, are the lots and there's also an outlaw to that that is owned by the property owners. But this also is the section you'll see on the annexation map that is the airport road portion of the annexation as proposed. The state criteria further talks about, you have to submit petitions, have the owners be in favor of this property. As I mentioned is in both the planning area and adjacent services area. It conforms to the Longmont land use plan is consistent with the adjacent zoning. The adjacent neighborhood is also zoned RSF one day to the acre even though it's a large little lot community. It won't limit integration as another criteria the state has. So that's a quick overview of state requirements. Longmont, in addition, we've mentioned the MSA and LPA already. It needs to encourage natural and well-ordered development, distribute the cost of development among those. When we first went to the council with this project for a referral, that evening we did not get referred. And the reason we didn't get referred was the question was brought up to staff was does this project pay its way that we the council was saying we don't wanna have projects that can't sustain themselves and not only in fees, but in terms of municipal services and monthly maintenance, et cetera. And there wasn't, we didn't have a clean answer for that. We didn't know if eight to the acre was sustained itself, one to the acre. And we came back later with a referral that was about 3.5 to the acre, 3.5 dwelling units to the acre. And we'll touch on that in a little more detail as we move forward. Extend municipal government services, simplify government structure in urban areas, those are also local criteria. Additional longmont annexation provides a system to extend regulations, reduces friction among municipalities, I like that one. How do you reduce friction? That's, you can ask Glenn that later. Increases ability of longmont to provide services, will not limit integration, includes owners waiver of private vested rights, meets longmont's environmental requirements. I think you know where it is now off of airport road, the two lots plus the on the south or some ownership as well. So it also needs to conform to the, to the comprehensive plan, the vision longmont. And it does, provides sustainable new home neighborhood, it conforms with comprehensive land use, provides livable neighborhood and residential diversity, and it conforms with longmont subdivision standards or it will when it gets formalized. So the plan that we have presented this evening, which Don showed the utility, the concept for the utility plan, you could see the lots more clearly. This shows the access, the main access off of airport road as Don already indicated. It has a loop road with either a right in, right out or an EVA emergency vehicle access, either one is acceptable. And then there are seven lots along the north property line, the larger lots along the west and the two existing homes here in the middle. And we did, we looked at these very carefully that one of the neighborhoods critiques of the process was they would prefer to have these homes torn down and that came out of the neighborhood meetings and I was able to meet with several of them in their homes and talk about it some more, but they just felt they were of not a sufficient quality. We believe they can be renovated and repurposed and they're not, by most standards, they're not bad, bad homes. That's kind of the direction we're heading at this point. The concept plan that you just saw matches the lotting pattern of the neighborhood of the west. There's an 80 foot buffer on the north. When we talk about that buffer, this is the 80 foot easement that is owned by the neighborhood right here. It's used for drainage and for utilities, both primarily sewer and then water also will cross over here, but that's that 80 foot so-called buffer, which is open space there, not a park, just it is a space. And then no traffic, and then there was a concern about no traffic when it was introduced into the adjacent neighborhood that all the access is to Airport Road. The traffic study indicates about 208 average daily trips, perhaps 40 peak, so it's not a big number. Limits access points to Airport Road, and they really, those access points are where the staff, traffic engineer, and our traffic engineer have considered that they should go. And of course, there'll be a trail, a major trail along Airport Road, sidewalk and so forth. So there will be that improvement for walkability. This, going back now in time, not too far, just a few months, this was the plan that we showed at the neighborhood meeting and that we talked to the neighbors about. This was, this is probably the sixth or seventh plan that we had worked through with staff over about a year and a half period. And this one indicates 24 lots, including the two existing. These are the three home sites to the west existing and these the fourth to the north. And then it shows a looping system. In order to access these lots, emergency services fire wanted to have an alley here so that there was continuous capability for emergency vehicles. So the access points were the same on Airport Road. So this is actually what the neighbor, what was discussed at the neighborhood meeting and subsequent meetings before and after that. There was a number of concerns and the, but the primary comments, I think Don touched on, they felt the density is too high. I think they still feel that it's about at this point on this plan, it was 3.5. The traffic and through, they were concerned about traffic and through neighborhood access. The West emergency loop, I'm kind of calling it that. That's this, you know, 25 foot road, which would probably not be used a whole lot, but it would also provide access to the area here. That was a concern. I met with the neighbors, one of the homes on the west side and we discussed that specifically. The drainage and runoff water quality, there's a ditch on the north in that 80 foot area and there's drainage and there's been backing up according to the neighbors and they've had some difficulties with that. So there was a real concern about that haul and ditch. And the haul and ditch also put out a comment that said they wouldn't accept any more runoff into the dirt ditch. I spoke with them about that and said, you know, by state law, you have to take the historic flow onto your adjacent property. I mean, legally we have to have a go wherever it's going now historically it has to go there. And when I was talking to their vice president, he said, oh, yeah, you're right. We didn't mean we won't take the flow. We meant we were concerned about water quality. So there was this, there was a real interesting discussion we had and he's concerned about water quality running off a development to a downstream user, you know, like a perhaps a farmer downstream that they're serving. And we are too, by the way, when this comes back, if it does get annexed for a plat and for the hydrological design, that'll be utmost, I'm sure, in terms of city standards and in terms of our effort to make sure that filtration, water quality, all those things are handled in an appropriate manner. Another concern was, I use the word scrape existing homes because that's what they said. They felt they were a poor quality and the plan could be better without them. New homes below the neighborhood. They also felt that new homes would never match up to the homes that they have in their neighborhood. And you may hear more about that this evening. I don't necessarily agree. There's beautiful homes they have, beautiful neighborhood. This has gone on so long and we know we have more another year or so ahead of us. In fact, if we're allowed to go forward with the annexation, you know, I can't tell you what the prices are gonna be for these, but I know the lots are gonna be smaller. This is gonna be an opportunity to create more diversity. We're gonna be required to provide affordable housing by the IZO, as you guys know. And it could be on-site or it could be off-site or it could be in lieu. So we're not there yet in making that decision, but that's a part of the development formula. And then there was a desire for more open space. There's always a desire for that for sure. So what we did is we looked at what we could do with that plan that I showed you previously and we reduced the density from 24 to 22 units. So that was about 3.2 dwelling units per acre at that point. There's no through-neighborhood access. Emergency loop was removed on the west side. One lot was removed from the north so we could have a little bit larger lots on the north against the 80-foot buffer or 80-foot open space easement. Landscape buffer was integrated into the plan. I think we can do a good job of landscape and have a little bit bigger setback areas on the north and the west and the south. And I'll explain that. Housing diversity, this really matches up with the fact that the comprehensive plan in Longmont, as you well know, really is pushing for that. We have several projects in Longmont, maybe six or seven at this point. Many of them are very much focused on affordable and attainable. This one is less focused on that but we know what we will meet the requirement. Renovating existing homes, we think of that as a sustainable effort and I already mentioned the drainage and water quality as being a concern that we think we can answer with, in fact, this project may help water quality at the end of the day with today's capabilities that we have. So how does the plan fit? What about this compatibility question? Around us, around this site, there are larger lots. To give you an idea, this is a 0.56 acre lot to the west of us, when I say us, to the west of Westview Acres. This is a 0.38 acre lot and I think this is 0.61, this one to the east. I also looked a little bit more to kind of get this in scale. These two houses are about 45 feet apart. These two are, there's another, the adjacency is important to us. In this case, where we would set a house on this building envelope, meeting the RSF standards, this is about 135 feet, building to building here. And of course, this is the 80-foot, so-called buffer or open space easement that their neighborhood controls, they own it. And this building to building, once you were to put it with the setbacks, this is about 155 feet building to building. Here, we have the 0.56 acre lot. This is our largest lot, I think, or close to it, it's 0.66. This is also a large lot here. So this is a good relationship. This is only 0.35, so a third of an acre. And then this one, I don't, I guess I didn't put the number in here, but the building to building is about 75 feet. So what we think we can do when we get, if we were annexed, and if we go ahead with the plot, we can look at probably a 25-foot heavy landscape buffer along this side in these lots. And then this is an easement for water to go out and connect to Glen Eyre. And then we also can do probably a 20-foot landscape buffer, adjacent to the 80-foot. The other thing we did is we moved the smaller lots over here to the east side, and they're kind of alley-served, kind of a unique set of residential here. And there's already a landscape buffer planted out on the east side. On the south side, we have our road, which is about 54-foot, and it has treelons on both sides. So in terms of this existing home, we'd be about 140 building to building here. So that gives you an idea of relationship scale, what really is happening if this project were to go ahead. Here you can see it a little bit larger scale, the 45-foot in between these two houses. And this is approximate. I was obviously using Google on this, 135. The acreages are correct according to the county assessor. And you can see the scale of this and where we're looking at this buffer and so forth. Here's the west side with the relationships there, and the building-to-building distances we think will probably occur. The south side with the 54-foot road and treelon. And then this is, what happens here is there's actually the city of Longmont. We have, there's a piece of the city of Longmont that comes along the south side, and this is in Boulder County, where Summerlin is. And then of course the east side with the cluster of small lots. So that's the concept plan. For an annexation, this is probably two details. It's getting down into quite a bit of detail, considering it's a policy question about annexation. But we've really enjoyed, in fact, working with the neighbors. I know there's some frustration on their part. But I can tell you, we've spent time, and not more importantly, we've tried to listen and see what we could do with this plan and still make it feasible for us to do a project that we think is in conformance with the Longmont policies and standards. So in terms of the public interest, conformance with the Vision Longmont plan, it's 3.2 dwelling units per acre in a range that could have been one to eight. It really takes underutilized lands and it'll make a contribution economically to the community. It'll pay its way. We know that. We did modeling. We did modeling at 24 units. And 22 is right on the edge of where it won't pay its way. So the larger density after that, and not in all cases, but in this circumstance, it's right at the break even where it'll stay in a positive cash flow for the city. New residential as the city bonding base supports existing infrastructure, diversifies the housing, provides three affordable units to be determined how we handle that. And of course, it will retire the onsite, septic, and wells that currently service the project. So that's the project. That's the concept plan. Happy to answer any questions and I appreciate your support in recommending for this to go to the council. Thank you, Mr. Vistall. I'll take a quick look and see if there's any immediate questions, otherwise, looking at the clock. I think we should, ooh, Commissioner Kohler? Yeah, I just have one question that might be helpful before we open it up to the public. And maybe this is for Don. How strict do they have to keep to the concept plan once it's annexed? How much flexibility is there in that? Excuse me. Vice Chairman Goldberg, Commissioner Kohler, the land development code has a section in the annexation area where it talks about this and then when we annex properties, we also enter into an agreement. It's an annexation agreement. It's a private contract between the city and the property owner. And the wording in there is pretty specific in that it says that the concept plan is to be followed. If it's not going to be followed, then it needs to be amended by the city council at a public hearing. So they actually would have to come back with a new concept plan that would be taken through DRC review and then ultimately to the city council for them to consider. And so that is how that would work. Thanks, Don. Thanks, Commissioner Kohler. With that, then I think I'll go ahead and open up the public invited to be heard section of this agenda item. So I have a list of folks who have signed up to speak. You'll have an opportunity. There was a list put out in advance of the meeting or just before the agenda started, you'll be able to come down after we get through the list. So we have a list here of folks who have asked to speak. You have five minutes. We'll ask you to state your name and address before you begin. Jane over here is tracking the timer. You'll get a heads up when you run out of time. And as I said, if you didn't get your name on the list, of course we'll hear from you as well following those speakers. With that, I think we'll go ahead and start with, is it Jack Bestall? Yeah, okay, you were the one presenting. Then we'll move on to Aria De La Lama, nice. Aria De La Lama, no. All right, so my name is Aria De La Lama. I live on 2118 Summerland Drive, one of the adjacent homes to the development. I'm here to, representing the Somerset Meadows HOA and the 67 homeowners in the community. As Jack and Isidon have mentioned, we communicated extensively via letters and in other methods. I'll align the key issues that we have put in our letter to the planning staff, their drainage, density buffer, and traffic. What I'll say is that I wanna make sure that the committee understands that we do not oppose the development, right? Or the growth or affordable housing. We just cannot support the development in the current form that has been submitted because of several key issues that we have, lack of information, and some critical components that we believe are detrimental to the existing homeowners in the community. On drainage, there are several key issues that we see. Ken Wolfson, one of my neighbors will speak to the issues in detail. I think what I would say is that we believe that we could be impacted by the potential issues. We also believe that the city could have a significant cost and developer of the applicant as well in the future. So it's something that we really need to understand before we move forward. As homeowners and the HOA, what we need is city assurances and the identification from the applicant or the developer if something were to go wrong in the future. Buffer, I'll make it very, very brief. Given the significant changes that there are from where we are today for the current land to where it's going in the future, we will wanna make sure that there's sufficient buffer and that the city requires the developer to put enough fencing, trees, anything that helps with that issue. On traffic, I read the report, it's not clear to me how we came up to the conclusion that it's gonna be low impact. We believe this could be significant. Also not clear, I think the recommendation from the staff was that there's no need for a right turning lane into the neighborhood when every other neighborhood and airport road has one. If you really have been driving an airport road, I mean traffic has increased significantly. From the traffic light in Pike all the way to 119, that's one of the fastest section, I think, in the airport road. So not having a right turning lane will mean that the cars will have to come to almost a complete stop to turn into this neighborhood, which I think will create a lot of issues. Also if there's a new development or future development across the street, that would also mean that the left lane will be impacted by people coming out of that neighborhood. And so I think there's a lot of complex issues on traffic that need to be addressed in a totality. It can be just this one neighborhood that we look at and say there's no issues. I think that there's a lot more that we need to look at to be able to say that there's no impact whatsoever. Density, I stated in earlier, we think there's some issues with density. I think Jack says that the overall density is 3.2 per acre. I think that's on average. I think if you take out the big lots, it's a much smaller lots than the surrounding neighborhoods. Not only the surrounding neighborhoods, but also to the homes that will be in the inside. So when you really look at the plan, it may look really odd to see very small lots surrounded by very big lots. I think because of the density that is being proposed, there's also a lack of green space. For us, that's a quality of life issue, meaning that the existing homeowners that will buy into this place or families will have no place to spend time outside. What that means is that they will flow into our neighborhood. And maybe what we have is not designed to sustain 22 more homes. So I think that's a potential issue that we see. We spend a lot of money to maintain what we have for the use of our residents. Also, the airport road issue is the homes are too close and too far into airport road. And that's again, I think causing maybe the proposal to not have a right turning lane. So to close in the last few minutes, what I would say is we believe that the plan as proposed has significant economic impact potentially to us as a community. Maybe having lower density and a more balanced plan could help mitigate some of the risks that we see or the potential issues. And so I think you're gonna hear from everybody else in the room more about this potential issues. But thank you for your time. Thank you, Mr. De La Lama. With that, Ken Wilson is next. Thank you. I'm Ken Wilson. I live with my family at 3904 Glenair Drive, which is right across the street from the neighbors who are adjacent to the property. We live in fact right on that curve in the Glenair on the north side. So I'm gonna speak to you on drainage. I have some credentials which I think are relevant here. We've lived in Longmont for four years. Before that, we lived 23 years in Boulder. I was on Boulder City Council for six years and on the Boulder Water Board for five years in addition to that and chair of that board for two years. I was also for two years on the board of the Urban Drainage and Flood Control District, which is the whole metro area looking at drainage and flood issues for the very large area of Denver Metro, including Boulder and many other cities around. So I have some concerns with drainage on the north side of the proposed property. So this would impact several of my neighbors, not me particularly, but this area where I'm pointing is a drainage area. The HOA owns that property as Jack explained and it is kind of a major drainage for everything west of this area. So all of the new development that's gone in to the west of this section that's shown drains through that one area. There's some ponds above this area and all of that new development, hundreds and hundreds of houses. So there's already backing up of water right before Airport Road and my neighbor to the immediate north of that is already experiencing some pump running a lot of the time. We had a half inch of rain yesterday. It ponded up with just that half inch in this area. If we had gotten the 3.5 inches of rain like Broomfield did yesterday, that would have been a major problem. So I'm sure that the applicant can make a retention area that will contain most flows, but if we get a flood, I just don't know where the water is going to go. It looks like it will actually flow onto Airport Road. There's a berm along this floodway that prevents water from flowing from the annex property into this floodway. So I believe that the water will go out into a small culvert that appears to be plugged and will probably flow onto Airport Road. So I'm concerned that one, it will then back up into this floodway and cause even more problems for my neighbors, but also that the city may have a problem with flooding on Airport Road. That might be expensive to fix. So I really think that you should not approve this tonight. You should send it back to staff for more thorough evaluation of drainage issues before you recommend this to council. Otherwise, I think we could have expensive problems going forward. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Wilson. Next up, we have Robert, is it Robert Holman? Good evening. Before I start, there is an exhibit that we did not get a chance to get you in this form and I would just like to hand up a couple of things if I could reserve my five minutes. That's fine. We'll restart the timer. Would you please state your name and address before you begin? Yes, again, good evening. My name is Robert Holman. I live at 3703 Glenair Road, which directly sets directly on the northern boundary of the proposed project. And I bought my property about six years ago one of the prime reasons I bought it was the open view and the feeling of being in nature that was present at the time and has continued just to be present, but certainly will have a major impact if this is approved. And the notion suggested by the applicant that there's a buffer on the north side. What he's talking about is some open space. That's not a buffer. That's open space. A buffer consists of landscaping. It consists of adequate fencing for privacy. It consists of trees and things that essentially provide you with a sense of privacy and a sense that you're not a part of the neighborhood that's going to be changed. So with respect to compatibility, I think criterion four, it's one of the key criterion for annexing, permitting annexation. It's obviously a policy issue for you commissioners. It's not a check the box issue. Even though the applicant kind of presents it in that fashion, noting that, and the staff as well, it's really not their area. They give you facts, but the applicant's position that, well, we're between one and eight, which is the restriction that we're gonna design to stay standards. And we apply, and we're gonna comply with those laws. Those are important commitments. But in my opinion, they have nothing to do with compatibility. Obviously he's gonna comply with the law. It's got to comply with the law. Compatibility is a policy question that deals with the nature and extent of the neighborhood that's being considered and its impact on the existing neighborhood. You have an existing neighborhood that you can look at the exhibit that I gave you that essentially most importantly is 11 homes that borders the seven and a half acres that's requested to be annexed. The proposal here is to put 22 homes on seven and a half acres in an extraordinary, and there's no debate really. It's black and white if you look at the overlay that the proposed annexation is not compatible with the surrounding neighborhood in terms of the number of lots, in terms of the density with which they're placed, in terms of their configuration and in terms of their size. They're clearly not compatible. And you've got a neighborhood that has been established for 15, 20 years. It's got by everybody's admission, custom-made homes. There's plenty of diversity there based upon custom-made homes. This is not an issue of whether there's diversity or not. It's really a question of trying to, if I could maybe draw a picture, kind of dropping down into the center of a very well-developed, very high quality, very well run in terms of the HOA, architectural standards, their landscaping standards, and they're highly enforced. And that has provided for the kind of diversity and the quality of life that is provided now in that neighborhood. And my basic question is, essentially, you've got a surrounding, very key asset for this city. It's a major asset. Nobody will argue that. It's an asset for the city. It's an asset for the people who live there. And its value is both in terms of its monetary value and its value as a quality of life place. So my real fundamental question as a matter of policy is why would you drop into the middle of that on seven and a half acres that now holds two large, they're old homes, but they're surrounded by 30 and 40-foot trees. And effectively, you're gonna change the nature of the neighborhood and there's really no basis to do it. And I don't see any advantage to doing it. And I would just say one thing. I would not buy my house now, based upon what I've seen. And I suggest to you folks that in order to get a real sense of the quality of that facility and to put yourself in the right position to see it, you should do a site visit. Hold a special meeting out there and take a look at it and decide for yourselves. Thank you, Mr. Holmner. Thank you. Apologies for cutting you off. Okay, no, I appreciate that. There's a lot of issues and that's why we wrote five letters and raised issues in those and I hope they're reviewed. Okay, it's not easy to address in five minutes but I appreciate very much your help and your time. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Holmner. Next up, I think we have, is it Kim Wilms? It looks like Kim Wilms forgive me if it's not that name. No, okay. How about Paul Rothschild? Thanks, Mr. Rothschild. Thank you. My name is Paul Rothschild. I live at 2124 Summerland Drive. I live directly to this in the southwest corner adjacent to the Westview Acres property. We feel that this, my wife and I and my child, we feel this will be directly impacted by this annexation in the city of Longmont. While we and the other residents have met with the applicant and some modifications have been made, we feel that the concept plans still has many flaws and should be modified further for annexation approval. The proposed current Westview Acres concept plan is not compatible with the homes in both Somerset Meadows and the Summerland community. A lot of times they're too small, resulting in far too much density. One of the main criteria for approval of annexation is compatibility. The current concept plan is not compatible with the two surrounding communities. While we recognize that there are other high density neighborhoods in the vicinity, these neighborhoods are not surrounded by an established neighborhood of large lots and custom homes. Furthermore, this neighborhood would be almost three times the density of the established neighborhoods surrounding it on all three sides. Additionally, there are no detailed information provided about privacy fencing or landscape buffers being required by the applicant. We request that the applicant, as a condition of annexation, be required to install privacy fencing to the north and west prior to the land being cleared and the homes being built to ensure the safety and privacy of the neighbors and residents in the well-established adjacent community. In addition, we ask the applicant be required to have a mature landscape buffer with trees installed on the north, south, and west as a condition of annexation. There are also significant water drainage issues that others have mentioned as well. We find it very disturbing that at the end of the day, there's no studies that have been actually done before this is approved. It's kind of a shoot first and next questions later. Another big concern is traffic. According to the traffic study provided, Airport Road is already exceeding 2035 traffic projections in the Long Want Road plan. Airport Road is already extremely busy road. The traffic light at the intersection of Route 119 and Airport Road cannot currently handle the traffic load in any given day. If you sit in that light, you would see that. If you ever drive there, you sit there for two cars and then you're stuck in the light again. Additionally, one was considered the proposed Kenomoto Estates Development, also seeking annexation by this applicant. This additional project would add even more strained Airport Road and should be considered simultaneously. It is our understanding that this would also add an additional 300 plus homes and commercial businesses if approved, creating a substantial traffic nightmare. Another major safety concern, which was spoke about earlier as well, is the lack of a right turning lane into Westview Acres off of Airport Road and driving south into Westview Acres. The current concept plan does not have the ability to have a right turning lane into Westview Acres to avoid potential accidents and traffic congestion as the plan has five homes right up against Airport Road, allowing no room for the city or county to install a proper turning lane. So to summarize, number one, we'd like to have a vastly reduced the number of lots to be compatible with the size of the lots in the adjacent three sides of the proposed Westview Acres neighborhood, as applicant does not have compatibility with those adjacent neighborhoods based on the lot sizes on the northwest and south. The water drainage issue should be addressed prior to approval of annexation, as concerns have been raised by residences that have not been addressed. The applicant states further studies need to be conducted after approval. The traffic study also shows that it has exceeded 2,035 projections like I had mentioned. And with the addition of the proposed 300 plus homes and commercial businesses in both Westview Acres and County motorless states, to build on the traffic on Airport Road could be a major concern in the future. And lastly, we request as a condition of annexation that the city council members require the applicant to install a privacy fence prior to the clearing of the land to provide safety and privacy to the communities surrounding Westview Acres to the north and west. In addition, we also request the city council, sorry, the commissioners require the applicant to install a substantial landscape buffer with mature trees to the south and northwest, and sorry, and west of Westview Acres a condition of annexation. Lastly, we understand the growth is important in Longmont and we are not against development. It is important for you to also consider the current residences in these decisions. These approvals will have substantial impacts on all longstanding residences, residents, and taxpayers in the adjacent communities. I encourage you guys as commissioners to drive by the proposed Westview Acres development and the surrounding Somerset Meadows and Somerville communities to see in person how incompatible this proposed concept plan will be in this space. Thank you very much for your time. Thank you, Mr. Rothschild. Okay, that's our list of folks who signed up to speak today. Now we can invite others who didn't quite make the list. So if you just wanna come down one at a time, please state your name and address. My name is Joel Broida. I have a house under construction at 8660 Somerville in place. And I spent several years looking for a place to build my home around here. And when I finally saw this area, I assume all of you have been out there, but when you turn in up onto Glen Eyre, it's a beautiful street and there are large homes and large lots and large trees. And I'm spending a heck of a lot of money building a house. My property and all the ones around me are over an acre. And I don't think you'd have a lot of objections for most people if this development were on the order of one acre lots. So I have the same aesthetic issues that virtually everyone else is bringing up. There's another technical issue that is far from clear and that is whether the property to be annexed, whether the landowners actually own all the property that they're proposing to annex. And in particular, there are several homeowners, a couple of whom are here, who probably own half of this, there's a 40 acre strip between on the south side of the Westview Acres annexation and they most likely own half of that, a 20 foot wide strip there. And there's, the letter that I sent to the city some time ago sort of elaborates the details in the history of that and who owned the property and then it was annexed by the city and then it was vacated and I don't want to go through it all again. But I would strongly suggest that the city take a careful look at that, whether they actually own that property. And that's sort of basically the summary of what I have to say, all right, thank you. Thank you, Mr. Broder. Would anyone else like to come up? I am Gino Zand, 8-6-7-5, somewhere in place. I'm at the very south edge of this development proposal where all of the headlights would come into my living room and bedroom. And I also want to thank all of my neighbors for being far more prepared for this than I have. I just want to echo everything that everyone has said. And I think the 3.2 number is disingenuous. If you remove the existing homes, it's closer to somewhere between 4.5 and 5 dwelling units per acre. So that's something to look into. And as we dig further into whether or not we actually own half of the road, I can say that I would never agree to annex my property. So my recommendation for the commissioners would be in addition to the drainage issues and the other things that have been brought up to delay approving this at least until we figure out who owns that property. So that's it. Thank you, Mr. Zand. Anyone else? Hello, everyone. My name is Han Shigalis, 2006 Holly Hawk Court in Somerset Meadows. The HOA that's in where the annexation is being proposed. I came here tonight to talk about Somerset Meadows and this annexation, but I sat for two hours listening about quail. And it was actually really enlightening to hear that we're actually building more, digging up ground and building more business parks and drive-throughs versus repurposing all the vacant big box stores and the business parks. So that was just a little anecdote that I took away from this in those two hours and when I started writing my notes. At the end of the day, we moved here seven years ago from San Francisco where there is no land to develop. They rip and replace and they build more things. They build up. So we do have a lot of land. So as we're looking at this development right here, we spent a lot of money on this house. This is a very desirable neighborhood that I wanted to live in with my family. And this is, we picked a house. And at the end of the day, when we're looking at this, we're not opposed to development. I mean, I get it. Let's let them develop, but let's reduce the, let's make it more compatible with a million and a half dollar price tags and half acre lots. That's all I'm saying. That's my position. And thanks for listening. And I would hope you guys would reject this and send it back to the developer who really at the end of the day, the only people who are making money are these developers. That's who's coming here and talking about this planning. It's like they're developing and making money and sort of tearing up of what we think is absolutely beautiful. So that's all I like to say and I appreciate your time. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chagallos. Forgive me if I didn't quite get that right. Anyone else? Please come on down. Thank you for this opportunity to speak tonight. And I will let everybody know that this is my first time addressing the commission. So I am a little nervous. So please bear with me. So my name is Rachel Owlett and I live at 3615 Glenier Drive. So that is the first house on Glenier as you enter Somerset Meadows and we were on the north side of the property. What also is is we have that drainage culvert right behind our house and we were the house that actually flooded. And when we say flooded, our sump pump actually ran continuously for over two weeks. There was so much water that we actually thought a water main had broken. So we called the Longmont Water to come out. We tested the water and it was ground water. So the idea of more water coming off a property that right now is grass that can absorb the water going into roads and concrete and a much faster runoff from roofs is very concerning for those of us on the north side of the property. I just wanted to start there and put it in context because you heard about the water issues in the house that flooded and unfortunately that was us. All right, so let me say, first of all, let me start by saying that we understand the need for the City of Longmont to grow. And we also understand that the available lots surrounding the city are limited. So we are not opposed to development but we are opposed to annexing this property under the current concept plan of 22 homes, all right? So let me give you a little bit of background. So the proposed density is not consistent or compatible with the surrounding neighborhoods on the northwest and south side of this property. So the existing neighborhood has 11 homes that are bordering all three of those sides and they average 11 homes on an equivalent area of 8.5 acres. Whereas this proposed annexation is 22 homes on 6.8 acres of buildable lot. So right on its face value that is twice as dense as the surrounding neighborhoods. Again, the lot sizes and number of houses in the proposed concept plan is not consistent and compatible with the surrounding neighborhoods. That really is my take home point on density and compatibility. Additionally, the developer and his representatives have been resistant to provide any information on the size, style, materials, landscaping and open space plans and even price for the proposed homes in this community. Now the response we get is it's too early in the process to be discussing that. However, how can we make a determination that this neighborhood is going to be compatible when we don't have that information at the point when annexation is being discussed? So I respectfully ask this panel to vote no on annexating this property under the current concept plan of 22 homes, all right? Thank you very much. Thank you, Ms. Outlet. Anyone else? Hi, my name is Jordan Lane Miller. I'm at 8670 Summerland Place. The coffin looking lot on the south that abuts or backs up to airport is the first one when they would turn into the right of way access. Everybody said everything that we all agree with on the one side, so I won't repeat any of that. I just agree with it. I also think that there's just far too many things in the concept plan that haven't been considered and that pushing this forward as is is completely irresponsible. The future and the longevity of everything has just not been taken into consideration. Furthermore, in a selfish perspective, the south has not been considered. I don't know if it's because there's a current fence that is there and we think that is far enough away, but really that's where the major, everybody's gonna be impacted, but there is gonna be major impact on that south side because that's where all the cars are gonna turn into. So 22 lots with a minimum of probably two cars per lot is just an obscene amount of traffic into that small area. So most likely a traffic light would be then installed at some future point right at that access point. There's already one at Pike. It's just gonna be a disaster in the future. And I don't think that that's fully been thought out by through this concept plan. So I would ask that before anything be approved, that these things be readdressed or addressed in the first place. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Miller. Good evening. My name is Lamise Irwin and I live at 2017 Sicily Circle in the Somerset Meadows Subdivision. I hadn't intended to speak, but I thought I might. If you look online, Somerset Meadows is listed as the top neighborhood in the entire Longmont area or at least one of them. So we take great pride in our neighborhood, the custom homes, the beautiful surroundings, the open space that we enjoy, the tranquility, the peace. So when I look at this subdivision, I actually am looking at it in total because the applicant is also looking to annex and develop the parcel immediately to the east, 80 acres and put in 300 mixed used homes. Now I understand we need to have development in our neighborhood, in our areas, but it would totally change the character of our area and Southwest Longmont. The applicant has also refused to provide any pricing throughout the conversations. I don't know what it'll be like in two years. Well, certainly you know what it is right now. Certainly you've done cost projections in one year, in two years. Certainly he can say based on current standards and market conditions, this is the pricing I anticipate. This is the price for the affordable homes I project now. Realizing that in one or two years, the market may go up, the market may go down, but to say nothing at all is disingenuous. So I guess my point here is let's preserve what we have as best we can. I echo some of the other sentiments said here today. There are areas in Longmont ripe for development. There are areas as I drive north on Hoover that are so depressed. Can we not hold those landlords accountable or take them away, build beautiful, beautiful residences, affordable housing, et cetera. But for this area, so reuse, recycle, redevelop our community. And for this community, please preserve what we have and what we enjoy right now. Thank you. Thank you. Anyone else? Hello, I'm Charles Musgrave. I live at 2112, Suburban Drive. We moved to this area 15 years ago from California, where we lived on a house on a 5,000 acre, sorry, 5,000 square foot lot. I have direct experience with the quality of life of living on a 5,000 square foot lot. One of the reasons we came here and chose a particular neighborhood that we chose is because we knew that these larger lots would create a better quality of life for me and my family. I am a member of the Longmont Sustainability Advisory Board and we also make recommendations to this city council on issues regarding sustainability. Some of the questions that we've discussed tonight revolve around sustainability. I have concerns about sustainability related to this proposal to annex this parcel. Those include, and the comments that have already been made, I won't repeat those. I think my neighbors did a great job expressing our concerns. I'll add just a couple of comments about this. One is that we've had conversations with Platte River Power Authority. This will add to the demand that Platte River Power Authority is commissioned to deliver to the city residents. And I know it's only a small development, but I didn't become overweight by choosing what I ate last night. It was a series of decisions over the last several years. And so the environment that you create by the recommendations that you give to the city council for living conditions here in the city are gonna be made by a series of these decisions. This one decision, by increasing the load on Platte River Power Authority, is going to, one part of it, as we do that, Platte River is considering delaying, taking offline, hydrocarbon powered sources, their peaker plants, their reciprocal engine of plants, that they were going to take offline sooner, but because of the increased load in general, because of high demand and additional development, they were considering delaying those, taking those offline. One other thing, I'm on the 119 transportation corridor community advisory board for the County of Boulder. And we have looked at proposals for modifying the 119 corridor, which includes many different aspects. But we've looked at the most critical aspects of those are the intersections at the various places where 119 crosses arterial roads that cross it. Airport and 119 is a critical intersection. We've spent the most time on, it's the most challenging and the County, most recent proposal is drastic in terms of what they're considering doing to that intersection at 119 and airport. Part of the issue is just the configuration. There's a creek, that kind of creek that flows right through there, but it's also the traffic load and the directionality of that traffic load. In the mornings, it's heading south towards Boulder and in the evenings, it's heading north. There was a major reconstruction of that intersection with an underpass that was put in not too long ago. It helped in some measures, but a big problem is the amount of traffic that's heading especially north in the afternoons. The loading lanes are already pretty much filled up and every additional development, this is a small one, but every one of these is the decision in the wrong direction of overloading our infrastructure and actually impacting the safety of these intersections. As again, that intersection, we've spent an enormous amount of time reviewing it, looking at it. I'm not sure if the Planning Commission has spoken with the County about the considerations for that intersection. I think it would be a good idea, especially before you make any recommendation to the City Council on annexing this parcel. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Musgrave. Anyone else? Okay, without seeing anyone else, we'll go ahead and close the Public Invited Be Heard section of this agenda item, which then brings it back to the Commission for deliberation. Don't all jump at once? Forgive me, they're all popping up. Commissioner Kohler. Another question for Don. So before I asked how, I guess, set in stone these concept plans have to be before annexation, but I have, I guess, sort of a similar question in that how much do they have to have developed at this stage before annexation? Like, do you feel like the amount of detail that they've provided prior to the annexation is comparable for a typical annexation? You know, a lot of the public mentioned that they haven't quite thought out the drainage issues, things like that, but would you agree with them? Vice Chair Goldberg and Commissioner Kohler, the standards that we have for a concept plan varied greatly. In general, somebody could submit a concept plan that just identified density, zoning, and really, that's about it. In my review of projects that we've gotten through the city, we have had projects that are very detailed at a site plan level, where they know exactly what they want to do and how they wanna do it to the bubble diagrams, where it's just a, this is single family residential, it's approximately seven acres in size, and we're gonna build it at five units to the acre, or three units to the acre. So what I can tell you is that the concept plan itself would still require them to meet the codes that we have in place. So for example, if we have a requirement for a buffer from, say, Airport Road, for example, they would still have to provide that buffer or get a variance through a public hearing, which again would come back to the Planning Commission for the preliminary plat, as an example. So what I can tell you is that when we're doing our reviews, we can really only review at a concept level the amount of detail that they have and provide as much feedback and information on how it complies currently with the codes that are shown. I know that some of the issues that have been talked about tonight are again, typically things that we would look at when we get into the preliminary plat. But I'm trying to go back through the notes here real quick and identify if there was anything that I felt that was lacking or missing that we should have maybe asked for, but I wrote those down off to take another quick read here. But again, from our standpoint, the development guide that spells out the standards for what's on the concept plans is meant to be general. I actually have a couple of questions for Don as well. Don, I think I wanna start with whether or not this development would necessarily impact drainage negatively in the surrounding developments. Is that a given? Is Commissioner Tadda, I'm gonna ask Jim to provide his expertise in the engineering world. I think it's important to understand the difference between the existing conditions and then future development. Ice chair, Goldberg, Commissioner Tadda. So when we look at the site for drainage, I think Don had brought it up a number of times. They haven't, as part of this submission, have not provided any of the drainage design for this site. And they will be required as part of it, as if the application moves forward to lay out their drainage design. They'd be required to have a detention pond, which would have a water quality component. And then, as part of the city's review, we'd be looking at that overall drainage plan, what they're doing with it, and how it would impact the existing infrastructure, both upstream and downstream. As I understand it, a portion of this site would currently flow to a swale on Airport Road. And then, I think what I've been advised by staff is a majority of it flows to the north. But that's the existing conditions. So once they redevelop it, they would be required through a detention stormwater management system to control their releases from this site to either equal to or less than pre-development conditions. Don, I got another, a really good one for you this time. When we began tonight, you talked about compatibility and I thought you did a really good job, but I need to hear it again. Can we replay the tape? Commissioner Teta and Commission, I wrote down one of the comments that one of the neighbors made here and I'm trying to give him credit for it. I believe it was Mr. Hallman on Glenire. You know, he talked about compatibility being important based on the nature and extent of the existing neighborhood and the impact on them. And these are the issues that we run into whenever we deal with this compatibility standard, whether it be in a new development like this or whether it be someone who comes into Old Town and wants to redevelop a lot and it's in a historic neighborhood and determining compatibility. What I look at and determined to be compatible versus what someone who lives in that neighborhood or yourself or the city council determines is really, it's up to you. It is not a solid defined standard where we can say up it, you check these three boxes and it's compatible. It is something that is looked at probably on a case-by-case basis by every one of us. And so I understand their concerns. I do. From what I try to look at from compatibility, at least at an annexation standpoint, one is how did we identify the property for bringing it in with the Envision-Longmont Comprehensive Plan, which is the single-family residential kind of development. The density that they're proposing is within the range that the Comprehensive Plan allows. Granted, it could be lower. It also could be higher again. That's the question. Is it compatible? And then we also have to think about that we do have housing needs in the community. We are trying to provide variety of housing for people to be able to move to Longmont and provide houses for people. And that compatibility is always a question that we run into. And so tonight, you know, I don't envy you. This is a tough decision. And making that decision on that review criteria is something that you guys are probably gonna have to discuss in a really way. And again, if there are conditions that you think would address compatibility, those are things that you could put in. You know, we heard from a number of individuals, but I think Mr. Rothschild talking about the fencing, the landscaping requirements and things of that nature around the perimeter of that property to help to buffer and reduce the impact on the neighborhoods. Those are things too that you could look at. Maybe those are things that the applicant can commit to that those could then be conditions that you would recommend to the city council to address compatibility. So again, it's tough. It is and I know it is. And but from my standpoint, our staff standpoint, we believe that based on the criteria that we have, we think it is compatible in this specific location. Hey, Don, I think I have a few more questions for you. Sorry for making you open down. You might pass these off to Jim, but okay. So thanks to commissioner Ted, I think we, he reinforced that much of the questions and concerns around drainage just won't be addressed today. This is something that will be reviewed in the future. And it's really not part of our purview today. I'm not, I don't want to speak for Mr. Ringstatt, but I think what he has pointed out is that there's an existing condition right now, whether this property is developed or not, that is impacting the development to the north. What is causing that? I don't know that we know, but the releases historically that have come off of this site, as I understand it in his explanation, will need to be continued moving forward if the project is developed, that that same rate of release, that same impact would continue right at development. This is saying that whatever current flow is coming off the property now, it cannot increase as a result of this, of a new development. Is that accurate? They're obligated to keep the levels the same. That's where I step back and say my night at the Holiday and Express stops right there. I can't speak to that. So basically, yes, that is correct, Chair Goldberg, that the amount of, or the rates of pre-development flows going, leaving the site currently in post-development has to be equal to or less. Okay. One of our applicants, and I think it was Mr. Wilson, identified or suggested that the culvert to the east, it may be obstructed or blocked and as a result we're seeing backflow even on rainy days like yesterday. How do we maintain our culverts? How do we get a culvert cleared if it's backed up? What can a resident do to say, hey, we got an issue over here? Chair Goldberg, the culverts, in this case, culvert under Airport Road is the responsibility of City of Longmont's Public Works Natural Resources Department, specifically our operations division. So if we're made aware of it, they will inspect it and then in some cases they either go out physically and clean it out or they will jet out, use a jet truck to clean it out. So there is an ability and it is the responsibility of the City of Longmont. Okay. Is that Public Works team aware of this potential backup? Has there been, is it flagged or tagged to be evaluated? I don't know if it is or not, but it will be by tomorrow. Okay. This is proof to our folks who come and speak to us that we're listening and action will be taken. While I have you, Jim, discussion came up about the intersection at Airport and 119. Do we have visibility into what is the status of that intersection? Forgive me, I think it was one of the last speakers. Maybe Mr. Musgrave said that that intersection is really tricky and potentially with developments coming down the line, including this one may have impacts on that. What is the rating of that intersection and why don't we stop with that? So that intersection is actually in Boulder County on a CDOT roadway. So I do not have any information off the top of my head. It is not included in the traffic study. It is over three quarters of, through two thirds of a mile away from this site. So I don't believe they needed to include it. That is information I'd have to pull together and see if we have any information on it in our files, but I did not have anything off the top of my head now. Would that be, would three quarters of a mile be included in a traffic study in the future in these future assessments that the applicant will have to complete? I don't believe it would be. Okay, so this particular intersection is really, again, outside of our purview for tonight, potentially not even a part of the evaluation of the process by the city at all, because it's not in the area. That is correct. Okay, thanks. While I have you up, this might be a question for Don. Who owns the road? One of the applicants, or one of the members of the public asked a question, maybe Mr. Breuda and Mr. Zand said, there's a 40-acre strip on the south side that we don't know who, and we don't know who owns it. Who owns the road, Don? Is this foiling our application or our annexation review? So let me give you a little history. One, I don't think I'm going to be able to answer the question. I have an opinion, but I don't think I can answer the question, and I don't think you want my opinion. So if I understand what everybody is talking about, there was an outlot, there were two outlots that were along the south edge of these two properties that was dedicated as right-of-way when the Somerset Meadows development was approved. There's an existing access easement across this property, mostly for emergency access, but this area was specifically called out in the Platte as road right-of-way, and it makes sense if I had the larger picture, there was only one way into this development, and there was no development that had already built, for example, Renaissance Drive that comes down to the south here through the Somerset development right now. There may have been Clover Basin, because we started to get some of the apartments and some of the mixed-ain developments up near Amgen at the time. Now I can't remember the name of the company, forgive me. But it was a part of this development when it was platted that you're seeing here that I'm kind of outlining here in the yellow. The area was annexed to the city, and so when it was annexed and developed, if it's right-of-way, it's typically given to the city of Longmont then for ownership. As I recall, when the property owners that owned the two lots came in, and this was probably, I would say, probably 10 years ago, it was probably 2005, they came in and made a request to vacate the right-of-way that was there. And so I think what I'm understanding, and I don't wanna put words in the public's mouth, but what I believe I'm hearing is that the question is whether or not this right-of-way when it was vacated then should go back to this development because that's where it came from. And I think there's something to be investigated on that for sure, but if you pull up the original document that actually created the two lots of this Westview subdivision that was done a long time ago, it actually laid out not only these properties, but it laid out, I believe it was three or four other lots in this whole area that became a part of the Somerset development. So as I understand the state statute, when they look at giving back right-of-way, it goes back to the parent parcel from which the property originally originated from. So my understanding is that when we vacated this Boulder County determined and included these outlots into their legal descriptions because they believed that that's where it originated from, we did not make that decision as a city. The county made that decision. If there is an error, obviously we would want that corrected. And I'm assuming that Jack would want that corrected as well. The title commitment obviously is the first place that they should start looking to confirm. And I think that it's probably a safe thing for us to try to figure out before we get to a city council public hearing. But that's my general understanding and explanation of the stuff that has happened over out here from a long time ago. So just to follow up on that a little bit. So you're saying that the parent lot were actually the lots to the south, not in this annexation or did I misunderstand them? No, so the original, what I would consider the parent from the meadow view that created the lot where this tail came from included roughly all of this area that is the summer set annexation development and these two lots that are the Westview Acre subdivision that we're looking at tonight. And I guess maybe, unless you have something on there, follow up on that, yeah. So if it, so maybe this is a question for the applicant, if this goes the other way, say that right away ends up being belonging to the homeowners, the existing homeowners, can this concept plan be preserved as it is in the annexation process or does that change to the plans too much? I think the applicant needs to comment on that from their standpoint, just because of the numbers that they need to make the project work. So I defer to Jack. Mr. Goldberg and Commissioner Kohler, we've heard this assertion before about property and we were very careful when we transacted this process and our title commitment, our surveyors, our attorneys, we looked at this a couple years ago very carefully and basically what Don just outlined is correct. In other words, Westview Acre was actually a part of summer set, it was all part of the same subdivision. So in the state statue is 43-2302-1A because I thought this might come up. I've responded to this on April 21st in the comments responding to letters from some of the neighbors. But basically that assertion has no basis and our attorney would tell you that if he was here. At the time of dedication, outlots F and H, those of the two were side by side along the south edge. They were vacated in 2005 and they were, immediately they went to lots one and two because the state statute, that's how the land gets divided or added to. So they complied with the state statute and the question about whether we could make the concept plan work without them is kind of moot. We, I suppose you could, we could make an access. We know that the access needs to be where we have it there after our traffic engineer and the city has required that. But I really, I think this assertion is, you know, it's another way of kind of trying to constrain the process and we don't think it has any basis. And our title company doesn't think it has any basis. So that's important. Thank you. Thanks, Mr. Bistal. So Don, it sounds like the applicant is at least confident that this, so I'm, forgive me. I want to apologize to the public, but we had the designated public invited to be heard section. And once that closes, this no longer becomes a discussion with the public. It's between the applicant, the staff, and the commission. So unfortunately, we're not permitted to bring up, bring back up the public. It's how every meeting runs, unfortunately. So I see the hands and I apologize. Okay, thank you very much. So I think just to continue with my train of thought, it sounds like the applicant is confident that this is a non-issue that they have rights. He has rights to the land and this won't come up in the future. Admittedly, I'm a little surprised that, like we didn't have this really clearly baked out from our own city staff, you know, review, you know, that we're sitting here today and it's still kind of open. Can you just give a little confidence so that I'm being a little playful here, but can you give us a little confidence in that we should be proceeding with this discussion because this land is, this is all part of this project and someone else doesn't own it? Chairman Goldberg, I can only tell you, based on the information in that we have been, we have seen from the research that we have done and then from the information that the applicant has submitted, no one has submitted anything official that would either be something through our city attorney's office or submitted to us that we would give to the attorney's office to indicate that the ownership is not correct. And so that is what we are going off of. And at this time, I believe it is true and factual. Okay. You said it might be, you suggested that it be confirmed between now and when we're sitting before city council. Can we rest assured that that will happen sometime between now and then? So what I would like to ask the applicant to do, I can do it now, I guess what I'm saying here, but I would have done it afterwards was that if they have any opinion from their attorney that we could get something like that just for clarity and to the people in the audience that feel they may have a claim themselves, obviously if you have legal representation that you believe is something that we should consider then please don't sit on that. Please submit that so that we can review it and present it to our legal staff for review. So that's my answer back to the public is if you have something you believe shows a different please submit that to us because I don't have anything at this time. Okay. Yeah, thanks Don. I appreciate that and I appreciate calling it out to our guests here today who are very engaged and dedicated to this project and protecting their neighborhood. There are options for them between now and October to take action. But before you sit down Don, let me ask a few more questions. There was a few mentions about a future development that's in the works, 300 properties or more nearby. Before I ask you to expand on that anymore, can we take future projects or future developments into consideration when we're reviewing this project before us? Are we permitted to consider future developments? I, Chairman Goldberg, I would, might ask Katasi to weigh in from a legal standpoint on that for you. I have an opinion but I would probably defer to her. Thanks Don. Forgive me, is it attorney Atasi or council Atasi? Would you mind guiding us here? I'm inclined to learn more about the proposed project. It sounds like it's a lot of properties. It's nearby certainly impacts to the surrounding neighborhood but are we permitted to use future development, potential development in our consideration for this annexation today? So Atasi Titlow from the city attorney's office and my assistant city attorney about sitting for Eugene May today or tonight. With regard to the question as it, as for future development and the 300 homes, you can consider that for drainage purposes, things like that where it would affect the development that, but as far as what we have here today, what we need to focus on is what the applicant has presented, what the staff has presented, what the public has presented to you. And so we do wanna keep it within the combines of what we are discussing here today. Okay, so again, in the future, if this annexation continues and it moves on to phases where the drainage is more thoroughly reviewed, this would be the time that we would consider other surrounding projects that may impact it. Potentially, yes. But not today. Correct, potentially. I mean, there's not, you know, with regard to these future developments, I mean, it could go from 300 to 150 just based on the market. I mean, there are so many variables. And so that's why, you know, we want to try and keep it within the confines of what we're discussing today. Okay, thank you. Hey, Don, why no right turn? And I could put this up to Jim, if that's better. Mr. De La Lama, Jim, I'll give you a second. Mr. De La Lama is asking why there's no right turn recommended or required into this development. Other properties in and along airport have right turns. Sounds like it's really busy in the morning hours and in the evening hours. Why didn't our traffic, or maybe we're not there yet, why haven't we recommended a right turn into the neighborhood? I think that the primary reason is this is a small development. It is 22 units, it generates 200 trips a day. So it doesn't meet the trigger for, that is in our design standards for a right turn. There are traffic studies showing like nine turns in there in the peak hour. And for a road like Airport Road, you'd need, oh geez, there's a chart in there or a graph, and for like 1,000 trips, vehicles per hour you'd have to have at least 10 right turns and the projections on Airport Road are only showing about a maximum, maybe 300 per hour per lane. So it doesn't hit that. Okay, so I'm looking at that, doesn't hit, will not hit the triggers even in 2041. Okay, so there is a review process. It's been reviewed and considered. It doesn't hit the trigger, so therefore we didn't require or recommend a right turn. That is correct. Okay, thanks. I have one more question and then I'll yield it to Commissioner Lakach. Hey Don, there was a question about the impact on Platt Power Water Authority. Should we be considering potential impacts to Platt Power Water Authority? Am I saying that right? Platt River Power Authority, forgive me. I knew there was a water body in there. Should we be considering Platt River Power Authorities, the impact to this entity in our review today? Chairman Goldberg, you do and you should, but what I would say is that the thing to understand is that we're one of the four members that own the Platt River Power Authority. Our city electric department, Longmont Power Communications, they review all of the annexations, they review all of the developments for impacts on the system and then they use that information when they're doing their modeling and they send that information to Platt River Power when they're putting together their projections. So last night when they were here presenting to the city council and talking about their rates and how they set those and when they look out and they set it out for the next 10 year period and I think they mentioned a 40% increase in costs. Because what was the number that I heard last night? I was kind of doing a couple things there, but again, they are not a quote unquote referral. We are not sending it to them for comment and feedback. Our staff works with them and keeps them in the know of what's going on. So by the way that we operate, by the way our development review committee works, they are up to speed on what's going on and they would then consider these in any kind of rate increases or impacts to the loads during the summer. Okay, okay, thanks Don. Commissioner LaCache, I apologize for that long wait. I'm used to all one of my questions. But I do have a question for Jim and about traffic. But this time is more about pedestrians and bicycles. It looks like there will be a sidewalk there or some sort of multi-use path along along that side of the airport road. Currently there is none, right? There's just one on the east side. So how would someone cross the street, someone that lives in there? Will they have to go all the way up to what street? Chair Goldberg. To Pike, yeah. Commissioner LaCache, that would be basically the safest crossing, controlled crossing. Yes. Airport road is, this is pretty much the outskirts of the city. This is, airport road is an arterial. So currently as this area develops in the future, there may be opportunities for an underpass. Currently we don't have anything planned in the CIP for this. But there will be a sidewalk installed along their frontage and then we figure out work out how to get it connected up into the remainder of airport road and that sidewalk system up there. But currently crossing of airport road, the safest area would be Pike Road. So it will go all the way up to Pike as we couldn't see from the- Well, the sidewalk, there's currently a sidewalk from, I'm trying to think of the street immediately to the north, but between this development, yeah, between this development, there's a short segment that does not have sidewalk. So we'd have to work out how to figure out how to get that connected in. And that will be done during this project. Is that right? Not exactly sure. The city does have a missing sidewalk. CIP that we take on projects of this nature and maybe that we, as we do the review, we may require the developer to do it. At this stage, we haven't, I don't think the staff has looked at it close enough. I think the applicant, are you gonna say something? Jim's staff has requiring us to extend the sidewalk up to Glenair. Okay, great, thank you. We hate those people. No, we don't. No, am I on now? Okay, thank you, Chair. I just want to point out a few observations that I have made, which should be obvious, but I just wanna state them. This proposed subdivision does not dump any traffic into the adjacent subdivisions. The road is self-contained within the subdivision and it doesn't go anywhere else. Another observation is that the applicant, after meeting with homeowners and listening to their complaints, did adjust the concept plan, particularly on the west side to eliminate the road that was on the west side. And they adjusted the lots on the west side to be quite compatible with the lots in the Somerset Meadows that abut them. Another observation is that the 11 lots that abut this proposed subdivision, all face away from it. They're showing their backside to this subdivision and their views, presumably, like everybody's views are to the west. And they're certainly not to Airport Road and they may consider that they have some views into this proposed parcel, but really their views are to the mountains and to the west. Those are just some observations that I wanted to offer up as just a response to non-compatibility. As far as the traffic concerns, certainly the future development over on the east side of Airport is going to be a much bigger concern. We're only talking 22 lots here. And as far as compatibility, this subdivision is probably somewhere in between the large lots that are existing and what's gonna be proposed on the east side of Airport. That's it. Just some observations. Thank you. Another question for Don. I think in general, when you're looking at compatibility, what have you seen in the past about how far out an area you're looking at? Because all the maps we've looked at tonight are pretty zoomed in on these parcels and these 11 homes surrounding them, but you don't have to go very far out to get kind of a different perspective. To the northeast, I would say the density is much higher, even very far to the west. You maybe get something similar to what's being proposed, but how big of an area do you think we need to consider when we're talking compatibility? Chairman Goldberg and Commissioner Kohler. I think the commission can look at the neighborhood. The neighborhood and how it's defined really is going to vary. I may define it as my neighborhood that I live in and not including everybody else as subdivisions around me, but I think that the commission could look outside of the area and say that this area of Longmont is developed at three units to the acre and this is compatible with the larger area. I don't have those numbers for you to be able to give you those right now, right off hand. And again, not knowing, but I think you are right. You know, to the northeast, the development that is kind of in the right-hand corner of that aerial, those are smaller lots that were developed back in around 1999, roughly. And then as you go back across the street, you get into some of the apartment townhomes, but then as you get into this development into Somerset and then over into the Renaissance neighborhoods, obviously you get into some smaller lots again and those have changed over the years as prices have gone up. And I think the desire for more density, at least from the development side, but also trying to provide additional housing within the community has been a priority. So you can look outside of the box that I've drawn. I zoomed in so that you could have a visual that would show you a little bit more of the proximity of these homes and their properties to this development application. Yeah, forgive the interruption here, but I think as we approach 11 p.m., thanks Commissioner Teta for the reminder, we actually have to kind of pause the discussion and vote as a commission to extend beyond the 11 o'clock hour. Is that right, Jane? So I don't think there's anything more formal than I think we need someone to make a motion and then vote as to whether we want to extend or not. Does anyone want to make a motion? I think just to preface it, I think what we're charged with doing is deciding whether or not we think we can resolve it all tonight, or it's not gonna happen whether we stay for another hour and a half or not, and then we put it off to another date certain. So maybe we could talk about it for a minute. Sure, go ahead. I'd stay, I think we could do it. Is that a motion? I'll make it if nobody else has anything to say. Commissioner Boone. If we extend it to the next, if we extend it to the next meeting, we probably will end up going through the whole public comment section again. I don't know the policy on extending, I'm not sure we ever have extended, but does that reopen public, public invite you to be heard? I'm pointing then at Don Brashev because he's looking thoughtful. Chairman Goldberg, what I can tell you that has happened on other projects where we have continued them to a date certain is that whether it's been councilors or planning commission, they have voted to open up and give the ability for the public to speak again. I think that's been a courtesy extended to those people that show up again and to kind of respect their willingness to participate. I don't know that there is any rule that is requiring that you reopen that public hearing. If you did open that up though, I would think that you would need to allow the applicant obviously to be able to answer questions and things like that, which is kind of what we're doing right now after the last hearing. But I know of no obligation to have to do it. Obviously we could research that if the commission continues it and be ready to give you a more formal response at the start of that meeting if you continue it. Thanks, Don. You know, boy, I feel like we've had a really robust public invited to be heard discussion today. And while I like the idea of a second opportunity for public invited to be heard for more participation, I'm inclined to keep going if everyone else is, so I guess I would move to extend beyond 11 o'clock and continue the agenda items. Is there a second? I'll second my microphone zone. All right, we have a second. Jane, can we go ahead and take a vote? Commissioner Tadda. Vice Chairman Goldberg. Aye. Commissioner Kohler. Aye. Commissioner Lukach. Aye. Commissioner Boone. Aye. Vice Chair that passes unanimously. Thanks, Jane. Okay. I think I was about to hit, Don, with just a few more questions and I don't see any of my fellow commissioners chiming in yet. So I don't feel too bad about it. Don, what is your title? I keep calling you Don, but I feel like I should be calling you not planning director, but something like that. My title is planning manager. Planning manager. Yeah, but you can still call me Don. Okay. One of the members of the public suggested that the way we're calculating our density of 3.2 units per acre could be almost disingenuous because we're taking into consideration the two larger units already on site. Are we being disingenuous? Would you mind clarifying how do we calculate the average dwelling unit and what if there are scenarios like this where some are bigger and some are small? Vice chair, Goldberg? Yeah, I'll go ahead. We'll mess that up again. One, I'm gonna show that I'm not an engineer and that my math skills are terrible. So when I tell you how to divide, I'll probably do it the opposite way. I usually have to do it twice on my calculator to get it right. But what we would do is we would take the acreage of the property and then we would, and like I said, I have to usually do it on my calculator to get it correct, but we would divide by the number of units that are proposed to determine what the density per acre is then. So acres, number of acres, number of units, divide those and then that comes up with a density. And if I did the order wrong, I apologize to my mathematic friends who understand that stuff better than I do. That's why I became a planner. I would say that when we look at development across the city and when we determine density, we look at it on the basis of the property that's under development. And it's not often that we will look at, for example, a development that may have townhomes in one area, single family homes in another. And we look at that on that entire, and again, I'm gonna use probably the wrong term. It's getting late, apologize, but the gross acreage of the property. And if we're specific, and for example, if we have an area that the land use changes on a property because it has multiple land uses, so for example up here, if I had a rectangle parcel that had two land uses on it, we would look at not only the overall, but then we would confirm that the densities match for the individual areas as well to make sure that those are in keeping with the boundaries that were shown on the comprehensive plan. So it is often that we get varying types and sizes of lots. So I don't believe it's a disingenuous way of determining what the density is for this property. Thank you. It seems like the applicant has the leeway to build up to eight dwelling units per acre, but the math, like it or not, is shaking out at about 3.2, even one of the applicants, even applicants, even one of the members of the public said if you took out those two larger ones, maybe it's closer to five. But needless to say, there would be opportunity for this to be a more dense application or more dense development, is that true? Yes, under our code, all of the lots could have been at our minimum size, which I believe is around 5,500 square feet. I looked that up earlier tonight, so I apologize if it's not fresh, but if we would have knocked down the two homes and divided those two lots up, that could have been quite a few more homes just at that size of lots. So, okay. I guess my last question, I've kind of suggested with you in the past, which is I hate when we surprise existing homeowners with development. Folks move from California, move from Boulder, found a sweet spot in Longmont, and it had unobstructed views and it was a real wonderful setting. And now we're talking about putting in a lot with that might mess up that vision they have. How long has this property been developable? Are we surprising them? Are we tricking them? When did they, when should they or could they have found out that this land could be and would be developed further at some point? So, Vice Chair Goldberg, I would say that there's a difference I think with this property. If I would have moved into this area and I would have seen those two existing homes on there, I myself would have probably assumed that nothing was ever gonna happen to those even though the comprehensive plan shows the single family development. And my thinking out of that would have been who could afford to buy two more, I'm guessing more than a million dollar each house, I would guess probably multiple millions with the size of land and afford to be able to either knock them down or get enough density to make it work. And probably, you know, back 10 years ago, I don't think it would have penciled. But right now, you know, we have just about built out to our planning boundary with Boulder County. We do not have much greenfield left that we can go to. We are, have agreed that they are purchasing open space. We are as well, outside of that blue line that's shown up there on the map. And it has, by doing that, we've preserved a lot of great properties, a lot of beautiful areas in the county. But we have also created value and we have people who want to move to Colorado. We have people that are coming here for jobs and for the mountains that we love and the environment that we have. And now that pencils out. And I don't know that anybody, if they would have called my office four years ago before this came in, I probably would have warned them that, hey, right now, I don't know that anything's gonna happen. We don't have anything in our system. But I can't guarantee you it's never gonna change. So, you know, there's obviously buyer beware, right? I mean, you should do your due diligence. You should call and talk to the planning department and find out what is planned or what could happen on a property. And then you have to weigh whether or not you think it's reasonable. I would have bought there 10 years ago. I wouldn't have thought this was feasible. So, would that have been a surprise to me? It would have been. But I would have at least known that there were opportunity for that to happen. And what year were the surrounding neighborhoods built? The members that are here tonight. What year were those? So, yeah, so summer set. Is that 99? Okay, six. There you go. Seems like it was only yesterday. Cause I remember we had issues when the banks went under back in 2008, but okay. Thanks, Don. Yeah. Commissioner, I'll catch. Thank you, Chairman. I think it was Mr. Holman that brought up open space and the buffer that is there to the north. And maybe this was said before, but it's been a long night. Can someone clarify what a buffer is? What can be a buffer? Can open space be a buffer? Or does it need to have mature trees? What can be a buffer? Never meant for this to be the Don show, but thank you for putting up with me. The land development code does define types of buffers. And buffers, I can look up to see if there's a specific definition in the back of the land development code, but typically these are areas that are separate out lots that then have a certain depth requirement as well as a certain number of trees and shrubs per square footage based on the type of buffer that's required. And we have an A buffer, a B buffer, a C buffer, a D buffer, and an E buffer. And kind of similar to the traffic, it gets larger as it goes down in the letter. So letter E is a required 50 foot in depth buffer versus a B buffer is 20 feet. And then the amount of trees typically is increased. Trees and shrubs are required to be increased in those larger buffers because the impact is expected to be greater from that use on the adjacent properties. And so that's how we look at buffers. And we define where those are required in the code. And what grade are these buffers around this property? Great question. So for a residential subdivision, if adjacent to an arterial street, it requires a B buffer. So that's a 20 foot buffer that's required. If it's adjacent to another existing street that would be a local road or a collector street, it's also a 20 foot buffer. If it was next to a primary greenway, a public park or a public nature area, then it is also a B buffer. If it was on a gateway, so that would be Highway 119, 287, Highway 66, used to be called scenic entry buffers, those are 50 feet. And then adjacent to single family detached homes, there is no buffer required. Other against any other type of residential, there is no buffer required. So the only buffer that I see that would have to be provided would be the arterial buffer, the B buffer, the 20 foot buffer between airport and this development. Okay, thank you, Don. You're very welcome. Commissioner Ted, if you don't mind holding one second. I think the applicant wants to come up. I suspect it's around buffers. Yes, thank you, Mr. Chairman. In the presentation, maybe I slid through it. That's why I suggested a denser landscape. I did not mention a privacy fence. I think that's obvious, but we're all about what they were suggesting. More vegetation, a privacy fence, six feet, you know, whatever, that is a good quality one. When I met with Mr. Rothschild at his house, we talked about what kind it would be and I think we talked about the Sumberland one as an example and when we talked about removing the road next to his property. And I think that's what was on those diagrams. You know, we think it's, we think it only makes sense. I'm not sure it has to be a separate outlaw, but it could be just the way the rear lots are densely planted and the fencing. So we're supportive of that. Thank you. Maybe stay up there for just one second. Mr. Bestall, are you done? One more second, Commissioner Nuteta. Mr. Bestall, thanks for, you know, discussing this and acknowledging the neighbor's concerns about the buffers. Yes, we certainly heard from Mr. De La Lama and Mr. Rothschild specifically around buffers, not only buffers, but buffers during construction as well, I think is what I heard. While you just said it, I wonder if I can just ask you directly, if we were to put a condition in the, in our recommendation to city council, would you be willing to accommodate and work with, and work with the city staff, working with the neighborhood to provide, you know, robust adequate buffers in the form of trees, shrubs and privacy fences between your property and the surrounding properties? Absolutely. Thanks. Okay, Commissioner Nuteta. All right, a couple things. I wanted some clarification on something maybe Glenn might know the answer. The Somerset development is in the city and the Summerlin development is in the county, but not in the city. Is that right? Of course, Don's gonna know that one. I don't know. Don, my question, Somerset in the city, Summerlin in the county, but not in the city. Correct. Okay, and both of these are adjacent developments. Yes they are. Okay, that's correct. The other thing I just wanted to add that it's just a rumor perhaps, but I had heard that the consideration to the airport and 119 intersection was that it might get shut down to eastbound turning from airport. So if you entered 119 from airport, you would no longer be able to go east to Longmont at that intersection. So if you wanted to go east, potentially, I know it's just a rumor, but you'd then have to snake back through the developments on the east side of airport via Pike perhaps to Fordham to then go east. I think going forward, all of the things that are proposed for that section of airport road on either side between 119 and Pike could wind up then being a little problematic if that's something that you would have to do, but that's just your state probably at this point. Thanks Commissioner Teta. Don or Jim, can anyone speak to the future plans for Longmont bound traffic on the diagonal at the airport and the diagonal intersection? Chair Goldberg, my understanding is that at that intersection, the Northbound traffic approaching Longmont will still be able to turn left to go north onto airport road. The proposal currently is to make that a one-way street between the diet sections of the diagonal because it is separated there so that they do not because what they're seeing is with accidents and some of the counts. With the future BRT project, a bus rapid transit, they would need, if they don't do an adjustment there, would need to add another traffic signal and that's not what the county wants to do. So it would be one way going north bound in that little segment so that somebody coming south on airport road would not be able to continue to go towards Longmont. Can you provide a 100%? Can you clarify what is the proposed resolution for that just rerouting through the airport to get yourself back into Longmont? I think what the, if I recall, and it was just from a brief presentation with the county was that they would anticipate that there would be turnarounds on the diagonal further south on the way to Boulder where traffic would be able to turn around, pull a U-turn across the open space area there that they would provide that. That's was my understanding. Got it, turn right on the diagonal from airport, go some distance and then a left turn, U-turn. Okay, thanks. Okay, I don't see any members of the commission with their light on. So maybe we're just catching our breath here. I'll chime in just for a second or two. Where do I start? Boy, high level, it's really hard for me to find a reason not to, there's lots of reasons that we've heard and there's lots of concerns and there's lots of real, palpable, visible, tangible concerns from the neighborhood and we've heard them and referenced most of you by name, hopefully. But I'm struggling to find a legitimate reason for us to not make the recommendation for annexation to city council. I think the work ahead of us is more on what can we put into that recommendation that ensures we address the concerns of those who came out today. Some of the issues can't be addressed right now. Drainage, we recognize will come later. Specifics on the building materials will come later. Pricing on the units will come later. There's lots of things that just are not in the purview of the annexation review and consideration. So it's not that those won't be addressed. They just can't be addressed today. It's not why we're here today. But I do think there's probably a few things that we can put into our recommendation to city council if we recommend to approve that will help protect and take into consideration the feedback we've heard today. So that's kind of where my head is. Let me toss it over to Commissioner Kohler. So I would agree with you on that. I think we could, well I would hope that we could tailor some conditions to hopefully address some of the concerns that the public has raised here. Even maybe if they're generic and maybe Don you can respond to this if we could even include a condition that says drainage has to be thoroughly considered or something generic like that just to make sure it gets its review. And then I would also like to consider the option of requiring the privacy fence and the landscape buffers I think on all three sides to move this forward to the city council. Commissioner Lococci. Thank you Chairman. I agree with the Commissioner Kohler with the privacy fence. And I believe at least the neighborhood from what I recall just passing by it has a tall enough fence. There's like a brick wall there. So I don't know if it needs more fencing but if that's the desire, I'm in favor of that. And I think the applicant as far as density they could have gone with eight units per acre because it's a single family neighborhood. So they went way down and I'm in favor of this project with some conditions. Thank you, Commissioner Lococci. Commissioner Rotetta. Well, I'm really struggling with the compatibility as you may or may not know, I've got really intimate knowledge of this area. And I have typically celebrated the diversity of housing types that have been successful over there from the apartments on the corner of Pike and Airport and the multi-family houses further west on Pike. All of the apartments on Grandview Meadows, they all seem to work really wonderfully in this area in a way that hasn't typically been done where housing types have been segregated. But I can't help but feel that the design and density of this particular neighborhood, and it may just be a harbinger of what's gonna happen everywhere around there, but it doesn't feel to me compatible, mostly in terms of lot size. It just feels very different than what is all around it. Thank you, Commissioner Rotetta. Commissioner Moon. Thank you. I acknowledge the compatibility questions. However, I think the applicant has met the standards that are needed to move this annexation forward with the conditions that were discussed for buffering. I'll just add, I had similar struggles with the compatibility issue. Again, when I looked at this pretty closely, but if you zoom out very far, it actually feels like this, just as Commissioner Rotetta mentioned, is a good diverse mix and it kind of plays into that. You really have a whole range of types of homes in this area and this to me just seems like yet another piece in this bigger picture of diversity. Shoot, Commissioner Rotetta, I hear you loud and clear on the compatibility. It's hard, it's hard. The project is not at the maximum density that it could be at, that's stated in our comp plan. The applicant downsized the number of units based on what he or they could have done. We're hearing senses of cooperation and we have to be mindful of the needs of our town and I didn't ask Don to discuss the latest housing availability in Longmont, but I think it goes without saying that we need development, we need housing, we have folks that can't live and work in Longmont and so there's a gap we hear at time and time again and so this is addressing a need that is well established and isn't gonna change anytime soon. So I'm finding comfort in the compatibility piece. Here I was a little concerned as to how to proceed discussing conditions until there was a motion on the table because I didn't wanna be presumptuous that we were going to approve or recommend approval or not but I've heard several members of the commission suggest their support so then with that maybe I'll turn to Don for a little guidance here. I heard a couple of things that I think we can confirm. One is addressing barriers, fencing, tree buffers, shrub, shrubbery so I'm gonna ask you for your help with that Don. Does it go without saying that we'll address the land ownership, that strip of land between now and when the city council makes their final decision or should I put in the condition that the applicant and city staff resolve or address, confirm the ownership question at hand? Does that need to be addressed? So Vice Chair Goldberg, I think if I'm sitting in your position I would make that as a condition. I think it's a reasonable condition and obviously we will continue to investigate and as I've explained to the audience if they have something that they believe is contrary they need to submit it to us because we want to figure this out. This is not something that we want to deal with at a public hearing before the city council. So if that makes the commission feel comfortable in that and again reflects the importance of it I think it's a valid condition. Okay, then the third item that I have down as a potential condition speaks to drainage. However, I think we heard that the review criteria later on will say that and the applicant will need to prove that there's no increased drainage burden on the neighbors at a future time. Do we need to include a condition that states and reaffirms that drainage needs to be addressed? The city needs to clear the culvert or what have you or do we feel comfort knowing that that review will come later? I don't want to be redundant but I want it to be top of mind. I don't know if Jim has thoughts on this and if he does I hope you'll come down and knock me out of the way. Again, I think it's a way to reflect that you've heard the concerns of the neighbors and that it's important. We as Jim explained he will be working with operations to put that on their list of things that they need to investigate to figure out if there's something that's clogging that and identify if there's a problem. But we're not going to require unless it is told made obviously some kind of a requirement for the applicant to do a drainage study when we really don't have all of the information to probably be able to do that at a fine level. So I think you could obviously identify that the neighbors have concerns and that we would stress the importance of maybe more detailed drainage reports when the if the preliminary plat moves forward to investigate that and maybe that's a way to try to go about it. I just want to also be understanding that it is a lot to ask an applicant to go to a final level of an engineering document at a preliminary level and so I just want to be cognizant of that too. So I'm not sure if Jack would be willing to agree to that or not but that may be one way that you could do it. Again, entering into the record the concerns. I think that's obviously something that we can note and that we would carry on to the planning commission when we described the deliberations that you had or to the city council that the planning commission had these were the deliberations. This was a concern. Sure. It's either a condition or it wasn't but they discussed making it a condition. Before we deliberate amongst us, do you have a similar just as far as wording? Well, let me let's keep it to the commission first. Hey commission, how do we want to work? I'm hearing alignment on a condition around barrier fencing, tree buffers. Does anyone want to take a stab at providing that language? Commissioner Cole. I think you said it best a minute ago you referred to it as a robust, a robust landscape buffer on, I guess it would be the Northwest and South sides and a privacy fence that would be installed at least prior to construction. And maybe we could do something similarly vague with the drainage to just say that extensive consideration is given to the existing drainage issues on the site during the flat phase or something to that extent. I don't see anyone else chiming in. So we're going to let that lie for a second. How about does the commission, do my peers have any opinions on the need to reinforce the need to address the ownership of this road or this strip of land? Is this something that we should include or is that not necessary? Commissioner Coller. I think we should include it. I mean, I think it sounds like a lot of this stuff will be done through the normal processes anyway, but there's no harm to me, at least in redundancy and to again, making it clear to city council that we heard the public, we considered these and they're big issues. Okay. Okay, then with that, I guess, is there a motion? Does anyone want to make a motion? So I'll make a motion that we approve PZR 2022 8B with three conditions of approval, as just discussed. Do we need to go into those further, Jane or that? Thanks, we have a motion on the table for approval of PZR 2022-8B with the conditions. Do we have a second? Commissioner LaCoch. I'll second that. We have a second from commissioner LaCoch. With that, is there any further discussion? Jane, can we take a vote? Commissioner Teta, vice chairman Goldberg. Aye. Commissioner Coller. Aye. Commissioner LaCoch. Aye. Commissioner Boone. Vice chairman, that passes four to one with commissioner Teta dissenting. Thanks, Jane. Give me one second to find the paperwork. Regarding agenda item 6B, Westview Acres annexation, this item will now be forwarded to city council for action. If you are unfamiliar with council procedures and intend to appear before council, please contact the planning division for further information. Before everyone runs away, I did want to, again, thank the public for coming out. We appreciate your time coming out on a weeknight. We, hopefully, you felt heard and considered, but I did want to reinforce what has come up a few times, which is this is not the end, this is the next step. Don and staff laid out that this will then move to city council as soon as October. And so this is your opportunity to speak again. You have a month or two to submit any formal complaints or propose language or concerns around who owns land and what have you and then come out again in front of city council and be heard then too. But thank you. Okay, let's see where that brings us in our agenda. Oh, okay, forgive me. There is, for the next item on the agenda is the final round of public invited to be heard, the final call for public invited to be heard. Each speaker would have five minutes to address the commission. If you're interested in speaking to the commission, please come on down now. Please remember to state your name and address and you'll have five minutes. Jane will manage the timer. Commission, Scott Store 229 Grant Street. I'm just gonna state a couple of things. I'm, this is all fascinating. You guys really have a lot of the ability to affect people's lives and how they live within Longmont. And that was just a fascinating example. Let me just read a couple of things. This is from the municipal code. Residential streets mean those public streets whose primary function is to provide access to the immediate adjacent land used for single family or multi-family purposes. Again, I'm talking about the property at 1283 Third Avenue which is using our residential streets as their parking lot. I'm a guy that just goes to work and I come home and when I can't park in front of my own house or my kids can't park and we're doing the shuffle first thing in the morning or late at night because of a commercial property within residential area that doesn't provide any parking for their own patrons, it kind of gets me going and it allows me to get up the wheel to come here. Read just something else. This is from the, it's a downtown parking map. This is what we try to achieve. This is what we're trying to stand for. The very bottom of this thing, it says please, please get here at all street parking restriction signs that take precedence over the map. Please respect adjacent residential neighborhoods and use commercial streets and lots. The property I'm talking about provides no parking. There is no commercial lots. There is no anything. They're using our residential streets. It goes counter to everything that's written in the municipal code. Parking is obviously an issue. City code. The parking guidelines for a restaurant is 12 spaces per 1,000 feet. For a brewery, it's 16 spaces per 1,000 feet. I don't know if you know this address. It's a guest or a pub. Call it a brewery, call it a restaurant, whatever. At max, they got four parking spaces and currently they're seating patrons in those parking spaces. How do we get to this point? Where's the property in question? How do they expand their seating into the forced parking spaces? I understand that the overflow of parking into neighborhoods happens during events downtown. My mother lives downtown. She's three blocks away. It's beautiful. What I'm talking about is not an event thing that happens once, twice, three times a month. What I'm talking about is something that happens seven days a week because it's not being provided for by the person making the money. I've lived in my house for 20 years. I've been in the town longer than that for a commercial enterprise to come in and get approval if it is approved in some manner and I'd encourage any of you to communicate with me and talk to me about his expansions and setbacks and all of the violations. But I'm really just concerned about parking in a residential neighborhoods. It should be for the residents of the neighborhood and not used for commercial gain by one component. I live close enough to walk downtown. This business belongs downtown or this business belongs at a capacity that it can provide its own parking. I'm not talking about shutting it down. I'm talking about doing what Richard needed to do which was not expand his seating. And Ava who has since left the city is when Richard tried to put a patio cover over top of his awning, Ava said as much in her statement which is it's unlikely to get approved because this is gonna take away a parking space and your property is already under parked. That's within her letter. If you want me to share it, I can share it. I think I'm done. I really appreciate what you guys are doing and man, that was difficult what I just witnessed here tonight. But it's not just the future or what's coming in. Some of us have been here for a while. Some of us are off at work while these little things are taking place and approvals are happening and what have you. I'm here at midnight. I got to get up in the morning probably just like the rest of you because I'm sure you're not getting paid a lot for this if you're getting paid at all, I doubt it. It's all volunteer, isn't it? It's awful. I think council's underpaid too. Good night. Thank you, Mr. Stewart. Okay, next slide. Opening it up for any final public invited to be heard. Thank you. Please state your name and address. My name is Kimberly Wilms. I live at 1138 Olympia Avenue in unit B. I didn't write down anything formal or notes. I originally went to the coffee with council because I didn't know where to start with my concerns but across the street, to my knowledge, they're planning on building a big commercial area with storefronts, bank, auto place, restaurant, drive-through, whatnot. They've already started removing the prairie dogs but my concern is it's kind of pointless and it's gonna ruin the residential area and from what I've gathered at city with the council or the coffee with the council that the idea with Longmont that they're still trying to keep it a small town feel and community and I think building something there, I don't know if it's been approved or not. I just know that they did get permission to remove the prairie dogs. I did find that online but it's gonna ruin the residential area. We already have a ton of traffic from the preschool daycare in front of us and parking's an issue when they have events and it's gonna ruin people's quality of life there too with views and everything else and privacy and I don't know if there's a way to stop it because there's empty storefronts a mile down the road so it makes no sense to build something else right there that will have no business. There's empty storefronts on the northern side of Longmont on Main Street as well which isn't too far either but I mean at 17th and Pace Street there's an empty grocery store and storefronts so to allow something to be built makes no sense to me. So that's it. I don't know the next steps to try to stop this but sorry, I don't like talking in public. I get nervous. That's it. Thank you, Ms. Wilmes. Yeah, the public inviting to be heard isn't intended to be back and forth but I wonder if Don Bershet who knows everything can help you. Okay, the next item on our agenda is items from the commission. Is there anything from the commission? After that, from our council representative wishing council member Rodriguez as well, items from the planning director, Glen Van Nimmigan. Mr. Vice Chair, thanks for stepping in this evening. Did a great job. The only thing I wanted to mention is staff is doing a draft of some design guidelines for industrial buildings. It's something that's been missing in our code. We did a quick presentation at council last week and we'll come back to you and show you the same thing and hopefully get your recommendation to move that forward. And I think that's it. Okay, yeah, thanks, Glen. Back to items from the commission. Commissioner Coller. I guess a couple of the comments tonight got me kind of thinking that there, it does seem to be a lot of vacancies in the city and yet we are building on vacant lots. Is there any planning in the city one to maybe prevent that or maybe encourage redevelopment of those sites? I'm not sure specifically about what site she's talking about but it's simpler to build on a vacant lot. So that is what's attracted and actually the few vacant lots we have in town are very complicated. So somebody feels there is a market to build on those sites. I don't know as far as the chamber whether they may have a concerted effort to bring in tenants to the retail buildings that are here. But we generally try and push, yeah, reuse of existing buildings that kind of fits our sustainability model but I couldn't tell you that we're at X percent vacancy in retail buildings in the town. Don't know what that number is but we're certainly seeing on North Main too a number of mixed use buildings where they are doing retail below and residential above kind of building the residential market that hopefully will bring tenants in. Am I on a time or two, Jane? Wow. But that's kind of a key of the North Main strategy is trying to build some density and build some market into some of those retail areas that are suffering right now and hopefully bring some tenants back. Glenn, I think she was discussing 17th and Pace on the East side which used to house a Safeway among others and that's a struggling shopping center. I don't know if Safeway still owns the property or what's going on there but that could be a little... I'm sure it's top of mind for both the chamber for your developers but for your staff but I think that's what she was referencing. Okay. Forgive me, yeah. I think the vacant, the empty properties are at 17th and Pace on the East side. I suspect she was discussing the land that she mentioned removing the Prairie Dogs is at 66th and Pace on the Southeast side, yeah. I think Commissioner Lococce had something to say. Let me see if I can get that. Do you got it? Okay. Thank you, Chairman. Mr. Stewart brought up a question about parking. Could you tell us about parking minimums and parking maximists? How are they defined? Right, right. So for a retail building or a restaurant that he's referring to, it's a parking maximum. So that number is, I think it's three per thousand. They cannot exceed that but anything below that number is allowed. So only three parking spots? Per thousand square feet. Oh, square feet, okay. Yeah. Right, so I think that number would have been maybe half a dozen for the business he's talking about but again, we don't require it. So they expanded an outdoor patio basically and yes, you can park in a public right away. So is third street a residential street or what kind of street is third? It's a collector road. But yeah, there's neighborhoods on the North, South, East and West. Okay, unless there's anything further, we'll move to adjournment. Thank you.