HomeMy WebLinkAbout20040777 WELD COUNTY
BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS
July 9 , 2003
'- Re : LifeBridge Christian Church
Docket # : 2003-35 , PL1655 ORIGINAL
Taken at Weld County Centennial Center, 915
10th Street, Greeley, Colorado, at 10 : 00 a.m. , on July
9, 2003 , before James T. Rusk, a Registered
Professional Reporter and Notary Public of the State of
Colorado.
Wilson George Court Reporters, Inc.
One Old Town Square, Suite 200 B, Ft. Collins, CO 80524 (970) 224-3000
303 E. 17th Avenue, Suite 700, Denver, CO 80203 (303) 861-5000 2004-0777
Greeley, CO (970)353-0300 (800) 845-3001
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Page 2
A P P E ARAN C E S
WELD COUNTY COMMISSIONERS :
— Rob Masden, Commissioner
David Long, Commissioner
Bill Jerke, Commissioner
— Mike Geile, Commissioner
ADDITIONAL APPEARANCES :
Lee Morrison, County Attorney
Carol Hardin, Clerk to the Board
_ Esther Gesick, Clerk to the Board
Page 3
1 PROCEEDINGS
2 MR. LONG: Good morning. We ' ll convene as —
3 the Board of County Commissioners on the day of July 9,
4 2003 , at 10 : 00 , for the purpose of land use hearings,
5 and the only one on our docket today has been continued -
6 from May 7 , 2003 . That is docket 2003-35 , PL1655 .
7 Will the Clerk continue with roll call ,
8 please? —
9 (Whereupon, roll was called. )
10 MR. LONG: Let the record show the Board of
11 Commissioners are present . Mr . Vaad has recused —
12 himself .
13 I think first we ' ll start with Counsel , which
14 may have some remarks regarding - - opening remarks -
15 regarding some issues that came forward.
16 MR. MORRISON: Counsel for the neighborhood
17 submitted a letter questioning some of the notice -
18 process . That has been placed before the Planning
19 Commission. I ' d ask Mr . Ogle to confirm any factual
20 statements I make . _
21 This proceeding before the Planning
22 Commission was heard at one single hearing; however,
23 there were two preliminary meetings at which no action _
24 was taken other than a continuance . The first was on
25 March 18th. The next was on April 1st . Sign posting
Page 4
1 was accomplished prior to March 18th, and that is one
- 2 of the issues raised. The sign posting was
3 accomplished at least 15 days prior to March 18th.
4 The Zoning Code or PUD Code requirement is
- 5 that it be posted. There ' s not a requirement that it
6 be continuously monitored, that it is standing,
7 visible, and provide proof that it was continuously
- 8 visible during that period of time .
9 There is an affidavit from Staff that it was
10 probably posted. We did not repost , but anyone who
.- 11 would have seen that would have known to attend the
12 March 18th meeting. There was no quorum at the
13 March 18th meeting; however, it is appropriate if there
- 14 is no quorum to take one action in a meeting, and that
15 is to continue the matter .
16 It was continued until the next Planning
17 Commission meeting, April 1st, and it was then
18 scheduled for April 22nd. At that meeting, it was
19 continued again. Once again, if someone had followed
- 20 the train of posting, they would have known to attend
21 those two meetings that resulted in the April 22nd
22 meeting.
- 23 Prior to the April 22nd meeting, there was
24 publication . The affidavit of publication is in the
25 record, and I confirmed that with the Clerk. It is
Page 5 —
1 under the - - I believe it ' s under legals . Is that
2 correct? It ' s been in the record appropriately since —
3 the Planning Commission and Staff took that action.
4 So factually, - I don' t believe that the
5 argument that the Planning Commission and Staff failed
6 to properly follow the code in the posting or
7 publication is accurate . Legally, I don' t believe that
8 deprives you of the jurisdiction of - - it ' s certainly -
9 an argument when you have someone who is dissatisfied
10 with the result might choose to make, but I don ' t
11 believe that requires you to stop your proceedings , -
12 particularly in light of the fact that the Planning
13 Commission had no lack of testimony to consider when
14 they made their recommendation to you. -
15 The other thing is that the case law
16 indicates that neighbors to an application don' t have
17 the same rights in the due process that the actual -
18 property owner who is either a party to the application
19 or should have been a party and was deprived notice .
20 A lot of the cases deal with someone who owns
21 property, was affected by a zoning decision directly,
22 and did not even realize that it occurred until a later
23 date . They certainly have an opportunity to raise that
24 issue .
25 The last thing I would note is that there is
Page 6
1 a case, Grant versus Board of County Commissioners,
2 going back to 1967 . That ' s been cited in a recent
3 Court of Appeals case of Bodley. That indicates if you
4 give notice early, which is effectively what we did by
5 posting here before the hearing actually took place,
6 someone is not going to be prejudiced because they have
7 the opportunity to track through that and know when the
8 actual testimony is going to be taken.
9 If you give notice, then this leads people,
10 by putting a date after when testimony is to be taken,
11 then you have big problems . But that is not the case
12 here .
13 I ' d just ask Mr. Ogle if my recitation of the
14 facts is correct to your knowledge .
15 MR . OGLE : Kim Ogle, Department of Planning
16 Services .
— 17 They are correct .
18 MR. LONG: Thank you.
19 Are there any questions for Counsel or Staff
— 20 in that regard?
21 It ' s my understanding that the group of
22 homeowners might have had one issue with this and that
23 they wanted to take - - that they had an attorney or
24 something that was going to come, as I understood it .
25 If they wanted to speak on this issue, and this issue
Page 7 —
1 alone, of jurisdiction, I would grant the ability to do
2 that at this time . —
3 Is that person here or --
4 MR. GRIES : Our attorney is coming, but we
5 were told that he would not have an opportunity to —
6 speak. We asked him to come at 10 : 00 , but we told him
7 that it wasn ' t necessary to be here at 10 : 00 .
8 MR. LONG: Very well . We ' ll hold that open
9 for later.
10 At this time then we ' ll go on to Staff for
11 any new information or referrals that have come forward -
12 since the last - - since May, and we ' ll start with Kim.
13 MR. OGLE : Good morning . Kim Ogle,
14 Department of Planning Services . We have a few opening -
15 remarks to make .
16 As directed by the Board of County
17 Commissioners on May 7 , 2003 , the County Staff prepared _
18 four sets of documents identified as the complete
19 Change of Zone file to be hand delivered to the four
20 municipal referral agencies ; the Towns of Frederick, _
21 Firestone, and Mead, and the City of Longmont .
22 Ken Poncelow, Civil Process Server/Deputy
23 Sheriff , provided evidence via Affidavit of Service _
24 stating that the complete Change of Zone file, Notice
25 of the Continuance of the hearing to July 9 , 2003 , and
Page 8
1 a copy of the Hearing Certification was delivered to
2 each municipality on May 22nd, 2003 . County Staff
3 requested comments or objections related to the
4 application be submitted in writing on or before June
5 20 , 2003 .
6 The Clerk to the Board' s office also provided
7 notification of the continuance to the surrounding
8 property owners and remaining referral agencies as
9 directed by the Board.
10 The Department of Planning services received
11 a verbal request from the Town of Mead requesting a
12 copy of the June 2002 LifeBridge Project PUD Traffic
13 Impact Study. This study was submitted as part of the
_ 14 Sketch Plan application process administered and
15 commented on by the office in August 2002 . Also
16 provided to the Town was the referral provided to the
17 Department of Public Works by Felsburg Holt & Ullevig
18 dated July 10 , 2002 , commenting on the Traffic Impact
19 Study.
20 As previously stated, the document submitted
21 was part of the Sketch Plan application, and this study
22 was not forwarded to the Clerk to the Board' s office
23 for inclusion in the Change of Zone application file .
24 The June 2002 Traffic Impact Study and referral from
25 FHU was hand delivered to the Town of Mead on
Page 9 1 June 12th, 2002 . Verification of receipt of all
2 documents was provided by date stamp and signature of —
3 the Town Clerk. This document is identified as
4 Exhibit MM.
5 The Department of Planning Services received —
6 a referral response from Carrie McCool , Town Planner
7 for Town of Frederick, dated June 12th, 2003 , and I
8 will be paraphrasing the following McCool statements . -
9 The first one states , quote : "The proposed project is
10 not located within our IGA boundaries; therefore,
11 comments and/or concerns from the Town is limited in -
12 scope . The Town of Frederick concurs with the issues
13 identified by Weld County Planning Staff concerning
14 setbacks and building heights, " end quote . _
15 The Department of Planning Services received
16 a referral response from Andrea Mimnaugh, Senior
17 Planner for the City of Longmont , dated June 25th, _
18 2003 . The City of Longmont states : "The City is
19 pleased that the applicant has addressed many of the
20 City' s concerns ; however, the City still has remaining _
21 concerns . These include impacts to Longmont ' s scenic
22 entry corridor and the need for Weld County to provide
23 for much needed urban level services in the I-25 Mixed
24 Use Development area . In addition, the City also has
25 some comments regarding drainage . "
Page 10
1 The Department of Planning Services received
2 a referral response from Michael Friesen, Town
3 Administrator for the Town of Mead, dated July 3 , 2003 .
4 Their issues deal with traffic .
5 The Department of Planning Services did not
6 receive a referral response from Bruce Nickerson, Town
7 Planner for the Town of Firestone .
8 Staff has paraphrased the referral agency
9 responses and notes that all of the municipality
10 referrals are in the case file with the Clerk to the
11 Board. Staff has provided a hard copy of all
12 municipality referrals for reference to the Board, and
13 that is that packet that is on your laptops .
14 The Department of Planning Services has
15 reviewed the June 20th, 2003 , letter from the
16 applicant ' s representative regarding information
17 requested by this Board. There appear to be no issues
18 with their comments back. We have one issue that deals
19 with bulk standards for one particular area of the
20 site, and the applicant addresses that .
21 That concludes our remarks .
22 MR. LONG: Thank you, Kim.
23 Any questions for Kim?
24 None at this time, so we ' ll go on to Public
25 Works .
Page 11
1 MR. SCHELTINGA: Drew Scheltinga, Public
2 works Department . —
3 At the last hearing I gave a brief review of
4 several of the issues . I do not intend to repeat that
5 today. We listened very carefully to the -
6 Commissioners ' questions and public concerns . We took
7 notes . We reviewed those questions and issues . We
8 also asked our traffic consultant, Felsburg Holt & -
9 Ullevig, to do some further analysis and review with
10 us , and I thought today that I would try to address
11 those issues . -
12 There are three basic items . One is the
13 concerns that are outlined in Mead' s letter regarding
14 Roads 5 and 7 . They are the traffic impacts in the _
15 area overall and the connectivity issue which was
16 recommended by Public Works .
17 If the Board would like, I could go ahead _
18 and -- at this time, go ahead and address those .
19 MR . LONG: Please .
20 MR . SCHELTINGA: Put up Slide 1 , please . _
21 In Mead ' s letter of July 3rd, they had
22 concerns over the traffic that might be generated north
23 on County Roads 5 and 7 , and their concern was that the
24 traffic study did not address that northbound traffic .
25 That is basically true . The study did say
Page 12
1 that the traffic that would be generated on Weld County
2 Road 26 on the northern end of the property here would
3 probably be about 5 percent of the total traffic .
4 When traffic engineers are looking at what
5 might be generated in some direction or another, they
6 are looking for three basic things that draws traffic;
7 schools, shopping, employment . Those are the normal
8 big three .
9 In this particular case there isn' t a lot to
10 the north. I think a 5-percent estimation, which would
11 relate to about 1400 trips total on Road 26 , is
12 probably reasonable . We did not analyze which might be
13 going north on Road 5 , north on Road 7, or south on
14 Road 5 to the east , 5 1/2 .
15 There are, however, as - - there is , however,
16 an issue with schools because any children in this area
17 would go to the Mead Elementary and Middle School .
18 That is my understanding. That ' s not a lot of kids .
19 There is, of course, the residential component that is
20 proposed in the upper left-hand part, but most of the
21 residential that is proposed, in the residential units
22 that are proposed, they are elder housing, care type of
23 housing, not people with a lot of kids that they are
24 going to be sending to school in Mead.
25 I think my feeling about where we stand with
Page 13 1 this issue at this time is : We know that there will be
2 some impact . There will be some school traffic going —
3 to the north. I don' t think it ' s a major impact . I
4 think what we know at this time, for the purposes of
5 Change of Zone, is adequate . —
6 I think - - we don ' t enter into an
7 improvements agreement with any development until we go
8 to the actual development phases . We don ' t do these -
9 agreements , improvements agreements, at Change of Zone .
10 I think we know that there will be some minimal impact
11 on those roads going north towards Mead. -
12 I think it would be appropriate to do further
13 study of the school impact , look at how many kids will
14 be generated out of this subdivision, how many will go -
15 to the elementary and middle school , and see what the
16 impacts are as these developments and these proposals
17 come in in the different phases . _
18 In the first phase, we ' ll have a part of the
19 residential , and we can address that in more detail at
20 that time . _
21 I think Mead ' s concern is legitimate, but I
22 don ' t think it ' s going to be a major impact . I do
23 think we could study that in greater detail at the time _
24 the development proposals would be made and that that
25 would be reasonable .
Page 14
1 The second item is the overall traffic impact
2 in the area . We have had a lot of discussion about
3 that . There was a lot of questions .
4 Looking again, the impacts in the surrounding
5 area - - Kim, would you go to Slide 3 , please .
6 The impacts in the area would be totally
7 mitigated by the schematic type of improvements that
8 you see here . As we talked about before, we would be
9 adding lanes to Road 3 1/2 , the north-south road, we ' d
10 be adding turn lanes, at the intersection of Road 26 to
11 the north, we ' d be making similar improvements .
12 The real traffic control over this area is
13 the intersection and the future intersection of State
14 Highway 119 and 3 1/2 . This schematic that was
15 prepared shows three through-lanes in each direction.
16 It shows turn lanes . It shows double turn lanes on
17 State Highway 119 .
18 We heard two questions . One of them is :
19 What happens when a major church function lets out?
20 What is the impact? The second question that was
21 proposed to us was : Given the roadway system, given
22 the restriction at a certain level of service, what
23 kind of facilities could be built on the site? In
24 other words, it ' s kind of thinking the opposite
"' 25 direction. Given the capacity of the road system, what
Page 15 1 size building could be built?
2 Pete, would you go back to Slide 1 , please . —
3 So again, the bottleneck, the controlling
4 issue here, is the intersection of 119 and 3 1/2 . The
5 controlling issue here, again, is whether 119 is —
6 increased in capacity out in the future, 25 years plus .
7 That is the bottom line of the whole thing .
8 What we did is we looked at the level of —
9 service at the intersection of 119 , and we looked at
10 three level of services, D, E, and F . Just very
11 briefly, I would like to describe those to try to give _
12 us an impression of what those level of services might
13 mean.
14 Level of service D is what every traffic _
15 engineer will shoot for when designing. That means the
16 average delay for cars coming into that intersection is
17 between 35 and 55 seconds . That is something that we _
18 all experience all of the time . We come to an
19 intersection like that . It doesn ' t bother us . The
20 delays are short . Chances are that we are likely to _
21 get a red light on a turn or a through lane, but we are
22 not delayed long. We go on through it .
23 Level of service E is a delay of 55 to 80 _
24 seconds . That is less desirable, but it ' s something
25 that we commonly experience when we are on heavily
Page 16
1 traveled urban roads at peak hours . We will come up to
2 the intersection. We are very likely to get stopped by
3 a red light . We are very likely to have to wait a full
4 cycle to get through it .
5 Level of service F, however, is when we would
6 have to wait longer than 80 seconds, and that is
7 unacceptable . That is what turns most of us good
8 people into raving maniacs . We want to get out of
9 here .
10 Level of service is desirable . In my
11 opinion, level of service E for a situation when you
12 are letting out a large event , like if a church service
13 lets out or some function at the church lets out , the
14 level of service E for a short period of time is
15 acceptable . It ' s not desirable if we were trying to
16 design that intersection today. We wouldn ' t design it
17 for that, but to experience that occasionally when a
18 service or a function lets out is reasonable . It ' s a
19 reasonable thing to expect .
20 So what we did is we said, given the fact - -
21 or given the scenario that all of the rest of the
22 development was in place, all of the residential , all
23 of the commercial , all of the additional residential ,
24 in other words, everything was 100 percent fully
'' 25 developed, how large a seating could you handle given
Page 17
1 allowable level of services .
2 Let me simply say on Sundays, with the —
3 reduced peaks on Sundays , Sundays are not a problem.
4 We could have all of these functions , all of these
5 other housing, commercial , residentials, built and —
6 functioning, and still handle a 5200-seat auditorium
7 and have a level of service E on Sunday mornings . No
8 problem. That is what State Highway 119 , at its —
9 existing four lanes , is .
10 If we change it to -- in the future, sometime
11 in 20 plus years, the capacity of 119 is increased and _
12 there ' s six lanes , three in each direction, you could
13 have 13 , 000 seats and still maintain a level of service
14 E on the short period of time when a service would _
15 release .
16 Weekday peaks are another thing. If services
17 are released right when there are weekday peaks - - the _
18 peak hours are always in the afternoon. It ' s always
19 between like 4 : 45 and 6 : 00 at night, something in that
20 area . If we release services then, we drive the
21 intersection of 119 and 3 1/2 into the level of service
22 F right away. But if the capacity of 119 is changed
23 and we have those six lanes , then we are okay again.
24 So that is the key. The key is somewhere out
25 20 plus years , when 119 would be increased in capacity,
Page 18
1 really there isn ' t a problem. So I think we have tried
2 to address what happens when a service lets out, where
3 the restriction will be, and what it will take to
4 handle it .
5 It will take managing -- for the present day,
6 for the present four lanes, it will take managing when
7 services are released. If they are not released on the
8 peak hour, if they are not released at 4 : 45 to 6 : 00 at
9 night , there are not major issues . That is very
10 commonly done . In talking to our traffic consultant,
11 it ' s a common thing . It ' s commonly done, particularly
12 in the metro Denver area, where there ' s huge traffic .
13 One intersection at Colorado Boulevard and Hampton, I
14 believe, it ' s been related to me that there are three
15 huge churches on three corners of that intersection.
16 There is tremendous traffic in all four directions, and
17 they manage the release of their services to avoid that
18 problem.
19 So I guess the message to you is that it can
20 be done . It will take improvements to the highway
21 system. It will take double left turn lanes . It will
22 take additional lanes . It will take turn lanes both on
23 119 and 3 1/2 , and those are anticipated for
24 construction. Those improvements are anticipated.
25 Now, 25 years out , when 100 percent of this
Page 19 —
1 is built , if 119 increases in traffic as we anticipate,
2 if 119 is taken to six lanes , there is no problem. If —
3 it ' s not , there ' s a problem with peak hours .
4 Again, Sunday morning is not a problem either
5 because that ' s when the traffic peak is so low. —
6 So easily, by our calculations, you could
7 have all of this built , add 5200 seats, and not have
8 any problem at a level of service E with a four-lane —
9 roadway - - excuse me, four lanes on 119 . If we go to
10 six lanes , then we could have a Sunday peak of 9 , 000
11 seats . So the picture is that it ' s doable . -
12 The original proposal from the church
13 envisioned 6 , 000 seats in the auditorium. I know there
14 has been some reduction in size that ' s being proposed _
15 at this time . I know because of the height issues and
16 whatnot with the building, with the church, it ' s not
17 designed, isn' t completed, but I think that what has
18 been proposed is within the realm of the traffic
19 figures that I was just relating to . So I think it ' s
20 doable . _
21 The last issue is connectivity. Pete, Slide
22 4 , please .
23 This was recommended by Public Works . I
24 won' t talk about it for a long time . It ' s just a basic
25 principle of good planning. It connects neighborhoods .
Page 20
1 It reduces trip lengths . It reduces congestion on
2 collectors . If we create isolated enclaves, anytime
3 traffic is going towards that enclave it has to look
4 around. Connectivity is just basic good planning .
5 Here, on the slide you had before you, the
6 upper blue arrows , connections, the area route
7 connection, is the area we would recommend, a
8 connection to the Elms at Meadowvale, and that is Pearl
9 Howlett Street . The bottom one is a connection we
10 recommend to the Farms at Meadowvale, and that is Blue
11 Mountain.
12 To try to put that in perspective, Peter, go
13 to Slide 11 now.
14 The impacts are -- we went out and made some
15 fairly extensive traffic counts in the neighborhood
16 over a week period. What I would like to do is take
17 our traffic counts and then relate it to what
18 Mr. Delich estimated would be the traffic that would
19 flow from LifeBridge back to the east .
20 Pearl Howlett is in the -- there was two
21 there, and it ' s the intersection that is labeled three
22 and four . We counted 158 cars a day on Pearl Howlett
23 with a peak hour of 24 cars . I have to say though that
24 all of the area north of Pearl Howlett is not
25 developed, so I think that the count that I ' m reporting
Page 21
1 to you is way low.
2 Let ' s look down at the count that was made on —
3 No . 12 here at the bottom. That is where the main
4 traffic would come through and access LifeBridge on the
5 south. —
6 There is a mail kiosk that draws traffic just
7 right at the top of the hill . You can see this kiosk
8 on the aerial right there . I think -- now, we counted —
9 that intersection at 605 vehicles, average daily
10 traffic , with a peak hour of 74 . I think that really
11 is more in the range of what we ' ll see on Pearl Howlett _
12 in the future when it ' s built out . The other reason I
13 say that is that these mail kiosks are a real magnet
14 for traffic . There is a mail kiosk - - well , actually,
15 it ' s constructed on Pearl Howlett roughly about halfway
16 down, so I think the traffic count that we made on
17 Pearl Howlett is low. _
18 But at any rate, today it ' s 158 cars a day
19 with a peak hour of 24 . Matt Delich, in his work,
20 estimated that the additional traffic on Pearl Howlett _
21 would be 380 cars a day with an additional peak of 36 .
22 Let ' s look at Blue Mountain and the impact on
23 Blue Mountain and try to relate that the same way. We _
24 put a counter on the cul-de-sac at location No . 10 , and
25 we counted 163 vehicles a day with a peak hour of 18 .
Page 22
1 It ' s low. It is . It ' s a cul-de-sac . There ' s no
2 through traffic .
3 Moving down to location No . 11 , we counted
4 221 vehicles with a peak hour of 29 .
5 Then repeating down at No. 12 where all of
6 the traffic comes together, we counted 605 vehicles
7 with a peak hour of 74 . Mr. Delich estimated that the
8 additional traffic by making the connection would be
9 130 vehicles with a peak hour of 12 .
10 What effect is that? Well , on the cul-de-sac
11 on Blue Mountain, it is a dramatic effect . It almost
12 doubles their traffic . But still , peak hours of 18
13 plus 12 , 30 , is low. That ' s not a lot of traffic .
14 Will it impact the neighborhood? Very definitely. It
15 will basically double what they have out there .
16 There ' s a little less impact on the
_ 17 in-between streets and, I think, on the main
18 intersection. An impact where there ' s already 605
19 vehicles , I don' t think anybody will even notice that .
20 So yes, there are impacts . I tried to relate
21 them here to you about the intensity of it .
22 As far as questions about the physical
23 ability, whether Blue Mountain and Pearl Howlett could
24 handle these increases, there really isn ' t any question
25 in my mind but that physically they can. It ' s not a
Page 23
1 huge amount of traffic .
2 I think Mr . Delich ' s estimates of the -
3 increase are pretty conservative, really, because I
4 don' t think there is direct through roadways to serve
5 the traffic that might come through. I don ' t really -
6 see why they would.
7 The estimates that have been made are
8 thinking that when the church services lets out , when _
9 some of these intersections clog up, that people will
10 come back through the neighborhoods . I think that ' s
11 true, and I think that is why Matt said that the _
12 increase of 380 on Pearl Howlett -- that ' s high.
13 That ' s a lot . That ' s 36 cars an hour .
14 It ' s a difficult thing . It ' s a difficult _
15 decision. It ' s not the physical geometry of the
16 streets . It ' s whether neighbors want their traffic
17 basically to be doubled or less . That ' s the bottom
18 line here .
19 I know it ' s a difficult decision for the
20 Commissioners . Should the Commissioners decide that
21 connecting Pearl Howlett and Blue Mountain is the right
22 thing to do, if that ' s the right thing to do, we would
23 have to add a paragraph to the Conditions of Approval
24 to require those connections to be made .
25 That concludes my remarks to the
Page 24
1 Commissioners .
2 MR. LONG: Thank you.
3 Any questions?
4 MR. GEILE : Yes, two questions .
5 Setting aside the application that we have
6 before us today, when you take a look at the amount of
7 the load that is projected by the state in the south
_ 8 part of the county, evidently this area, when you take
9 into consideration that there is going to be a new high
10 school and probably other schools built in this area,
- 11 setting aside this application today, the fact that
12 CDOT is in the process of updating their plan, their
13 state-wide plan to a 20-30 plan, it would seem to me
- 14 that whatever is approved in this area, just because of
15 everything coming together, six lanes are going to have
16 to be dealt with within the next 30 to 50 years anyway.
17 Is that a correct statement or not?
18 MR. OGLE : I think that is absolutely true,
19 and let me start to say it another way.
20 Really, the issue again -- the issue here is
21 the capacity of 119 . 3 1/2 is not a problem at all .
22 If we add the additional lanes and the turn lanes on
23 3 1/2 , that ' s not the problem. The problem is the
24 amount of traffic that is going east/west on 119 . So
25 your observation is absolutely right .
Page 25
1 whether or not anything develops on 3 1/2 , we
2 know it will , but whether or not it does, 119 and that —
3 intersection still is going to need capacity
4 improvement .
5 MR. GEILE : The second question: In having —
6 driven the areas that you are describing and that you
7 have taken your traffic count - -
8 MR . OGLE : Yes . —
9 MR. GEILE : -- they are not exactly straight
10 roads .
11 MR. OGLE : Correct . —
12 MR. GEILE : The configurations of the roads
13 do wind. They do bend. When I analyzed those roads
14 and thought about the connectivity issue, I became -
15 quite concerned about the safety of the people that
16 live in the area.
17 I guess when we get to a point where we are _
18 going to deal with this, I have a safety issue that I 'm
19 going to put on the table because I 'm really concerned
20 that by doing that connectivity we could be putting _
21 both of these neighborhoods - - or all of this traffic
22 arterial thing, we can be putting them in a position
23 where there could be safety issues for the people that
24 live there, plus the fact that as you go from point A,
25 which would be the end of these developments , towards 3
Page 26
1 1/2 , there ' s quite an incline as far as the topography
2 as it goes toward the open space .
3 When you take into consideration the
4 configurations of the roads , the slope of the roads ,
5 and you add into that the children in the area, people
6 in the area, I will probably be dealing with that from
7 a safety issue because I have concerns about that .
— 8 MR. SCHELTINGA: The increase that we expect
9 on Blue Mountain is quite a bit less than we would
10 expect on Pearl Howlett . It connects to a - - in the
11 future, would connect to the lower part of the service
12 area of the LifeBridge development . We probably --
13 it ' s an awfully curious route to go down to get out of
14 a church service and avoid traffic and go down Blue
15 Mountain.
16 If there - - if traffic is sneaking around, so
17 to speak, after a church service and going out, it ' s
18 almost likely -- almost completely likely to be on
19 Pearl Howlett . We would anticipate an increase of 36
20 cars an hour there . On Blue Mountain, less , about 12
21 cars an hour. So that ' s not a lot, but your point is
22 correct .
_ 23 MR. LONG: Thank you.
24 Any other questions?
25 MR. JERKE : Drew, I guess I 'm kind of
Page 27 —
1 interested in the situation that Mead has brought up
2 regarding more north/south transportation, and I 'm -
3 curious to start that off with telling us about 26 .
4 What portions of 26 are paved, I guess, would
5 be from 3 1/2 east out to 7 . Is any of that paved -
6 today, and is any of it proposed to be paved by the
7 applicant?
8 MR. SCHELTINGA: Peter, go back to Slide 1 . -
9 Well , very simply, everything that is
10 adjacent to the applicant ' s application here would be
11 paved. So the applicant would pave all of it . There _
12 is a little - - there is a -- here we go.
13 On the far left, from the residential area on
14 the far left , following up along the residential area _
15 where it would connect to Road 26 , going back to the
16 east it would go all of the way and tie into the
17 pavement that was done as a part of the Meadowvale _
18 development . So it would be one continuous paved loop
19 around.
20 There is no paving proposed north of Road 26 _
21 heading towards Mead, and I think that is the real
22 issue here .
23 MR. JERKE : My question, I guess , is : Is all
24 of 26 going to be paved from 3 1/2 all the way to 7?
25 Is that - -
Page 28
1 MR. SCHELTINGA: Yes . It doesn ' t go all of
2 the way over to 7 .
3 MR. JERKE : What I 'm getting at on this,
4 Drew, is Mead' s contention that we need more
5 north/south. If 7 , indeed, is to become a major
6 arterial for us , between 66 and 119, then it would make
7 sense to me that 26 be at least a secondary carrier of
8 some kind to get people out to 7 and then north to the
9 high school , proposed high school , I should say, and to
10 the Mead area .
_ 11 MR. SCHELTINGA: You are correct . If 7
12 becomes our arterial , and if 7 takes a route that goes
13 down through the park area, Road 26 would come over and
14 connect into that , so yes .
15 The question becomes : Well , how much traffic
16 goes that way that ' s generated out of LifeBridge? And
17 the answer is : It depends on what is built up that
18 way.
19 Today we know for sure that the kids who live
20 here that go to grade school and middle school are
21 going to be going to Mead. That ' s a draw. When a high
22 school goes up here, there will be more of a draw. Of
23 course, there will be road improvements with that .
24 When a grocery store comes in up here somewhere, that
25 will be another draw. As those things come in
Page 29 —
1 incrementally, improvements will have to be made .
2 At least the proposal today gets us paved -- -
3 if I can go up here and point , it ' s paved from here all
4 of the way up across 26 . Then this is paved from the
5 development of Meadowvale, and then this loop is paved. -
6 So we have this completely paved at this point .
7 Road 7 would be coming down through - - the
8 arterial would be coming down through this area over -
9 here, and a connection would have to be made .
10 MR. LONG : Thank you.
11 MR . GEILE : If I may, I would like to maybe -
12 continue that .
13 At the hearing we had, the earlier-on
14 hearing, there were some questions on 3 1/2 . Are there _
15 any plans, I ' m not aware of any plans , to do anything
16 with 3 1/2 other than what it is? We have looked at 7
17 1/2 , which is being studied, but we have no plans in _
18 our strategic planning process or any other public -- a
19 five-year plan or anything else, Drew, to do any
20 improvements with 5 1/2 . It ' s designed probably to do _
21 what it is doing well into the future .
22 MR. SCHELTINGA: That is correct .
23 MR. GEILE : Okay, because that question came
24 up at our last meeting. I wanted to make sure it was
25 addressed.
Page 30
1 MR. SCHELTINGA: And our alignment for Road 7
2 is under study.
3 MR . LONG: Any other questions for Drew?
4 Thank you very much.
5 MR . SCHELTINGA: Thank you.
6 MR. LONG: From Environment and Health, Pam.
7 MS . SMITH: Pam Smith, Weld County Health
8 Department .
9 I don ' t have any comments at this time . This
10 development is on public water and public sewer, but I
11 would be happy to answer any questions at this time .
12 MR. LONG : Any questions for Pam?
13 Okay. Seeing none at this time, we ' ll move
14 on.
15 We would ask for the applicant to please come
16 forward and present any new evidence that we can - -
17 excuse me, if we can.
18 Mr . Gries, step to the microphone so it ' s on
19 the record, please .
20 MR. GRIES : I apologize for interrupting .
21 I 'm wondering if now would be an appropriate time for
22 our attorney, Pete Ziemke, to respond to County
23 Attorney Lee Morrison' s comments at the beginning .
24 MR. LONG: As long as it ' s held that it ' s --
25 MR. GRIES : Solely to that issue of
Page 31
1 jurisdictional defect .
2 MR. LONG: Could we get your address for the -
3 record, please?
4 MR. GRIES : Peter Gries , 11685 Montgomery
5 Circle, District 2 , Longmont , Colorado 80504 . -
6 MR. LONG: Thank you.
7 Yes, if you would like to have your attorney,
8 please - - _
9 If you could, sir, for the record, state your
10 name and address first , and please be specific to this
11 issue . -
12 MR. ZIEMKE : Yes, Mr . Chairman.
13 My name is Pete Ziemke . I 'm an attorney in
14 Wheatridge, Colorado . My address is 12600 West 32nd -
15 Avenue .
16 Good morning, Board, and good morning,
17 Mr. Morrison. _
18 I 'm acting on the comments that Mr. Gries
19 reported to me about the letter that I sent in in June
20 concerning a couple of notification issues . So I 'm
21 going to be responding to what Mr. Gries has told me
22 Mr. Morrison said. If I ' ve got it wrong, please excuse
23 me .
24 First of all is the issue of whether the
25 March -- the initial March meeting could be continued
Page 32
1 at all . Clearly, the whole reason the March meeting
2 could not proceed was because the jurisdictional notice
3 had not been made . There had been no publication
4 whatsoever for that hearing . That is the reason it
5 was -- it didn' t occur.
6 There is another issue that is raised about
7 whether the Planning Staff has the authority to
8 continue a hearing or whether that is something that
9 the Planning Commission has to do . I don' t believe
10 there is any authority in your regulations giving Staff
11 the authority to continue a hearing. I believe it ' s
12 the responsibility of the Board itself - - the Planning
13 Commission itself .
14 More troubling is this issue concerning the
15 sign posting. Clearly, who reads the legal notices
16 anyway? Nevertheless, that is a legal requirement for
17 both your process and the state statutes .
18 The sign posting is the one that really gets
19 people here . The sign posting was not - - the sign was
20 not posted as set forth in the affidavit that is in
21 your files as Mr . Duane Leise ' s affidavit points out .
22 There was no posting for the - - either of the two April
23 hearings whatsoever. The only posting that was
24 attempted was for the March hearing. That didn ' t meet
— 25 your requirements .
Page 33
1 I 've heard secondhand that the County' s
2 position on the posting is that it only needs to be put -
3 up . It doesn ' t need to be monitored. I think that
4 that just invites mischief, if I may.
5 Clearly, the regulations require that the -
6 sign be up continuously for ten days prior to the
7 hearing, a minimum of ten days . The County may not
8 monitor that . There is no problem with that . The -
9 County is not required to monitor that , because it ' s
10 not the County' s obligation to make sure that happens .
11 It ' s the applicant ' s obligation. _
12 In fact , the applicant has to present proof
13 to you today, or in this record, that they have done
14 that before you have the power to approve, according to _
15 your own regulations . There is no evidence to that
16 effect for either of the April hearings .
17 We had also made some comments about whether _
18 there is publication notice for the April hearing.
19 Mr. Morrison has assured me that the file does contain
20 one . When we checked the file probably a month or so
21 earlier than today, we did not come across one . We ' ll
22 take Mr . Morrison ' s word that there is, indeed,
23 evidence of that publication requirement . -
24 The case cited to you, Grant, I think is not
25 applicable to what we are dealing with today. First of
Page 34
1 all , the Planning Commission did not acquire
2 jurisdiction to even hold the March hearing; therefore,
3 this tracking argument can' t begin until they first
4 have jurisdiction to hold the hearing. Without the
5 published notice, they have no jurisdiction.
6 Secondly, even if that were to be the actual
7 bare minimum under state law, your regulations impose a
8 far higher duty upon this applicant . Your regulations
9 require that , in addition to all of the minimum
10 statutory requirements, that this applicant comply with
11 each and every one of your notification requirements .
12 Now, I know those notification requirements
13 were adopted for good reasons . They were adopted to
14 make sure that everyone with possible interest in this
15 case and every other case gets sufficient notice ahead
16 of time about the pendency of an application.
17 Your regulations say your Board, this Board,
18 does not have the power to act affirmatively on this
19 application. You can clearly deny it for not complying
20 with your regulations . You can postpone it to allow
21 the applicant an opportunity to now comply, but you
22 cannot approve, according to your own regulations .
23 The case of Holly Development versus Arapahoe
24 County, I believe, is the more appropriate case to look
25 at . That is the case that says when there is not the
Page 35
1 published notice, there is no jurisdiction. The
2 hearing can ' t go forward. Everything that occurs after -
3 that is a nullity, and that is the situation we believe
4 you are in today, up until the applicant decides to
5 comply with all of the requirements of your -
6 regulations .
7 Thank you very much.
8 MR. LONG: Any questions for Mr. Ziemke? -
9 MR. MORRISON: Well , first of all , the
10 meeting that was - - the first meeting of March 18th was
11 a regularly scheduled meeting. It wasn ' t set _
12 specifically for this purpose; although, only one case
13 was scheduled. It was scheduled. It was adopted by
14 the schedule of the Planning Commission, and there was _
15 an agenda posted as per the Open Meetings law. So that
16 meeting took -- that meeting did take place . No
17 hearing was conducted, but the items on that agenda _
18 were continued over .
19 I think the issue of the posting - - in fact ,
20 if you - - your own rules do not say that it has to be
21 up continuously. It says it has to be posted prior to
22 the hearing, within that time frame . It doesn ' t say
23 they have to be continuous . In fact , to say it has to
24 be up continuous invites the mischief rather than the
25 other way around.
Page 36
1 It ' s interesting that a lot was made of being
2 down, but there was no effort to replace it either. I
3 just don' t - - really, the whole argument revolves
4 around this view that the meeting is a nullity in
5 March. But as I said, it was a regularly scheduled
6 meeting of an agenda . There was no quorum, and there
7 was no action taken other than to reset the meeting to
8 the next available, which is appropriate under Roberts
9 Rules of Order .
10 There was publication prior to the March - -
11 prior to the April meeting in which business on this
12 was conducted. So, you know, I continue to maintain
13 that that was appropriate .
14 Interestingly, there has been no evidence
15 that anyone was denied an opportunity to testify at
16 those hearings because of this supposed deficiency. In
17 fact , a review of the record might indicate that there
18 was no lack of testimony from those in the
—
19 neighborhood.
20 Lastly, the case of Holly Development dealt
21 with a statutory requirement . The statutory
_ 22 requirement is publication. That occurred prior to any
23 testimony being taken. I think if that sits at a
24 higher level because it ' s in the statute, that was met .
' 25 MR. LONG: Thank you, Counsel .
Page 37
1 Any questions for Counsel? We ' ll take all of
2 these remarks into consideration.
3 MR. ZIEMKE : Just to clarify?
4 MR . LONG: I ' ll allow one more comment,
5 please, and then we ' ll go forward.
6 MR. ZIEMKE : It ' s just about my point about
7 the mischief with the sign.
8 If the regulation is interpreted as
9 Mr . Morrison states, then an applicant could do things
10 like post it at midnight, take it down at 5 : 00 a.m,
11 post it at a period some two months before the hearing,
12 take it down the next day, people will forget it about
13 it by the time the hearing occurs . Those are the kinds
14 of games that get played unless you interpret your
15 regulation which requires that it be posted a minimum
16 of ten days before the hearing. That can only mean
17 that it ' s for that ten-day period or for at least a
18 ten-day period prior to the hearing.
19 With that , thank you very much.
20 MR. LONG: Thank you. We ' ll consider all of
21 those remarks and discussions .
22 At this time, we ' ll go forward and go on to
23 the applicant and any new evidence they wish to
24 present .
25 State your name and address for the record,
Page 38
1 please .
2 MR. GRINNELL : Good morning, Chairman. Good
3 morning, Commissioners . My name is Bruce Grinnell .
4 I 'm the Administrator of LifeBridge Christian Church.
5 I represent the church as the applicant of this Change
6 of Zone application. My office is 10345 Ute Highway in
7 Longmont .
8 I want to thank the County Planning Staff and
9 the Commission Members, all of the Planning Commission,
10 the referral agencies and the surrounding property
11 owners for all of their time and energy in preparing
12 for today' s meeting.
13 Also here today is our consulting team who
14 have assisted in the preparation of our application.
15 Since today is a continuation of the May 7th hearing,
16 and for the sake of expediency, I will forego the
— 17 introduction.
18 Today our presentation will address four
19 issues . One, referral responses from the
20 municipalities . Two is traffic . Three is oil and gas .
21 Four are issues related to building height and offsets .
22 On referral responses , I would first like to
23 respond to the City of Longmont . There are three
24 issues addressed in Longmont ' s referral response .
25 These are : Scenic entry corridor, storm water and
Page 39 —
1 drainage, and urban services in the MUD.
2 The referral from Longmont indicates concern —
3 for the preservation of Longmont ' s scenic entry
4 corridor . We have previously discussed this issue with
5 Longmont and pointed out that the buildings which are —
6 addressed in their referral are approximately
7 three-quarters of a mile north of State Highway 119 and
8 have no impact on the view corridor. Nevertheless, in
9 an effort to evaluate the issue, we took a series of
10 photos to assess the potential impact . These photos
11 were taken while standing in multiple locations on the _
12 shoulder of the westbound lane of State Highway 119 .
13 These series of photos were taken from a point where
14 the LifeBridge development site begins to enter into _
15 view.
16 We believe that the pictures demonstrate that
17 the church campus buildings will have no effect on the
18 scenic corridor because the land where the church
19 campus will be located is not in the wide-angle view
20 perspective of these pictures . More importantly, Longs _
21 Peak, which is the visual focal point of concern, is
22 nearly in the center of the photos .
23 We believe that all of the issues addressed
24 by the City of Longmont related to storm water and
25 drainage have previously been addressed in detail in
Page 40
1 multiple meetings with Weld County Public Works and
2 CDOT. We would also like to point out that we have
3 previously committed to adhere to the standards
4 requested by Staff related to storm water and drainage .
5 The City of Longmont also requests Weld
6 County to increase the level and range of urban level
7 services in the MUD . Longmont ' s referral says , and I
8 quote : "People in urban areas tend to want urban-level
9 facilities and services, such as public libraries ,
10 parks, and recreational facilities . "
_ 11 I would like to remind the Board and point
12 out to the City of Longmont that in working with and at
13 the request of Weld County Staff, this development plan
14 specifically has been designed to provide the MUD with
15 urban level parks, recreational , educational ,
16 performing arts , and community center facilities, as
17 well as neighborhood commercial and retail services for
18 the benefit of the Weld County residents in the MUD .
19 So to this end, we are not quite sure how to interpret
20 this concern by the City of Longmont .
21 On Firestone and Frederick, we believe that
22 there are no new issues by either of these
23 municipalities .
24 For municipality Mead, the referral from Mead
25 addresses an issue related the level of traffic on Weld
Page 41
1 County Road 5 and Weld County Road 7 . At this time I
2 would like to have Matt Delich address those issues —
3 raised by Mead and, in addition, address the other
4 traffic issues which we were asked to speak to today.
5 MR. LONG: Thank you. _
6 MR. DELICH: Matt Delich, 2272 Glen Haven
7 Drive, Loveland, Colorado 80538 .
8 I prepared the Traffic Impact Study for the _
9 LifeBridge project , and in responding to the Mead
10 letter of -- I 'm going to be fairly brief because I
11 think Drew responded very well to it . _
12 The thing that I would like to perhaps
13 reinforce is that the - - Drew referred to the draw of a
14 school that could be located along County Roads 5 or 7 _
15 as it relates to the traffic of the children that might
16 be generated by this development .
17 The single family portion of this -
18 development, I think, totals about 115 dwelling units,
19 which will generate a fairly small number of children.
20 This is 115 single family dwelling units . There is a
21 substantial elderly component which will not generate
22 school-aged children. So this - - while there will be
23 traffic going in that direction, it will be fairly
24 small .
25 In addition to that , when I did my traffic
Page 42
1 analysis , I estimated that in the short-range future
2 about 5 percent of the traffic generated by the
3 LifeBridge project, the church campus and so on and so
4 forth, would be on the order of 5 percent , as Drew
5 mentioned earlier .
6 In the long-range analysis , I indicated that
7 the 5 percent is probably a good number for the church
8 portion of it and the residential portion of it . But
9 in my analysis, I also increased the retail component
10 to about 50 percent in that direction.
11 But in any case, we are talking about pretty
12 small numbers . As these roads get paved, they will be
13 able to handle the traffic, as Drew indicated.
14 To get to the Sunday event analysis , let me
15 also -- Drew was very detailed in his analysis of this ,
16 and I won' t dwell on that . Maybe to reinforce what he
17 said, I did some traffic counts out there as part of
18 the traffic study that was submitted, and then I did
19 some additional traffic counts on a Sunday morning on
20 119 and other area roads .
21 The peak hour traffic on a Sunday is about
22 20 percent of the peak hour traffic on a weekday. That
23 is one-fifth of the peak hour traffic on a weekday.
24 Now, granted, the traffic for a special event
25 would be higher than normal traffic on a weekday, but
Page 43 1 it can be handled at the State Highway 119 and 3 1/2
2 intersection with signalization. —
3 In the short-range future with the current
4 cross section, except 3 1/2 would be improved, would be
5 at the level of service C. That ' s a level of service C —
6 during the weekday peaks and during the Sunday peak
7 hour before and after a church event , a larger facility
8 than LifeBridge currently has . —
9 I guess with these statements I just want to
10 reinforce the information that Drew presented earlier,
11 and I 'm available for questions either now or later . _
12 MR. LONG: Thank you, Mr . Delich.
13 MR. GEILE : I want to make sure I understand.
14 You mentioned 115 single family dwelling _
15 units . Maybe I misunderstood that , but I thought there
16 was 358 residential dwelling units proposed for the
17 project . That would go all of the way from point A to _
18 point B, I guess , or point Z, all of the way from the
19 senior complexes to the single family residential to
20 the patio homes and everything else . _
21 MR. GRINNELL : Bruce Grinnell with
22 LifeBridge .
23 The single family homes portion of this
24 application is this area . Right now we have requested
25 115 lots, a density of 115 units in that 57 acres .
Page 44
1 All of this down here, this 92 acres which
2 contains all of the senior living and community center
3 and neighborhood center, has no kids . There are in
4 excess of 300 as a total density in that area . At this
5 point , we have intentionally requested that that be age
6 restricted and no kids . So there would be no - - it ' s a
7 senior, no kids community only at this point .
8 MR. GEILE : All through your application it
9 talks about 358 . So when you add everything up, as far
10 as people living in units, it adds up to 358 units , I
11 would assume, or at least you are going to have -- the
12 reference is water taps . So you would have 358 water
13 taps that have been set aside by Left Hand or --
14 MR. GRINNELL : Longs Peak.
15 MR. GEILE : Longs Peak to serve this area; is
— 16 that correct?
17 MR. GRINNELL : Of that total of units that
18 you are speaking of , only 110 of those units -- 115 of
— 19 those units have kids .
20 MR. GEILE : Thank you.
• 21 MR. LONG: Any other questions for Mr .
— 22 Delich?
23 Thank you.
24 MR. DELICH : Thank you.
25 MR. GRINNELL : The third issue we were asked
Page 45
1 to address is oil and gas . We have provided four
2 documents regarding oil and gas . One is a letter _
3 summarizing our accommodations to date, along with our
4 conversations with both Patina and EnCana . Two is
5 draft surface use agreement . Three is a draft _
6 agreement for compatible development . Four is a draft
7 agreement concerning all of the accommodation of oil
8 and gas interests . We believe that you have copies of
9 those in your packet .
10 Rather than specifically reviewing these
11 documents, I would like to summarize our efforts as _
12 follows : One, we have identified the drilling
13 envelopes on the site plan; two, we have located
14 drilling sites within those envelopes on the site plan; _
15 and we have also contacted both Patina and EnCana, who
16 I believe are both here today, and, as requested, we
17 have worked together to review the application _
18 information and to develop the draft agreements .
19 I would like to point out that these
20 documents are in draft form and that the legal
21 departments of all concerned are reviewing them. In •
22 our letter, we believe we have provided written
23 evidence that we are having ongoing discussions to
24 accommodate the concerns of the leaseholders on the
25 property.
Page 46
1 In doing so, we believe that we have met the
2 specific requirements of the Oil and Gas Goals and
3 Policies as required for this Change of Zone
4 application and the additional requirements of the
5 rezoning resolution for this application.
6 At this time, we respectfully submit that we
7 have met the mapping requirements of conditions 1B and
8 2A of the rezoning resolution; that we have either
9 accommodated the oil and gas concerns or made an
10 attempt to mitigate the concerns of both EnCana and
11 Patina, satisfying conditions 1G and 3 ; and as a result
12 of these accommodations, we respectively request that
13 conditions 1B, 1G, and 2A be removed from the rezoning
14 resolution.
15 MR. LONG: Can you restate those?
16 MR. GRINNELL : You bet , 1B, 1G, and 2A.
17 MR . LONG: Thank you.
18 MR . GRINNELL : ` Concerning building heights ,
19 setback, and offset, on June 20th we submitted our
20 latest revision and current request regarding building
21 heights and offsets .
22 To minimize potential misunderstandings, I
23 would like to take the time to review the maximum
24 building heights and offsets on the entire plan.
25 This picture identifies the areas where we
Page 47
1 are proposing a 30-foot maximum height , right here and
2 right here . These two areas are offset from the east
3 property line by 125 feet . I would like to point out
4 that this 30-foot height limit on the church campus is
5 a 5-foot reduction, so the 30-foot height limit in this -
6 area is a 5-foot reduction in the height that we
7 requested in our May application.
8 The next picture identifies the areas that -
9 have a proposed maximum building height of 35 feet .
10 That ' s the areas in yellow.
11 The single family housing, the 115 units we -
12 were talking about and the senior housing down here,
13 have been set forth with a maximum building height of
14 35 feet . _
15 The next picture identifies the areas that
16 have a proposed maximum building height of 45 feet .
17 This 45-foot area has an offset, so it begins right in -
18 here . It has an offset from the east property line of
19 the church campus of 250 feet . It includes all of the
20 area north of the tracks and the area from the south -
21 and west side of the church campus , as well as this
22 area of the senior village and the neighborhood center.
23 The next picture identifies the area that has _
24 a proposed maximum building height of 55 feet . That ' s
25 this area right here . This 55-foot area has an offset
Page 48
1 from the east property line of 375 feet . So if you
2 start from the property line here, when you get to the
3 first part of the 55-foot area you would be at
4 375 feet .
5 The next picture identifies the area that has
6 a proposed maximum building height of 60 feet . The
7 60-foot area, which is right here, has an offset from
- 8 the east property line . So this property line to this
9 first edge right here is 500 feet .
10 The final picture identifies the area that
- 11 has a proposed maximum building height of 75 feet .
12 That is this area in the middle . This 75-foot area has
13 an offset from the property line of 700 feet . So the
14 distance from this edge to the property line over here
15 is 700 feet .
16 I would also like to remind the Board that
17 there are two additional restrictions in this area .
18 The first is that only 20 percent of this area could
19 have a maximum building height of 75 feet . The other
20 80 percent of this area has a maximum building height
21 of 60 feet . Second is that the east property line
22 offset for building in this area in the next ten years
23 is 1100 feet .
24 What we have done is agreed to not build in
25 the first -- the eastern most 400 feet of that area for
Page 49 _
1 ten years .
2 Next is a drawing of the church campus where
3 I would like to point out that there is a 125-foot
4 offset all of the way around the church campus here and
5 on both sides of the track which would contain no
6 buildings .
7 The next drawing is a section along the
8 eastern property line, this being the eastern property -
9 line . This is the property line between the Elms at
10 Meadowvale and the LifeBridge campus .
11 The drawings show that there is a 125-foot -
12 setback plus building heights in the next 125 feet of
13 30-foot maximum, which is the same height as allowed in
14 the residential area with minimal to no setback from -
15 the property line .
16 Then at each 125-foot increment here is 45 ,
17 55 , and then 60-foot areas, and then this area is at -
18 700 feet from the property line . That initially begins
19 the 75-foot area, remembering that only 20 percent of
20 that area can be at 75 feet . The other 80 percent -
21 remains at 60 feet .
22 In addition to the initial ten years , no
23 buildings can be built in the first 400 feet of this
24 zone .
25 Next is a chart and a summary of height and
Page 50
—
1 offset combinations that are proposed in the plan. The
— 2 chart also compares these height/offsets to the minimum
3 height/offsets as required in the residential standard.
4 We found that this residential standard
5 allows for a 30-foot high building to be built 25 feet
6 off of the property line . We found that that standard
7 is the least restrictive standard in all of the bulk
— 8 requirements code in Weld County. Other codes allow
9 buildings either to be taller, at the same height, at
10 the same offset or closer at the same height .
— 11 What we have proposed is a building height of
12 30 feet with a 125-foot offset , which is a ratio of 25
13 to 6 . As you can see, as it is compared to the
— 14 standard, it ' s five times greater than the most
15 restrictive standard in Weld County code .
16 The other areas are shown as well . The
— 17 250 -- the 45-foot area is a 250-foot setback, which is
18 six times greater . The 55-foot area at 375 feet is
19 eight times greater. The 60-foot area at 500 feet is
— 20 ten times greater . Finally, the 75 feet at 700-foot in
21 offset is eleven times greater than the most
22 restrictive standard currently in Weld County code .
— 23 Additional considerations, to look for ways
24 to increase the compatibility of the site . We met with
25 our consultants on several occasions to evaluate other
Page 51
1 ideas, which included the articulation of buildings on
2 the site, setting the buildings at an angle to the
3 property line to try to mitigate the impact by not
4 having all of the buildings parallel to the property
5 line, by incorporating exterior material changes to -
6 break up the face of the building, try to incorporate a
7 checker-board matrix of building zones to somehow
8 restrict building along the -- in the campus, we -
9 reviewed an addition of residential homes along the
10 east side of the property line, and several other more
11 complicated scenarios . -
12 As a result of these discussions , and because
13 we believe that the Board asked us to make some
14 additional concessions, we have amended our application -
15 further. We have added a restriction to the eastern
16 500 feet of the church campus . This area represents
17 approximately the eastern most 32 acres of the church -
18 campus .
19 We have agreed to limit the length of the
20 north/south face of any building to 250 feet . The -
21 reason for doing that would be to keep from what we
22 felt was a consideration by the Board and the
23 homeowners that buildings could be too long on a _
24 north/south face, so we want to limit the total overall
25 length of the north/south face to 250 feet .
Page 52
1 We have also agreed to limit the minimum
�- 2 distance between any buildings in this area to 75 feet
3 so that if multiple buildings are built in that area
4 the minimum distance between them will be 75 feet .
5 We have also agreed to a maximum 20-percent
6 coverage on that area, which means that 80 percent of
7 that land will have no buildings . Once again, this is
8 in the first 500 feet of the church campus , the eastern
9 most 500 feet of the church campus .
10 We did these things because we felt it
- 11 necessary at this point . We are trying to be - - trying
12 to enhance compatibility and feel like our building
13 heights and setbacks at this point are reasonable and
- 14 that by limiting the north/south building faces and by
15 establishing a minimum of distance between buildings
16 that we would provide view corridors through the campus
17 on the eastern edge .
18 On several occasions from mid May to early
19 July, we contacted the Elms leadership group to meet .
20 In spite of our attempts , they were only able to meet
21 with us on one occasion, and that is July 3rd.
22 We also believe that we needed to provide
23 every resident with the most current information
24 regarding our application. On June 27th we mailed a
25 letter and drawings to each resident in Longview, the
Page 53
1 Elms at Meadowvale, Meadowvale Farms, and to residents
2 in the immediate area . We have provided the letter and
3 drawings , and we 've also submitted them to the Board
4 and Staff .
5 On Thursday, July 3rd, we met with the —
6 leadership group from the Elms at Meadowvale . It was
7 the leadership group that was preferred based on an
8 e-mail shortly after the May hearing . We reviewed the —
9 changes to the application with them. They had already
10 received them in the mail . We also discussed their
11 proposal which was , in essence, the proposal that they -
12 made to the Board in the May hearing. We were
13 unsuccessful in reaching an agreement .
14 We also discussed the alternative of the -
15 residential homes along the east side . The members of
16 this leadership group indicated that these homes would
17 block their view of the Front Range more than the -
18 church campus and that this was not a preferred option.
19 They did indicate that they would prefer a row of homes
20 with a 400-foot setback from the property line . Once -
21 again, we were unsuccessful in reaching an agreement .
22 We understand that the Board would prefer
23 that we would have reached an agreement with the -
24 residents . We ask that you please consider that we
25 have initiated the attempts on several occasions to
Page 54
1 meet together and that it was only just a few days
2 before this hearing that they were available to meet .
3 We have also made further considerations in
4 our application, further restrictions . Overall , we
-' 5 have provided mitigation well in excess of the County
6 standards to ensure this application is compatible with
7 the surrounding uses .
8 We ask that you approve this application at
9 this time without further modifications or amendments .
10 Questions?
11 MR. LONG: Thank you.
12 Any questions? Mr . Geile .
13 MR . GEILE : I think, Mr. Grinnell , that you
- 14 didn' t get to some of my concerns . Let me just kind of
15 go through it , and then you can respond to it , and it
16 has to do with density.
- 17 When you take a look at our ordinances that
18 relate to compatibility, there ' s one word in that that
19 is very important , and that is density. Let me kind of
- 20 go through some scenarios with you, and then maybe we
21 can come back to this and you can explain to me how the
22 density issues will not impede or affect the area .
- 23 I 'm going to do some relation to some
24 functions in Greeley. One of them is Northridge High
25 School . If you -- your application is 1 . 5 million
Page 55 .-.
1 square foot , 70 percent of that, your ground surface
2 will be about 1, 050 , 000 in ground surface square `
3 footage .
4 I 'm going to use a word, and I don' t want you
5 to take offense to it . We call them -- well , let ' s '-
6 just call them buildings . Those will actually be
7 buildings . We are calling them boxes now simply
8 because there is concern as to what is going to happen
9 in the future . There, in essence, will be 1 , 050 , 000
10 square foot of buildings in some kind of configuration
11 built on 160 acres .
12 Go back to my Northridge scenario .
13 Northridge is 190 , 000 square feet , but that ' s not
14 ground surface . Ground surface is in the neighborhood -
15 of around 100 , 000 square foot . Even if you take an
16 elementary school that is being built, you know, and
17 being very conservative with the numbers, the -
18 elementary and Northridge High School in, like I say,
19 the adjacent , is about 170 , 000 square foot or roughly
20 1700 square foot per acre . -
21 If you were to take that 1700 square foot and
22 relate it back to the first phase, which is 358 , 000
23 square feet , as I recall - - is it? No, 268 , 000 square
24 foot . That comes to 675 , which means that your first
25 phase compares with 100 acres that Northridge and the
Page 56
1 elementary school is built on.
2 If you were to take the full 1 , 050 , 000 square
3 foot and just take Northridge alone, and even being
4 conservative of 120 , 000 of ground space, you would be
5 putting a little over nine Northridge High Schools into
6 this area.
7 Another thing I did was to take a look at
8 kind of a campus , and the campus is Greeley West . If
9 you take a look at the Greeley West campus, several
10 things have happened over the years . There were
11 existing houses in the area. Greeley West was built .
12 More houses were built . If you go south - - directly
13 north of that , there is a very, very large church with
14 a very, very large auditorium, and that was built 15
15 years ago, ten to 15 years ago.
16 Then you go north of that and there ' s
17 Dayspring High School . That was built probably within
18 the last seven years, and then immediately west to
19 Dayspring is another church.
20 If you take it , you could probably come up
21 with an area of 100 square feet . Just from my own view
22 in looking at this, I came up with a number of about - -
23 if you add it all together, it would be about 340 , 000
24 square foot on roughly 100 acres . Then if you were to
25 add - - well , about 340 , 000 square foot .
Page 57
1 If you run the numbers again, it ' s somewhere
2 around 100 to 120 acres . Like I say, an argument can -
3 be made, especially if you are adding in residential
4 areas, that you can actually come up with between 3 , 400
5 and 4 , 000 square feet per acre . -
6 If you run that back against the 160 that you
7 are talking about , making a comparison in that area - -
8 well , let me say that there ' s no way to make a -
9 comparison, but this is just the way I viewed it . You
10 would come up to about 650 , 000 square feet versus - -
11 and I 'm talking about ground surface . I can actually
12 see that and see how it fits .
13 A couple of things . It certainly hasn' t
14 impeded the value of the housing in the area as these -
15 projects have developed. If anything, it has probably
16 enhanced them because of the proximity of the school
17 and the churches and other things , shopping, but I -
18 still have this view.
19 If you run your numbers at 1 , 050 , 000 square
20 feet , we ' re at 6 , 562 - - about 6500 square foot per -
21 acre . I guess my question is : Help me understand how
22 this won' t literally be a conglomeration of a
23 1, 050 , 000 square feet piled into 160 acres . Help me
24 understand how this - - and we are talking about a
25 50-year period.
Page 58
1 Help me understand why it wouldn' t be better
2 to make an adjustment in your plan down to something
3 like 650 , 000 square feet with some kind of an opening
4 that you could come back and modify it as time goes on
5 and take it up to that , which would give time, over a
6 five-year period, to see how all of this project is
7 going to come together.
8 You know, I have probably thrown about 50
9 questions at you in that summary.
10 MR. GRINNELL: It ' s okay.
- 11 I would like to go back to the one on the
12 elementary and Northridge . You indicated 17 , 000 square
13 feet per acre, which is roughly an FAR of - - it ' s over
- 14 . 3 .
15 MR. GEILE : Let me also say that that doesn ' t
16 include - - they have a stadium out there . It doesn ' t
17 include a bunch of soccer fields and things like that .
18 It ' s just the actual physical facility.
19 MR. GRINNELL : I believe that our application
20 indicates, Commissioner, that we have a maximum FAR on
21 the site of . 26 ; is that correct?
22 So overall on the site, our application
23 indicates a maximum FAR ratio as relative to the
24 property of . 26 . At 42 , 500 square feet per acre, and
25 at roughly . 26 , just trying to do the math in my head,
Page 59
1 it ' s 11, 000 or 12 , 000 square feet per acre of floor
2 area . It would be under 11, 000 , I guess, square feet -
3 of floor area per acre at maximum build-out .
4 That sounds to me like it ' s similar to some
5 of the numbers that you had quoted earlier. -
6 MR. GEILE : Let me just go back, taking the
7 160 acres and putting nine Northridge High Schools on
8 the site . _
9 MR. GRINNELL : I think that the question
10 was - - your interpretation of the 1 . 5 million square
11 feet that there would be 1, 050 , 000 square feet of -
12 floor .
13 MR. GEILE : That ' s correct .
14 MR. GRINNELL: And what I 'm saying is that we
15 have limited the maximum amount of floor on the site to
16 26 percent of the 160 acres, which is less than
17 1, 050 , 000 square feet .
18 MR. GEILE : That is what I 'm trying to get
19 at, because I was having trouble trying to understand
20 your numbers .
21 Can you tell me what it would be? Can
22 someone do the math on it?
23 MR . GRINNELL : We believe that it ' s 758 , 000
24 square feet as the actual floor area ratio on the
25 campus .
Page 60
1 MR. GEILE : That is actual physical building
2 structure?
3 MR. GRINNELL : That ' s footprint .
4 MR. GEILE : That ' s footprint . Thank you.
5 That answers my question.
6 MR . GRINNELL: There was just a - - that was a
7 major consideration. You didn ' t want to cover the
8 ground completely, and it also goes back to -- that ' s
9 the total?
10 The actual , based on our math here, we are
— 11 requesting 919 square feet of building footprint per
12 acre .
13 MR. GEILE : Say that one more time . I 'm
— 14 sorry.
15 MR. GRINNELL : We are asking for 919 square
16 feet of building footprint per acre . We can check
— 17 those numbers during the rest of this presentation. If
18 it ' s incorrect, we can come back and amend it .
19 MR. GEILE : If you wouldn ' t mind checking, I
— 20 would appreciate it .
21 MR. GRINNELL : You bet .
22 Any other questions?
._ 23 MR. LONG: Thank you.
24 Commissioner Jerke?
25 MR. JERKE : Well , just on the same area, I
Page 61
1 guess . I just did simple math. I don ' t understand
2 some of the complex math, perhaps . I divided 1 , 000 , 000
3 square feet by an acre, by 43 , 560 , and rounded out to
4 about 23 acres on, I guess, the 160-acre parcel . That
5 is if you had 1, 000 , 000 square feet spread out . You -
6 are saying that some of it is going to be, obviously,
7 two or three stories that applies to your footprint
8 lines, and that doesn' t count towards parking, -
9 obviously, landscaping, pathways, open space, soccer
10 field, whatever you put in.
11 I guess I came to a little different -
12 conclusion that potentially 1 , 000, 000 square feet could
13 be put on a quarter section fairly easily.
14 MR. GRINNELL : I 'm fairly certain our -
15 application does limit our FAR to . 26 overall on the
16 campus . It was an item of discussion with Staff early
17 on. -
18 MR. LONG: Any further questions for
19 Mr. Grinnell? None at this time .
20 We ' ll now take referral agencies . Anybody -
21 from - - I ' ll go through the municipalities last on the
22 referral agencies , but if there is a representative •
23 such as like from an oil company or something like that -
24 that have any questions or concerns , I would ask you to
25 come forward at this time .
Page 62
1 MR. PADGETT : Good morning . My name is David
2 Padgett . I 'm a consultant for Patina Oil & Gas . The
3 business address is 1625 Broadway, Suite 2000 , Denver,
4 Colorado 80202 .
- 5 I apologize . I have not seen the specific
6 wording on a condition of approval that I believe came
7 out of planning. I will acknowledge that there has
8 been ongoing conversation with the LifeBridge group and
9 their legal representative . However, at this time, all
10 we 've done is, in fact , exchange a very generic draft
11 of a surface use agreement regarding undrilled
12 locations on their - - in the southeast quarter of their
13 property.
14 My suggestion and request would be that if
15 that condition basically said that we need to have an
16 agreement between the oil companies and LifeBridge, I
- 17 don' t see any reason why it should be removed. That ' s
18 where we are trying to go . That is the objective of
19 the parties . We are not there yet, so why remove the
- 20 condition if , in fact , it has not yet been fulfilled.
21 I will acknowledge that there has been
22 ongoing conversation. A very generic draft has been
23 submitted to LifeBridge, but there is no agreement
24 between Patina Oil & Gas and LifeBridge at this time .
25 If you have any questions, I would be happy
Page 63 _
1 to answer them for you.
2 MR. LONG: Thank you, Mr . Padgett . —
3 Any questions? Commissioner Jerke .
4 MR. JERKE : Just one, I guess .
5 If we were to approve this case completely on "-
6 you coming to an agreement with these people, that
7 would give you absolute veto power over somebody else ' s
8 surface project . That is something that I have a hard -
9 time with. So you are going to have to help me in
10 showing that you are coming to the table and that you
11 are working with these people as well . What you are -
12 telling me is that you want absolute veto power.
13 MR . PADGETT : I guess what I would say is I
14 would go back to the slide that the applicant put up -
15 where they said that they had created building
16 envelopes for each of our potential oil and gas
17 facilities . -
18 I also saw other drawings , and I 'm sorry we
19 don' t have an overlay of those, but if we are allocated
20 the space to conduct our future opportunities , we -
21 really don' t need an agreement with the party because
22 they have allowed us space . So we can go in and drill
23 our wells whenever we choose to drill them. If they
24 don ' t want those where they are legally allowed to be
25 per Colorado oil and gas statutes , then we need to have
— Page 64
1 an agreement between the parties that says I don' t want
2 them here, I want them somewhere else . In that case,
3 we create the need for an agreement .
4 If they are going to give us the envelopes
5 that we are legally entitled to, then it doesn ' t
6 require that there be an agreement . We just say that
7 there needs to be accommodation of the parties .
8 MR. JERKE : So are you close to the center of
9 the --
10 MR. PADGETT: I apologize to you,
11 Commissioner, but I don ' t know exactly. I haven' t seen
12 it per scale . According to what they show on their
13 plat right there, you can see the blue areas of boxes .
14 Then they show circles within those blue areas . If
15 that is, in fact , accurate, those are legal drilling
16 locations for Patina ' s Oil & Gas assets in that part of
17 our leasehold. Without seeing it to scale, all I can
18 say is that the picture looks accurate .
19 MR. JERKE : Thank you.
20 MR. PADGETT: You ' re welcome .
21 MR. LONG: Mr . Masden.
22 MR. MASDEN: Mr. Padgett , how big of areas or
23 windows are you guys asking for?
24 MR. PADGETT: Under Colorado oil and gas
25 rules and regulations , we are entitled to four
Page 65 —
1 400 square windows in the center of each 40-acre tract ,
2 and then an 800 square window in the center of the --
3 160-acre tract .
4 If you refer to this particular slide, you
5 can see that the two on the -- first of all , Patina ' s -
6 leasehold lies on the south end of this property. I
7 believe EnCana has the leasehold to the north. So I 'm
8 only addressing those issues relative to Patina ' s -
9 leasehold.
10 We have - - of the 160 acres that was not
11 previously platted with some other residential -
12 subdivision, you can see that there was five windows
13 shown in blue at the south end of this plat . Two have
14 already been compromised by existing development . So -
15 what they are showing us is three windows . The center
16 one would be 800 foot square, and then the two others .
17 Based upon the circles they have within -
18 those, that looks like that would be adequate for our
19 purposes .
20 MR. MASDEN: According to state statute? _
21 MR. PADGETT : Correct .
22 MR. LONG: Any other questions for Mr .
23 Padgett? -
24 Thank you, sir.
25 MR. PADGETT : Thank you.
Page 66
1 MR. LONG: If there are any other oil
2 companies or referral agencies outside of the
3 municipalities , I would ask you to come forward at this
4 time .
5 we ' ll ask, since there is nobody else - -
6 referral agencies outside of the municipalities , I will
7 ask if there is a representative from Frederick,
8 Firestone, or Mead. I ' ll start with Frederick right
9 now.
10 We do have the copies on the record, as far
11 as their responses , but I just want to give them an
12 opportunity if they are here . Nobody here from
13 Frederick, Firestone? Would Mead like to have an
14 opportunity? Come forward, please, Ursula .
15 MS . MORGAN: Thank you for having us up.
16 Actually, I just had a question. When they
17 said the traffic coming northbound, that was 15 percent
18 of what number?
19 MR. LONG: We ' ll get clarification on that .
20 MS . MORGAN: That ' s the only thing I had.
21 MR. LONG: Would you restate it for
22 clarification for Drew?
23 MS . MORGAN: I thought it was a total of 15
24 percent going northbound.
25 MR. LONG: Excuse me . I need your name and
Page 67 —
1 address for the record.
2 MS . MORGAN: Ursula Morgan, 2667 Meadow Lane, —
3 Mead, Colorado . That is all I had, the 5 or 15 percent
4 of what total number.
5 MR. LONG: We ' ll get -- is Staff ready for • —
6 that?
7 MR. SCHELTINGA: Yes . Drew Scheltinga of
8 Public Works , and I would invite Matt to correct me . -
9 Matt took 5 percent of the total traffic to
10 be on Road 26 , and then he later increased it to
11 15 percent of the commercial -- the traffic that would -
12 be generated commercially. I don' t know what that
13 total is . I think it ' s still relatively low. Matt may
14 be able to address it off the top of his head, but it
15 was 5 percent of the base overall , plus 15 percent of
16 the commercial at build-out .
17 MR. LONG: Please, Matt , give your name and
18 address again.
19 MR. DELICH : Matt Delich again. 2272 Glen
20 Haven Drive in Loveland.
21 Drew is pretty close . I did - - under Phase
22 I , the initial portion of it, it ' s 5 percent of all of
23 the generated traffic that would go north or in that
24 general northeast direction.
25 In the long-range analysis , it was 5 percent
Page 68
1 of the church generated traffic and residential
2 generated traffic that would go in that northeast
3 direction, and 15 percent of the commercial generated
4 traffic would go to and from that direction.
5 Thank you.
6 MR. LONG: Thank you.
7 I think it would be appropriate at this time
8 maybe to break for lunch. It ' s getting close to 12 : 00,
9 and our next segment will be the time for public
10 comment . I ' ll just give everybody the hour, so if we
11 could reconvene at 1 : 00 , if that would be okay. We
12 will reconvene at 1 : 00 .
13 I would just like to preface that public
14 comments are in regards to new evidence presented today
15 and not evidence that was presented at the last
16 proceeding . That ' s to be able to respect everybody' s
17 time . We have the evidence . We will be able to go
18 forward with that . So with respect to the process and
19 procedure, I would ask that you limit any evidence to
20 new evidence only and please respect everybody' s time .
21 I also -- with that , we ' ll have a recess . Everybody
22 have a careful and good hour and 15 minutes .
23 (Lunch recess taken 11 : 38 p .m. to 1 : 03 p .m. )
24 MR . LONG: Again, we would just like a record
25 of everybody in attendance today. There ' s a clipboard
Page 69
1 going around to put your name and address on. Also, if
2 you wish to speak during the public comment period of -
3 today' s hearing, fill out a card. Carol and Esther
4 have those cards here, just so we can have a record of
5 that and I can be able to go in some semblance of -
6 order.
7 If you decide - - if you are undecided at this
8 time and you wish to speak later, still during public -
9 comment period, you will have that opportunity to do
10 so. Sometimes people are not prepared or don ' t wish to
11 speak at the beginning and have an idea come into their -
12 head later and wish to speak your mind. It ' s not our
13 idea or intention to be able to limit anybody in that
14 regard to being able to speak. -
15 However, since this is a continuance, we are,
16 again, as I stated earlier, asking you that all of your
17 comments be related to new evidence that was presented -
18 today. You might have new evidence that relates to
19 either your support or opposition, but basically what
20 we 've done is heard the major part of that in previous -
21 hearings or the previous part of this hearing. So
22 we ' re asking you at this point to relate all of your
23 comments to the new evidence as related and brought
24 forward today.
25 I did omit - - and I apologize . Before lunch,
Page 70
1 I wanted to give Longmont an opportunity, if anybody
2 was here from Longmont, to be able to testify. We do
3 have your referral on record anyway, but we just wanted
4 to give you that opportunity to give any verbal
5 comments that you might have .
6 I see that nobody from Longmont is here, so I
7 will move on from there .
8 So if you have any -- if you fill out your
9 card, please bring it forward or take it over to Carol .
10 So at this time, I will open this up for public
- 11 hearing.
12 At this time, Mr. Peter Gries has indicated
13 that he would like to make a presentation. State for
- 14 the record, please, sir, your name and address .
15 MR. GRIES : Thank you. Peter Gries , 11685
16 Montgomery Circle, Longmont , Colorado, Weld County
17 District 2 .
18 The first thing I would like to do is thank
19 the County Commissioners for taking the time to take
20 public input .
21 The second thing I would like to do is to let
22 you know that the new items that I 'm going to be
23 focusing on are in your packet labeled as Exhibits WW,
24 which is an appraisal . The Citizens for Sensible
25 Development of Weld County are commissioned from Donald
Page 71
1 Hammond Appraisals in response to questions that
2 Commissioners Geile and Jerke made last time about the -
3 issue of takings and givings .
4 Also, Exhibit YY, which is the traffic study
5 we commissioned from TDA Colorado, David Leahy, a -
6 25-year experienced traffic engineer, responding to the
7 LifeBridge traffic study. Exhibit Z, which is the
8 jurisdictional defect letter, and Exhibit UU, which is _
9 the results of a neighborhood survey.
10 So just to give you the heads-up, those are
11 going to be the exhibits that I will be -- the new
12 items that I will be focusing on.
13 The basic request that I would like to make
14 of all four of you Commissioners today is that you do -
15 the right thing and you send this application back to
16 the Planning Commission because there ' s a very serious
17 question of jurisdictional defect that has already been -
18 discussed, and I will not discuss it at length, because
19 I don ' t have the confidence that Peter Ziemke has .
20 Since there is the slightest bit of doubt
21 that this was properly notified and because there is
22 the highest judicial standard of strictness on these
23 issues , because it comes down to a basic issue of
24 democratic process , I ask you to do the conservative
25 thing, to do the prudent thing, which is to return this -
Page 72
1 application to the Planning Commission, start over,
2 proceed quickly, but do it right and show the people of
3 Weld County that you care about the democratic process .
4 If you will not do that , I ask that, at a
5 minimum, you continue this hearing until after the
6 election on incorporation of the Town of Freedom,
7 Colorado, which will be on August 26th.
8 So basically my request to you today is to
9 send it back to the Planning Commission. If you cannot
10 do that , at a minimum, continue this hearing until
11 after the vote on August 26th.
12 I 'm just going to go very quickly through the
13 first two issues . Last night the Election Commission
14 that was authorized by District Court met , and they
15 scheduled the election for August 26th. That ' s - -
16 MR. LONG: Excuse me, Mr . Gries . This item
17 is not related to this application, that is in the
18 boundaries of this application. So any of your remarks
19 need to be contained in regards to any part of the
20 application only and not anything outside or how it
21 might affect something outside, other than what exists
22 today.
23 MR. GRIES : Okay. As you can see from this
24 map of the boundaries of the Town of Freedom, Colorado,
25 over 200 Weld County taxpayers are - -
Page 73
1 MR. LONG: Again, sir, I have to ask you to
2 limit your comments to the application and not to the -
3 future because right now we are dealing with today,
4 other than we are looking at the future, but we are
5 looking in the future as it exists today. -
6 MR. GRIES : Okay. I guess the relevance to
7 today' s application is that it ' s not exactly clear how
8 many acres are involved in the application today, plus _
9 or minus 300 , but over 40 acres of that will not exist ,
10 in all likelihood, in a few weeks .
11 Therefore, that constitutes more than 10
12 percent of the application or a substantial change in
13 the application. Therefore, I suggest - -
14 MR. LONG: Excuse me .
15 MR . MORRISON: First of all , since you 've
16 approached the subject, as of Monday the courts had not
17 scheduled hearings for the opportunity for objections
18 on the petition. There was a preliminary order, no
19 final order, in this case . I don ' t know if that ' s
20 changed since Monday.
21 I 'm also not sure about the scheduling of an
22 election on that date . The courts would -- the law, as
23 I understand, have to follow the election process,
24 which means it would have to be on a general election.
25 I haven ' t -- I looked at the court file, and it ' s not
Page 74
1 clear to me that August 26th is an appropriate date for
2 that . That ' s number one .
3 Number two, you 've reached the closings and
4 it hasn' t happened. I don ' t think you can say that
5 it ' s not going to be required. It ' s currently within
6 Weld County ' s planning jurisdiction, and I think we
7 have to deal with it on that basis .
— 8 MR. LONG: Commissioner Jerke .
9 MR. JERKE : Just to ask Counsel a question
10 too. Substantial change would deal with an applicant
11 who is making a substantial change to their
12 application, would it not , rather than a third party
13 that is coming in and suggesting something that they
14 are doing in land use could constitute a substantial
15 change to the applicant ' s application? Which is it?
16 Is it one or the other or both?
17 MR. MORRISON: It can be a third party in the
18 sense that you can have a substantial change effected
19 by what a neighbor did in some kind of a development .
— 20 But again, that presupposes something that hasn' t
21 happened. If it ' s incorporated, you know, then that
22 will enter into the factor . There is no -- it has to
23 go through that process . There has to be an election
24 held before it can affect anybody.
25 MR. GRIES : Yesterday morning the District
Page 75 _
1 Court Clerk set a hearing date for mid August, and then
2 last night the Election Commission met and set the —
3 August 26th date . The rule there being that the
4 election has to be on a Tuesday, and that is why it ' s
5 August 26th. —
6 The only issue there that I really wanted to
7 point out is that in the local land use decision you
8 are talking about making a decision about land that —
9 should be regulated by the most local authority. We
10 are talking about over 40 acres and two roads , 26 and
11 3 1/2 , that will not be yours to take care of . So for -
12 you to make a decision on that seems a little bit
13 hasty.
14 I ' ll move on.
15 MR. LONG: Litigants, I please ask you to
16 limit your comments to support or opposition of the
17 application and the specific topics of new evidence . _
18 MR. GRIES : Okay. Then I 'm not going to
19 waste your time on this , again, because Peter Ziemke
20 did a much better job.
21 But simply, in a word, you cannot continue a
22 hearing that was not properly posted. So all of these
23 citings about sort of a trail , that you go to this
24 meeting, go to the next meeting, go to the next
25 meeting, doesn' t mean anything because there was no
Page 76
1 proper posting of the meeting in the first place . So
2 you can' t continue that .
3 This is the Weld County code . Even if there
4 is - - even if you do think that County Attorney is
5 correct on this, I think that even the slightest bit of
6 ambiguity requires you to do the prudent thing and to
7 send this back to the Planning Commission to do this
8 properly. It would not be much of an extension at all ,
9 maybe a month or two, but it would allow you to
10 demonstrate to the voters of this county that you do
11 follow Weld County code .
12 Let ' s continue . I don' t want to waste your
.. 13 time on this . So you can go through that .
14 This is Exhibit Z in your record. It gives
15 the full letter that will be made into a complaint and
16 filed tomorrow or Friday if you proceed. But basically
17 the arguments that Pete Ziemke made will be submitted
18 to a judge tomorrow if you proceed with this matter.
19 So we don' t need to go through the details here .
20 Next slide, please .
21 This is excerpts from that Exhibit Z that
22 make the argument that you cannot continue a meeting
23 that was not properly posted, so let ' s continue .
24 Okay. Compatibility standards, and for this
25 I will be pointing to new items WW and YY.
Page 77 1 The basic principle here is in the Weld code,
2 and it ' s enshrined, that a new development shall —
3 demonstrate compatibility with existing surrounding
4 land use in terms of general use, building heights,
5 scale, density, traffic, dust and noise . I ' ll try to
6 go through quickly focusing only on new evidence .
7 Next slide, please .
8 General use, it is very important that people
9 understand that this is not a rezoning from
10 agricultural to residential , as Bruce Grinnell has told
11 the entire LifeBridge congregation. That is a _
12 misunderstanding of what is being asked here today, and
13 it needs to be very clear. If they were asking for a
14 PUD residential , I think all of the neighbors would be _
15 delighted.
16 By the way, the principle of residential to
17 residential interconnectivity is one that I personally _
18 support , as well . But the point here is that this is
19 not an application for a rezoning from agricultural to
20 PUD residential as Bruce Grinnell claims . As he knows
21 very well , this is a PUD with six different PUD zoning
22 classifications, the primary ones being general
23 commercial and neighborhood commercial zoning. That is _
24 the aspect of general use that is problematic .
25 Next slide, please .
Page 78
1 This is extremely clear from the MUD, which
2 is a chapter of the Weld County code . This is the law
3 that we are here to uphold.
4 All of you know this map very well . If you
5 look at the field in question, it is marked in yellow.
6 Yellow means residential . That means that home buyers
7 like myself, when we bought into an adjacent property,
8 could go to the Weld code and be content that our
9 investment was being made with the understanding that
10 when that farm was developed it would either be
11 residential or it would be compatible with residential .
12 Okay. I think everybody who lives in the
13 farms and homes of Meadowvale would be happy with
14 anything that was residential or compatible with
15 residential .
16 Next slide, please .
17 Again, the basic point here is that this is
18 not residential development that we are talking about .
19 It ' s urban development .
20 The building heights , nothing has changed
21 since the last meeting in terms of what LifeBridge has
22 presented to you on building heights , despite the fact
23 that the Commissioners explicitly directed LifeBridge
24 to compromise with the neighbors on the issue of
25 heights .
Page 79
1 Our counter-proposal was on the table on the
2 issue of heights . We said instead of scaling from 45 -
3 feet up to 75 feet , let ' s scale from 30 to 50 with a
4 one-time exception for the space for the theater of 72
5 feet . -
6 You asked LifeBridge to compromise with us on
7 that and to negotiate . I actually initiated
8 discussions with them over having a meeting to -
9 negotiate it, but they didn' t . They did not give a
10 single inch. They are still asking for 75 feet .
11 The minor change that they made at the other _
12 end, which is nonsignificant by comparison, 35 to
13 30 feet , is really irrelevant because that is where
14 they want to put their permanent road. They don' t plan _
15 to put buildings there anyway.
16 To argue that a 75-foot auditorium seating
17 close to 10 , 000 people is compatible with 22 and _
18 28-foot houses is to make a mockery of the Weld County
19 code . Compatible means roughly the same as . It
20 doesn' t mean triple or quadruple, and there is no need
21 for buildings of that height , even if you need to have
22 6 , 000 people inside of them. The Island Grove Regional
23 Event Center accomodates that many people without that
24 kind of height .
25 Next slide, please .
Page 80
1 Scales, and this gets to Commissioner Geile ' s
2 comments today. LifeBridge is requesting 1 . 5 million
3 square feet on their church campus alone . Twin Peaks
4 Mall in Longmont is a third of that size, and the high
5 school that was discussed earlier is probably about
6 one-fifteenth of that size .
7 This is urban scale development that Weld
8 County cannot possibly adequately service, and it will
9 become a burden of an adjacent community called Freedom
10 and especially the current community called Longmont .
11 I was disappointed that Kim Ogle did not read
12 at length from the Longmont referral letter . There is
13 tremendous concern in Longmont about the strain that
14 this kind of urban development right on the edge of
15 Longmont is going to have on Longmont . Longmont is
16 going to pay the price for the decision that you make
17 today.
18 MR. LONG : Just to cover this, it is part of
19 our record. We have read that .
20 MR. GRIES : Okay. Thank you.
21 Next slide .
22 The density issue, also Commissioner Geile
23 talked about this . Again, it ' s not a question of floor
24 area ratio . All of this discussion of FAR is
25 completely misleading. A house that has a certain
Page 81
1 floor area ratio on a quarter acre or 1-acre lot
2 usually is home to three, maybe four people . But they -
3 are talking about auditoriums that will seat 6 , 000
4 people in one case, 3 , 300 people in another case, an
5 amphitheater that will seat 1 , 500 people in another -
6 place .
7 To talk about floor area ratios , if this is
8 not dense development , is to make a mockery of -
9 Commissioner Geile ' s questions , which were very
10 legitimate questions .
11 Another way to think about it is to think -
12 about the volume of these proposed structures . Let ' s
13 talk simply about the single auditorium in Phase I , the
14 smaller auditorium, the 3300-seat auditorium. We won' t _
15 even talk about the 6 , 000-seat auditorium.
16 That auditorium would be larger than all of
17 the homes built in the Farms and Elms currently _
18 combined, and it will be larger than they are even
19 after the Genesee portion of the Elms . The Elms is
20 only half built out . The volume of that one auditorium
21 will be larger than all of these houses combined. So
22 if you want to do volume to area ratio, you will see a
23 completely different picture .
24 Next slide, please .
25 Here, turning to traffic , I ' ll be referring
Page 82
1 to Exhibits WW and YY. Five points . The traffic study
2 is flawed, interconnectivity, expansion, safety, and
3 property values .
4 Mr. Ogle --
5 MR. LONG: Excuse me . Direct all of your
6 questions to Commissioners .
7 MR. GRIES : Chairman Long, Mr. Ogle had
8 something to say and I didn ' t catch it .
9 MR. OGLE : I didn' t say anything.
10 MR. GRIES : Okay. Next slide, please .
11 We commissioned a traffic engineering
12 company, TDA Colorado, David Leahy, to do a traffic
13 study, which is Exhibit YY. He went through the
14 LifeBridge commissioned study, and he found serious
15 flaws with that study, serious safety and quality of
16 life concerns on full build-out , and even in the
17 short-term a major flaw with the study is the lack of
18 any assessment of weekend traffic surges . That is
19 totally unacceptable .
20 Basically by only covering weekday traffic
21 and projecting future traffic flows on the idea of a
22 community college analogy, he failed to take into
23 account the most important traffic elements of the
24 proposal before you, PZ1004 , which is the two massive
25 auditoriums and amphitheaters, which are not just
Page 83
—
1 issues on Sunday morning.
2 LifeBridge says that this is a 24/7 -
3 community, and they have said on many occasions that
4 these auditoriums will be used on Wednesday and
5 Thursday nights , all kinds of different times . -
6 To argue on the basis of a community college
7 analogy, without taking into account these various
8 auditoriums, that there will only be 300 more cars on -
9 Pearl Howlett when the location of these auditoriums is
10 right at the top of Pearl Howlett , that road will
11 literally be connected right into the parking lots that _
12 will eventually have 5 , 000 or 6 , 000-car parking lots
13 servicing two auditoriums that will seat 9 , 300 people .
14 To say that that ' s only going to add 300 odd car trips -
15 along Pearl Howlett is very, very problematic .
16 Next slide, please .
17 On the interconnectivity issue, which Weld _
18 Public Works continues to argue for, I will repeat the
19 point I made earlier . I personally, and I think most
20 of my neighbors, agree with the basic principle of _
21 interconnectivity between residential neighborhoods,
22 but this principle does not apply when what you are
23 talking about is an urban development with two
24 auditoriums seating 9300 people .
25 Therefore, the interconnectivity argument
Page 84
1 that , in principle, neighborhoods should be connected,
2 simply in principle, does not apply.
3 I will also say that I was a little bit
4 disturbed in hearing from the LifeBridge traffic expert
5 and also from Public Works ' traffic expert when they
6 talked about children and the impact of going to
7 school . All they talked about were LifeBridge
8 children. They talked about the increasing traffic
9 flows from children who would live in the proposed
10 LifeBridge development going other places .
11 I never heard them talk for one minute about
12 the children in the Farms at Meadowvale, and in the
13 Elms at Meadowvale that would be impacted by traffic
14 going in and out of these massive events through their
15 neighborhoods .
16 Whether to cut down 119 and 5 1/2 or whether
17 to get on County Road 5 1/2 or County Road 7 , one of
18 which will be expanded into a four-lane highway, that
19 meeting is at 4 : 00 down at the Weld southwest office .
20 Next slide, please .
21 This is exactly what I want to talk about
22 here . I have to say that I do not know how this
23 happened. There should be some kind of institutional
24 mechanism to prevent this from happening . I know that
25 coordinating a large bureaucracy is difficult , but
Page 85 1 there needs to be someone accountable at the top of the
2 system that coordinates the schedules of various public —
3 hearings .
4 The fact that Public Works would schedule
5 their 1-25 four-lane arterial open house today at a —
6 different location is extremely callous . Again, I ' m
7 not trying to assign intentionality here, but that
8 should have been prevented because the people who live —
9 in the Elms and Farms at Meadowvale are being assaulted
10 on both sides by these two hearings .
11 I cannot defend myself in front and back at —
12 the same time . Nobody in my community has the ability
13 to do that . I spoke with the deputy director of
14 Colorado State Parks just a few days ago, and he told _
15 me his bottom line is no . Currently, County Road 7
16 does not connect between County Road 6 and 26 and 119 ,
17 and Weld County would have to connect the road
18 through -- right through what is currently Barbour
19 State Park, but the State is investing millions of
20 dollars to turn it into the premiere fishing park and _
21 has already invested that money. They do not want that
22 highway to go right through their fishing - -
23 MR. LONG: Mr . Gries, I ask you to redirect
24 your comments to the application, inside of that
25 boundary.
Page 86
1 MR . GRIES : Well , the application does deal
2 with 5 1/2 . If 5 1/2 becomes a four-lane highway
3 because Weld County cannot condemn state land, then 5
4 1/2 will be four lanes . You will have a 10 , 000-seat
5 auditorium on the other side, and you will have two
6 roads, according to Public Works, connecting the two.
7 In a way, it ' s like the jaws closing on a community.
_ 8 It creates a very dangerous situation.
9 Next slide .
10 This is just , you know, off the Weld County
- 11 website discussing the 1-25 corridor study.
12 Next slide .
13 This is a map of the 1-25 corridor study. If
- 14 you look at more detailed maps, which I did not have
15 time to scan, you will see that it is true that CR7 is
16 the County' s preferred alternative, but 5 1/2 is
17 clearly marked as the number two choice . It ' s now
18 clear to me that 7 will not happen according to the
19 state .
20 Okay. Next slide .
21 Safety issues, again, I don' t want to repeat
22 myself, but it ' s not just the safety of the LifeBridge
23 kids . It ' s also the safety of the Elms and the Farms
24 kids .
25 Next side, please .
Page 87 1 Property values, I was extremely impressed at
2 the last hearing with the questions, especially from —
3 Commissioner Geile, but also from the other
4 Commissioners about the impact that this development
5 would have on the investments made by the 430 or 440 —
6 odd Weld County taxpayers who have invested over $100
7 million in two neighbors, the Elms and Farms at
8 Meadowvale . —
9 We tried the best we could to answer your
10 questions . Because we were not -- I 'm not an
11 appraiser, I was not able to answer those questions . -
12 Well , we hired an appraiser, and here I 'm referring to
13 Exhibit WW. Donald Hammond of Hammond Appraisals did
14 an appraisal , and he estimates that on full build-out _
15 with connectivity, it could easily be an average impact
16 of 10 to 15 percent of the average house in the Elms
17 and Farms at Meadowvale . _
18 That ' s $10 to $15 million as an aggregate .
19 For the individual homeowners, that would range between
20 35 and $75 , 000 that would be the impact on the people _
21 who have made investments currently on the basis of the
22 Weld County codes MUD .
23 I guess there ' s a little issue of language _
24 here . There was some discussion about whether
25 increasing the buffer would amount to a taking from
Page 88
1 LifeBridge . What I would like to argue is that what
2 LifeBridge is asking you to do is to take $10 to
3 $15 million from the neighbors in order to give them a
4 multi-million dollar blank check, which I believe --
5 but I don ' t have proof for this . That multi-million
6 dollar blank check in the form of a rezoning including
7 C-1 and C-2 is worth many, many millions of dollars
8 more than the taking . The question of what is
9 LifeBridge getting, they are getting a huge giving .
10 Now, if you take a couple hundred feet more
_ 11 from them in the buffer, all you are doing is giving
12 them a tiny bit less . You are not taking from them
13 anything . They bought the land agricultural . You are
14 contemplating rezoning it for them. You would not be
15 taking anything from them. Instead, you would just be
16 giving them slightly less in the interest of equity so
17 that you wouldn ' t be taking so much from the neighbors .
18 Next slide, please .
19 Noise and light , several -- Exhibit WW
20 included a number of stipulations addressing this issue
21 that LifeBridge also disregarded. The noise issues ,
22 especially from the perimeter road, are very serious
23 issues . If you stick a perimeter road 125 feet from
24 residential homes with two auditoriums seating 9300
25 people, but only a 5 , 000-car parking lot , you are going
Page 89
1 to have buses coming in and idling on those roads in
2 the dark, making noise, making light , and a small berm -
3 at the edge is not going to block any of that noise and
4 light .
5 Next slide, please . -
6 Finally, if you don' t want to listen to
7 anything I just said, listen to your own planners . If
8 you read Kim Ogle ' s report carefully and you dig into -
9 the back of the report where I 'm assuming he didn ' t
10 think people would read to, he says very clearly: "The
11 scale of the proposed structures is not in character -
12 with the evidence . " Even more importantly, quote, "The
13 project as proposed does not demonstrate that the PUD
14 is compatible with existing surrounding land use . " -
15 That goes directly to the language in the
16 Weld County code which I quoted earlier. The code
17 clearly says : "New development shall demonstrate -
18 compatibility with existing surrounding land use . " Kim
19 Ogle, Weld Planning, says that the project does not
20 demonstrate that the PUD is compatible with existing
21 surrounding land use .
22 I don ' t see what could be more clear-cut than
23 that . You need to send this back to the Planning
24 Commission to ensure compatibility, as well as to
25 ensure that you do not have to deal with a lawsuit -
Page 90
1 because of a jurisdictional defect .
2 Next slide, please .
3 Community opposition, here I refer to Exhibit
4 UU, a questionnaire distributed and responded to by 191
5 residents of the Farms at Meadowvale and the Elms at
6 Meadowvale . 91 percent of the respondents said that
7 they oppose the LifeBridge application in its current
8 form.
9 This questionnaire was distributed after the
10 last meeting here, and the proposal has remained
11 unchanged. So these findings would apply to exactly
12 what LifeBridge has brought to the table today; the
13 75-foot heights, 1 . 5 million square feet , buffers of
14 125 feet . 91 percent of your constituents said no,
15 that this is not reasonable, and even a higher number
16 opposed the interconnectivity, 98 . 4 percent .
17 Next slide .
18 That is just a copy of the questionnaire .
19 That is in your records marked as W. The questions
20 that I referred to earlier were questions one and
21 three . If you would like, I can go through the other
22 questions . But in the interest of time, I will move
23 on.
24 MR. LONG: They are in the record.
25 MR . GRIES : Okay. Our next slide, please .
Page 91
1 This is the details of the responses to the
2 191 questionnaires , and I bolded those two key items . —
3 This is also in the record, if you want to look it over
4 carefully, about the other more detailed questions
5 about the LifeBridge proposal . —
6 We can move on.
7 I do have to respond to the Grinnell survey
8 that he mentioned earlier today, and I 'm afraid that —
9 I 'm going to have to speak bluntly here . I want to
10 apologize to you before I speak, but I feel that my
11 hands are tied. _
12 Grinnell has simply lied to the Commissioners
13 and to the neighborhood. The first thing he lied about
14 is in his letter, which is in the record, which he sent _
15 out with this postcard survey, and he writes : "There
16 has been a request from residents within the Elms at
17 Meadowvale for a single row of residential housing _
18 along the eastern edge of the church campus . " That ' s
19 in the letter .
20 Today, just before lunch, Grinnell also said _
21 that LifeBridge initiated discussions with the
22 neighbors . That ' s a lie, as well .
23 What happened was that about a week and a _
24 half after the last County Commissioners hearings,
25 having understood from the Commissioners that they
Page 92
1 wanted us to talk with LifeBridge, we had thought that
2 LifeBridge would contact us . They did not . So I
3 personally sent an e-mail to Bruce Grinnell and said
4 look, we have all had a cooling down period, why don ' t
5 we sit down and talk. I said that here is an idea that
6 might help us in getting started on a compromise
7 solution on the buffers . You want 125 , we want 400 .
8 Well , maybe a compromise solution could involve, quote,
9 "a row of houses west of the buffer. " So this was not
10 east of the buffer or replacing the buffer . It was a
11 row of houses west of the buffer.
12 Instead of responding to that , instead of
13 putting any counter-proposal on the table, they put
14 together their own survey in which he wrote, in the
15 letter that accompanied their postcard survey, what you
16 see here . You can either have the 125 or you can have
17 nothing, which is exactly the opposite of what the
18 Commissioners directed Bruce Grinnell to do . So it
19 wasn' t just lying about my communication with them; it
20 was also defying your wishes as County Commissioners .
21 Next slide, please .
22 Well , this is basically what I just said,
23 that at the last meeting we were asking for a 400-foot
24 buffer. Commissioner Geile asked Bruce Grinnell
25 directly: "What is wrong with the 400-foot buffer?"
Page 93
1 Commissioner Masden was very helpful and threw out :
2 "Well , what about a compromise of 250? " It was very -
3 clear what was going on. You were trying to be
4 constructive and find a resolution to the problem.
5 You instructed them to go back and talk with -
6 us to find a compromised position. Instead of meeting
7 with us, instead of compromising on this issue of
8 buffer or heights , instead they took the olive branch -
9 that I extended and they lied about it . They said that
10 I was suggesting no buffer at all and a row of houses
11 instead of a buffer, and I find that reprehensible . -
12 On the issue of heights , as I mentioned
13 earlier, there has been no movement either. The
14 Commissioners directed LifeBridge to sit down with the -
15 neighbors and negotiate over the issue of heights .
16 75-foot tall auditoriums will appear 95 to 100 feet
17 tall , given the location of these auditoriums up the -
18 hill from both Farms and Elms .
19 The logic that Bruce Grinnell used of the 25
20 to 30 , that you are allowed to build a 25-foot tall or -
21 a 30-foot tall building 25 feet from the property line
22 and, therefore, they are being very generous in what
23 they are asking for. That logic means that you would
24 have to allow another applicant to build a building
25 250 feet high 300 feet from the property line or
Page 94
1 2 , 500 feet high 3 , 000 from the property line . That
2 logic is absolutely ludicrous .
3 Next slide, please .
4 This just responds to this letter from
5 Grinnell that was misleading on the buffer issue and
6 also on the connectivity issue, the heights issue, and
7 the bulk issue .
8 Okay. Last slide, please .
9 Basically my request to you today is to do
._ 10 the right thing and send this application back to the
11 Planning Commission so that you don ' t have to burden
12 Weld County taxpayers with a lawsuit, waste taxpayer
13 time on the jurisdictional defect issue . But if you
14 can ' t do the right thing, at a minimum you should
15 continue this hearing until after the vote on the
16 incorporation of Freedom, Colorado .
17 There are four reasons why I ask you to do
18 this . The first is the spirit of democracy, which is
19 one that says that the people have the right to have
20 the representatives of their choice and to have local
21 control of local land use decisions .
22 Second is the jurisdictional defect issue .
23 You cannot continue a hearing that was not properly
24 posted in the first place . Why even generate the
25 appearance of rushing this? Why generate the
Page 95
1 appearance that this is being treated in a special
2 manner different from all other rezoning applications?
3 Third is the compatibility standards . Weld
4 County Planning Department, Kim Ogle, has said that
5 this application is not compatible with the existing —
6 surrounding land use and, therefore, in violation of
7 Weld County code which you are sworn to uphold.
8 Finally, the community opposition, as —
9 demonstrated both in the questionnaire, in which over
10 90 percent opposed the current application, opposed
11 interconnectivity, and over 200 residents have already _
12 signed a petition for incorporation because they are so
13 scared about the potential for interconnectivity and
14 the safety threat that that poses for their children.
15 I want to thank you for your time and
16 patience, and I ' m open to any questions you might have .
17 MR. LONG: Thank you. Commissioner Geile .
18 MR. GEILE : Mr . Gries, I did have a couple of
19 questions . It has to do with the ad that appeared in
20 the Tribune yesterday.
21 MR. GRIES : Yes .
22 MR. GEILE : First of all , you talk about a
23 20 , 000-person city in a field. I don' t understand
24 that . You know, if you were to take even 350 units and
25 divide it into 20 , 000 , that would be 55 , 56 people in
Page 96
1 each unit . So what is this 20 , 000-person city that you
2 are talking about?
3 MR. GRIES : I got that from Bruce Grinnell
4 who said that the goal of LifeBridge is to increase to
5 a congregation size of 15 to 20 , 000 people .
6 MR. GEILE : The other thing is you go on to
7 say that the Commissioners use public office for
8 private gain. Would you please explain that , because I
9 might take offense towards that?
10 MR. GRIES : Well , I apologize if you found
- 11 that offensive . I did not write that lightly. I can
12 tell you that it ' s because I 'm scared, frankly. What
13 that is referring to is it ' s referring to the empty
- 14 seats here and the feeling that , you know, I see this
15 Commission as very conservative, very prudent .
16 The idea that you are rushing ahead on such
., 17 an important matter when you have very serious
18 compatibility issues and jurisdictional defect issues
19 that are clearly going to go to court, there doesn' t
20 seem to be any other explanation besides that . You
21 know, we begged Commissioner Vaad to come to a
22 resolution of this issue of representation, and he did
23 not think of anything -- he refused to talk to us . We
24 don ' t have anybody representing us here, and we are
25 scared.
Page 97
1 But I do apologize if you found that
2 offensive .3 MR. GEILE : Well , it ' s certainly a statement
4 that ' s been made that sometimes accountability can come
5 to the table, too, that makes things not necessarily
6 correct . So I just wanted to make sure that I
7 understood what you were talking about .
8 Thank you. _
9 MR. LONG: Any other questions for Mr . Gries?
10 Thank you.
11 Duane Leise .
12 If there is anybody else that might have came
13 in late or if you 've decided that you want to make some
14 comments either in support of or in opposition to, if -
15 you would step over and fill out a card from Carol or
16 Esther .
17 MR. LEISE : Duane Leise . I live at 2686 -
18 Pearl Howlett , Longmont , Colorado 80504 .
19 I , too, am scared. Never in my wildest
20 dreams did I ever think that the street I was going to -
21 be buying a house on would be connected to a parking
22 lot with 5 , 000 to 6 , 000 cars in it . How can that in
23 any way, shape, or form be interpreted as being
24 residential?
25 The law is built on the firm foundation of "'
Page 98
1 the written language . When you make an assault on the
2 language, you are going to the underpinnings of the
3 law. It ' s a -- it surrounds the law. It supports the
4 law.
- 5 Compatibility is another word that is
6 certainly getting pushed through the strainer. I would
7 like to ask the same question again that was asked by
- 8 Ursula Morgan. What are the actual numbers of the
9 traffic that is going to be going north? She asked a
10 simple question. To that , the answer was , which she
- 11 already knew, it was 15 percent of whatever the traffic
12 would be in the area . That wasn ' t the question she
13 asked.
14 The question she asked was : What were the
15 actual numbers? And I hate to point fingers, but
16 nobody cross-examined Mr. Delich on that . He never
17 answered the question.
18 Likewise, they never put in a traffic study
19 on Sundays . What ' s with that? I mean, I understand
20 that we are all human. I understand that we all can
21 make mistakes, but it certainly seems like that would
22 be an issue that would be first and foremost .
23 I also want to cover the issue of the
24 jurisdictional defect . I had to press rather hard to
25 get Exhibit OO put into the record, and that particular
Page 99
1 record is that of the Planning Commissioners ' meeting.
2 This was on April 1st . This was approximately 12 to 13 -
3 days after March 18th.
4 In that meeting, Mr . Kim Ogle read into the
5 record that they wanted to have a continuance of the -
6 meeting on March 18th. However, if you look at that
7 exhibit, there was never a vote taken. So who runs the
8 Planning Commissioners ' meeting? In the full minutes -
9 that I received on that particular meeting, there are
10 records in there of the Planning Commissioners actually
11 taking votes and saying yes or no. -
12 On this specific issue, there was no yes or
13 no vote . There was no vote at all that was recorded.
14 So my question is : How did it -- even if you could -
15 continue a meeting that couldn ' t be held, how could it
16 be continued without the governing body authorizing it?
17 That ' s your duty. You are supposed to run things . You -
18 are supposed to take votes . Not you specifically, but
19 at least the Planning Commissioners are, as well as you
20 guys .
21 You guys are in charge of -- you seem to be
22 put to a fire here . You are getting asked to do what
23 is right for everybody. That includes LifeBridge and -
24 that includes the neighbors . I know it ' s a tough job.
25 I don ' t envy you in this particular one, but use a
Page 100
1 little common sense .
2 What does residential mean? Do the documents
3 that are published by Weld County mean anything? Can
4 we have trust in our government? Do you think for one
5 minute that if we felt we were being represented by
6 Weld County that we would have gone through the extreme
7 measures of having our own town? We were forced into a
8 corner .
9 This is an interesting little anecdote from
10 Benjamin Franklin. He was asked: What is the
- 11 difference between a republic and freedom? He said:
12 "Well , a republic is when you have two wolves and a
13 lamb voting on what ' s going to be for dinner. Freedom
- 14 is a well-armed lamb. "
15 We were pushed into a corner . We were not
16 represented here . I 'm sad to say that because, for
17 myself, I want to live someplace that is much higher
18 than this . This is so crude . This is so crass . Why
19 can' t we be doing great things? Why can ' t we be
20 looking for the next 50 to 100 years? We are not . In
21 this particular application we are not looking out 50
22 or 100 years .
23 What about the interior between 119 and 66?
24 You put a high density development right on the edge of
25 it like this and that blocks out the entire corridor.
Page 101
1 That whole corridor now is for getting people in and
2 out of there . -
3 That whole area is problematic because of
4 Union Reservoir. You don' t have a lot of through
5 connectivity. So now you put something high density -
6 like this , high usage, right on the edge of it , what
7 about the landowners who own land inside of there? Now
8 all of a sudden it ' s kind of like well , we don' t know -
9 if we can have that much density inside because we are
10 using our roads pretty strongly right on the exterior
11 of this property. -
12 We have to look out further . We have to take
13 more into account . You are being asked to raise to a
14 higher level . We can do it . I know we can do it . _
15 Thank you very much, and do the right thing.
16 MR. LONG: Any questions?
17 Thank you, sir. _
18 I will now ask for -- I apologize if I
19 misstate your name . Chris Ragwort .
20 MR. RAGWORT: Ragwort .
21 MR. LONG: Excuse me .
22 MR. RAGWORT : It ' s okay. Nobody else gets it
23 right either.
24 Chris Ragwort , 11705 Pheasant Hill Road,
25 80504 .
Page 102
1 Really I just came today to sort of express
2 my displeasure really at the state of the current
3 application. With respect to an area that is currently
4 zoned as agricultural , it is planned in the land use
5 plan as residential , and now we are talking about
6 moving into commercial . I don' t think anybody -- at
7 least hopefully, nobody harbors any fantasies that this
8 land is going to stay agricultural forever . It ' s
9 obviously a relatively desirable area .
10 I think that the concerns that everybody is
11 expressing, though, comes from, in many ways , what we
12 are hearing today. One of the statements was urban
13 residents are going to demand urban services . The
14 people who bought land in this area didn ' t expect it to
15 ever be urban. It ' s currently agricultural . It ' s
16 planned for residential . Urban has never really
17 entered into it . I think if everybody wanted urban
18 land, we would move to Denver or certainly to downtown
19 Greeley, neither of which, obviously, these people did.
20 I think that all we are really hoping to get
21 out of this is some reason to be injected into this
22 proposal . Is it reasonable to take an outdoor
23 amphitheater and inject it between two residential
24 communities , especially with very little in the way of
25 noise abatement or anything else? I don ' t think it is .
Page 103
1 Is it reasonable to inject 70-foot buildings,
2 which I assume still means that the architectural -
3 elements could reach just short of 100 feet on top of a
4 hill , once again, between two different residential
5 communities? I don ' t see that that is either . -
6 The last question, though, that I have, and
7 it ' s in general , would be - - what appears to be asked
8 for is a rezoning to residential/commercial , but that -
9 is going to involve Weld County spending money for road
10 expansion, services, et cetera .
11 My question is : Given the fact that it seems -
12 like a lot of this land will go for elderly housing and
13 a fair amount of it would be church campus - - churches,
14 last I checked, aren ' t paying property taxes, and the -
15 elderly have a reasonably high exemption of up to 20
16 percent under Colorado statute . What is the - - where
17 is the impetus for this to the county? What is the -
18 good that it ' s really going to bring?
19 I would like to finally close with that I
20 think Commissioner Geile ' s statement earlier was a very -
21 good one, which is that we are looking at 50 years of
22 development plan, and it seems that we are trying to
23 approve all 50 years all at once . Do I think that in
24 50 years we may need commercial development in that
25 area? I think it ' s very possibly so . Do we need it
_ Page 104
1 today? I don' t think so . Is there any reason that we
2 really have to be making that decision to say that we
3 need commercial use in that space today? I think
4 Commissioner Geile ' s point of is there any way to
5 structure this so that we can have a portion of it
6 delegated and then let ' s see how it goes - - I think
7 that is a great suggestion.
8 That ' s my comments . Thank you.
9 MR . LONG: Thank you, Mr. Ragwort .
10 Any questions?
11 Next is Ms . Vicky Braunagel .
12 MS . BRAUNAGEL : That was very good
13 pronunciation.
14 MR. LONG: Every once in a while .
15 MS . BRAUNAGEL : Vicky Braunagel , 11677
16 Montgomery Circle, The Elms at Meadowvale . I 'm not
17 going to repeat any of my prior testimony. I was here
18 last time . I am the home that backs up -- one of the
19 homes that backs up directly to the eastern edge of the
20 LifeBridge property and is basically directly behind
21 the box you saw for the 75-foot height .
22 One of the things that I indicated to you
23 last time is that for me it isn' t an issue just of
24 view. I recognize, based on the location of the first
25 building to be built in Phase I , that the view of Longs
Page 105
1 Peak and Mt . Meeker will be significantly compromised
2 if not obliterated. So that was not my issue . -
3 But I do want to clarify just a couple of
4 things briefly today. One is this issue of the
5 alternative with the houses directly behind the home in -
6 the 125-foot buffer that Mr. Gries spoke to.
7 I think that Mr. Grinnell indicated that they
8 were not putting that forward today, and I would just -
9 like to clarify that that is not being presented for
10 approval today. For me, that is simply the worst of
11 both worlds because it obliterates everything to the -
12 sides that I might have of a view. So -- and it takes
13 away the buffer and the mitigation that was developed
14 in part to mitigate some of the impact of the massive -
15 size of the development .
16 The issue that drove that suggestion about
17 homes is concerns about the perimeter road, the
18 perimeter road and the traffic that might be generated.
19 I would also like to clarify for the record,
20 because I 'm not sure that it has ever been formalized,
21 discussions that we have had with LifeBridge about ways
22 to mitigate the impacts of noise and light .
23 There are sort of two different issues . One
24 is the parking lot which will be constructed in
25 Phase I . The second is the perimeter road.
Page 106
1 I 'm not sure that the record currently
2 reflects, Mr. Grinnell , that we had talked it out and,
3 I think, agreed to a mitigating berm around the parking
4 lot that would, in fact , begin to mitigate the noise
5 and particularly the light pollution from the cars at
6 the parking lot level and that that would be built with
7 the parking lots in Phase I , that the berm which would
8 then run on the eastern edge of the property, or the
9 western side of the 125-foot buffer, would be built
10 with the perimeter road, which is probably not in
_ 11 Phase I , most likely in Phase IV, V, or VI , somewhere
12 along in there, and that that would then be sculpted to
13 deal with the road impacts of noise and light .
14 But I didn ' t want to leave aside the issue of
15 the mitigation of parking lots . I think that is
16 something that we have agreed to, and I just wanted to
17 get that formalized for the record.
18 Questions?
19 MR . LONG: Any questions?
20 Thank you very much.
21 That ' s all I have cards for who wishes to
22 respond in the public comment period. Is there anybody
23 else who wishes to - - who might have just walked in and
24 was not aware of the card issue? Just for
25 clarification, those who were here earlier, I asked if
Page 107
1 they wanted to speak that they sign a card. That way
2 we knew who had an interest in it . _
3 I ' ll allow anybody that has any other
4 comments to make, either in support of or in
5 opposition, to please come forward at this time . _
6 If you could, please state your name and
7 address for the record.
8 MS . BENNETT : My name is Joanna Bennett . I _
9 live in the Meadowvale Farms development . I live right
10 on the corner of the Elms development, right where the
11 LifeBridge Church border will be .
12 I ' ve had basically a little bit of history
13 living in the lot that I live in and some history with
14 Weld County as far as my concerns with the development _
15 that was built just to the north of me and how my
16 property on an acre of land backs into that area.
17 I 've had a number of years working with some
18 of the planners in Weld County over my concerns about
19 the development , how it changed, how we didn ' t receive
20 any notification when the original development fell
21 through and then Ryland purchased the option to build
22 on the property right behind me . We were not notified. _
23 We read about it on the front page of the Longmont
24 newspaper for the first indication that we had that it
25 was going to be a dense development .
Page 108
1 Obviously, we purchased an acre of land to
2 build a custom home on. We designed the home
3 ourselves, built it ourselves . Had we known that our
.. 4 lot and our house would be so different in character to
5 the rest of our development , which was gentlemen farms
6 in nature, horse property up to two horses , barns ,
7 stuff like that , instead we end up with 45-foot homes
8 towering, walk-out homes right behind our property.
9 When LifeBridge started acknowledging their
10 plans and it became - - you know, I started getting
11 notified on this subject , I started looking into it to
12 try to determine how this was going to impact me . We
13 have had our property values reduced because when we
14 get a set, our neighbors go to the tax people and say
15 yeah, but our property is not as valuable as the other
16 ones in this development because we are basically
17 dwarfed by these homes right behind us with no buffer,
18 no space, no greenbelts, 50 feet, 75 feet , straight
19 uphill with artificial fill so that they could
20 accommodate garden levels and walk-out homes . We look
21 straight up at these homes .
22 So yes , we were concerned, maybe more than a
23 lot of other people were, because we had already had
24 such an impact on our home that was so different in
25 nature from all of the other homes in our development .
Page 109
1 We paid a higher price for our lot because it was
2 supposed to be a premium lot, a view of the mountains . —
3 It was going to be single level homes behind us to
4 transition to the rest of the development that was
5 going to be there . It was all going to be really nice, -
6 premium property. We built our home and were never
7 notified that it had changed.
8 So right now I 'm looking at the plan of -
9 LifeBridge right on the other corner of my lot , and I ' m
10 looking at a road. I 'm looking at a road right next to
11 my lot . I ' m looking at my property values which are
12 going to go down again.
13 We sunk everything we had in this home . This
14 is our future . This is our retirement . It ' s all that _
15 we have . We are not rich people . At one point we
16 thought our house was worth $600 , 000 . It ' s not worth
17 that anymore . When people come to look at the homes _
18 that are for sale adjacent to me, what they say is that
19 they look out at the view and say oh, is that where the
20 church is going to go . Then they walk away and don ' t _
21 come back.
22 It is difficult to buy property these days .
23 It ' s difficult to sink your life savings into a house _
24 that you think you could retire in, that you could live
25 for the rest of your life in, that you are proud of .
Page 110
1 When you drive up to the street and all you
2 see are homes towering over your entire roof line, it ' s
3 shameful . It ' s embarrassing . The other neighbors say
4 gee, that ' s too bad that they did that to you, that was
5 such a nice cul-de-sac, those homes are so nice and you
6 have these homes towering over you.
7 I tried to speak with the planners for two
- 8 years . I tried to work with them. Monica Mika was
9 very pleasant , returned my phone calls . Kim Ogle was
10 not very pleasant , you know, with what do you want me
- 11 to do.
12 Well , you know, last summer my whole back
13 yard was under water . I 'm trying to deal with issues
14 of drainage . What do you mean by drainage? I mean
15 sprinkler heads on the greenbelt . One sprinkler head
16 gets wacked off and I 'm under water. And I 've got
17 pictures of my whole back yard under water.
18 So yes , I have concerns . We need to look at
19 this . We need to really evaluate how it ' s affecting
20 people who own these properties , because there are a
21 lot of very upset and scared people who have sunk
22 everything they have ever worked for -- and I 'm not
23 young . I don ' t have time to start over. My husband
24 and I are over 50 . This is it for us . We can ' t take
25 another hit .
Page 111
1 A 125-foot buffer, that ' s less than our horse
2 trails in our development, less wide than our walking —
3 trails inside of our development . I mean, how can that
4 make sense? 400 feet? Maybe so, you know, maybe so .
5 I have gone to the churches in Colorado —
6 Springs , Focus on the Family, and they don' t stick them
7 in the middle of residential areas . They ' re enormous .
8 They want to facilitate their own space . They want to —
9 have space around them. They want to be able to
10 expand. Let them do that . This is not large enough.
11 I wish I had the pictures of those churches, _
12 beautiful , enormous . They are not in the middle of
13 residential areas . The church needs to compromise .
14 They need to let us keep what we 've worked our entire _
15 lives to have .
16 Thank you.
17 MR. LONG: Thank you, Ms . Bennett . There ' s a _
18 question. Mr . Geile has a question for you.
19 MR. GEILE : The road that you are talking
20 about, is that one of the roads we have been _
21 discussing?
22 MS . BENNETT : No, it ' s the road that follows
23 the property line . It goes east and then north. _
24 MR. GEILE : So it ' s not a connectivity issue
25 that we talked about with the --
Page 112
1 MS . BENNETT : The connectivity issue affects
2 my neighbors . It would definitely, if the roads
3 connect . Sure, it could go around my cul-de-sac, but I
4 don ' t live on one of those roads . I basically live on
5 the property line . It ' s a 45-degree angle right up
6 there where the arrow is . So I 've got cottonwood
7 trees . Heaven help me if the cottonwood tree ever
8 dies . It ' s an old tree . But once it dies , then I ' m
9 looking straight at the road which is, what? Is it 125
10 feet from my back yard? I don' t know. I don ' t even
11 know what it is anymore .
12 MR. GEILE : Thank you.
13 MR. LONG: Thank you very much.
14 Is there anybody else that would like to
15 testify either in support of or in opposition to this
16 application? This will be your only opportunity to do
17 so.
18 MR. LEISE : Can I?
19 MR. LONG: I will allow one statement , sir.
20 For the record, please state your name and
21 address .
22 MR. LEISE : Yes . My name is Duane Leise,
23 2686 Pearl Howlett , Longmont , Colorado 80504 .
24 Thank you very much for the indulgence of the
25 Commissioners . I appreciate this .
Page 113 —
1 I just wanted to say that the 400-foot buffer
2 on the eastern edge is not something that we just —
3 pulled out of a hat . If you look at McClain Western
4 Industries , which is on the corner of 119 and County
5 Line Road 1 , that has a 400-foot buffer from its —
6 eastern boundary. It has a 400-foot boundary to 119 .
7 That ' s all I wanted to say. Thank you very
8 much. —
9 MR. LONG: Any questions?
10 Thank you.
11 Anyone else that has a -- I will close that _
12 portion of the hearing at this time, and we can take a
13 five-minute break. We ' ll reconvene at 2 : 20 .
14 (Recess taken 2 : 09 p.m. to 2 : 19 p .m. ) _
15 MR. LONG: We are now in the period for
16 applicant ' s response in regard to the public comments .
17 MR. GRINNELL : Commissioners , my name is _
18 Bruce Grinnell with LifeBridge . We have several
19 consultants that I would like to have address some
20 issues . _
21 First of all , the one I would like to address
22 is the one concerning property values . In your packet
23 we provided you an appraisal that was done by West _
24 Foster with Foster Valuation Company. I don ' t believe
25 it is in that packet . It was in the stuff that we gave
Page 114
1 to Esther a few days ago, so it should be in your file .
2 At this point, I will let Mr. Foster explain
3 his report .
4 MR. LONG: Thank you.
5 MR. FOSTER : West Foster with Foster
6 Valuation Company in Greeley. Our office is at 1750
7 25th Avenue, 80634 .
8 I was asked to determine whether there are
9 any in-proximity damages to surrounding residences
10 created by the establishment of a large church. The
11 focus of my investigation was to try to find
12 established residential neighborhoods where larger
13 churches were constructed after a residential
14 neighborhood had been built out or at least abutting
15 residences had been constructed.
16 So my investigation turned up nothing in the
— 17 City of Greeley that really was that helpful from a
18 church perspective, but I did look into - - I wish you
19 had my report because I have some nice exhibits in
20 there .
21 MR. LONG: Where would that be located,
22 Exhibit HH or KK?
23 MR . MORRISON: Exhibit FFF . I can pull out
24 the hard copy if you wish to see that .
25 MR. FOSTER: So if you ' d please turn to page
Page 115
1 1, it starts with Weld County. What I looked at in
2 Weld County was the Westmoor Self Service Storage that -
3 was built after the abutting residences were
4 constructed, and I found sales before the self storage
5 facility was constructed and sales after. -
6 If you will go to Exhibit B in the back of
7 the report , the first page is an aerial photograph
8 showing the facility, and then the next is from the -
9 assessor ' s aerial records . It will show properties one
10 and two, and both of them appreciated in value during
11 the time that the facility was put in place . -
12 Exhibit A shows specifically -- it ' s a
13 spreadsheet that shows specifically the date of sale,
14 the section number, the purchaser, and then the date of -
15 resale of all of these transactions .
16 The next one would be the Arlington Park
17 Apartments , and that was a complex that UNC developed -
18 down southeast of their campus for student housing, and
19 you probably read about it in the paper . It was so
20 dense that no parking -- or insufficient parking was
21 provided on site, and it created congestion in the
22 neighborhood. -
23 If you go to Exhibit C, you can see where the
24 sales and resales are across the street from that
25 facility and where they had to the fight the traffic -
Page 116
1 congestion after the facility was built and did not
2 before . Both of those sales and resales showed
3 appreciation in value during that time period.
4 Then we went to Larimer County. I did find
5 one church facility over there that was constructed.
6 If we look on page 3 , the Faith Evangelical Free Church
7 on Shields was constructed. It ' s actually during
8 completion right now. We found some sales that took
9 place before construction started and sales that
10 occurred during construction.
11 If you will refer to Exhibit F, we had two
12 properties on the east side of the property that had
13 mountain views or foothill views before and were
14 somewhat restricted afterwards . Neither of those
15 transactions showed any - - or both of those
16 transactions showed appreciation in value .
17 Finding no real large church facilities , we
18 went to Douglas County and investigated two complexes
19 there that were actually built at or about the same
20 time as adjoining residential properties were
21 constructed, which led to the conclusion that church
22 facilities are a complimentary and harmonious use for
23 surrounding residences .
24 Any questions?
25 MR. LONG : Any questions for Mr . Foster?
Page 117
1 Mr . Geile .
2 MR. GEILE : Mr. Foster, I know you have seen —
3 some of the exhibits of what we ' re talking about,
4 LifeBridge . I want to talk about the connectivity
5 between what would become the LifeBridge subdivision —
6 and then the other - - the LifeBridge community as well
7 as the subdivisions which would adjoin it .
8 If, in fact , that connectivity were there and —
9 traffic were able to pass from one subdivision to
10 another which could cause an increase in traffic,
11 versus not having the connectivity and actually _
12 stopping it , as an appraiser, would there be an
13 adjustment if that connectivity were there, as far as
14 if you were to value a property and do your adjustment _
15 factors?
16 MR. FOSTER : I ' ve heard the testimony that
17 there would be increased traffic volume through those _
18 surrounding streets as a result of the connectivity,
19 but the only thing that I can say is that those two
20 churches in Douglas County that were being developed in _
21 concert with the surrounding residences had that
22 connectivity in place . The surrounding streets, some
23 of them fed into the development .
24 I don' t really know the answer to that
25 question though of whether those houses that had
Page 118
1 slightly more traffic volume sold at a little lower
2 price than a similar one that didn ' t . I just don' t
3 have an answer . So I just can ' t answer you totally,
4 but the fact that they were developed concurrently
5 leads to the belief that if there is a diminution in
6 value because of that , it is a minor issue .
7 MR. LONG: Any other questions for
8 Mr . Foster?
9 Mr. Masden.
10 MR. MASDEN: On Exhibit F here, you are
— 11 showing these two properties . You said that there ' s
12 some loss of sight , I guess, corridor to the mountains .
13 MR. FOSTER : Yes . If you turn that sideways
— 14 like that , that is north.
15 MR. MASDEN: Right .— 16 How tall are the buildings there?
— 17 MR . FOSTER: I just don' t know. They are
18 tall enough that they obstruct the views to some
19 extent .
20 MR. MASDEN: All right . Thank you.
21 MR. LONG: Any other questions of Mr. Foster?
22 Thank you, sir.
23 Excuse me . There ' s no further testimony from
24 the public . I ' m sorry - -
-
25 MR . GRIES : The public is not given the
Page 119
1 opportunity to --
2 MR. LONG: Excuse me . That has been brought -
3 forward. This is a due process for the applicant to be
4 able to bring information forward and back to the
5 Commissioners . Public comment has been entered into -
6 it . That is where that process is at right now. We
7 are in the response phase of the questions that were
8 brought to them by - - that were raised by public -
9 comments, and now they are answering those . We will go
10 forward with that .
11 Thank you, Mr. Foster. -
12 Next person, please .
13 Thank you.
14 MR. DELICH: Matt Delich, 2272 Glen Haven -
15 Drive, Loveland.
16 In response to some of the comments made with
17 regard to traffic, since Peter kind of credentialized, -
18 is that a word, the TDA -- David Leahy' s experience at
19 25 years, let me -- I might as well too .
20 I 'm a professional engineer. I have a _
21 bachelor ' s and master ' s degree in civil engineering,
22 and I 'm registered in the state of Colorado .
23 MR. LONG: Excuse me . We would ask that you -
24 take your conversation outside of the room, please .
25 MR. DELICH: I 'm registered in the state of
Page 120
1 Colorado, as well as a number of other states . I have
2 36 years of experience in the traffic and
3 transportation profession.
4 David with TDA did contact me with his
5 remarks prior to preparing them. Let me, first of all ,
6 say that the traffic study is not flawed. That ' s a
7 gross injustice .
8 Let me quote out of TDA' s letter where he ' s
9 talking about the traffic study. We are talking about
10 the trip generation. "This is reasonable for weekday
11 analysis . " Then he says : "But, of course, would not
12 be applicable for Sunday worship services . " He further
13 goes on and says : "For filings one and two it yields a
14 reasonable expectation of typical weekday traffic . "
15 So what Mr. Leahy is saying is that he
16 concurs with the type of analysis that I did, and he
17 does raise a few issues with regard to safety and
18 quality of life as it relates to the connectivity,
19 while they don' t necessarily quantify or define what
20 safety is or what quality of life is . It ' s hard to
21 defend that sort of thing if there is no definition
22 there . Those are words that are typically thrown out
23 at people like myself in public meetings that just
24 can' t be responded to, quite frankly.
25 Let me also talk about some of the numbers
Page 121 —
1 that were thrown out . When Peter was testifying with
2 regard to connectivity, he started talking about an
3 event , a church service at 6 , 000 seats , and then he
4 went over and related the 300 trips that I estimated
5 that might be on Pearl Howlett on a weekday.
6 You really can' t -- that is apples and
7 oranges when you come right down to it . You can ' t
8 relate church service traffic to normal weekday —
9 traffic .
10 As Drew mentioned earlier in the hearing this
11 morning, a church service and that type of event is a —
12 special event where you allow -- it ' s short-lived, if
13 you will . We all go to church. We know that there is
14 a rush getting into the service, and there is a rush —
15 coming out of the service, a rush meaning a high level
16 of traffic, but it ' s short-lived. It ' s typically 15
17 minutes, maybe 20 , depending on how big the service is . -
18 It ' s generally accepted by the residents in the area of
19 a given church.
20 So I just want to point out that that
21 relationship of the 300 in the church service is kind
22 of an apples and oranges situation.
23 Also he referred to the fact that we only
24 considered the children living in the LifeBridge
25 community, and that wasn' t the case . When we were
Page 122
1 talking about the children and the school trips, what
2 we were trying to do was relate those trips and those
3 children to the schools that might be located to the
4 northeast of this particular proposal .
5 We weren ' t ignoring the children who lived in
6 the other development, the Elms of Meadowvale and so
7 on. We were trying to come up with a logical tie
8 between this development and the number of kids that
9 might go to the northeast .
10 In that regard, let me give you some other
11 information. Again, in our morning session Ursula from
12 Mead asked me for some specifics regarding what that
13 traffic would be because I gave some percentages . So
14 let me elaborate on that, especially since Mr. Leise
15 also asked for that particular information.
16 It took me a little while to calculate this
17 because there ' s a mix of issues here . This is for the
18 year 2010 , that type of future, the traffic to and from
19 the northeast on a daily basis would be about 200
20 vehicles a day. This would be spread over County Roads
21 5 and 7 , generally up in that direction. The morning
22 peak hour would be on the order of about 15 vehicles ,
23 and the afternoon peak hours would be on the order of
24 about 20 .
25 That ' s plans one and two, which is basically
Page 123 —
1 the single family residential , the smaller church
2 campus, and some of the elderly housing. Now, at full
3 development , and this is 20 to 30 years out , on a daily
4 basis it would be on the order of about 2 , 530 , a
5 morning peak hour of about 120 , and an afternoon peak -
6 hour of about 235 .
7 These are, quite frankly, pretty small
8 numbers when you come right down to it . The traffic at -
9 20 to 30 in the future, understand that that is a four
10 square mile area from 66 south on both sides of County
11 Roads 5 and 7 . We will have development in there . We -
12 will have schools . It will have some residential . The
13 use of that is going to generate more traffic than what
14 I just gave you . So I just wanted to kind of give you -
15 a perspective of what is likely to occur in that
16 direction.
17 Those were the notes that I took to respond. -
18 Do you have any questions?
19 MR. LONG : Any questions?
20 Mr. Jerke .
21 MR. JERKE : So to be clear then, you did
22 figure in the surges of Sunday morning and other large
23 activity days into your traffic count? _
24 MR. DELICH: What I did - - the traffic study
25 dated June 2002 was a weekday analysis . I also did a
Page 124
1 Sunday analysis, which would be an event type of
2 situation. I did that analysis and determined, for
3 one, that - - I think I told you this morning that the
4 Sunday traffic on the area streets is about 20 percent
5 of the peak hour traffic in the week. It ' s way down.
6 Granted, for Sunday service, there ' s a peak
7 condition, but essentially the roads and the
8 intersection operate separately. In the short-range
9 future, the 2010 future, they operated - - for example,
10 the State Highway 119 and 3 1/2 intersection will
11 operate essentially with the geometry currently on
12 State Highway 119 right now.
13 There obviously will be some improvements on
14 3 1/2 , but this development will participate in it
15 quite extensively. That is a given. They' ll also be
16 participating in paving of the roads in the area, 26
17 back to County Line Road.
18 I hope that answers your question, that I did
19 do that analysis , and the level of service on those
20 intersections are at the C level .
21 MR. LONG: Thank you.
22 Any other questions?
23 MR . GRINNELL : Again, I 'm not sure what the
24 exhibit number is in your information, and I 'm not
— 25 going to talk about that right now.
Page 125
1 There is an exhibit that was provided, and
2 unfortunately I don ' t have the list, but it ' s got to be -
3 in the triple letters somewhere . It ' s a copy of a memo
-
4 that was from -- that was sent to me from Mr . Gries
5 back in mid May, and subsequent - - all of the -
6 subsequent memos on top of that where we attempted to
7 get ahold of him.
8 In Peter ' s memo, he indicated that he was no -
9 longer representative . That e-mail is in the file . He
10 was no longer the representative, that further I would
11 contact Rich Sohm, and that e-mail also has on it _
12 multiple attempts by me to set up a meeting with
13 Mr . Sohm. I believe there were four or five attempts
14 made from the middle of May until the lst of July, at _
15 which point - - I believe it was on the 1st of July that
16 we did set up a meeting for the 3rd of July. I just
17 wanted to clarify that we did make many attempts to try _
18 to set up a meeting with them.
-
19 Ms . Braunagel mentioned the berms around the
20 buildings and parking lots , and I just wanted to _
21 confirm that . We had those discussions with Mr . Ogle,
22 that in the early phases we have committed to put berms
23 on the east side of parking lots and buildings , at the
24 eastern most parking lot -- the eastern most side of
-
25 the buildings and the eastern most side of the parking
Page 126
1 lots in order to hide those from the people in the
2 Elms .
3 Phases and final plan approval , I just want
4 to make the comment that it ' s our understanding that
— 5 approval today is not a blank check. Approval today
6 provides an entitlement for the church. We still have
7 to go through a final plan on every single phase, and
8 you still have the - - and the Planning Commission still
9 has the ability to heavily scrutinize all of the
10 application for each plan.
11 What we ' ve asked for here in our Change of
12 Zone application is entitlement , an opportunity to
13 build what we see is a long-term requirement --
14 potential long-term requirement for the church. It was
15 done in order to assure us that if we were going to go
16 through the exercise and spend money and invest in this
17 property that we could expand, because we have just
18 been through an experience in Boulder County where we
19 are no longer able to expand because we have no
20 entitlement .
21 Like I said, this is no expectation of a
22 blank check from the standpoint of -- we have to go
23 back through each final plan on each phase and satisfy
24 all of the conditions relative to all of the
25 improvements , whether it ' s roads based on traffic
Page 127
1 counts . New traffic studies will have to be done at
2 each phase . This does allow us to build, but it only —
3 allows us to build based on us satisfying all of the
4 conditions of final planning . I just wanted to
5 reiterate that . —
6 Some comments about compatibility, we checked
7 our numbers and the ones that we gave you had a decimal
8 point in the wrong place . So I apologize . -
9 When we looked at compatibility from the
10 standpoint of density, we first looked at a residential
11 development because we are adjacent to a residential
12 development and we felt that, in order to be
13 compatible, we needed to have no more impact than a
14 residential development would have on similar ground. _
15 At three -- a low density residential is
16 three homes per acre or, on 160 acres, 480 homes . At a
17 medium density of six per acre, there are 960 homes .
18 If you look at approximately a 2800-square foot house
19 at low density and a 1750-square foot house on medium
20 density, you see the total square footages there of _
21 1 . 34 million to 1 . 68 million square feet . So that
22 would be comparable density in total square footage
23 based on residential , in lieu of the church campus . If _
24 you look at the Elms, their density is approximately
25 the same .
Page 128
1 If we compare this -- you saw this slide at
2 the last meeting in May. If you compare the church
3 campus to what we believe are the units in the Elms - -
4 and I think we found at the time that the 392 was off
5 by a little because I think that was scaled up for 160
6 acres . That is what the issue was .
7 If we have -- and we were projecting 60
- 8 percent of the church campus to be on the first floor,
9 which is 900 , 000 square feet out of the 1 . 5 million.
10 Out of 900 , 000 square feet , that is 20 . 7 acres . That ' s
— 11 13 percent of the 160 acres .
12 With the parking and the streets of 4800
13 parking spaces and the drives and the streets, that was
14 another 29 percent of lot coverage . The total lot
15 coverage was 42 percent for the church campus .
16 Buildings -- well , I think we used the wrong
— 17 term. We talked about FAR. I believe it ' s the
18 building lot coverage or the footprint , plus the lot
19 coverage associated with streets and parking. That is
20 a total of 42 percent , so 13 percent of it is buildings
21 and 29 percent of it is streets and parking.
22 We also looked at the Elms , and Dennis Rubba,
23 our planner, went and picked up the information
24 directly from that development area . What they have is
25 roughly 60 percent of their homes on the first floor,
Page 129
1 plus the garage, driveway, and walk, for a total of
2 1 . 255 million square feet for 29 acres , which is -
3 18 percent as buildings, 25 percent streets , and a
4 total of 43 percent lot coverage .
5 Our point herein is that we are looking at -
6 compatibility. Compatibility, we believe, according to
7 plan code, is described as compatible with or similar
8 to . We believe that - - what we are trying to show here -
9 is that even at full build-out , which we have no idea
10 whether it will ever happen, we are asking from a
11 planning standpoint to allow us to potentially do that , -
12 but at maximum build-out it would be no more dense than
13 the existing density that ' s already adjacent to the
14 property. -
15 MR . LONG: Mr. Grinnell , if I could
16 interrupt .
17 MR. GRINNELL : Yes . -
18 MR. LONG: A question for clarification for
19 myself .
20 When you say church campus , does that include -
21 the senior housing, the homes, or just what you are
22 talking about with the buildings , kind of the north
23 part there? -
24 MR. GRINNELL : It ' s just that 160-acre
25 parcel . It ' s just the church campus itself . The
Page 130
1 church campus has 30 percent open space on it , in
2 addition to - - you know, what is left out of the
3 58 percent that is not being used, 30 percent of it is
4 open space .
5 The 392 is the total number of homes , because
6 the comment was made last time that there aren' t that
7 many homes at the Elms . They are right . What we did
8 is we took the density at the Elms and we had to
9 extrapolate up to 160 acres in order to get a
10 comparison.
11 MR. LONG: Thank you.
12 Mr . Geile .
13 MR. GEILE : So the 900 , 000 square foot would
14 be the actual building itself plus the walkways, or
15 that also includes the walkways, the 900 , 000?
16 MR. GRINNELL: Yeah, the walkways that are
17 right around the outside of the building .
18 MR. GEILE : So if you would deduct that, then
19 you would probably be down to the 778 , 000 square foot
— 20 that you were talking about this morning .
21 MR . GRINNELL : It could be . That number of
22 758 , 000 was just a number that stuck in my head. I 'm
— 23 not going to say - - this I can say that we -- I have
24 great confidence in that . The 758 , I have reasonable
25 confidence in.
Page 131 —
1 MR. GEILE : If you would go back to one of
2 your exhibits, show us again Phase I , which would be —
3 the 258 , 000 square foot and then some housing units .
4 MR. GRINNELL: Here is Phase I of the entire
5 site . We ' re projecting that all of the single family —
6 homes , the 115 homes , would be in Phase I .
7 MR. GEILE : Those are all senior homes ; is
8 that correct? —
9 MR. GRINNELL : No, these are all single
10 family right here, single family homes , kids . This is
11 senior down here . —
12 I believe that there ' s about 150 , plus or
13 minus , let me check the number, roughly 150 density
14 units of senior housing here . -
15 MR . GEILE : And the middle would also be
16 constructed, which would be the community park?
17 MR. GRINNELL : Yes , a 12-acre community park.
18 MR. GEILE : What you have up there, it looks
19 purple or brown, that would in essence be the 258 , 000
20 square feet? _
21 MR. GRINNELL : Yes . We are proposing based
22 on conjecture, to some degree, because that is -- we
23 haven ' t done a schematic design. It ' s a costly _
24 exercise . Not knowing what building heights might be,
25 it ' s not prudent to move forward until we know what the
Page 132
1 building heights are .
2 We are proposing somewhere - - not more than
3 268 , 000 square feet with three buildings . All of this
4 green right in here would be part of the campus
5 initially. All of this, which is a little bit
6 different color right in here, remains agricultural .
7 All of this down here remains agricultural .
— 8 MR. GEILE : A second question, and that would
9 be what you would do for ten years ; is that correct?
10 MR . GRINNELL : Church growth is tough to
11 guesstimate .
12 MR. GEILE : Well , there has been a statement,
13 a number thrown around of ten years , and it ' s been tied
14 to Phase I .
15 Could you help me understand what that means?
16 MR. GRINNELL : We believe that this part - - I
17 think that there are three types of development here,
18 and each type of development would have different
19 phases . So to say Phase I on the site is ten years
20 isn' t accurate .
21 We are thinking of this single family housing
22 as a phasing of somewhere around seven years from the
_ 23 point that it begins until it ' s built out , completed,
24 and finished. So seven years .
25 MR. GEILE : Where do you see that?
Page 133
1 MR. GRINNELL : Right here .
2 We are thinking that this is probably five •
3 years worth of senior housing, you know, three to five
4 years worth of senior housing. It ' s based on data we
5 have right now on senior housing market demand. This -
6 spot right here currently - - our current facility is
7 100 , 000 square feet . We are estimating a need to have,
8 today, 150 , 000 square feet . Churches also have a _
9 tendency to take a jump in attendance when you move
10 into a larger facility.
11 So all of those things said, my guesstimate _
12 is that if we started - - if we were approved here
13 today, it would still take us two, two and a half years
14 to get finished, at which point we would move out _
15 there . Probably within five years, four to five years
16 after moving in, would be the earliest possible that we
17 would like to expand again, at which point you would _
18 take another couple of years to go through this same
19 exercise of raising money, developing construction
20 drawings , going through the Planning Commission and
21 final plat -- or Planning Commission and the Board on
22 the final plat of Phase II .
23 So I can straight-faced say that you are
24 seven years out from today. I couldn ' t say ten. It
25 could be ten. It could be 15 .
Page 134
1 MR . GEILE : One of the conditions on this
2 is -- not one of the conditions , but on the zoning
3 overlay is it ' s a neighborhood center. That is one of
4 the designations which, in essence, would be
5 commercial .
6 Where would that be in - - I know where it
7 would be . It would be south of your community park, if
8 I recall , but what would be your time line in building
9 that? Bear in mind that you have to come back to us
10 with final plans every time you move ahead, and I
11 understand that .
12 My question is : What would be your thought?
13 MR. GRINNELL : Right now, the study we had
14 done by the Goodrich group indicated that the
15 commercial retail is pretty far out . Any substantive
16 demand Goodrich is seeing out there 15 years . We are
17 more optimistic than that, but we don ' t have anything
18 to hang our hat on.
19 There would be some demand based on the very
20 localized right in here . So our intent would be to
21 evaluate how the rest of the area develops and build it
22 as soon as possible, or as soon as is economically
23 practical , but it ' s - - we don ' t have a crystal ball .
24 And commercial retail , we are not going to
25 own it . We would sell the -- either build a building
Page 135 —
1 and lease it or sell the pads or something, but you
2 have to have a spot where retail commercial people —
3 would come invest in the property, and you have to have
4 a certain amount of demand.
5 She does studies for those people . That is —
6 the study that we received. According to her study,
7 she believes that we are 15 years out before there ' s
8 enough demand to attract any reasonable kind of —
9 commercial retail .
10 MR. LONG: Any other questions at this time?
11 Please continue . Thank you. —
12 MR. GRINNELL : So back to the issue on lot
13 coverage based on - - I did do the calculations based on
14 the church campus and, because there are two pieces to -
15 this campus . It is divided by -- dissected by the
16 railroad right here .
17 This part down here has a much higher density -
18 than this part up here . It ' s indicated as such on our
19 site plan.
20 We are projecting on - - this piece up here is _
21 40 . 5 acres . We are projecting at maximum build-out
22 124 , 000 square feet on that 40 acres . The lower
23 portion in here has the higher density. It ' s 1 , 376 , 000 _
24 square feet total on 88 . 5 net acres right here .
25 At a 60-percent lot coverage, that means
Page 136
1 825 , 000 square feet of footprint on 88 . 5 acres . That ' s
2 9 , 328 square feet per acre of footprint . We had a
3 number earlier that was 919 , and we obviously had a
4 decimal point in the wrong place . The actual number on
5 lot coverage for this entire site at maximum build-out
6 is 9 , 300 square feet per acre . That takes into account
7 the 25 or 30 acres around the outside where no
-. 8 buildings are allowed, et cetera .
9 There are some other issues relative to
10 compatibility. One is - - and it ' s in the policy. I
- 11 think you saw it earlier today.
12 One of them is general use . Just quickly,
13 the uses that we ' re proposing are consistent with what
14 the MUD has allowed for in -- the uses that we are
15 proposing are consistent with what is provided in the
16 MUD . We have been through that many times, I believe,
17 and I just wanted to reiterate that .
18 Building heights we 've addressed. Building
19 heights are mitigated by open space and setback
20 offsets . We believe that we have added the issues of
21 building heights by requiring a certain amount of open
22 space and a certain amount of offset for increased
23 building heights .
24 Scale and density is an issue that we ' ve just
25 covered of lot coverage . We feel like we have shown
Page 137 —
1 that we are compatible with the adjacent uses on
2 density. —
3 Traffic you have heard a lot of today. I
4 don ' t know if there ' s any reason to spend any time
5 there . -
6 Dust and noise are issues that are regulated
7 by the State . There ' s a noise requirement at the
8 property line that we must adhere to . We 've made -
9 comments on several occasions that we would adhere to
10 that as anybody would.
11 Back to the issue of scale, we provided -
12 some -- scale is , in part, an issue of character of the
13 campus . Typically, these things are dealt with at
14 final plan, architectural character and what the campus -
15 is going to look like .
16 But in order to provide at this time some
17 idea on what the thing might look like, we have put _
18 together a set of photos that I would like to have our
19 planner, Dennis Rubba, run quickly through to give you
20 some idea as to what we believe the character of the _
21 campus would look like .
22 MR . RUBBA: Dennis Rubba, 2401 15th Street,
23 Suite 10 , Denver, Colorado . I am the campus master _
24 planner .
25 As Bruce was alluding to, he started talking
Page 138
1 about scale . Previously we had been talking about
-- 2 compatibility and density. Scale has to deal with a
3 different kind of planning term when we start getting
4 into things like form, commodity, and delight . We
5 begin to relate the buildings to its context .
6 This is the vision that we have for the
7 place . It ' s not large buildings without character.
8 It ' s about beauty. It ' s about creating a place and an
9 identity for LifeBridge . This gives you a general
10 sense of what we are talking about .
11 Buildings begin to break down creating the
12 sense of welcome, articulation of buildings, creating
13 outdoor spaces , clarity about how people move through
14 campus , even to the place of how buildings relate to
15 the ground, the introduction of materials of richness
16 and warmth, articulating roof lines so that they are
17 soft , the creation of outdoor social spaces for people
18 to gather in, articulating roof lines, spaces between
19 buildings, views from buildings outside, a sense of
20 arrival to the campus, beauty in the light with water,
21 the sense of motion through the campus, the sense of
22 gathering and the quality of those places .
23 The beauty of moving through the campus is an
24 important part of what we are envisioning, the natural
25 quality of moving from building to building in just the
Page 139
1 informal . The natural quality that we have here in
2 Colorado we brought to the LifeBridge campus . -
3 The use of native plant materials , native
4 stones, the introduction of seating areas, seating
5 walls , the scale, the plants, just the beauty, an -
6 introduction of places for kids to play, playgrounds ,
7 water features, the screening of parking lots with
8 landscaping, with berms, the topography, using that to _
9 create the form through the campus .
10 This is , very quickly, just what we are
11 envisioning of the project of LifeBridge, to create -
12 that sense of scale for our campus environment .
13 Thank you.
14 MR. LONG: Thank you.
15 MR. GRINNELL : The last thing . We have three
16 conditions that we would like to discuss . One is
17 condition 1D . The other one is condition 1E . -
18 MR . LONG: You said 1D, as in David?
19 MR. GRINNELL : Yes .
20 We have had some conversations with Staff -
21 about both of these conditions , and we ask that these
22 two conditions be removed. It ' s 1D, like David, and
23 1E, like Edward.
24 MR. LONG: Let ' s see . It ' s down on page 36 .
25 Let ' s discuss 1D first . It ' s been satisfied,
Page 140
1 is that what you are saying?
- 2 MR. OGLE : Kim Ogle, Department of Planning
3 Services .
4 We had testimony at the last public hearing
- 5 that said that that standard had been met .
6 MR. LONG: Okay. So it would be the
7 recommendation - -
.- 8 MR . OGLE : We recommended it be stricken.
9 MR. GEILE : We are talking about the fire
10 district?
— 11 MR. OGLE : Yes .
12 MR. LONG: Okay. And 1E?
13 MR . OGLE : Kim Ogle, Department of Planning
_ 14 Services .
15 There was testimony at the previous hearing
16 that said that they are meeting with the property
- 17 owner, the applicant in this case, and that their
18 conditions and concerns had been addressed through
— 19 their meetings with the LifeBridge PUD folks .
20 We recommend it be stricken.
21 MR. LONG: Okay. Is that okay with the
22 Board?
23 MR. GRINNELL : Condition 4M, like Mary.
24 We ' ve had - - it starts with: "The applicant shall
— 25 submit a revised" --
Page 141
1 We 've had conversations with Public Works
2 with regard to this condition. We are asking that the -
3 second sentence that begins with "sufficient
4 separation" and ends with "tract to the east , " that
5 that sentence be stricken. -
6 MR. SCHELTINGA: Drew Scheltinga with Public
7 Works .
8 Actually, the intent of this paragraph is to -
9 deal with the four-way intersection that would be
10 created at Weld County Road 26 and 5 . The sentence
11 that begins with "sufficient separation" is a mistake -
12 and shouldn ' t even be in this paragraph. It dealt with
13 the separation between the railroad and one of the
14 internal circulation roads . So actually, the sentence -
15 is just an error and should not be in that paragraph.
16 MR. LONG : Should it be someplace else?
17 MR. SCHELTINGA: No. As a matter of fact, -
18 the plan has been revised and that separation has been
19 made . The sentence can just go away.
20 MR. LONG: Okay with everybody? _
21 Very well . We can delete that sentence at
22 this point .
23 Thank you.
24 MR. GRINNELL : I ' ll just go back and talk
25 about those conditions of oil and gas .
Page 142
1 One condition is condition 1B, like boy, and
2 the other one was condition 2A.
3 My mistake . 1B should stay in.
4 MR. LONG: So 1B is okay?
5 MR . GRINNELL: Is okay. 1G, George .
6 MR. LONG: As evidence of an agreement or
7 evidence -- is that the one that starts that the
8 proposal has to accommodate oil and gas concerns?
9 MR. GRINNELL : That ' s the one .
10 MR. JERKE : This is one that I raised quite a
11 bit of issue with as well . While I don' t agree with
12 the idea of an oil company holding up surface rights
13 for people to be able to develop, I also don ' t mind
14 seeing evidence that the applicant is working with the
15 oil company, if they have made best efforts . If they
16 can prove that , I don' t have any problem with that . If
17 they can show through e-mails and contracts offered and
18 phone calls made that they have made the effort , then
19 that ' s fine with me .
20 I don ' t want to let them off the hook
21 altogether . Likewise, I don ' t want to give an oil
22 company veto power. So however we accomplish that
23 is --
24 MR. LONG: Mr . Masden.
25 MR. MASDEN: Yeah, I would like to see
Page 143
1 something stay in there like that . 1G says evidence,
2 and we agree that more evidence of proposal has been -
3 accommodated. So it ' s not saying that you have to
4 have, you know, hard evidence, an agreement in place
5 but are in the process of working with it . -
6 Is that right , Counsel?
7 MR. GRINNELL : 1G is a condition that is
8 prior to the recording of the Change of Zone . The -
9 reason for asking is that we already have the evidence
10 already submitted. There are three draft agreements as
11 part of the submittals . -
12 MR. LONG: I guess for clarification for me,
13 Mr . Jerke, you are asking that the language be softened
14 or changed so that maybe the word accommodated reflects -
15 that -- that gives that company veto power, to change
16 that language somehow?
17 MR. JERKE : The evidence that the applicant -
18 has demonstrated that they have made a best faith
19 effort to accommodate oil and gas concerns . That is
20 what I would want to see, that they are making the -
21 effort, but not hold them out there as a sacrifical
22 necessarily to an oil and gas company that may seek all
23 kinds of things there . So I don ' t know if we need help -
24 from Planning or our pristine legal staff on this one .
25 MR. MORRISON: No . I think the issue -- I
Page 144
1 think you are being asked to find that they have
2 already provided - -
3 MR. GRINNELL : Already provided the evidence .
4 We are not asking to not have to provide the evidence .
5 We are just saying that we believe we have satisfied
6 the condition by providing the evidence .
7 MR. MORRISON: I think you can deal with that
8 either by making that finding or -- you know, I 'm not
9 telling you how to weigh the evidence . I 'm just saying
10 that the applicant is asking you to make the finding
11 that they have already made the effort to accommodate .
12 Another option might be to require further
13 proof at the time of each final plan, because I think
14 that is part of the issue . Without a final plan,
15 there ' s no certainty as to what the surface development
16 is going to look like and how that might interfere with
17 it . So in some cases, we could require that this be
18 part of the final plat .
19 MR. MASDEN: Final plat .
20 MR. MORRISON: That would allow the process
21 to move forward and get to a more definite development
22 plan. At any point that they reach an agreement , you
23 know, then that would be completed.
24 MR. LONG: So what you are recommending is
25 evidence that G has been satisfied at this point, maybe
Page 145
1 to move G to prior to recording --
2 MR. MORRISON: I think what you can find is -
3 that it ' s been adequate for Change of Zone without
4 saying that they have accomplished everything that they
5 need to accomplish for the final plan, and still -
6 preserve it in the final plan process, either by
7 requiring it as a part of the application for final
8 plan or prior to the final plat , any of the final plan -
9 plats .
10 I think there ' s two different standards
11 because you have a general development now, a general _
12 development approach, and in the future, when they get
13 to the final plan, then you have more detail to work
14 with. _
15 MR. LONG: So what was your recommendation to
16 exercise that?
17 MR . MORRISON: I 'm not recommending that you
18 do one thing or the other . An option would be to say
19 that those have been satisfied in general for the
20 purposes of the Change of Zone, that you want to see _
21 those addressed at some stage in each final plan,
22 whether that be prior to recording of plat , final plan,
23 or prior to - -
24 MR. LONG: Very well .
25 MR. JERKE : Second.
Page 146
1 MR . MORRISON: That ' s wasn ' t a motion.
2 MR. LONG: Would you like to make the first?
3 MR. JERKE : So move that that type of
4 language be used.
.- 5 MR. LONG: For the record, to say that the
6 evidence of 1G has been satisfied at this point but
7 that we have that language prior to the recording of
8 the plat or the plan, we have two options here .
9 MR. MORRISON: Yeah, and you need to pick one
10 of them for the final plan process .
— 11 Or a third option would be prior to it
12 getting before you for a hearing.
1- 3 MR. LONG: Prior to hearing?
14 MR. MORRISON: Prior to hearing.
15 MR. LONG: What would be your druthers?
16 MR. JERKE : I would prefer that .
— 17 MR. MASDEN: The plan?
18 MR. LONG: Prior to a hearing?
— 1- 9 MR. JERKE : Uh-huh.
20 MR. LONG: So moved by Commissioner Jerke and
21 by Commissioner Masden to stipulate that the evidence
— 2- 2 of 1G has been satisfied at this point , but then
23 reflect the language at a stage in the development
24 standards to where it is required prior to the hearing
25 for the Board of County Commissioners, the planning
Page 147 —
1 stage, to reflect that there be evidence that 1G has
2 been satisfied. Well , it would be different than 1G. —
3 MR. MORRISON: Essentially the same, just
4 that you have more detail . We still need to continue
5 to show accommodation. —
6 MR. LONG: Very well . Any further
7 discussion?
8 All those in favor say aye . —
9 All those opposed.
10 Okay. Motion carries .
11 MR. GRINNELL : The very last one, 2A. It -
12 reads : "The proposed locations of the oil and gas
13 drilling envelopes and the existing oil and gas
14 facilities on site, including all easements associated
15 with these facilities . " In any case, that the plat
16 should be amended to include those things .
17 We believe that we have provided those at _
18 this time, and we 've had some discussion with Staff .
19 MR. OGLE : Kim Ogle, Department of Planning
20 Services . _
21 We feel that that particular item has been
22 addressed in the application. We would request that it
23 be an accurate drawing, as was requested by the
24 individual from Patina Oil & Gas to verify where those
25 envelopes are located.
— Page 148
1 MR. LONG : When you say an accurate drawing,
2 maybe a survey drawing, something of that nature?
3 Mr . Jerke .
4 MR. JERKE : Well , with the removal of 2A, I
5 think we have already taken care of it here by adding
6 the requirement that he put it on the final plan. So
7 2A would be fairly moot , I would guess .
8 MR. LONG: Counsel .
9 MR. MORRISON: I think part of - - you could
10 find that part of having satisfied the condition to
11 remove was that they have - - that putting it on the map
12 is part of the accommodation. I 'm not sure you want to
13 remove that . I think that is part of the
14 accommodation. You can remove it because it has been
15 done . You can find it ' s been accomplished but you
16 shouldn ' t remove the 'requirement .
17 MR. LONG: Commissioner Geile .
18 MR. GEILE : I guess I would just as soon see
19 it - - but that ' s very clear .
20 MR. MORRISON: Mr. Ogle, are you saying it is
21 there or it is not there?
22 MR. OGLE : Do we have some sort of an --
23 MR . MORRISON: Mr . Grinnell , you are asking
24 that it be removed because it has been accomplished?
25 MR. GRINNELL : It has been accomplished.
Page 149
1 We 've already provided them on a survey drawing.
2 MR. OGLE : The drawings that we have of —
3 record show the circles where the oil and gas
4 facilities are at .
5 MR. MORRISON: So it would be all right if
6 that was stricken on the basis that it had already been
7 done . It doesn' t have to be --
8 MR. OGLE : That is correct , yes . -
9 MR. LONG: Mr . Masden.
10 MR. MASDEN: I would like to see it stay on
11 because it ' s the proposed locations at this point . In -
12 time, with development , those proposed locations may
13 change with that window, because they do have that
14 window where they can -- that is why I would like to _
15 see it stay in.
16 MR. LONG : Okay. Mr. Jerke?
17 MR. JERKE : Yeah. _
18 MR. LONG: Very well . We ' ll leave 2A where
19 it ' s at .
20 MR. GRINNELL : That is the end of our rebut . _
21 Thank you for all of your time .
22 If you have any questions --
23 MR . LONG: Yes, please . Mr Jerke .
24 MR. JERKE : I have one question. I guess I
25 just wanted to make sure it ' s clear in my mind
.� Page 150
1 regarding an update on what the applicant ' s stance
2 would be on the issue of connectivity for those
3 interior roads going into existing subdivisions . I
4 know earlier, I believe anyway, that the applicant was
5 opposed to it, as the neighbors in the neighborhood
6 seemed to be as well .
7 Is that still the stance?
8 MR. GRINNELL : Yes . We are opposed to it
9 from the standpoint that the church campus does not
10 require connectivity. We don ' t see any inherent
-. 11 benefit for LifeBridge to have the connectivity. The
12 traffic studies would indicate benefit the other
13 direction, but only to the extent that the residents in
14 those communities understand and feel and believe that
15 there is benefit . That is what we believe the code,
16 that the connectivity is there for the benefit of the
17 residential communities , not for our benefit .
18 We oppose the connectivity to both Pearl
19 Howlett and Blue Mountain.
20 MR. GEILE : I concur with that for the
21 reasons I stated earlier. Having driven through that
22 area, I think there is some health safety issues
23 associated with the connectivity and having that amount
24 of traffic, especially with the configuration of the
25 streets , as well as the - - so I concur with you, if
Page 151
1 that is what you are saying. I would like to -- I
2 don ' t know if we could do that through the record. I 'm -
3 not even sure we need to do it other than --
4 MR. LONG: Counsel , can you help? Is that in
5 the development stage? -
6 MR. MORRISON: Well , the applicant hasn ' t
7 pursued it . I think it ' s the basis of the
8 recommendation by Public Works, but I don ' t know that _
9 it ever was accepted by the Planning Commission either.
10 MR. LONG: Drew.
11 MR . SCHELTINGA: Drew Scheltinga of Public _
12 WOrks .
13 It wasn ' t part of the recommendation of the
14 Planning Commission. The Planning Commission disagreed _
15 with the connectivity as well , so it was stricken from
16 the recommendation. There is not a condition of
17 connectivity written into the resolution.
18 So I think the fact that it ' s the Board ' s
19 opinion that that is not the right thing to do would be
20 expressed, and there is really just nothing to do in
21 terms of the resolution because there isn ' t a
22 requirement in there . Had the Board decided or if the
23 Board were to decide it should be done, we would have
24 to add a condition.
25 MR. LONG: Okay. I agree, I guess at this
Page 152
1 point, on that . I have driven out there on a few
2 occasions here recently. I would be okay with not
3 adding that . So no motion needs to be taken on that .
4 MR. GEILE : Along with the records .
5 MR. LONG : Right , no connectivity.
6 Any other questions at this point?
7 I have a question. Refresh my memory.
8 Regarding the noise, because I know there are some
9 concerns regarding ordinance questions , hours of
10 operation, which way - -. we just had some questions that
11 weren ' t answered in our last hearing.
12 MS . SMITH : Pam Smith, Weld County Department
13 of Public Health and Environment .
14 There are some -- there is a state statute,
15 Statute 25-12-103 , on maximum permissible noise levels
16 in a residential zone .
17 Do you want me to go through these
18 specifically?
19 MR. LONG: Just the ones that would be
20 applicable basically to the amphitheater and what would
21 be located in close proximity to that .
22 MR. OGLE : Kim Ogle, Department of Planning
23 Services .
24 The amphitheater development proposal is not
25 in Phase I or Phase II .
Page 153
1 MR. LONG : So that would be addressed at that
2 stage . Just for clarification for me on the timing -
3 basis , that will be addressed at a later time?
4 MR. GRINNELL : I believe we made the
5 statement saying that we are going to comply with the -
6 state noise statutes as applicable for each area at the
7 point of the final plan.
8 MR. LONG: Thank you. -
9 Are there any other questions? Any other
10 comments?
11 MR. GRINNELL : Yeah, one more change that I -
12 just brought up that needs to be made to the bulk
13 requirements on building heights , Exhibit A.
14 MR. OGLE : This is a letter that was _
15 submitted by Tetra Tech RMC in the last packet of
16 information that came into the Board. It ' s on page 4 .
17 There ' s a graphic chart in there that talks about _
18 setbacks and building heights from the north, south,
19 east , and west .
20 MR. LONG: Which exhibit is that? _
21 MR. GRINNELL : Exhibit A, I believe .
22 MR. LONG: I saw it once . We have that in
23 our hard copy here, in our resolution.
24 MR. OGLE : One of the charts is under No . W,
25 and it ' s on page 4 of that document .
Page 154
1 The second chart is the one that you have in
2 front of you, which we called out as the bulk standard
3 summary, which we know as Exhibit A.
4 MR. LONG: But they are different , you are
5 saying?
6 MR. OGLE : Correct . The one has to do with
7 building heights and setbacks , a combination chart that
8 we addressed at the last hearing, and then the summary
9 of the bulk standards .
10 MR. GEILE : There ' s also some configuration
11 quite the opposite made too, such as no building less
12 than 75 feet . So there ' s other things that you have
13 presented today that need to be included in that bulk
14 summary. I just assumed that would be . I just assumed
15 that would be - - let me say that again for the folks
16 that might not have heard me .
17 In the exhibit that we are looking at , there
18 are what ' s called bulk standards summary, and there are
19 things that have been proposed by the applicant today
20 that might not be in this summary. So that ' s -- from
21 our perspective, the applicant has added some things,
22 just to make sure this is complete according to record.
23 I apologize for screaming.
24 MR. GRINNELL : On Exhibit A that you are
25 looking at , there are three changes . If you go in the
Page 155
1 left most column, going down to where it says minimum
2 setback in feet , go across the page to the column that —
3 says mixed use office retail . It currently has 25
4 feet . We ' d like to change that to 20 feet .
5 The next column over is the commercial —
6 center. It currently has 25 feet . We ' d like to change
7 that to 20 feet .
8 The next column over is the neighborhood —
9 center . We ' d like to change that from 25 feet to
10 20 feet .
11 Those are the only changes that we are asking _
12 for on this table .
13 MR. LONG: Mr . Geile .
14 MR. GEILE : Even though there ' s a question _
15 with the proposals that you made at the start of your
16 presentation this morning related to minimum distances,
17 250-foot , and those other things, they should also _
18 become a part of this . I would just like that in the
19 record, that that also becomes a part of this .
20 MR. GRINNELL : There ' s another table that we
21 are going to look at of the actual building height on
22 the church campus .
23 MR . JERKE : Mr . Chairman, I need clarity on
24 this . What are these setbacks from?
25 MR. GRINNELL : Offsets are from the property
Page 156
1 lines . Setbacks are from the streets . So these are
2 setbacks from a street . The three that we are asking
3 to change on Exhibit A, that bulk table, are all
4 setbacks . Those are all distances from the street to
5 the buildings .
6 MR. JERKE : Did we define if that ' s an
7 interior street or an exterior roadway? That ' s not
8 like a major county road setback.
9 MR. GRINNELL : Yeah, it ' s internal in the
10 neighborhood center or in the commercial center or in
11 the mixed use area.
12 MR. LONG: If I could, on the far down left
13 column, maximum building height in feet, I see 30-foot
14 under single family residential , and down below it ' s 35
15 feet in bold print .
16 MR. GRINNELL : The bold print is the one that
17 we are requesting. The lighter colored one is the
18 one - - right?
19 UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: 35 feet is the code .
_ 20 That is our request .
21 MR. LONG : All through here I see regular
22 print and bold print . I see at the top PUD, so which
23 one is which throughout?
24 MR. OGLE : The number that - - there is a top
25 number and a lower number . The top number is what was
Page 157
1 proposed by LifeBridge . The lower number is the Weld
2 County code . —
3 MR. LONG: So the bold print is the code?
4 MR. OGLE : So, for instance, where it says
5 single family residence, minimum lot size in square —
6 feet , it says 7500 is what LifeBridge is proposing, and
7 6 , 000 is what County code says .
8 MR. GRINNELL : My mistake . All of them are _
9 good on that table . We were reading it backwards . All
10 of the things that are currently on that table the way
11 it is we ' re completely okay with. -
12 MR. LONG: For clarification, I 'm not .
13 MR. GRINNELL : The bold is -- my
14 understanding of this now is that the bold type is Weld
15 County' s code . In general , the things on the bottom,
16 the things in bold, those are Weld County' s typical
17 code . The things up above, the things that are not in _
18 bold, are the things that are proposed in this PUD .
19 MR. LONG: So by default , does it go to Weld
20 County code? That ' s the way I would interpret it . _
21 Where it ' s asking for a 45-foot height in assisted
22 living buildings , and the code is 35 , that would be
23 reduced to 35? And I see - -
24 MR. GRINNELL : That ' s the maximum building
25 height?
— Page 158
1 MR. LONG: Yes .
— 2 MR . GRINNELL: So the code says that the
3 maximum building height in that area could be 35 . We
4 are asking for it to be 45 .
— 5 MR. LONG: I 'm doubly confused because that
6 isn ' t what we just said.
7 MR. GRINNELL : Let me try it again.
— 8 Maximum building height, the code says --
9 Weld County code says that the maximum building height
10 is 35 . What we are asking for is a maximum building
— 11 height of 45 .
12 MR. LONG: Mr. Jerke .
13 MR. GRINNELL : These went through Planning
14 Commission.
15 MR. JERKE : The idea is that you are trying
16 to simply show us where our code would be, and then
17 your PUD is simply going to try to deviate from that .
18 You are showing us by how much in each given area that— 19 you are trying to deviate from what our code would
20 normally be .
21 MR . GRINNELL : Yes .
—
22 MR. LONG : Thank you.
— 23 MR. GRINNELL : We are indicating code . We
24 are indicating what we are requesting . Somehow over
— 25 the length of this we got mixed up as to which were our
Page 159
1 numbers and which were your numbers . We put the table
2 together, so we should have known. -
3 MR. OGLE : Kim Ogle, Department of Planning
4 Services .
5 If you look at item No . 3 .O, as in Oscar, on -
6 page 39 , it addresses what has been approved by the
7 Planning Commission and supported by Staff as to what
8 are the building heights , the maximum building heights _
9 and how we 've established them for each of the zone
10 districts in the PUD .
11 MR. LONG: Mr . Geile . -
12 MR. GEILE : I was going to go over some of
13 the problems that I have, which are Exhibit B, as well
14 as in this article, this particular section or _
15 paragraph. That is 90 feet . That had been backed down
16 to 75 feet .
17 MR. OGLE : Correct . The original application -
18 came in at a much higher number than that . At the last
19 Board hearing, the applicant agreed to lower, in that
20 envelope, that rectangular piece in the middle of the _
21 church campus , to 75 feet in height .
22 MR. GEILE : That needs to be reflected in -
23 here because the entire site is limited to a height of
24 90 feet .
25 MR. OGLE : Okay.
Page 159
1 numbers and which were your numbers . We put the table
2 together, so we should have known. _
3 MR. OGLE : Kim Ogle, Department of Planning
4 Services .
5 If you look at item No. 3 . O, as in Oscar, on
6 page 39 , it addresses what has been approved by the
7 Planning Commission and supported by Staff as to what
8 are the building heights , the maximum building heights _
9 and how we 've established them for each of the zone
10 districts in the PUD.
11 MR. LONG : Mr . Geile . _
12 MR. GEILE : I was going to go over some of
13 the problems that I have, which are Exhibit B, as well
14 as in this article, this particular section or _
15 paragraph. That is 90 feet . That had been backed down
16 to 75 feet .
17 MR. OGLE : Correct . The original application
18 came in at a much higher number than that . At the last
19 Board hearing, the applicant agreed to lower, in that
20 envelope, that rectangular piece in the middle of the
21 church campus, to 75 feet in height .
22 MR. GEILE : That needs to be reflected in
23 here because the entire site is limited to a height of
24 90 feet .
25 MR . OGLE : Okay.
Page 160
1 MR. GEILE : The reason I mention that is I
2 wonder if I can take you over to Exhibit B and - -
3 MR. OGLE : Excuse me?
4 MR . GEILE : Exhibit B, and we include all of
5 the changes that the applicant presented this morning.
6 Because on here we have the 90 feet , and we also have
7 others that were modified this morning . All of those
8 modifications need to be reflected in this Exhibit B
9 that was presented this morning .
10 MR. OGLE : Okay. The applicant submitted a
11 letter dated June 20th, 2003 , that is identified as
12 Exhibit W. In that exhibit, there is a building
13 height table, much like the one that you have there,
14 that they have introduced today at this hearing as to
15 what the building heights are .
16 However, there is a change . There ' s a number
_ 17 that are incorrect under offset from perimeter of the
18 160-acre church campus, which is up to the north, under
19 north property line . It should read distances in feet
20 of 125 to 400 . Then below that it should say 400 to
21 700 feet, not 400 to 600 as listed.
22 MR . LONG: You are on the north property
23 line?
24 MR. OGLE : For the north property line, Weld
25 County Road 26 , under Exhibit W.
Page 161
1 MR. GEILE : I would propose that -- we need
2 to get this accurate . It ' s got to be absolutely -
3 accurate . I would propose - - I know that it ' s getting
4 late in the day. Let ' s take a five-minute recess to
5 enable everybody, because I have some numbers that I -
6 wrote down this morning and I want to make sure that
7 they relate .
8 MR. LONG: Let ' s take ten minutes so that you -
9 can get the numbers and the distances and the heights
10 all on one page .
11 (Recess taken 3 : 36 p .m. to 3 : 53 p.m. ) -
12 MR. LONG: Some new evidence was brought into
13 light with the appraisal from West Foster . The
14 applicant brought in some new evidence that was not a -
15 part of the record earlier that maybe needs some
16 clarification and we can take direction on as a board.
17 Counsel , could you -- -
18 MR. MORRISON: As I understand, the concern
19 was - - I ' m not sure the date it was entered, but the
20 Foster evaluation report was dated July 3rd. So it was _
21 after June 20th.
22 I understand that Mr . Gries had an issue with
23 that coming in without a further opportunity to address
24 it basing it on the notice . The notice said that the
25 purpose of the continuance was to allow the
Page 162
1 municipalities within a 3-mile limit of the site to
2 respond to the Board of County Commissioners with
3 written referral comments regarding the case and to
4 allow the applicant to further address in writing the
5 issues raised during the proceedings .
6 It also said that comments should be received
7 by the -- that all comments must be received in the
8 Office of the Clerk to the Board prior to 5 : 00 p .m. on
9 Friday, June 20th.
10 I think the Board would have the option to
11 view this and something that Mr. Gries could address
12 further, even though testimony has been closed. You
13 know, you may want to choose to allow him that
14 opportunity before you finally close public testimony.
15 MR. LONG: Any wishes of the Board? I guess
16 the idea might be that the content of the material has
17 already been heard. Some discussion was brought to me
18 as to what his comments might be, so I think they are
19 already there . We can maybe give him a little bit
20 longer opportunity to look through the document right
21 now. We can go through the numbers as we had -- to go
22 back to the applicant and kind of go through this area
23 while we are looking through that, and then bring
24 Mr. Gries back for some final comments on that report .
25 MR. MORRISON: The other thing I would note
Page 163
1 is that the oral testimony was actually in response to
2 testimony that the neighbor had presented. So I don' t -
3 think there ' s an issue at all with the testimony of
4 Mr. Foster. It was, in fact , a response to something
5 that - - ..
6 MR. LONG: That was raised by the neighbors .
7 MR . MORRISON: The neighbors raised that
8 issue . -
9 MR . LONG: Okay. What would be the - -
10 MR. GEILE : I guess I would like to finish
11 with the applicant . I think we ought to, as a matter -
12 of protocol .
13 MR. LONG: Do we have a copy of the report
14 that we could offer you now to review and gather your _
15 comments? Then after - - before we bring it back to the
16 Board for deliberation, we may ask you to come forward
17 with your comments . -
18 Counsel , if you could make that available .
19 Mr . Gries, state your name .
20 MR. GRIES : Peter Gries, 11685 Montgomery
21 Circle, Longmont , Colorado.
22 My request to the County Commissioners is
23 that because your notice to us , all of the neighbors,
24 dated May 7 , 2003 , says that all comments must be
25 received in the Office of the Clerk on no later than -
Page 164
1 June 20 - - and in case there ' s any confusion about what
2 "all comments" means , the previous sentence, as
3 Attorney Barker -- I 'm sorry - - Lee Morrison pointed
4 out, the subject of the previous two sentences is the
5 municipalities and the applicants .
6 So when I got this notice, my understanding
7 was that we have to get - - everyone has to get
8 everything in by June 20th. Then the file is closed.
9 One of my neighbors went up, paid over $100 for a copy
10 of what he understood was the complete file, and within
11 the last three weeks we have based all of our
12 preparation for this meeting on that complete file .
13 We didn' t know about the existence of such
14 things as this or any of these recent changes . These
15 changes that you are talking about right now to the
16 application we assumed would be in the complete file
_ 17 that you informed us was going to be available on June
18 20th.
19 We have not -- I cannot simply read through
20 this in the next half an hour and then respond sensibly
21 to it . I don' t know if there ' s any other things
22 besides this that have been entered into the file
23 within the last few weeks . It sounds like there ' s a
24 lot of confusion about buffers and heights and charts,
25 and things are being changed at the last second.
Page 165
1 Clearly, in this notice from the Board of
2 County Commissioners dated May 7 , it says that —
3 everything would be in on June 20 . And we have been
4 basing our preparation for this meeting on the
5 assumption that we had everything . —
6 Now we found out that not only are there
7 completely new items , but there are being changes made
8 to the application at the eleventh hour . —
9 My request is to please ask you to give us
10 some time through a continuance of some kind to look
11 through everything that has been submitted in the last _
12 three weeks so that we can have - - can fully take
13 advantage of the period of public comment . That is my
14 request . _
15 Thank you for considering it .
16 MR. LONG: Thank you. We ' ll give you an
17 opportunity - - as reflected during the break, Mr . Gries _
18 reflected to me comments that he already had prepared
19 that he would like to stipulate in regards to that
20 piece of evidence . So I will just look for you to
21 follow up on those comments and bring those back at the
22 appropriate time .
23 As Counsel mentioned, their response was _
24 in - - that this piece of evidence, whatever it is , was
25 in response to the homeowners ' group and, in that
Page 166
1 sense, as a reply to the home appraisals .
2 Counsel .
3 MR. MORRISON: My comment was that the oral
4 testimony of Mr. Foster was in response to the issues
5 raised. I think you can revisit this issue once you 've
6 concluded your discussions with the applicant .
7 Certainly the members of the Board could choose
8 additional time if they desire .
9 MR. LONG: Thank you. We ' ll consider that at
10 the appropriate time .
11 So we ' ll continue now with the applicant , and
12 when we were breaking we were asking for a definitive
13 chart in regards to heights and setbacks that would be
14 definitive and that would be on one page, and I see
15 that before me .
16 Mr . Geile .
17 MR. GEILE : This is what was presented by the
18 applicant this morning, according to my notes .
19 MR. LONG: Okay.
20 MR. GEILE : That does specifically deal with
21 the 75-foot limitation, as well as the other
22 modifications that were made by the applicant .
23 MR. GRINNELL: I would like to comment that
24 these are clarifications , not changes .
25 MR. GEILE : That ' s correct .
Page 167
1 MR. GRINNELL : It ' s the same information.
2 That ' s one . _
3 The other information that we discussed, the
4 additional restrictions on the church campus, I would
5 like to make sure that those get entered in.
6 MR. MORRISON: Do you mean that this was from
7 your survey?
8 MR. GRINNELL : No, we talked about these this _
9 morning.
10 MR. MORRISON: These are already in the
11 record.
12 MR. GRINNELL : Yes . I just wanted to get
13 them all in one place and make sure that everybody
14 understands that they are here . They are already _
15 submitted. I just wanted to be absolutely clear on
16 what it is that is presented before you right now.
17 From our last meeting, we understood that
18 there was a change . I was just trying to change the
19 wrong numbers . The three in the minimum setback row,
20 which is the fourth row down, the last three columns,
21 the Staff has asked that there be a change to increase
22 the minimum setback. We have requested -- in mixed use
23 office retail , we requested zero. Staff would like to
24 change that to 20 . In the commercial center, we
25 requested 15 . Once again, Staff would like to change
Page 168
1 that to 20 . In the neighborhood center, we requested
2 15 , and Staff would like to change that to 20 .
3 MR. LONG: I 'm seeing 25 . Is that --
4 MR . OGLE : Kim Ogle, Department of Planning
— 5 Services .
6 The 25 is what has been in code, but the PUD
7 offers flexibility within those parameters . We are
8 willing to live with a 20-foot setback in those three
9 instances .
10 MR. LONG: Okay. Thank you for the
11 clarification.
12 Does the applicant concur then with Staff ' s
13 recommendation?
14 MR . GRINNELL : Yes . Those are the only three
15 changes in the table . That ' s all of the table stuff ,
16 unless there are questions on it .
17 MR. LONG: For my clarification again, the
18 bold print is code or Staff recommendation, it could be
19 either one, and the light print is their preference .
20 MR. OGLE : Correct .
21 MR. LONG: So on each one of these, on the
22 whole matrix, do we have to go through and see which
23 one you - -
24 MR. GRINNELL : Well , we ' ll go to the rest .
25 MR . LONG: But I see two numbers . I see bold
Page 169
1 print and I see light print . Which one are we going
2 with? —
3 MR. GRINNELL : The light print .
4 MR. OGLE : That ' s correct .
5 MR . LONG: Very well . -
6 MR. OGLE : We have one additional addendum
7 that we would like to add from the Health Department .
8 MR. LONG: Pam. -
9 MS . SMITH: Pam Smith, Weld County Health
10 Department .
11 I was looking through the resolution we were -
12 talking about with the noise standards . I omitted a
13 condition that set what the maximum noise level would
14 be .
15 They have to comply with the state statutes
16 for noise levels whether they are identified in this
17 resolution or not . But just for clarification, you may _
18 want to add that as a plat note . I talked to
19 Mr. Grinnell and told him what I 'm proposing, and he
20 was in agreement with that . So I can read that into
21 the record if you would like .
22 MR. LONG: Let ' s hear what that sounds like .
23 MS . SMITH: Okay. The applicant shall comply _
24 with the maximum permissible noise levels in each
25 representative zone district as per Colorado Revised
Hello