HomeMy WebLinkAbout20040774 �. Page 144
1 MR. RUBBA: Good afternoon, Commissioners .
2 Dennis Rubba . I 'm the campus planner, Insight
3 Design. Address is 2401 15th Street , Suite 10 ,
4 Denver, Colorado, and I ' m also a Weld County
5 homeowner.
6 The answer to your question is actually part
7 of my presentation but I ' ll go ahead and address that
8 right now.
9 Part of the organization of the campus is
10 about open space connections to encourage people to
- 11 come and be part of the campus . In fact , this area
12 here that runs along the ditch we very much would
13 encourage an open space connection to the outlying
.. 14 communities .
15 It ' s our intent to welcome and encourage
16 those from outlying communities to come and walk
17 through our campus and be part of the open space
18 trail system. So whatever way we can work through to
19 make that happen, I think it would be a benefit to
20 the project and to the community as well .
21 COMMISSIONER MASDEN: That ' s what I was
22 wondering, if you had taken a look at the St . Vrain
23 Legacy Trail program about connectivity, actual
24 connectivity to that and worked with them.
25 MR. RUBBA: Yes .
2004-0774
O3- 10
Pc_1 (e55
Page 145
1 COMMISSIONER MASDEN: You have?
2 MR. RUBBA: Yes . —
3 COMMISSIONER MASDEN: All right . Who have
4 you been in contact with on that committee?
5 MR . RUBBA: Dan Wolford. —
6 COMMISSIONER MASDEN: Okay. Because I sit
7 on that committee also and so does Kim and Dan.
8 With the School District , you' re talking —
9 about 110 individual houses?
10 MR. GRINNELL : Yes .
11 COMMISSIONER MASDEN: And other residential
12 units . Have you been in contact and working with St .
13 Vrain School District on impact and mitigation fees?
14 MR. GRINNELL : There ' s a letter in our
15 packet that ' s been signed by myself and Scott
16 Tillian, myself on behalf of the church and Scott
17 Tillian on behalf of the School District , to identify _
18 the impact and mitigation fees for that portion of
19 the project . So the fees are identified in the
20 letter. _
21 COMMISSIONER MASDEN: Okay. Are you doing
22 any -- because you' re going to be in the general
23 vicinity of some of the existing developments . Are
24 you doing any specific buffering of those existing
25 residences or developments?
Page 146
1 MR. GRINNELL : Through work with the staff
— 2 there ' s a requirement right now to -- there ' s a
3 125-foot setback along the whole eastern edge of the
4 property and there ' s a requirement by staff to put a
— 5 berm serpentine through that area and landscape
6 buffering for noise and height , light , okay?
.. 7 Anyways , it ' s a buffering between the two
— 8 neighborhoods . So it ' s required as a part of I think
9 the PUD Code and I think I referred to it earlier,
10 but there is plans right now to put buffering and
_ 11 screening in all along the east side .
12 COMMISSIONER MASDEN: All right . And also,
13 what about - - even though you've asked for a decrease
_ 14 in the height of the building, building envelope,
15 what about lighting plans for I guess the project
16 there?
— 17 MR. GRINNELL : Right now the lighting that ' s
18 been addressed is the parking lighting. All the
19 parking lighting we made a commitment to use
_ 20 non-directional lighting.
21 COMMISSIONER MASDEN: How about the height
— 22 of the building? Say you have a 75-foot height is
_ 23 what you ' re asking for . What type of lighting are
24 you going to have on that?
25 MR. GRINNELL : Quite honestly we haven ' t
Page 147
1 done any design. The building heights have been an
2 integral part of building design and we ' re sitting on _
3 about a half million dollars to a million dollars
4 worth of schematic design at the moment because we
5 don' t know what the building heights might be . All
6 those issues would be addressed at that point in time
7 and I believe certainly addressed before final plan.
8 COMMISSIONER MASDEN: Okay. _
9 MR . GRINNELL : We don ' t have - - I guess the
10 bottom line is we don ' t have any architecture at this
11 time .
12 COMMISSIONER MASDEN: That ' s what I was
13 wondering, if you had gotten that far along yet .
14 You talked about in the future with the
15 growth of this development and with that there ' s
16 going to be additional traffic and a need to expand
17 the road - - the infrastructure for the traffic on the
18 roads and everything . How is that going to be
19 funded, you know, 20 years down the road here?
20 MR. GRINNELL : Which roads are you speaking
21 to in particular?
22 COMMISSIONER MASDEN: Say the county roads .
23 MR. GRINNELL : 26 and 3 . 5?
24 COMMISSIONER MASDEN: Yeah, 26 , 3 . 5 , how are
25 those going to be funded, and even internal roads, I
Page 148
1 guess? Because the County will eventually take those
2 over also . How will this infrastructure be expanded
3 without a cost to the County?
4 MR . GRINNELL : My understanding is that any
— 5 roads on the campus itself will be paid for by us .
6 My understanding is that in the future as expansion
7 of the county roads is necessary, from what Mr .
8 Scheltinga said this morning, a new traffic report is
9 created at each additional final -- each additional
10 phase .
11 That traffic report would show background
12 traffic and show the incremental additions to traffic
13 that we would have, and currently there - - and there
14 was some prorated split that occurs at that point .
15 I believe at this point that - - and Drew
16 could -- Drew knows . This is just something I think
_ 17 I know. Currently I think that on 26 that we ' re
18 responsible in Phase 1 for 96 percent of the cost and
19 the County would be responsible for four, based on
20 background traffic, something like that . But the
21 County' s percentage is pretty small .
22 And I guess we ' re also paying impact fees to
23 help offset the costs . So in subsequent phases it
24 would be based on the results of the traffic study
25 done for that phase .
Page 149
1 COMMISSIONER MASDEN: On a prorata share on
2 that impact?
3 MR. GRINNELL : Yeah.
4 COMMISSIONER MASDEN: Okay, thank you .
5 CHAIRMAN LONG: Any other questions for Mr.
6 Grinnell? Okay, if you want to continue on with your
7 presentation, please .
8 MR . RUBBA: Commissioners , good afternoon _
9 again. Dennis Rubba, campus planner. I 'm
10 responsible for the overall campus master plan. I ' m
11 not going to throw lots of numbers at you. The folks _
12 behind me are way smarter than I am that will address
13 all the numbers .
14 What I would like to do is basically tell _
15 you about the ideas behind the master plan and some
16 of the phasing and strategies that we have come up
17 with for implementing the vision for the campus, so I _
18 apologize if I end up repeating some of the things
19 Bruce has said but it ' s in the essence of describing
20 the master plan.
21 If I could take just a moment and step back
22 and explain or state something that I did to the
23 Planning Commission. It was about two, two and a
24 half years ago when I first started working on the
25 project , and the first meeting that I had with the
Page 150
1 church leadership the question that they asked of
2 themselves was what are the needs, what are the
3 services that our community would need, what would
4 our neighbors need for our new project .
5 This is a question that they asked not so
6 much of the congregation but in fact how could they
7 begin to create shared opportunities for the
8 community for everyone involved in the project .
9 And so that really started to create the
10 notion of a community-centered campus, which is the
11 essence of this plan, so that becomes an opportunity
12 to share with the neighbors , with the church as well
13 as the MUD for the greater good, becomes a true
14 resource for all of us .
15 Just as a quick outline, the components
16 again of the master plan, the church campus located
17 here, the large lot residential in the western
18 section, the senior community in the lower third, a
sits
19 wonderful central park in the middle of the project ,
20 a Mixed Use Development here, and a neighborhood
21 center in the lower southern section of the project .
22 The overall master plan is organized along a
23 north/south axis in order to encourage development
24 and pedestrian movement toward the center to engage
25 the open spaces and create a wonderful environment to
Page 151
1 move and be part of . The east/west orientation again
2 is based upon creating useable outdoor spaces . _
3 You can imagine from the large lots
4 residential an open space park network that connects
5 back into the church campus . We 've addressed already _
6 the idea of a regional connection of open space
7 trails back into the heart of the church campus .
8 Even in the senior village the way the _
9 buildings will be arranged is to create a series of
10 outdoor pocket parks so that seniors can have a more
11 intimate area that then could be engaged with the _
12 larger central park.
13 Hopefully some of the trails and walkways
14 will extend into the adjacent neighborhoods to
15 encourage our neighbors to walk and be part of the
16 overall development and be part of that open space
17 connection.
18 And then down at the southern area here
19 drainage was addressed. In fact , drainage is an
20 integral part of how we ' re thinking about the master
21 plan. Because of the needs of the landscape
22 buffering and the needs for retention and detention
23 we 've located a pond in the southern section.
24 So you can imagine coming off the I-25
25 corridor, coming up 119, and just as the rise starts
Page 152
1 to come up and you pass by the Farms the first thing
2 you see is this pond, and overlooking the pond you
3 would see the main street . Beyond the main street
4 would be the central park. Surrounding the central
5 park would be the senior housing, the church, and
6 then the Front Range beyond.
7 So we think that the overall layering or
8 complexity of the planning would create a very
9 symbolic and a wonderful place for Weld County and
10 frankly a gateway to the city of Longmont .
11 As Bruce was saying, we don' t have
12 architecture but we have great architects that are
13 going to make sure that we have wonderful
14 architecture for the project , but there are some
15 basic principles that are important as we think about
.. 16 the campus development .
17 The first one is the intertwining of
18 landscape and architecture that together the inside
19 and the outside, the outside and the inside are
20 working together to create a real campus environment .
21 The buildings will be arranged in such a
22 fashion to create these outdoor social spaces for all
23 to use . The scale of building elements will be
24 brought in with arcades, trellises, courtyards,
25 benches to create that welcome and inviting sense
Page 153
1 into each of the buildings on our campus .
2 There will be a unified architectural theme -
3 and materials throughout the project to ensure
4 compatibility within itself as well as the neighbors .
5 To reinforce the essence of that style, a series of
6 design guidelines and development guidelines will be
7 developed to ensure that level of excellence across
8 the entire development . _
9 The project will be -- intended to be well
10 landscaped. The building arrangements are such that
11 they' ll be compact in order to create a safe and - -
12 promote safety within the overall development so that
13 buildings aren ' t spread out , that in fact there are
14 always eyes on the development encouraging people to _
15 be outside and be part of this safe environment .
16 Ultimately we ' re trying to create a place of
17 beauty, of delight and inspiration that we ' ll all be
18 proud of . So that ' s the end of kind of the pretty
19 pictures .
20 Now, if we get into some of the basic
21 phasing of that , if I might repeat again, the senior
22 housing -- excuse me, the single family housing, the
23 church, this will be the senior housing, the village,
24 senior housing village, mixed use and then the
25 neighborhood center .
Page 154
1 The numbers don' t represent the years of
- 2 implementation. They in fact represent a strategy
3 for how we will develop incremental development of
4 the overall project .
5 The strategy here being that we build from
6 the center out , that we create the infrastructure
7 that ' s necessary with the park, consolidate the
- 8 development of the senior housing around that open
9 space, we minimize the amount of disruption as the
10 project begins to expand from the core outward.
- 11 We encourage the construction of the
12 building of that first phase open space in the core .
13 As the buildings begin to build out, we believe that
14 there ' s an interior internal buffer that begins to be
15 built through architecture, the foreground, middle
16 ground and background of buildings as they begin to
17 buffer one another as the campus master plan is
18 implemented.
19 The market demand will really dictate how
20 each of the phases are implemented, but ultimately
21 the most visible part and also the highest retail
22 value, if you will , or real estate value of that
23 property is in the neighborhood center, that that
24 will be one of the last things to go depending on
25 when we get the right kind of density and the right
Page 155
1 kind of mix in order to encourage that kind of
2 development that will be supported by the entire -
3 development area.
4 Specifically on the church, and I will
5 continue to drill down a little bit more to speak -
6 about the church itself in the phasing, as Bruce
7 mentioned there ' s 160 acres in total of the church.
8 Approximately 10 buildings could be built, if I could -
9 walk you through those .
10 We would have a performing arts worship
11 area, a learning administration and worship, -
12 children ' s worship, athletics and recreation
13 component , student impact/young adult worship area,
14 performing arts and worship, a fellowship hall and -
15 worship, and eventually a chapel and perhaps a
16 community outreach property management to create what
17 might be the 1 . 5 million square feet on the 160 -
18 acres .
19 The church -- as the county grows we
20 anticipate LifeBridge growing as well , so the overall
21 development, incremental development , the three
22 buildings shown here that have the little harder
23 lines to them represent the first three buildings
24 that Bruce has mentioned.
25 The numbers then after that represent the -
Page 156
1 logical sequential development of each of the
2 buildings . Again, as membership increases or
3 residence increases, so will the expansion of the
4 buildings .
5 So, for example, in Phase 2 the worship
6 center would remain the same but perhaps we construct
7 the balcony. Hopefully by the time the membership is
8 increasing with families we ' ll need additional space
9 for children, children classrooms, so the second wing
10 of the children' s would be added to that . Supporting
- 11 the learning center would be additional classroom and
12 administrative offices .
13 So as the church membership increases so
- 14 will the buildings expand in themselves, so
15 ultimately we may have the recreation center, the
16 student impact and the secondary worship areas . So
17 again, it ' s market-driven depending on how the
18 overall church will be implemented over time .
19 Now, you 've seen this drawing many times
20 about the phasing, but just to repeat it because it
21 does relate back to the master plan, Phase 1 , Filing
22 1, we have about half of the single family residences
23 that will be constructed.
24 We have the church, which is three
25 buildings , the fellowship, the children ' s and the
Page 157
1 learning center, which is approximately the 268 , 000
2 square feet . We have then a portion of the senior -
3 housing and associated open space that will be
4 constructed.
5 Now, within the church, those three
6 buildings , we ' re proposing that the fellowship hall
7 will include a lobby, 2 , 500-seat worship auditorium,
8 multi-use room, bookstore, library, kitchen, 500-seat -
9 worship auditorium theater, which is approximately
10 158 , 000 square feet , the learning center including
11 the lobby, classroom, youth worship, church offices
12 and meeting rooms , approximately 60 , 000 square feet,
13 and then children ' s to include lobby, classrooms ,
14 children ' s worship, cafeteria, multi-use and a -
15 gymnasium of 50 , 000 . That brings us up to the
16 268 , 000 square feet for Phase 1 of the church itself .
17 Filing 2 , the church campus itself would
18 remain the same . This is really market-driven as far
19 as the completion of the single family housing as
20 well as additional senior housing that would be
21 built , based upon that market demand.
22 So in a general sense that ' s the vision for
23 the master plan, trying to create a place for work,
24 live, worship and play, one that we ' re all quite
25 proud of and look forward to its building over the
Page 158
1 next 50 some years .
2 That ' s the end of my presentation. I ' m more
3 than happy to respond to questions .
4 CHAIRMAN LONG : Questions? Seeing none, no.
5 MR. RUBBA: Thank you very much.
6 CHAIRMAN LONG: Thank you.
7 MR. DELICH: Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman,
8 members of the Weld County Board of Commissioners .
9 My name is Matt Delich, 2272 Glen Haven Drive,
10 Loveland, 80538 .
11 I prepared the traffic impact studies for
12 the Project LifeBridge PUD . Two levels of traffic
13 impact studies were done; one, for the overall
14 development and, two, for Phase 1 .
15 The traffic impact study for the overall
16 development assumed the following land uses that you
_ 17 see on the graphic : The church campus at two million
18 square feet and mixed uses, a residential component
19 at 750 dwelling units and an office/retail mixed use
20 area, if you will , the neighborhood center at 372 , 000
21 square feet .
22 Just a sideline, the 750 dwelling units
23 includes the senior housing, so I don' t want to say
24 that there ' s 750 single family dwelling units out
25 there . It includes the senior housing.
Page 159 —
1 The overall development is now less than
2 that ; therefore, the analysis that I used in the --•
3 overall traffic study is conservative, conservative
4 meaning high and that trips generated were higher
5 than what are really going to occur. As an example, —
6 the church campus is now, as you are aware, at 1 . 5
7 million square feet .
8 Trip generation is a key element of doing a —
9 traffic study, and let me define what a trip is . A
10 trip is defined as a one-way vehicle movement from
11 origin to destination. In the case of the LifeBridge —
12 PUD each vehicle trip has either an origin or a
13 destination on the site .
14 An example may be appropriate here . If a _
15 family comes to services on a Sunday or something, on
16 a Wednesday or anytime, there would be one trip in
17 and one trip out and that ' s two trips . Traffic _
18 engineers often refer to this as trip ends , so there
19 was two trip ends at the site .
20 And I wanted to spend a little time on this _
21 because I think it ' s important because there ' s been
22 some misinformation out there indicating that there
23 would be as many as 56 , 000 trip ends at the site, and
24 clearly that ' s not the case, that at that higher
25 level of development that I referred to it would be
Page 160
1 28 , 000 trip ends .
2 About 40 percent of those 28 , 000 , the bigger
3 number, would be related to the church campus , and
4 about 60 percent of them would be related to the
5 other uses on the site, the senior housing, the
6 neighborhood center and all those activities .
7 At full development the key intersections
8 and roads with the recommended improvements will
9 operate acceptably.
10 The overall trip generation with the reduced
11 proposal , if you will , the 1 . 5 million, would be
12 reduced from the 28 , 000 down to 25 , 350 trip ends .
13 And under this circumstance the church campus trip
14 generation would be on the order of about 8 , 250 trip
15 ends or 33 percent , so you can see it was a reduction
16 from the 40 percent that I mentioned earlier down to
17 33 percent . The other portion of the site would
18 generate 17 , 100 trip ends .
19 I want to go to something that was mentioned
20 earlier in the morning, that the traffic study did
21 not indicate any travel to and from the north. That
22 is not the case . There was a significant travel to
23 and from the north. I believe the person from the
24 Town of Mead made that comment , and I want to assure
25 you that traffic went to and from the north.
Page 161
1 What I did in my analysis was gathered
2 information on all the home addresses of every member -
3 of LifeBridge and used that information to distribute
4 the trips , and as you can well imagine some of them
5 went to and from the north. -
6 In the packet that was handed out earlier
7 there ' s a memorandum from me, but I want to talk a
8 little bit about that . This memorandum talks about a _
9 comparison of trip generation.
10 If we hold the mixed use aspect of this
11 project as a constant, that is the 17, 100 trip ends,
12 and talk about what else could happen on the 160
13 acres, obviously other uses that could occur there
14 are residential and a reasonable practical density _
15 would be someplace between three dwelling units per
16 acre and six dwelling units per acre and this would
17 be compatible with the surrounding land around us .
18 You can see from the graphic that with
19 residential development at these rates the trip
20 generation would be in the range of 21, 900 trip ends
21 to 26 , 700 trip ends . You can also see from the
22 graphic on the screen that the church with the church
23 on that 160 acres falls right into that range .
24 So it would indicate or a conclusion can be
25 drawn that a church campus on the 160 acres is pretty
ape
Page 162
1 similar to the practical range of residential on that
.. 2 160 acres .
3 As with most developments, construction
4 generally occurs in phases and the second traffic
5 study that I did was with Phase 1 . Phase 1 would
6 consist of a church campus of 268 , 000 square feet and
7 274 dwelling units . Now, this is the single family
8 on the west side of County Road 3 . 5 and also a
9 portion of the senior housing.
10 This Phase 1 would generate about 4 , 000 trip
11 ends per day. About 60 percent of those trip ends
12 would be related to the church campus and about 40
13 percent would be related to the other uses , the
14 residential land uses .
15 And again, with the recommended street
16 improvements all the streets and intersections will
17 operate acceptably, and as was indicated earlier one
18 of the key improvements is paving County Road 26 .
19 Then in summary, this site is located in the
20 Weld County mixed use area served by State Highway
21 119 and other arterials and collectors . It fits into
22 a balanced, integrated Weld County transportation
23 network.
24 There will be connections to planned
25 regional trail system in the area . The applicant
Page 163
1 will build transportation improvements that serve the
2 development at the various development phases . -
3 Full buildout of the site can be
4 accommodated on the existing and the improved
5 proposed streets and intersections in the area, and -
6 the project will contribute a fair share to the
7 system-wide improvements through the Weld County
8 transportation impact fee . -
9 And before I close or at least open up for
10 questions, I want to offer something - - I think there
11 was a question about the current traffic at various
12 locations .
13 The current traffic, and these are rough
14 numbers , on State Highway 119 just to the east of
15 County Road 3 . 5 is on the order of about 25 , 000 to
16 26 , 000 vehicles per day. The traffic volume on Weld
17 County Road 3 . 5 just north of 119 is on the order of -
18 between 2 , 000 and 2 , 500 vehicles per day. It goes
19 down quite dramatically the further north you go
20 because that first portion of it obviously serves the -
21 Longview subdivision.
22 And then the last thing I want to talk about
23 is the intersection of State Highway 119 and 3 . 5 . -
24 You saw a graphic this morning that showed various
25 improvements and going to a six-lane facility.
Page 164
1 Let me indicate that if LifeBridge didn ' t
2 happen and we went to residential development here
3 and the MUD area essentially developed as
4 anticipated, the six-lane facility that you saw would
-. 5 be needed on State Highway 119 .
6 The LifeBridge PUD as you ' re reviewing it
7 today contributes about 23 percent to that traffic at
8 that intersection of 119 and 3 . 5 , so it ' s a small
9 portion of the traffic . Almost 85 percent of it
10 would be there anyway, and if other development
11 occurred and the church did not occur on this site
12 that would be that 23 percent .
13 So I just want to indicate that . I hope
14 that wasn ' t too confusing .
15 Again, I ' m available either now or through
._ 16 the rest of the course of this hearing for questions .
17 CHAIRMAN LONG : Any questions? Commissioner
18 Geile .
19 COMMISSIONER GEILE : Evidently when Longview
20 was developed it paid a significant portion of the
21 traffic signal at 3 . 5 and 119 . As I read through the
22 case I 'm trying to determine what would LifeBridge ' s
23 part -- if they' re what we call the pioneer customer,
24 they went and they put that in, even if the
25 Industrial Park to the south of 119 contributed some
Page 165
1 of it, what is your opinion as to the obligation of
2 LifeBridge in remunerating someone for the cost of -
3 that traffic signal?
4 Because certainly that ' s to your advantage
5 to have it there rather than have to go to the _
6 expense of putting one there .
7 MR. DELICH: Yeah, LifeBridge would be
8 making some improvements to that intersection, not
9 initially to the extent that you saw on that one
10 graphic because we ' re developing in phases but they
11 would be making some improvements, and they would _
12 obviously be contributing some traffic to that
13 intersection in the short-range future with approval
14 of development .
15 The percentage - - I think that would have to
16 be calculated on using the short range, if you will ,
17 the Phase 1 traffic, and I didn' t calculate that yet .
18 I can do that in the course of this hearing when I
19 sit down, but I guess I can' t answer that question on
20 the fly, but they would be responsible I would think
21 for some contribution or remuneration, if you will .
22 COMMISSIONER GEILE : If I may again, Mr.
23 Chairman. But at least right now there has been no
24 discussions with Longview - -
25 MR. DELICH : Well , not that I 'm aware of,
Page 166
1 not that have involved me .
2 COMMISSIONER GEILE : Thank you .
3 CHAIRMAN LONG: Commissioner Masden.
4 COMMISSIONER MASDEN: Thank you . Matt , you
5 were talking about this traffic study and earlier it
6 was stated that there ' s basically going to be two
7 peak times, Wednesday night and Sunday mornings .
8 How will this traffic report study and the
9 improvements be able to handle the traffic? How well
10 would it be able to handle those peak times? Because
- 11 I think that ' s what a lot of people are concerned
12 about too, as we are, having that congestion at those
13 peak periods .
- 14 MR. DELICH : Yeah, good question. Traffic
15 studies typically look at the peak hour of the street
16 and that ' s typically the work peak hours, if you
- 17 will . It ' s the morning peak hour between 7 : 00 and
18 9 : 00 and it ' s the evening peak hour between 4 : 00 and
19 6 : 00 when the roads are basically more congested than
20 other times .
21 Traffic to and from the church would peak at
22 probably not those times , as you indicated Wednesday
23 evening and Sunday morning. I 've not done any
24 analyses on Wednesday evening, but with a fair degree
25 of certainty I can tell you that the traffic on a
Page 167
1 Wednesday evening, say, from 6 : 00 on is significantly
2 lower than what it is between 4 : 00 and 6 : 00 in the -
3 afternoon. And so I would say that the operations of
4 that intersection, of 119 and 3 . 5 , would operate
5 acceptably. -
6 Now, what I did do was went out and counted
7 the key intersections on a Sunday morning, and I can
8 tell you with certainty because I did the counts that _
9 traffic on 119 and County Line Road is significantly
10 less than it is on a weekday during the peak hours
11 that I analyzed. _
12 And I can also tell you that I analyzed the
13 key intersections for Sunday morning traffic,
14 superimposing the church-related traffic on top of an -
15 increase in the existing traffic on a Sunday morning,
16 and all those intersections operate acceptably.
17 COMMISSIONER MASDEN: Okay. But also on the -
18 internal roads, not only just the intersection there
19 at 3 . 5 and 119 but the internal roads where you' re
20 getting into coming through existing developments, on -
21 those roads , how well it ' s going to handle those peak
22 times those two times of the week and not create a
23 problem and create, you know, that congestion and
24 noise problems , things of this nature for those
25 existing people . -
Page 168
1 MR. DELICH: In my judgment , and the
2 analysis related to connectivity that Drew talked
3 about earlier was done for what traffic engineers
4 call the normal peak hours of the day, not during
5 event conditions, Wednesday evening and Sunday
6 mornings , and those are the numbers that I think
7 would occur during the normal peak hours of the day.
8 Traffic during Sunday morning or Wednesday
9 evening, how many would use the neighborhood streets ,
10 like Pearl Howlett and things like that, if the
11 connections were made? Would there be some traffic?
12 Yes , there would.
13 The traffic through the Farms , I think it ' s
14 called the Farms at Meadowvale, that route is very
15 circuitous through that development and in my
16 judgment I don' t think very many people would use
17 that . Some would, no question about it, because
18 people are people and it ' s kind of a psychological
19 thing, but that is a fairly circuitous route .
20 Pearl Howlett is a little straighter - -
21 well , it ' s a lot straighter to get to 5 . 5 . But you
22 think about where the attractions are or productions,
23 if you will , using traffic engineering lingo, I
24 apologize for that , as to where people will be going
25 to and coming from, some will use that but I don ' t
Page 169
1 think it ' s going to be a significant number because
2 the other roads are going to be improved to a higher -
3 level .
4 There will be necessary turn lanes built,
5 there will be paving, there will be wider streets, -
6 and the ability to get out will be - - get out and get
r
7 in for that matter will be easier . And that ' s the
8 desire of traffic engineers and traffic planners and -
9 Weld County Public Works , for example, to make the
10 arterial streets better so people don ' t use those
11 minor streets as cut-through. -
12 Will some people do that? Yes, we know
13 that . You know, there ' s no question about that . But
14 I don ' t think it ' s going to be a big number . _
15 I think it ' s going to - - as Drew indicated
16 in the numbers that I developed, I think it ' s mostly
17 going to be the people who live in those _
18 neighborhoods desiring to get to perhaps an activity
19 on the church campus or in the future, and it ' s not
20 part of the initial proposal , to get to the -
21 neighborhood center, because it will allow them to do
-
22 those things without getting out onto 119 and out
23 onto roads that are there now.
24 The other thing is the ability -- there
25 isn ' t a signal at 3 . 5 and 119 ; there ' s not a signal
Page 170
1 at -- is it 5 . 5 - - 5 and 119 . I talked to CDOT, and
2 I know they' re not here to yea or nay this , but I 'm
3 pretty sure that that intersection at 5 and 119 is
4 not intended to be signalized. So the ability to get
5 out at 3 . 5 and 119 will be easier than 5 and 119 and
6 it will be safer, quite frankly.
7 So these are the reasons why I think that
8 the traffic volumes cutting through will be small .
9 COMMISSIONER MASDEN: Thank you.
10 CHAIRMAN LONG: Any other questions?
- 11 Commissioner Jerke .
12 COMMISSIONER JERKE : Really a comment that I
13 want you to comment on as well , as much as a
_ 14 question. I guess I find it kind of like apples and
15 oranges to try to compare residential to a very large
16 church scenario like we 've got proposed. I
17 understand the differences are tremendous .
18 You ' re going to see absolute floods of
19 people come in and out at particular times versus
- 20 that steady flow all the time with minor blips Monday
21 through Friday 7 : 00 a.m. to 9 : 00 a .m. , 4 : 00 to 6 : 00
22 p .m. , that type of thing that you would normally see
- 23 in a residential setting .
24 So I don ' t know if you want to comment on
25 that or not, but to suggest I guess from my
Page 171
1 perspective that the numbers are about the same
2 doesn ' t seem really accurate because I think you ' re -
3 dealing with such a huge flood on those Sunday
4 mornings that it makes it a very different thing to
5 try to compare . -
6 MR. DELICH : The comparison that I did that
7 was on an earlier graphic that you have in front of
8 you anyway were on a daily basis . Those were daily _
9 numbers .
10 Single family -- well , residential
11 developments, the peaks for those developments are _
12 during the typical morning and afternoon peak hours
13 if we get down into that finite detail and that ' s
14 what traffic engineers usually analyze .
15 And the church will have activities that do
16 not necessarily occur during those hours but the
17 number may be higher than will occur if there were
18 single family residences there . It ' s a peak
19 condition, it ' s an event, if you will , but now
20 remember that the traffic on the street will be
21 significantly less than what I analyzed.
22 So yeah, there ' s going to be spikes that
23 occur, but the analyses that I 've done indicate that
24 the intersections and streets with improvements, I 'm
25 not saying there ' s no improvements involved here,
Page 172
1 will operate acceptably and meet Weld County
2 criteria.
3 CHAIRMAN LONG: I guess to go along with
4 what Commissioner Jerke was asking, just looking at
5 your trip comparison chart there would it be fair - -
6 because I 'm trying to analyze that peak period, is it
7 fair to say that on the church campus your total trip
8 generation and your variable trip, is that the peak
9 periods and then add it up through the whole week and
10 then divide it by seven?
11 MR. DELICH : No, what we did, I had a kind
12 of a scoping meeting with Weld County Public Works
13 because this animal we ' re dealing with here is a
14 little bit different than obviously single family
15 residences . You know, single family residences is
16 pretty predictable .
17 So what I did was came up with a measure to
18 try to come up with a trip generation and we likened
19 the church campus to a small community college and
20 what happens at that type of facility, and we agreed
21 that this would be a reasonable representation as to
22 what might occur .
23 Now, at a community college while it ' s
24 spread out over the day because people have classes ,
— 25 in and out all day long, there is a peak in the
Page 173
1 morning, there is a peak in the afternoon, so that
2 kind of peaking is covered a little bit . -
3 So I just wanted to point out how we came up
4 with that . It was something that we had to get a
5 little creative here, but I think through using a -
6 community college aspect it was a reasonable
7 representation.
8 CHAIRMAN LONG : Thank you. Any other -
9 questions for Mr . Delich? Thank you.
10 MR . DELICH : Thank you.
11 CHAIRMAN LONG: Next in your presentation?
12 MR. HODGES : Good afternoon, Chairman Long
13 and Commissioners . Todd Hodges with Todd Hodges
14 Design, 1269 North Cleveland Avenue, Loveland,
15 Colorado, 80537 .
16 I ' m here today to give you a little bit of
17 an MUD history and background from the MUD plan, as _
18 well as some of the criteria of a PUD and the
19 compatibility of this site with the MUD plan.
20 During my employment with Weld County _
21 Planning Department in the mid to late 90 ' s the
22 Department of Planning Services staff worked with the
23 Planning Commission and the Weld County Board of
24 County Commissioners to create goals and policies for
25 the Mixed Use Development area .
Page 174
1 At that point in time urban level
2 infrastructure and services were available and
3 planned to serve this area . This fact coupled with
4 the location of the area in relation to the Front
5 Range communities and existing transportation
6 networks, it was truly understood that this area
7 would develop to an urban level very quickly.
�- 8 Surrounding communities were and continued
9 to experience growth in this area . Concern that
10 rapid development of this unincorporated region would
— 11 proceed without a unified vision motivated proactive
12 officials to step up to the plate and provide a
13 vision for this area . Without this vision can you
14 imagine the MUD today?
15 The overriding intent of the MUD plan is to
16 guide and implement planned uses -- planned land use
17 changes in this particular area from rural land uses
18 to urban type land uses that ' s specific in the County
19 Code .
20 The future urbanization of the MUD area is
21 clearly inevitable . This urbanization was the
22 catalyst to the development of the MUD plan.
23 The capability of service providers to
24 adequately handle this planned urban growth was a
25 primary consideration when developing the MUD plan.
Page 175 —
1 In fact, this area is intended to be one capable of
2 accommodating development which occurs as a direct -
3 result of the existing and planned infrastructure in
4 the area.
5 Luckily a vision for the MUD area was -
6 solidified through the MUD plan. Cohesive
7 development , high quality design, and a sense of
8 place were goals to achieve for this rapidly changing -
9 corridor .
10 The Weld County Code states the MUD area
11 provides for a unique and challenging opportunity to -
12 establish cohesion in an area experiencing increased
13 growth and development .
14 The overriding goal of those visionary
15 officials, participating citizens, landowners and
16 staff members was to create guidelines that allowed
17 for creative and innovative design. _
18 These goals of high quality were guidelines
19 that allowed -- I apologize, these goals of high
20 quality were balanced with a need to encourage mixed _
21 uses to provide for quality neighborhoods and a sense
22 of community. The LifeBridge Christian Church
23 project offers an opportunity for mixed uses to _
24 develop under one unified master plan.
25 The land use process to facilitate mixed use
Page 176
1 zoning in Weld County is the PUD application process .
2 Throughout the PUD process there will be additional
3 opportunities for staff members , public entities ,
4 referral agencies and County officials to review
5 these and make comment on portions of the project .
6 Additionally there will be opportunity for portions
7 of this project to go through the site plan review.
8 The intent of the PUD process to allow for
9 flexibility generally not possible through the zoning
10 or subdivision chapters of Weld County Code through
- 11 standard subdivision process is the flexibility and
12 ability for creative and innovative Mixed Use
13 Development that govern the requirement to go through
- 14 the PUD process when proposing a development in the
15 Mixed Use Development area .
16 The Lifebridge Christian Church project
- 17 complies with the PUD process by meeting each
18 objective . More specifically this application
19 creates innovative residential and commercial
- 20 development to serve the growing MUD .
21 It has well-cited individual components . It
22 provides necessary services and amenities , provides
23 for economical provision of public and private
24 services, conserves the value of the land and site ' s
25 natural characteristics and scenic features , and the
Page 177 —
1 LifeBridge Christian Church PUD has created a master
2 plan community of integrated components to ensure the -
3 intent and the objectives of the PUD process have
4 been met .
5 This particular proposal embraces the -
6 guiding principles of the MUD plan, the MUD
7 structural land use map and the PUD process through a
8 comprehensive and functional overall site design. -
9 The structural land use map is a guide for planned
10 proposed developments in the MUD.
11 The residential designation was intended to -
12 allow for encouraged mixed uses . It was not the
13 intent to allow homogenous developments of single
14 uses that will not offer benefits to the neighborhood —
15 and surrounding area .
16 The uses proposed in this development
17 include a combination of residential , church campus , _
18 central park and neighborhood center . The mixed uses
19 proposed have been located appropriately on the site
20 to provide a campus-like atmosphere compatible with _
21 existing and future surrounding land uses . The
22 neighborhood center component allows for an
23 attractive working and living environment . _
24 Accessibility will also be available via
25 sidewalks and trail systems to be incorporated in the
Page 178
1 final site design. The existing County and State
2 road network and the proposed trail connections
3 provide for an interconnected community.
4 The proposed uses within this development
5 are consistent with land use standards listed in the
6 County Code and the intent of the Mixed Use
7 Development goals and policies . These established
8 standards ensure final developments with a sense of
9 place, a functional neighborhood, and a high quality
10 design for future generations .
11 The proposed uses are very compatible with
12 the existing approved urban developments adjacent to
13 and within close proximity to this site . As stated
14 before, the Longview residential development lies
15 directly west across Weld County Road 3 , the Elms of
16 Meadowvale residential developments lie east and
17 adjacent to the site, and the Vista Commercial
18 Industrial Park is located south of the site across
19 State Highway 119 .
20 The LifeBridge Church project is a master
21 plan community offering a mixed zoning which works in
22 harmony with existing surrounding land uses . As you
23 have seen in a prior portion of this presentation,
24 the transition zones within the development are
_ 25 compatible with the existing zone districts adjacent
Page 179 —
1 and in close proximity.
2 The plan offers significant buffering and —
3 screening where appropriate . You 've seen the
4 setbacks and the berming and the landscaping. The
5 site is located with access to State Highway 119 and —
6 future collector streets .
7 The development will comply with noise, dust
8 and lighting standards . Building heights are —
9 regulated to assure transition to existing homes , and
10 as you 've heard today that height had been reduced
11 from 90 to 75 . —
12 The plan also offers a significant amount of
13 open space and trail network for interconnectivity of
14 this area and in plan with the regional trail system. _
15 This conscientious proposal has integrated a
16 high standard of design with respect to future
17 transportation planning, a wide range of residential _
18 options , as well as employment and service
19 opportunities for the neighborhood.
20 This master plan community embraces the _
21 goals and policies of the Comprehensive Plan and the
22 Mixed Use Development area plan. LifeBridge
23 Christian Church has worked diligently to incorporate _
24 the input from the neighbors and referral agencies to
25 ensure harmony with the surrounding neighborhoods ,
Page 180
1 safety compliance, and efficient and orderly
-- 2 development of the area .
3 Again, a campus-like atmosphere is
4 encouraged in the MUD policies for new development .
5 This proposal truly demonstrates compliance with that
6 goal and policy through the proposed concept .
7 Within the church campus shared facilities
8 are proposed for public use . The facilities offered
9 can serve the area without a negative financial
10 impact to the County and its citizens .
11 This proposal truly meets the requirements
12 of the Weld County Code as it pertains to the Mixed
13 Use Development area, the criteria for approval of a
14 PUD change of zone, and the performance standards for
15 a Planned Unit Development in Weld County. This is a
16 PUD that incorporates the vision of the officials,
17 staff members , property owners , and other officials
18 that helped create the MUD plan.
19 I ' ll entertain any questions that you have
20 at this time .
21 CHAIRMAN LONG: Any questions? Commissioner
22 Geile .
23 COMMISSIONER GEILE : Thank you, Mr.
24 Chairman.
25 Todd, I appreciate your presentation, but
Page 181
1 one of the questions I had would be with the
2 1 , 500-seat outside - - what do we call that? --
3 MR . HODGES : The amphitheater?
4 COMMISSIONER GEILE : Amphitheater, yeah. .�
5 Maybe it ' s getting late . But anyway my question is, —
6 when you begin to talk about -- have you done an
7 acoustical study which deals with the decibels
8 associated with musical instruments , amplification —
9 associated with musical instruments , voice lyrics or
10 anything else that might go on with this that could
11 impact the people in the surrounding neighborhoods? -
12 MR. HODGES : I don' t know the answer to
13 that . Let me check real quick.
14 We have not done any studies at this point , -
15 but it ' s been indicated that we would have to meet
16 the noise standards based on the Colorado criteria.
17 COMMISSIONER GEILE : But I guess my question
18 is, what are those noise standards and are they
19 acceptable as far as the people in the area?
20 Obviously if you ' re going to get up to 70 decibels, _
21 80 decibels , maybe even 60 decibels, that ' s going to
22 be pretty loud and --
23 MR. HODGES : He ' s indicated that at the _
24 property line it would be 55 during the daytime and
25 - - 55 during the daytime, 50 at night . Pam could
Page 182
1 probably reiterate some of the noise criteria .
2 MS . SMITH: Pam Smith, Health Department . I
3 don ' t know those numbers off the top of my head, so
4 - - I can get those for you if you need me to clarify
5 it .
6 MR . MORRISON: Those are the statutory
7 numbers for residential .
8 COMMISSIONER GEILE : Okay. If it is 55 at
9 the property line, what property line are we talking
10 about, the development ' s property line or at the
11 inset of the right-of-way?
12 MR. MORRISON: Well , since this property
13 will not remain in a single ownership it will be the
14 property line between the development that will be
15 the source and these residential lots that they ' re
16 also -- presumably the residential lots they' re
17 creating will be the closest residential property, so
18 it isn ' t the outside of the development , it is from
— 19 the area of the source, the line between the area of
20 the source and these other residential lots that
21 they' re creating.
— 22 COMMISSIONER GEILE : Well , if it were 55
23 decibels what would that equate to? Give me an
24 example of what that would be, and don ' t tell me it ' s
— 25 a Harley.
Page 183
1 MR. MORRISON: Mr. Chairman, yesterday at
2 the Planning Commission one of the other members of —
3 the Health Department testified that was in the range
4 of low traffic from a distance and also basically in
5 a room like - - an assembly room. So it equates to a —
6 fairly low level .
7 I think in a break Pam can probably get that
8 table that the Health Department has that shows those —
9 things .
10 CHAIRMAN LONG: Any other questions for
11 Todd? Commissioner Masden. —
12 COMMISSIONER MASDEN: Thank you. Todd, I
13 don' t know if this is the right question to ask you
14 or not , but right now Weld County is involved in a _
15 very extensive mosquito mitigation program with all
16 the municipalities or a majority of the
17 municipalities in Weld County and some that are not , _
18 including Longmont . They are participating in this
19 in a certain way because we ' re using the same
20 contractor and doing some work together.
21 For this development would they be willing
22 to pay some mitigation fees for this mosquito control
23 plan? _
24 MR. HODGES : Yes .
25 COMMISSIONER MASDEN: Okay, thank you .
Page 184
1 MS . BRUNK: Barb Brunk, Tetra Tech RMC, 1900
2 South Sunset , Suite 1-F, Longmont . Can I just ask a
3 question? Do you ask all land developments to
4 participate in a mosquito mitigation plan?
5 COMMISSIONER MASDEN: No, we don' t . This is
6 the first one that we 've done like this since we 've
7 been doing this .
8 MS . BRUNK: So you think that as you go
9 forward it will be part of the process? Anything
10 that would be required of everybody we would be more
— 11 than happy to pay our fair share of, but we would
12 hate to be singled out if you ' re not going to look at
13 everybody participating in a cooperative manner to
— 14 help solve the problem together .
15 COMMISSIONER MASDEN: Yes , and that ' s
16 something we haven ' t really discussed, but I just
— 17 thought I would throw that out there and see if the
18 applicant was willing to do that .
19 MS . BRUNK: So if you had a comprehensive
20 program that you needed help participating in we
21 would be more than happy to pay our fair share, but
— 22 we wouldn' t want to be the only one .
23 COMMISSIONER MASDEN: And like I said, this
24 is the first one we 've done like this since we 've got
— 25 into this program.
Page 185
1 MS . BRUNK: Okay, thank you.
2 CHAIRMAN LONG: Todd, just a related —
3 question to the noise, what would be the hours for
4 the outdoor amphitheater, in regards to the noise?
5 MR. HODGES : It hasn ' t been designed for —
6 those specific uses yet .
7 CHAIRMAN LONG: And it hasn ' t been addressed
8 in the conditions of approval then? —
9 MR. HODGES : It would definitely be a part
10 of the final plan where that piece would come in for
11 that phase . —
12 CHAIRMAN LONG: So it would still be able to
13 be addressed at a later time . Okay, thank you. Any
14 other questions of Todd? -
15 Okay, with that we ' ll take a 15-minute
16 recess and we will start immediately at 20 minutes to
17 4 : 00 . Thank you.
18 (Recess was taken from 3 : 30 to 3 : 40 p .m. )
19 CHAIRMAN LONG: We ' ll return to the
20 applicant ' s comments . Were there any more questions
21 for Todd Hodges at this point? Okay.
22 MR. RUSAW: Rick Rusaw, the senior minister,
23 and I will attempt to stay brief and get this closed
24 up . This will be the end of our portion of the
25 presentation.
-- Page 186
1 I would note, however, that we over the last
2 few days because of all the press have had a couple
3 hundred people from our church calling asking if they
4 could come and speak today. We 've encouraged that
5 not to happen. I ' m glad they haven ' t . We would be
6 here until tomorrow and I know we don' t want to do
7 that .
8 For the last 112 years our mission at
9 LifeBridge has been really the same . It ' s to lead
10 people in discovering their faith, in a growing
11 relationship with Jesus . We 've never been anything
12 other than a faith community.
13 I didn ' t grow up in the church and the
14 church I did become a Christian in was a very small
15 church. This is the first church I ' ve been the
16 senior minister of and we have experienced some
17 growth.
18 And as we ' re talking about our facilities
19 expanding, this isn ' t a field of dreams kind of thing
20 where if we ' ll build it maybe people will show up.
21 We ' re only capable of building when people do come,
22 and we have been looking at trying to meet the needs
23 of the people around us .
24 We don ' t have to read very far into the
25 front page of any newspaper to know there are all
Page 187
1 kinds of issues . You all deal with them; we deal
2 with them. A lot of people problems . -
3 And we may not agree on the cause and the
4 cure, but we can agree there is a cost to our
5 community. And LifeBridge simply has been desirous -
6 of being a part of helping to meet some of those
7 needs, to help people grow, to change, to develop, to
8 become better citizens . -
9 The church is never about buildings .
10 Buildings are a tool that we utilize . The church is
11 about people . -
12 Currently we have about 3 , 000 people that
13 attend LifeBridge on a weekend, one of our five main
14 services along with our children and youth services, -
15 and during the week we have about 3 , 000 people that
16 come through our doors for classes, counseling,
17 activities, recreation, support, whatever that may -
18 be, in addition to our community events .
19 Do we occasionally exceed those numbers?
20 That happens . Easter weekend would be a weekend we -
21 might do that . And just a few weeks ago the tragedy
22 with the three teenage girls that were killed out
23 here on the interstate, we held a joint service for
24 two of them in our facility and maxed our facility
25 out that day with 1 , 600 or 1, 700 people .
Page 188
1 But again, it was about trying to provide
2 hope and support in a time of need. That ' s what we
3 do at LifeBridge . That ' s what we 've been about , is
4 connecting people and building hope .
5 Now, we host on an average each year about
6 350 non-LifeBridge events . They would be with the
7 School District or Boulder County, the City of
8 Longmont, some local businesses, after-school
9 programs , Scouts , and about 15 , 000 people utilize our
10 facilities on any given year that aren ' t a part of
11 the LifeBridge family or coming to a LifeBridge
12 program.
13 For us what matters is connecting with
14 others in our community, so we are plugged into the
15 St . Vrain School District and we help out with
16 tutoring and coaching and raking pits at - - track
17 pits and assisting the 428 homeless students in the
18 St . Vrain District . We 've begun some projects like
19 that as well in Frederick and Firestone, looking for
20 ways to help out, to be connected.
21 We assist the local law enforcement with
22 crisis support, community service, mentors to
23 juvenile offenders, halfway house inmates , and other
24 ways that our local Police Department asks us to be
25 of assistance .
Page 189 —
1 We ' re plugged into the Boulder County Social
2 Services and Mental Health and we assist in mentoring -
3 and foster care, mental health services, or even
4 large-scale plans like smallpox vaccinations and
5 emergency services . -
6 Last year we supplied over 10 tons of food
7 to the community food share, which would include our
8 center and the in between. Since 1991 we 've given _
9 over three million dollars to projects outside of
10 things that are a part of our ministry, most of that
11 in the community here . -
12 We don' t always keep track but we know last
13 year we had 1 , 700 people give about 20 , 000 to 25 , 000
14 hours of community service, things that weren ' t _
15 helping LifeBridge but looking for ways to get our
-
16 folks engaged in the community. And that ' s what we
17 consider being part of being a good neighbor. _
18 I said earlier, and I won ' t reiterate, we
-
19 haven' t been a perfect neighbor . We 've made some
20 mistakes and we ' re working at learning from those _
21 mistakes . However, for us it is about how do we meet
-
22 the needs of the people around us? How do we find
23 ways to connect into the lives?
24 We see church as more than just one hour
25 showing up on Sunday morning . We see it as helping
Page 190
1 people grow and develop and deal with the issues
2 going on in their lives . We have a lot of Weld
3 County residents who are part of our church family.
4 We want to be a place on this new campus
5 where we can help people connect, where they can live
6 and grow and play and worship, and if we get to be a
7 part of helping their faith develop that ' s important
8 to us because that ' s the only thing we do.
9 A lot of this stuff that ' s been said today
10 and I 'm sure some of the things that will be said
11 later today are outside of what I understand from a
12 technical aspect , related to Code and whatnot . My
13 job is simply to help people be pointed toward God,
14 to connect , and for our church to be an asset in the
15 community.
16 Our goal is for this campus to be something
17 that both you as Commissioners and our citizens and
18 our church can be proud of .
19 We have a theme we use a lot at LifeBridge,
20 how can we do excellence without extravagance? We ' re
21 not looking for an extravagant campus but we are
22 looking for a campus that will be well done, well
23 designed, well thought out .
24 That ' s why we have employed some of the
25 consultants and architects that we have, so that we
Page 191
1 can clearly do something in a way that would make the
2 community proud, and that ' s what we ' re interested in. -
3 For us I suppose we could have asked for
4 these buildings and say to you we ' re only going to
5 use them for the church, the church will be the only _
6 participant in them. But that would break a 112-year
7 history for LifeBridge and it would go against what I
8 believe the church ought to be in the community. -
9 If we were to only use the buildings for our
10 own services, there would be a significant part of
11 the week when our facilities would be dark and
12 unused, and I believe that ' s poor stewardship .
13 Not only do we have a responsibility to the
14 church but I believe we have a higher responsibility _
15 to God to use those in the best way, which is why we
16 have partnered with so many community agencies and
17 invited them in to utilize our facilities . We hope _
18 on this campus that that ' s what occurs, for us simply
19 to be a place where people are connected and hope is
20 built in whatever aspect of their life they may need
21 that .
22 And so today we ' re thanking you for your
23 time and we ' re just asking you to affirm our
24 application, much as the staff and the Planning
25 Commission has already done . We appreciate your
Page 192
1 energy and effort today. I ' ll be open to any
2 questions you may have .
3 CHAIRMAN LONG: Thank you . Question,
4 Commissioner Geile?
5 COMMISSIONER GEILE : I just had one, if I
6 may, Mr. Chairman. How many members do you have in
7 your church? And I ' m not sure I know to categorize
8 by families or people or - -
9 MR. RUSAW: Total individuals would be about
10 3 , 600 members . Our weekend attendance right now is
11 averaging 2 , 856 , so on a weekend we would have - -
12 between a Saturday night service at 6 : 00 and our
13 services on Sunday morning and an additional service,
14 small service on Sunday evening, we would have just
15 under 3 , 000 people attending .
16 COMMISSIONER GEILE : Out of the 3 , 600 , I ' ll
_ 17 just ask this as one question, how many of those live
18 in Weld County, and the second question, out of the
19 organizations that you ' re working with how many of
_ 20 those are in Weld County or function in Weld County
21 with various services?
22 MR. RUSAW: I don' t have a specific number
23 to give you. I do know that about 50 percent of our
24 church membership are Longmont , primarily Longmont
25 residents , the other half coming outside of Longmont
Page 193
1 proper, and we do work with a number of agencies like
2 St . Vrain, which covers into Weld County. Our center -
3 deals with individuals in Weld County.
4 We have been working with - - Boulder Mental
5 Health has some programs that participate with Weld -
6 County that we have participated in, as well as the
7 juvenile system, juvenile justice system.
8 COMMISSIONER GEILE : Thank you. -
9 CHAIRMAN LONG : Just to add on to what
10 Commissioner Geile was asking, of your 3 , 500 members
11 that might attend, how many of those would you -
12 characterize as couples?
13 MR. RUSAW: Sure, I would say about 80
14 percent of our attendees are young families , couples -
15 with children. We have a lot of single moms , a lot
16 of singles , unmarrieds, widowers, but the primary
17 population we deal with -- which would be represented -
18 by about 1 , 400 or 1 , 500 children.
19 There was a reference to third graders
20 earlier today. We have about 150 to 170 third
21 graders who are active in the church.
22 CHAIRMAN LONG : Okay, thank you. Any other
23 questions? Thank you, sir.
24 Can I assume that concludes the applicant ' s
25 presentation at this point? Okay, very well .
Page 194
1 We ' ll go on now, we ' ll open this up to
2 public testimony. I know that there ' s been a request
3 by some people as to the timing of this . Originally
4 we had said that we will take people as they came in
5 and registered. I know that some people probably
6 have a different schedule than others and we ' ll try
7 to adjust that as I can.
8 So I think - - who out of the people that
9 want to speak would have to do so, let ' s say, before
10 5 : 00 o ' clock, who have asked to speak? We have one,
11 two, three, four .
12 Would it be all right with the people that
13 wish to testify if we were to go in that order, or to
14 have these four people that need to leave early be
15 able to testify first?
16 Any objection did I hear? Okay, we ' ll try
17 to still accommodate everybody as best we can, but
18 then with that some rules I know -- and first I said
19 a five-minute limit, if you can. It ' s not going to
20 be to the tee, but try to exercise respect for time
21 for everybody else .
22 If you find yourself in agreement with
23 somebody else that ' s already been said, say " I agree
24 with this concept" instead of going through the whole
25 thing again. Still want you to have your say. Just
Page 195
1 trying to be expeditious about it . If you ' re
2 speaking for a number of people, then go on and let -
3 us know that .
4 So first with that I would ask for Mr . Peter
5 Gries .
6 And let me go on a little bit more . After
7 your five minutes we ' ll have a question period for
8 the Commissioners to be able to ask you some _
9 questions and that ' s not included in the five
10 minutes . Don ' t worry about that .
11 But then this is your only time to be able _
12 to testify. After all the public comment is
13 concluded, the applicant will be asked to come back
14 and respond to any of the questions or concerns that
15 were addressed during the public input period.
16 Now, there might be times where you feel
17 compelled to raise your hand and want to speak during
18 that period, but the public testimony at that time
19 will be closed and it will just be up to the
20 application - - applicant then at that point to be
21 able to respond. So this is your opportunity to
22 speak, so if you have something please do it .
23 Sir, name and address for the record,
24 please, and welcome .
25 MR. GRIES : Peter Gries, 11685 Montgomery
Page 196
1 Circle, Weld County District 2 . I am the manager of
2 the home page and the referendum and recall pages of
3 www.weldhomeowners . org .
4 I would like to speak primarily to legal and
5 moral issues . However, before I do that I want to
6 make the point that this is not a game . This is a
7 very very serious matter that you are being asked to
8 resolve . This is not simply games with words ,
9 arguments over what is a complete application and
10 what isn' t , arguments that reminded me of something
11 that Bill Clinton said about I did not have X with
12 that woman.
13 This is not a game over whether certain
14 words are legal or not legal . This is about a
15 request to transfer funds, money, food off of my
16 table onto Bruce Grinnell ' s table, and I take issue
17 with Todd' s argument that this will have no impact on
18 the property values of the neighbors . I take very
19 serious issue with that .
20 I work for the State of Colorado at the
21 University of Colorado teaching your children. They
22 are asking for two years of my salary. That ' s two
23 years of grading blue books, grading papers , giving
24 lectures . That ' s a lot of money, and that ' s just one
25 individual .
Page 197
1 On the aggregate we ' re talking about
2 hundreds of thousands of dollars, millions of -
3 dollars , if you think about the property value that ' s
4 being impacted by this .
5 This is essentially a request for what I _
6 would just label essentially reverse Robin Hood kind
7 of phenomenon, taking money from individual taxpayers
8 and giving it to special interests . -
9 Now, when I say that I mean it at two
10 levels , at the aggregate level of giving money to
11 LifeBridge, and there ' s a very serious issue about
12 the request to rezone over 22 acres that LifeBridge
13 does not plan to use but plans to sell or lease for a
14 huge profit that you would be giving them in order to
15 finance their church campus . This is the lower 22
16 acres , the retail area, the area they refer to as the
17 commercial part of the PUD.
18 Let me remind you as a sidelight that the
19 entire PUD is being rezoned as general commercial ,
20 okay, and that all of the buildings up in the church
21 campus , things like the gymnasium and the theater,
22 those are commercial uses too, but they are given
23 these names, worship, basketball hoops, to hide the
24 fact that those are commercial uses too .
25 And this gets back to the earlier
Page 198
1 questioning about taxes , which is a very legitimate
-- 2 line of questioning . You label something a worship
3 basketball center and therefore you don ' t have to pay
4 taxes on it? That doesn ' t seem right . But more
5 importantly is you are being asked to fund the
6 construction of this church to the tune of several
7 million dollars .
8 Now, Attorney Lee Morrison has been
9 delegated by his boss , Bruce Barker, to deal with the
10 constitutional issues that this raises, and I am not
- 11 a lawyer, I 'm a political scientist , but my reading
12 of the establishment clause of the U. S . Constitution
13 is that no government is allowed to favor any church
- 14 over another church.
15 And if this body decides to in essence fund
16 to the tune of several million dollars the
17 construction of this church it is setting -- it is
18 giving it special treatment , treatment that is then
19 not fair to the other churches, the churches that the
20 four of you probably attend that currently exist in
21 Weld County. Simply is not fair to them. That ' s at
22 the macro level of LifeBridge and the transfer of
— 23 assets to LifeBridge .
24 There ' s also the matter of the transfer of
25 assets to individual LifeBridge leaders, Bruce
Page 199
1 Grinnell , Scott Owen, Page -- I forget his last name,
2 I ' m sorry, but they ' re in this room. They have -
3 spoken today. They have currently a submission for a
4 change of zone before you for a plot of land they
5 have privately purchased adjacent to this property. -
6 So they will personally profit from your
7 decision on this property. If you make the middle of
8 a residential area a PUD general commercial , their _
9 separate rezoning application for a change of zone
10 from agricultural to residential is going to shoot up
11 in value tremendously. -
12 So let there be no doubt that this is not
13 just a legal issue; this is a question of the State
14 making decisions about winners and losers and about -
15 transferring assets from individual taxpayers to
16 special interests .
17 So I guess in part that ' s a response to a _
18 lot of talk here about being good neighbors, serving
19 the community, becoming a gateway to Longmont . I
20 believe you all are aware, but for the record it
21 should be known that this land was pursued by the
22 City of Longmont for years and when they were about
23 to close on the deal LifeBridge stepped in, utilized
24 their nonprofit status to buy it away from Longmont,
25 so to then call it a gateway to Longmont is frankly
Page 200
1 offensive to Longmont .
2 Okay, the law, the law is clear and I made
3 this argument at the Planning Commission meeting - - I
4 am representing a large group of people here .
5 CHAIRMAN LONG: Oh, okay. I ' ll ask before
6 you start if you ' re representing one or more, so
7 thank you.
8 MR. GRIES : Okay. To read from the MUD, one
9 of the few lines in the MUD not quoted by Kim Ogle in
10 his recommendation and in my opinion the most
_. 11 important and most relevant line, "New developments
12 shall demonstrate compatibility with existing
13 surrounding land use in terms of general use,
14 building heights , scale density, traffic, dust and
15 noise . "
16 Would you like me to cite the exact section?
17 Section 26-1-54 MUD. C . 4 .b, okay? So this boils down
18 to what is compatible .
19 Could you please put up the MUD picture,
20 please, the gentleman in white?
21 MR. OGLE : Peter, could you put up the MUD
22 picture?
23 MR. GRIES : The MUD picture . It ' s also
24 here . LifeBridge has claimed that because the Mixed
25 Use Development plan at a macro level involves
Page 201
1 different uses that that ' s what Weld County had in
2 mind for this piece of farm land, and I think that ' s -
3 just a plain lie .
4 If you look at this image when it pops up,
5 you will see that this farm is clearly designated for -
6 residential use along with limiting sight factors , so
7 what Weld County has in essence promised the
8 taxpayers in the Weld County Code, because the MUD is -
9 a chapter of the Weld County Code, is that this field
10 would become residential .
11 But there is a caveat . There ' s a way you -
12 get around that . It ' s called a PUD . You all know
13 this . But the PUD has a catch. You can get around
14 putting houses in a residential area as long as what _
15 you do is compatible . That ' s the quote I just read.
16 So any wary home buyer who was worried about
17 what was going to go into that field in the middle of _
18 a residential neighborhood would look at this map - -
19 could you put in the detailed one, please, that
20 focuses just on - - well , that ' s fine . You can see _
21 it ' s yellow and down below the yellow it says
-
22 residential , if you could read that .
23 But that entire lot that ' s blocked out
24 there, that is yellow. That means it should be
25 residential or compatible with residential . So what
Page 202
1 does compatible mean?
2 Commissioner Geile, would you mind if I use
3 this space?
4 CHAIRMAN LONG: Go ahead. It ' s Commissioner
5 Masden, but go ahead.
6 MR . GRIES : I ' m sorry. This is my house .
7 CHAIRMAN LONG: I thought you brought all
8 that in for us to drink.
9 MR. GRIES : I understand these will be
10 property of Weld County.
— 11 CHAIRMAN LONG: Evidence .
12 MR. MORRISON: Mr . Gries , can I ask you to
13 describe the edifice that you ' ve constructed at the
— 14 end there, in terms of what it ' s made of and the
15 numbers and so forth?
16 MR. GRIES : Absolutely. I think I live in a
_ 17 large house . It ' s about 30 feet deep, 40 feet wide,
18 under 30 feet high, but to be safe let ' s say a large
19 house is 30 by 50 by 30 , okay?
_ 20 Now, the 3 , 200-seat auditorium in Phase 1 of
21 this application on the basis of their Phase 1 filing
22 map is about 370 by 580 . So on each dimension that ' s
_ 23 12 times as much as the dimensions of my house . So
24 12 times 12 is 144 , and then the height was
25 originally 90 , would have been three times , and
Page 203
1 that ' s what this carefully calculated model is based
2 upon. _
3 You can cut off half a Coke in your
4 imagination because now we ' re talking about 75 feet
5 high, but if you multiply it by 2 . 5 you ' re in the 400 _
6 range . So we ' re talking about that Sprite can right
7 there as my house and what ' s next to it as about 400
8 Sprite cans .
9 I do not call that compatible . In fact , it
10 is so incompatible that I could not afford to buy 400
11 soda cans . Instead I 've just got a facade here and I _
12 -- let ' s see, we could probably count the 12-packs
13 but I think it ' s about ten 12-packs . If I filled it
14 in it would be 400 cans of Coke . _
15 Now, to me that speaks for itself . This is
16 not just an issue of sight lines , although their
17 logic on sight lines is very problematic . But the
18 impact of a structure of that size is hard to
19 visualize or understand.
20 These are only two-dimensional pictures .
21 The one on the left my colleague -- my neighbor,
22 excuse me, Duane, will explain the mathematics behind
23 his creation of that image . But if you can see the
24 auditorium, the 3 , 000-seat auditorium that is being
25 proposed for Phase 1 , that means breaking ground
Page 204
1 within six months probably, just towers over the
2 surrounding land.
3 Another thing that is inaccurate about my
4 Sprite can is that my Sprite can there is level with
5 the building . From my house, from the Elms property
6 line to the Farms property line you have a decrease
7 of at least 20 feet, so that Sprite should be 20 feet
8 lower than the building .
9 So the building they now say is going to be
10 75 feet . The effect - - the visual effect of the
- 11 building is actually going to be 95 feet , okay?
12 On the right you see an Elms house like my
13 own, on the left, and a Longview patio home on the
- 14 right set inside a building under construction near
15 Lafayette, which is 75 feet high, the current
_. 16 proposal . And just to see how it dwarfs the
17 surrounding land use I think speaks for itself in
18 terms of the incompatibility with existing land use,
19 which is what the law requires .
20 But don ' t believe me . Open Kim Ogle ' s
21 recommendation to Page 32 . "The project as proposed
22 does not demonstrate that the PUD is compatible with
23 existing surrounding land use . "
24 This is Kim Ogle buried way in the back of
25 his recommendation and with no connection to the
Page 205
1 actual recommendation itself . Why is it hidden? I
2 can only echo Ursula ' s comments from this morning, -
3 what is being hidden.
4 So maybe Kim Ogle is an exception. What
5 about Monica Mika, his boss? Ms . Mika told the -
6 Longmont Times Call that if a building of this size
7 is approved for the middle of a residential area it
8 will set a precedent that will undermine the MUD and -
9 that you should follow in all your forthcoming
10 rezoning hearings .
11 So if somebody else asks for a 75-foot -
12 building in the middle of a residential area, you
13 should now do that because that ' s how you 've defined
14 compatibility. Compatibility is 400 to one .
15 Now, by the way, that ' s a little bit high
16 because that ' s based on 90 feet, but what is the size
17 of the building in Phase 6 that was put up in the
18 phases map? Do any of you know? It was called the
19 performance arts center, the red blurb.
20 How many seats are in that? Have they told _
21 you? They have told us 6 , 000 . That ' s almost double
22 the 3 , 200 seats right there . So you can just double
23 the number of Sprite cans , 800 Sprite cans to one . -
24 Is that what compatibility is going to mean?
25 And if you read the MUD, if you read the
Page 206
1 weld Code, it also explicitly says that your duty as
2 Commissioners is to uphold the compatibility
3 standard.
4 Can you please put up the view angle slide,
5 please, Peter?
6 MR . SCHEI : Which one do you need?
7 MR. GRIES : The view angle slide from
_ 8 LifeBridge .
9 MR. SCHEI : We don ' t have Lifebridge ' s
10 slides . Does LifeBridge have available a view
- 11 angle --
12 MR. GRIES : It ' s called the view angle slide
13 and it shows a cross-section.
- 14 Yes , thank you. This slide was used to
15 argue that the impact on sight lines of these massive
16 buildings , all these Sprite cans is going to be less
- 17 than if you just had a house back there .
18 The open space between the houses at the
19 Elms at Meadowvale and the property line on average
- 20 is about 85 feet . If you add the average back yard
21 of 35 feet, you ' re talking about over 100 feet .
22 When LifeBridge presented this at the
23 Planning Commission meeting, they said that both
24 sides of the property line were based on an equal
25 distance . In fact , you see that they have put it
Page 207 —
1 much closer to the property line .
2 Okay, I 'm looking at the top, but if you —
3 agree with me that a large house is 30 feet deep I
4 would say that between those two - - and actually if
5 you look at this one versus the other one the two -
6 houses are farther apart , but it looks here about 60
7 feet apart , assuming that the houses are about 30
8 feet wide . The slide we were just looking at it was -
9 closer to 40 , 50 feet , and therefore the angle is
10 radically up and down.
11 The reality is that if you put in as they -
12 said they were doing parallel amounts on each side,
13 100 feet on - - 100 plus feet , 85 feet plus 25 , 30
14 feet on each side, you ' re talking over 200 feet _
15 apart . So you push that - - starting from the right,
16 that second little house, you triple or quadruple the
17 distance out it is in order to get the angle and you _
18 will see that that that is just plain not true .
19 But another point is that it ' s not just a
20 question of looking out and up . There is a _
21 difference between a silo and the Pepsi Center . A
22 difference has to do with north/south aspects,
23 lengths . You can see between houses . Silos don' t _
24 obstruct your view.
25 A 300 to 400-foot gymnasium 100 to 200 feet
Page 208
1 from my back yard is going to completely block any
2 view of the mountains, of anything. But really more
3 importantly is that overall emotional impact of a
4 building of that size .
5 Okay, let ' s get to the moral issues here .
6 Liberty is what we as Americans cherish. Why is
7 liberty important to us? Because we fought for our
8 freedom against a tyrant , and that leaves us with
9 great ambivalence about the power of the State, and
10 we have constructed a government system that seeks to
- 11 restrict the power of our State .
12 At the same time as Americans we all know
13 that the unrestrained and irresponsible exercise of
- 14 our liberties leads to chaos and anarchy, and
15 therefore the government has an extremely important
16 duty to balance between overly regulating and just
17 letting the big bullies win out .
18 This has application in both the political
19 and economic realms . In the political realm when we
- 20 talk about democracy we mean government by the
21 people, for the people, of the people . The people of
22 District 2 do not have representation on this
23 Commission, and that is a serious problem.
24 When we stretch the meaning of democracy how
25 do we become different from North Korea? What does
Page 209 —
1 North Korea call themselves? The Democratic Peoples
2 Republic of Korea . Does that government work for the —
3 people of North Korea? I don' t think so .
4 Democratic representation is a very
5 important issue and Democratic process , the —
6 participation and the access of taxpayers to public
7 processes is extremely important . But I think of
8 even greater concern to you should be the economic -
9 implications of the importance of a restraint on
10 unbridled freedoms .
11 We pride ourselves in having a free market -
12 economy, but Adam Smith, the inventor of the free
13 market economy, argued that a free market could not
14 work if there was not a government that would act as -
15 what he called constable, the police, to preserve
16 justice, to ensure that no member of the market was
17 able to bully and push around other members of the
18 market . Once that happens what you get is crony
19 capitalism.
20 And I want to argue here today that there _
21 are serious consequences if this application is
22 passed. It is going to create an image on this
23 County that the law doesn' t matter and that it ' s just
24 connections that matter or power that matters, and
25 that is going to be the end of Weld County ' s free
Page 210
1 market economy.
- 2 And that will have implications for
3 investment in this county. Who is going to invest in
4 this county if they know that homeowners who rely on
5 the Weld County Code to make their investments can
6 end up losing everything like I ' m about to?
7 Or how about developers and businessmen who
8 feel they can ' t rely on the law? I think this has
9 very serious consequences for the Weld County
10 economy.
- 11 So why am I here? I am here to request that
12 you reject this rezoning. If you feel you cannot do
13 that , I would like to request some very specific
- 14 modifications to the bulk standards massing diagram
15 for the church campus .
16 Do you have a copy of that or would you like
17 me to submit it? The bulk standards massing diagram
18 for the church campus .
19 CHAIRMAN LONG: This is the one in the
- 20 packet , I believe .
21 MR. GRIES : It ' s in the packet and I ' m
22 talking about the third section where it says east
23 property line, section line on Section 5 ,
24 approximately Elms property line . Do you find it?
25 The bulk standards massing diagram for the church
Page 211 —
1 campus, Exhibit B .
2 What I would like to request is that the —
3 first line that says 125 feet to 400 feet - - this is
4 the first line about halfway down the page, the
5 section that is approximately Elms property line . —
6 Does everyone see where I am?
7 That first line, 125 to 400 feet be changed
8 to 400 to 700 feet , thereby increasing the buffer to -
9 400 , and that that number would be 30 feet and not 45
10 feet . The next line, 400 to 500 feet be replaced
11 with 700 to 1 , 000 feet , and that 55 to be changed to -
12 40 . The next line, 500 to 700 be changed to 1 , 000
13 and over, 1 , 000 plus , at 50 feet .
14 And then the next line, 700 feet up, which _
15 currently says 60 up to 90 but with the change is now
16 60 up to 75 , 20 percent of that inner area could be
17 up to 75 feet . I would like to change that entire _
18 thing to saying a single exception or variance of 72
19 feet for the fly space for the theater, because 20
20 percent of that amount amounts to an entire building _
21 being 75 feet high. It ' s over 150 , 000 square feet .
22 So those are my four specific requests . I
23 made those requests directly to Bruce Grinnell . _
24 Bruce Grinnell said I will not give you a foot, not
25 an inch, nothing . This was yesterday.
Page 212
1 I have been meeting with LifeBridge and
2 begging with them to talk with us for six months now.
3 I personally initiated contact with LifeBridge . I
4 invited Bob Frederiksen into my home to speak to my
- 5 neighbors . I have met with Scott Owen numerous
6 times .
7 Each time I have begged them to comply with
- 8 the law and each time they have acted as if they are
9 above the law. In fact, Bruce Grinnell told the
10 Greeley Tribune that we don ' t -- I don ' t need to talk
11 with you about heights , let the Commissioners decide .
12 Let the Commissioners decide is what he said.
13 Well , that ' s what I 'm going to have to ask
14 you too, and this is what I put on the table and ask
15 you to consider. If they will not agree to those
16 conditions I ask you to call a continuance so that
17 negotiations can proceed. But Bruce Grinnell has
18 made it very clear that he ' s not willing to negotiate
19 with the neighbors on these vital issues .
20 Finally, I 've just been informed that Rod
21 Schmidt has asked to speak directly after me . I
22 don ' t know what that ' s about , but I would like the
23 Commissioners to understand a couple of things .
24 One is that Bruce Grinnell - - the only major
25 changes to this application had to do with the
Page 213
1 location of the senior community and the nature of
2 the senior community. -
3 Initially the senior community was next to
4 Elms at Meadowvale . It was moved down to the -- next
5 to the Farms at Meadowvale . That was probably done -
6 because Bob Frederiksen, a member of LifeBridge and
7 one of their major fundraisers , lives down there .
8 But after that Rod got involved and there -
9 was an addition of a terracing aspect to the plan
10 where it would be 45 feet maximum but individual
11 patio homes first, terracing up to 45 . Then a little -
12 bit later it got changed from 45 down to 35 .
13 So what the Farms is now looking at and Rod
14 Schmidt, who lives right on the edge of the property -
15 border, he ' s now facing 20-feet homes terracing up to
16 essentially 35-feet homes , with the same 125-foot
17 buffer that we have . And we are facing 1 . 5 million _
18 square feet , four Greeley malls, three Twin Peaks
19 malls in Longmont . I don ' t call that fair .
20 Why do I mention this? In part because I
21 want you to understand that weldhomeowners . org
22 represents all the neighbors . There may be a few
23 people that have sold out to LifeBridge, but they do
24 not represent the majority of the neighbors in this
25 community.
Page 214
1 The second reason is that there were some
_ 2 factual inaccuracies about other deals that Bruce
3 Grinnell has cut in his endeavor to divide and
4 conquer the neighbors and to push this thing through
— 5 without regard to the law.
6 For example, there was a question made
7 earlier directly to LifeBridge about negotiations
— 8 with Chateau over the light at 3 . 5 and 119 , and you
9 should check the record but I heard LifeBridge
10 respond that they knew nothing of it .
11 Well , two weeks ago at the Planning
—
12 Commission hearing somebody from LifeBridge said that
13 an agreement had been reached last year of over a
14 million dollars, if I remember correctly, and you can
—
15 check the record from the meeting at the southwest
—
16 office two weeks ago, but there was an agreement made
17 for money to be transferred from LifeBridge to
—
18 Chateau.
—
19 Now, is it a coincidence that the efforts of
20 neighbors of this development when they tried to
21 spread information to Longview were denied by
—
22 Chateau, the management company, that runs the place?
23 And because the residents of Chateau do not own the
—
24 land, they only own their own homes , Chateau actually
—
25 has the power to deny access to spread information
Page 215 -
1 about this meeting, and as a result the residents of
2 Longview have been left out of this process? -
3 Are there any Longview residents in the
4 audience today? That ' s 600 people who are going to
5 be confronting traffic right away who have been -
6 denied participation in this process , and money is
7 changing hands . The exact terms of that deal are not
8 known. -
9 Finally, Kim Ogle, the words that Ursula
10 Morgan spoke this morning were almost verbatim out of
11 a complaint that was filed with Kim Ogle ' s boss two
12 months ago, a second formal complaint filed last
13 month mailed directly to Dave Long .
14 This complaint charged that Kim Ogle was -
15 engaging of a pattern of collusion and partisanship
16 in favor of applicant Bruce Grinnell , and that he was
17 systematically obstructing the efforts of taxpayers -
18 from Weld County District 2 to access information,
19 public information, open information about the
20 application. -
21 I made virtually the same argument that
22 Ursula Morgan repeated today, that this is a very
23 serious matter that involves transferring assets from
24 individual taxpayers to a special interest and
25 therefore it ought to be squeaky clean. The I ' s need -
Page 216
1 to be dotted, the T ' s need to be crossed, and the
2 fact that there has been no action taken on this
3 formal complaint against Kim Ogle prior to this
4 meeting I find extremely problematic .
5 I would also like to echo the charge that
6 Ursula Morgan made about a failure to notify Mead in
7 that I personally spoke with administrators at
8 Firestone and Frederick two weeks ago prior to the
9 Planning Commission meeting.
10 Judy Hedgewood at Firestone, planner there,
11 spoke directly with her . She said she had not
12 received - - this is the day before the Planning
13 Commission hearing . She had not received anything as
14 of that day, the day before the Planning Commission
15 hearing, and she said she had been trying - - she had
16 tried at least three or four times in the previous
17 three weeks to get a hold of the file .
18 I spoke with Charlie Claridge at Frederick
19 who also said they had not received a file .
20 So I don ' t know what Kim Ogle is referring
21 to when he says he has gotten - - he sent the files
22 out to them. But this resembles the same pattern
23 that we saw with the handling of Mead.
24 That ' s really all I have to say, but I urge
25 you to take your public responsibilities seriously.
Page 217
1 This is a question not just of the fate of a few
2 thousand taxpayers who pay a few million dollars in -
3 property taxes and who are not represented here .
4 This is not just a question of a reverse
5 Robin Hood effect , giving money from individual -
6 taxpayers to special interests . This is a matter
7 that will impact every taxpayer in Weld County, every
8 homeowner. _
9 The homeowners of Weld County were dealt a
10 severe blow three weeks ago when our State
11 legislators voted for big building and against _
12 homeowners and keep us from having any right for
13 protecting ourselves against shoddy builders .
14 If today you pass this and you essentially _
15 allow anything to go, that anybody can build a
16 70-foot building in the middle of a residential
17 neighborhood, this will be a second huge blow to Weld
18 homeowners across the county.
19 I urge you very strongly to deny this
20 rezoning or at a very minimum to consider the
21 specific requests that I have put forward in terms of
22 changing the bulk standards massing diagram or to
23 have a continuance to deal with these issues
24 regarding the formal complaint against Kim Ogle .
25 Thank you very much for your time .
Page 218
1 CHAIRMAN LONG: Thank you, Mr. Gries . Are
2 there questions? Commissioner Geile .
3 COMMISSIONER GEILE : A couple of questions .
4 When you talked about the 90-foot higher going up
5 here, let me -- the location of your house in that
6 respect , first of all as you take a look at the
7 topography, at least the way I viewed it when I
8 viewed the site, it ' s almost a crest .
9 In other words , your side of your
10 subdivision is going up, their side is going down, so
11 if you put your house here and you put this over here
12 how can there be - - in other words, if they stay to
13 the 75-foot structure over here how could that be
- 14 another 20 feet?
15 MR. GRIES : Any cresting occurs way beyond
16 where these massive structures will be . There is an
- 17 important grading. In fact , my back yard - - behind
18 the open space behind my back yard there ' s a ditch
19 that separates the two properties .
- 20 The other side of the ditch actually starts
21 about five feet lower than my back yard, so they are
22 proposing putting a berm at that eastern edge that
23 would actually be below the level of my feet on my
24 side of the ditch, and they claim that that will
25 somehow block noise and light when it ' s actually
Page 219 —
1 below my feet and it ' s grading upwards away from this
2 space below my feet to a space that as you get out -
3 about 500 feet becomes 20 feet higher than where --
4 over my head.
5 So the base of their 75-foot structure would -
6 be 20 feet higher than where I would be standing, so
7 in effect the 75 feet would be 95 feet .
8 COMMISSIONER GEILE : The other question I -
9 had, and it ' s obviously a very very emotional concern
10 and real estate is one of the most emotional things
11 and concerning things in a person ' s life and I -
12 certainly understand that , but you made reference to
13 the fact that you would be losing a lot of money if
14 this project were to move ahead simply because of , if -
15 I could use the word, deteriorate your property
16 value, reduce your property values .
17 I took the liberty of pulling some property -
18 records of a few of the sites . When I drove through
19 the site I found a few homes that were for sale and I
20 just pulled the fliers, not to go into anything -
21 that ' s real complete magnificent , I didn ' t have the
22 multiple listings and other things to do that , but
23 that ' s not what I found.
24 I found based upon houses or at least one
25 that ' s under construction, and I didn ' t pull any
Page 220
1 others to be quite honest about it, if anything it
- 2 looks to me - - and let me back up.
3 Taking that and making some adjustments to
4 it because of the fact it had a finished basement and
- 5 at least the ones I looked at aren' t represented as
6 having finished basements from the assessor ' s
7 records , but taking that and appreciating it roughly
8 one percent a month over a period of time and then
9 making a comparison, if anything the real estate
10 community seems to be representing the property
11 generally right in line, if anything maybe a little
12 bit higher than what the market might seem to be,
13 bearing in mind this is a very soft market and we
14 might see things coming down just because of the
15 natural ebb of the market when it becomes soft .
16 But I guess my question is and what I 'm
— 17 really concerned about is , is how did you come up
18 with that conclusion? Can you help me with that?
19 Did a group of realtors help you with that , did an
20 appraiser help you with that, or where did you come
21 up with that? Because I couldn ' t find it .
22 MR. GRIES : That ' s an excellent question and
23 to be honest it ' s my own estimate of what the market
24 will bear right now. It may be the case that if you
25 were looking at houses that are under construction
Page 221
1 then you were probably not looking at Ryland Homes
2 but you were looking at custom homes , which are a big -
3 step up from what we own.
4 But I know that a neighbor who lives two
5 houses down and actually lives on the inside side of -
6 the street, not directly affected by this
7 development , is actually asking -- trying to get out
8 and asking for less money than he paid for the house -
9 for, okay?
10 Now, that ' s somebody who lives on the other
11 side of the street , did not pay 30 , 000 to $60 , 000 of _
12 a lot premium to be on the outside edge of the
13 property. I was one of the people who paid that and
14 I know that that is going to disappear immediately if
15 I have a 45-foot high gymnasium running 300 to 400
16 feet north to south a couple hundred feet behind me
17 and a building on this scale, 75 feet , 400 to 800
18 Sprites compared to my house, just looming in the
19 distance .
20 Part of it is again not just an issue of
21 sight lines , which I believe are misrepresented here,
22 but it ' s really the emotional impact of a building
23 that size, and the impact that that will have on
24 people who look at my house and my neighbor ' s house
25 is going to be tremendous because there simply isn ' t
Page 222
1 that much vegetation.
-- 2 COMMISSIONER GEILE : I did have one more .
3 CHAIRMAN LONG: Please continue . I ' ll take
4 you next .
5 MS . HARBUZ : I have to leave in about five
6 minutes .
7 CHAIRMAN LONG: Please come up and give your
- 8 name and address for the record. If you can answer
9 the question that would be helpful . Thank you.
10 MS . HARBUZ : My name is Susan Harbuz and I
- 11 live at 2110 Meadowvale Road and I live in Meadowvale
12 at the Farms , and I can tell you I just completed my
13 course in residential appraisal and I have not taken
14 the State exam yet so I don ' t have any other
15 credentials .
16 However, our instructor was from CU, through
17 Colorado University, and he basically works for a
18 very reputable company called Valuation Resources and
19 they do the entire Front Range from Fort Collins to
20 Colorado Springs, and one of the major things that
21 they talked about impacting property values as far as
22 devaluing were large complexes such as we ' re talking
23 about with LifeBridge .
24 And I - - so everything that I learned in
25 class definitely indicates that this is going to
Page 223
1 impact us in a very negative way.
2 So I think that maybe we should have gotten -
3 someone here who does real estate appraisals , and I
4 wish I had gotten involved a little sooner; however,
5 I feel very confident that through the instruction -
6 that I received and from the professionalism of the
7 instructors and their own very large business that
8 this will have a significant negative impact on our -
9 property values .
10 CHAIRMAN LONG: Commissioner Geile .
11 COMMISSIONER GEILE : If I can, and I don ' t -
12 want to push the question, but usually as you know
13 having gone through an appraisal class - - do you also
14 have your real estate license? _
15 MS . HARBUZ : I did have my license . It is
16 not -- I 'm not currently using it .
17 COMMISSIONER GEILE : But you 've done CMA' s, _
18 comparative market analysis and things like that?
19 MS . HARBUZ : Uh-huh.
20 COMMISSIONER GEILE : As you know, when you
21 have anything happen there can be adjustments pro or
22 con?
23 MS . HARBUZ : Yes .
24 COMMISSIONER GEILE : Based upon - - it could
25 be a high traffic street or it could be an airport
Page 224
1 nearby or, you know, several factors , and they' re
2 very difficult because it ' s really what the market
3 bears and the supply and demand and all those factors
4 that you ' re trying to equate that .
5 MS . HARBUZ : That ' s true .
6 COMMISSIONER GEILE : So my question is, do
7 you have any kind of an adjustment factor that you 've
8 come up with?
9 MS . HARBUZ : Well , actually I haven ' t had a
10 chance to think about it , but it would definitely be
11 an adjustment in the negative - - on the negative
12 side, according from everything that I 've learned.
— 13 It would be a major negative .
14 It would be probably in the tune of around
15 50 , 000 or $60 , 000 in value, but I don ' t have numbers
16 to give you, and again I apologize for that because I
17 should have been better prepared to answer this .
18 COMMISSIONER GEILE : That ' s all right .
19 CHAIRMAN LONG: Thank you.
20 MS . HARBUZ : From the people that I know in
21 real estate, they have all told me that it ' s going to
— 22 be very negative . And we have several top realtors
23 in our neighborhood that have already put their homes
24 up for sale, so to me that ' s also an indicator .
— 25 COMMISSIONER GEILE : And I wish I had pulled
Page 225
1 up several of the fliers , but I only had time --
2 because I was looking for certain things so I just -
3 pulled a flier. That ' s not what I saw. The real
4 estate community seems to be representing this above
5 market . They seem to be representing it at above the _
6 mid range .
7 MS . HARBUZ : It hasn ' t been built yet .
8 COMMISSIONER GEILE : No, it was an existing _
9 house for sale .
10 MS . HARBUZ : No, I 'm talking about this
11 facility hasn' t been built yet . They may market it _
12 now. You ' re seeing the going prices now, but after
13 this is built out, the main church and all the
14 traffic - -
15 COMMISSIONER GEILE : That ' s true . The only
16 point I 'm making is I hope the real estate community
17 if what you say is true is representing the property
18 according to what they know, and of course there ' s
19 certain -- well , anyway you know what I ' m talking
20 about .
21 MS . HARBUZ : I do .
22 CHAIRMAN LONG: Thank you.
23 MR. GRIES : And that was essentially my
24 calculation, was 50 , 000 or 60 , 000 plus the lot
25 premium that those of us who are right on the border
Page 226
1 paid brings it up to about 100 , 000 , in my estimation.
2 But a lot of realtors are not letting their
3 buyers know about - - they say, oh, it ' s just a little
4 church over there and they don' t explain that there
5 are two commercial facilities , one a 32 , 000-seat
6 theater right away and again that red dot in the
7 phasing plan is a 6 , 000-seat auditorium that is
- 8 labeled as a performing arts service worship center.
9 It ' s just not true, and that is going to be
10 even closer to the property line than the Phase 1
11 piece, and again it ' s double that size . The impact
12 that is going to have I believe will be great .
13 CHAIRMAN LONG: Any other questions for Mr .
_ 14 Gries? Thank you, sir .
15 MR. GRIES : Thank you .
16 CHAIRMAN LONG: Is Rod Schmidt available?
- 17 Were you one of the ones that had to leave early?
18 MR. SCHMIDT: No .
19 CHAIRMAN LONG: Okay. Somebody else had to
- 20 leave here before 5 : 00 o ' clock there in the back.
21 Yeah, why don' t you come forward, please, ma ' am.
22 If you could for the record your name and
- 23 address , and welcome .
24 MS . BRAUNAGEL : Yes, my name is Vicki
25 Braunagel . My husband, Duane, and I live at 11677
Page 227
1 Montgomery Circle in the Elms at Meadowvale, and if
2 you could - - it would be helpful to show you where I
3 live in relation to my comments , and if you could go
4 to the - - in fact , if you could go to the one that
5 shows the phasing that ' s probably the - - that would _
6 work or the phasing one would work, either one .
7 Thank you . And I was trained as a lawyer
8 and not a professor, so I 'm not nearly as colorful in _
9 my comments .
10 I wanted to show you where I live because it
11 will give you some perspective in terms of my _
12 comments . I live in property that abuts the eastern
13 edge of the LifeBridge property.
14 I am basically -- if you can see the Pearl
15 Howlett mark that shows the straight line street , I ' m
16 basically five houses down and directly behind the
17 red blob, which reflects future phasing of a _
18 6 , 000-seat auditorium, and the Phase 1 fellowship
19 hall , which is the brown large building that shows
20 more definition because it ' s Phase 1 . I am located _
21 directly behind those .
22 Now, first I want to tell you that this is
23 not a not-in-my-back-yard issue . I am happy to have
24 LifeBridge in my back yard. That is not my issue . I
25 welcome them as a neighbor and I welcome them to the
Page 228
1 community and I hope we will continue to be good
2 neighbors together.
3 This is not a view issue . And the reason I
4 want to tell you that is because you 've seen the
5 views and they are fantastic from this neighborhood,
6 but from where I sit and from where the first
7 building in Phase 1 will be developed that sits
— 8 directly out my back -- in fact , all my windows face
9 west and that ' s in almost all of them, or will be,
10 and if it ' s anything higher than 45 feet will
11 obliterate my ability to see Long ' s Peak and Mt .
12 Meeker .
13 I recognize that fact and I don' t think it ' s
14 reasonable for me to ask the owner of this property,
15 LifeBridge, to construct their church at less than 45
16 feet . So I take that as a given. I will lose the
_ 17 view of Long ' s Peak and Mt . Meeker. It is what comes
18 with being the owner of adjacent property.
19 What I hope to retain is the open sense of
20 that area . One of the concerns that you 've heard
21 from Pete Gries and I think you ' ll hear from others
22 is that it ' s the height , it ' s the massive size of the
_ 23 buildings that will occupy that area, and the
24 question of whether or not that mass, that height is
25 compatible with the residential surrounding
Page 229
1 communities .
2 Now, I 've had a number of conversations with -
3 Bruce Grinnell and he ' s been very accommodating and I
4 want to thank him for lowering the heights to 75 feet
5 and for trying to tier out some of the development , -
6 and I think that is definitely a step in the right
7 direction.
8 But what we ' re asking for here, as Mr. -
9 Grinnell indicated initially, is an entitlement for
10 future development for the next 50 years, and my
11 husband tells me we ' re never moving again so I think _
12 we ' ll be there .
13 The issue is for me the height and the size
14 of the buildings directly behind me . The red blob -
15 has the ability to be 150 , 000 square feet at 75 feet
16 in height , so again it ' s that 12 houses side by side
17 and two and a half houses high, at approximately 700 _
18 feet outside my back door. It ' s that massiveness
19 that you ' re hearing so many people concerned about
20 and the entitlement to build it .
21 Now, I have to tell you that we asked the
22 Weld County Planning Department what are the highest
23 buildings in unincorporated Weld County, the highest
24 structures and where are they?
25 And what we got back from a Roger Vigil of
Page 230
1 the Planning Department was that the largest
- 2 buildings are all in industrial and the largest one
3 we came up with was the Lafarge batch plant, which
4 has a 74-foot silo, clearly an industrial use . The
— 5 highest church that he came up with was the Faith
6 Tabernacle church, which is 27 feet without the
7 steeple .
8 Now, I recognize that under your MUD you
9 want to have urban development , but I ask you what is
10 compatible with the existing residential , which under
11 your MUD, which I recognize is advisory but which
12 people looked at and hoped would be adhered to as
13 part of the zoning, that showed residential , that
14 what you ' ve got going are heights that are driven by
15 commercial uses , general commercial uses , because the
16 heights are being driven by the theater needs . And I
17 didn' t even hear general commercial as one of the
18 uses available under the neighborhood center.
19 But the question of compatibility is --
20 originally planning staff said 120 feet is not
21 compatible . We ' ve said 90 feet high at those sizes
22 of buildings is not compatible .
23 Is 75 feet high? It ' s closer . 60 feet high
24 is twice the size of the existing residences and
25 would provide a higher level of compatibility and I
Page 231 —
1 would urge you to take that into consideration in
2 your determination. Thank you. —
3 CHAIRMAN LONG : Thank you. Are there any
4 questions for Ms . Braunagel?
5 MR. MORRISON: Before you go on, the clerk —
6 can' t see around the - -
7 CHAIRMAN LONG: Peter, could we ask you to
8 lower your exhibit? —
9 MR. MORRISON: Yeah, if the Tribune will
10 send us another digital photo as we did with the
11 fruit . You missed the fruit . _
12 CHAIRMAN LONG: Who else needed to be
13 leaving?
14 State your name and address for the record, -
15 please . And you ' re speaking for yourself?
16 MR. DONOHOO : My name is Michael Donohoo and
17 I live at 11669 Montgomery Circle and I 'm speaking _
18 for myself, yes, and my wife but she ' s not here .
19 CHAIRMAN LONG: Michael Stember?
20 MR . DONOHOO : Donohoo, D O N O H O O. _
21 CHAIRMAN LONG: I apologize .
22 MR . DONOHOO : I was going to bring up a
23 number of things but in lieu of the time I ' m going to
24 let someone else cover the connectivity, which
25 neither the church nor the neighborhood wants, and go
Page 232
1 at the height and the location of the buildings .
2 I live about five houses north of Vicki, who
3 just spoke before me, and just using the old high
4 school trigonometry and a calculator I -- and using
5 the bulk standards massing diagram I was kind of just
6 running some numbers , and basically it wouldn' t
7 matter if the church was 90 feet or 75 feet to most
8 of our neighborhood at the maximum height at full
9 buildout because the nearest building at 125 feet
10 distance from the property line and 45 feet height
11 will have an angle of 19 . 8 degrees .
12 And to get higher than that , to have a
13 building that would pop up higher 700 feet away,
_ 14 which is where the 75 - - what was once 90-foot
15 buildings, the building would actually have to be 254
16 feet high to actually tower over the 45-foot building
17 they want to build 125 feet from the property line .
18 And the 125 feet I think if you look at it
19 on paper and it seems like it ' s a reasonable
20 distance, but then you've got to kind of ask
21 yourself , what is 125 feet? If you take 50 full
22 steps , for most people that will be 125 feet .
23 For me, I used to work in forestry stuff and
24 everything is measured in chains , which is 66 feet .
25 12 and a half steps for me, full steps , so 25 steps,
Page 233
1 is a chain for me, 66 feet . So you ' re talking about
2 50 half steps or 25 full steps for a person is where _
3 the 45-foot building would be .
4 Another way of looking at it is a good NFL
5 place kicker kicking a field goal can usually make it _
6 from 50 feet when there ' s no weather conditions
7 inside a dome . That ' s 150 feet - - I 'm sorry, 50
8 yards . They cam make it from 50 yards, which is _
9 about 150 feet , which is actually further than this
10 building will be .
11 As I mentioned, this building will have an _
12 angle from the property line of about 19 . 8 degrees,
13 and I ' ll give these other angles too. The one at a
14 distance of 400 feet where the 55-foot starts, that
15 will be 7 . 8 degrees . The 75-foot building at 700
16 feet will be 6 . 1 degrees .
17 That doesn ' t take the elevation change . I
18 mean it depends on where you are in the neighborhood.
19 The elevation could be five to 10 , 15 feet higher, as
20 Pete mentioned earlier .
21 And so kind of building on what Pete said
22 about moving them back, if you move these buildings
23 - - if you accepted that a 75-foot building 700 feet
24 away was acceptable, that would have an angle of 6 . 1
25 degrees . A 45-foot building to have a 6 . 1 degree
Page 234
1 angle from the horizon would have to be 421 feet from
2 the border.
3 So to me I feel that the setbacks aren' t
4 nearly enough. The buildings labeled 6 and 7 to the
5 north, those are - - quite simply they' re too close to
6 the property line . They' re going to be massive
7 structures that are just - - it ' s not the view of the
8 mountain. It ' s these are going to be everything.
9 From my living room I also - - when I bought
10 the house with my wife we knew we were going to lose
11 the view. I mean it doesn' t matter what ' s built back
12 there . Whether it ' s homes or someone is just going
13 to line up a bunch of buses in the middle of the
14 property, you ' re going to lose the view.
15 From my living room the view of the top of
16 Long ' s Peak is right around two degrees . It ' s just a
17 little speck . I mean we ' re far enough away from the
18 mountains that you build anything back there you ' re
19 going to lose it .
20 And if you ever built a home or bought a
21 home on that edge of the property and thought the
22 rest of your life you ' re going to have this beautiful
23 view, you ' re fooling yourself . Unless the City of
24 Longmont had actually bought it before you bought
25 your property and zoned it as open space, you weren ' t
Page 235 —
1 ever going to have the view forever.
2 I think that ' s about all I have to say. Any —
3 questions?
4 CHAIRMAN LONG: Thank you, Mr . Donohoo.
5 Commissioner Jerke . —
6 COMMISSIONER JERKE : Yes . Is there a height
7 then for that first set of buildings that are 125
8 feet out that would create, I guess, almost a direct —
9 line to the top of the 75-foot building inside? In
10 other words, if 45 feet is too much how much would be
11 about right to create a - -
12 MR. DONOHOO : To have the same angle as like
13 the 75-foot building?
14 COMMISSIONER JERKE : Exactly, yeah. Did you _
15 figure that out?
16 MR. DONOHOO : Yeah.
17 COMMISSIONER JERKE : Or you ' re going to _
18 figure it out .
19 MR . DONOHOO : Well , the 75-foot building
20 would have a 6 . 1 degree angle, so if you take the _
21 tangent of that and multiply it --
22 COMMISSIONER JERKE : I didn ' t mean for you
23 to go off on a tangent here . _
24 MR . DONOHOO : Okay, I ' m not good under
25 pressure . Let me try this again. You ' re asking what
Page 236
1 height of building would have to be there to have the
2 same angle, right?
3 COMMISSIONER JERKE : The first building you
4 say at 45 feet obliterates the interior building at
-. 5 75 feet in the first place . Does a 30-foot building
6 do it , does a 10-foot building do it?
7 MR. DONOHOO : They' re saying 35 here . Let ' s
8 see . Okay, I 'm really not good under pressure here,
9 so let ' s just assume it ' s 35 feet . If you give me a
10 couple minutes in the back, right before I leave I
_ 11 can raise my hand and tell you if that ' s good enough.
12 COMMISSIONER JERKE : Thank you.
13 CHAIRMAN LONG: Any other questions?
14 Commissioner Geile .
15 COMMISSIONER GEILE : If you were to take the
.. 16 reverse, I think you said 420 feet?
17 MR. DONOHOO : Yeah, to have --
18 COMMISSIONER GEILE : If you were to put it
19 out 420 feet --
20 MR . DONOHOO : If you had a 45-foot building
21 you would have to put it 421 feet back to have the
22 same angle as the 75-foot building 700 feet back.
23 COMMISSIONER GEILE : Okay, thank you.
24 CHAIRMAN LONG: Any other questions? Thank
— 25 you.
Page 237
1 MR. DONOHOO : Thanks .
2 CHAIRMAN LONG: And the gentleman in the -
3 brown shirt . I think it ' s brown. Please come
4 forward.
5 MR . PIERCE : My name is Frank Pierce . I _
6 represent myself and my wife . I also -- and we live
7 in Meadowvale at 1998 Blue Mountain Road. I also
8 represent Jim and Linda Hess . They live in the Elms . _
9 I ' ve lived in Meadowvale for approximately
10 five years and I 've seen a lot of development just in
11 those five years . The Elms wasn ' t there, didn ' t even _
12 know the Elms was planned at that time . I was one of
13 the first dozen homes in Meadowvale .
14 A lot of the development on the south side _
15 of 119 wasn ' t there, the commercial development .
16 There ' s some buildings over there that were built on
17 the top of a rise, so I ' m accustomed to and used to _
18 development and like others here I don' t think
19 anybody goes in assuming that everything is going to
20 stay the same and not change . -
21 when I look at the possibility of something
22 that was brought up here at this meeting of 880 homes
23 that Pultey applied for, so obviously that ' s a
24 possibility for that area, and I try to figure out
25 that, you know, you ' re probably looking at at least -
Page 238
1 an average of three people per home, you ' re looking
- 2 at 2 , 500 people in that space .
3 If only two people or one person makes two
4 trips a day, that ' s like 5 , 000 round trips . That to
- 5 me seems to be a significant number in excess of what
6 the church is anticipating on a busy Sunday, and
7 that ' s every single day.
- 8 And certainly interconnectivity would be an
9 issue if it was a residential area . It wouldn ' t have
10 the problems that this situation seems to present .
11 And those people would be far more likely to go
12 through the neighborhood than I believe the church
13 would be because quite honestly it ' s just not very
14 easy to get out those ways . So I really don ' t see
15 that as an issue .
16 The fact that the offsets wouldn' t exist ,
17 the houses would be closer to the property line, and
18 I don' t know, I may be naive here but I can' t see 880
19 homes being an improvement over the buildings that
20 are spaced out , the amount of open space and the
21 parks , the pathways , and what the church would be
22 bringing to the area as far as development , the
23 commercial development, the housing development , the
24 facilities that can be shared.
25 Somebody was alluding to the fact that, you
Page 239
1 know, we ' re going to lose a lot of money, it ' s going
2 to cost us a lot of money due to the taxes that can' t -
3 be collected on a tax-exempt basis of the church, but
4 the church is offering their facilities to all of the
5 municipalities and services that might need them. -
6 What would be the cost of those
7 municipalities and services if they had to erect
8 buildings in order to have them available for those -
9 services that they ' re not going to have to compensate
10 for? To me I think that ' s a part of compatibility
11 and I think it offsets some of these numbers . _
12 I think it ' s very possible -- I enjoy
13 numbers, I consider them recreation for me, it keeps
14 me up at night , and I think anybody can present a lot _
15 of numbers here and make them look one way or the
16 other. I personally think this is a great
17 opportunity, I think it will increase the values, but _
18 everybody has an opinion.
19 I think it will be a nicer place to live and
20 I look forward to having them as neighbors and I _
21 think it will benefit everybody in the long term, a
-
22 lot more into the future . I think it ' s worth a lot
23 more moving ahead than if it wasn ' t there .
24 So I hope you take this as an opportunity
25 and approve it . I as a resident really look forward
_ Page 240
1 to this and think it will be very special .
2 CHAIRMAN LONG: Any questions of Mr . Pierce?
3 Commissioner Jerke .
4 COMMISSIONER JERKE : Thank you, Mr .
5 Chairman. For the record I should ask, are you a
6 member of LifeBridge?
7 MR. PIERCE : Yes, I am.
8 COMMISSIONER JERKE : Okay, thank you.
9 MEMBER OF AUDIENCE : Is his house for sale?
10 CHAIRMAN LONG: Excuse me - -
_ 11 MR. PIERCE : Yes, my house is for sale and I
12 have a lot in the Elms right on the border that I
13 intend to build on. Any other questions?
14 CHAIRMAN LONG : We don' t take questions from
15 the audience . Thank you.
16 Could you come back up to the microphone so
17 it ' s on the record, please, Mr. Donohoo?
18 MR . DONOHOO : I 'm Michael Donohoo . To have
19 that 6 . 1 degree angle the building couldn ' t be more
20 than 13 . 3 feet high, which is obviously really low,
21 but there you have it .
— 22 CHAIRMAN LONG: Thank you . Thank you for
23 your diligence . Now, don' t go off on a tangent .
24 Anybody else that had to leave before 5 : 00
25 or had to testify? Anybody else?
Page 241
1 So we ' ll go back to -- seeing no hands there
2 go back to Mr . Rod Schmidt . _
3 MR. SCHMIDT: Good afternoon. I ' m Rod
4 Schmidt . I live at 1873 Blue Mountain Road in the
5 Meadowvale Farms . _
6 Relative to - - from a locational standpoint ,
7 if you take a look at the development , the retirement
8 area on the map there, if you take a look at the _
9 first road down from the center road splitting the
10 church campus and the southern part of the
11 development, I live right at the intersection of what _
12 would be Blue Mountain Road and the intersector into
13 the - - and the connectivity into the - - is somebody
14 getting it for me? Right where the red dot was
15 pointing.
16 For the record, I also speak on behalf of
17 several board of directors of the Meadowvale Farms _
18 Homeowners Association as well as several residents .
19 I will not take a long -- a great deal of time . So
20 please bear with me .
21 As a matter of reference I was - - my family
22 and I were the seventh family to move into the Farms .
23 We bought our lot when it was a cornfield and we have
24 enjoyed the pristine atmosphere and the site we have
25 out in Weld County, moving up from the Denver metro
Page 242
1 area.
2 Just to -- I 'm really going to focus on
3 three things . Number one, what I believe was due
4 diligence on behalf of LifeBridge to meet the needs
5 of the neighborhood community as a whole; number two,
6 the issue of connectivity, which I think there is a
7 major concern in our neighborhood over; and then I
8 have some final closing thoughts and comments . So
9 bear with me .
10 I originally attended a meeting
- 11 approximately three or four months ago, it may have
12 been four months ago now, that was put on for the
13 neighbors of the Elms, Meadowvale Farms and Longview,
- 14 and at that meeting there were several presentations
15 made from members , some who are present today,
16 relative to some of the perceived issues associated
17 with the development that was occurring with the
18 proposal from LifeBridge .
19 I had some major concerns at that time, as I
- 20 think we all did, and I was also -- I was one of the
21 people who initiated a dialogue with Bruce Grinnell
22 and Rex Golden relative to airing our issues and
23 reaching some mitigation relative to resolving some
24 of those issues .
25 During the course of our first meeting we
Page 243
1 laid some ground work and raised some general issues ,
2 at which point we were asked to go back and meet with -
3 several homeowners from both the Elms and Meadowvale
4 Farms and come back with key issues that we would
5 like to see resolved. -
6 Approximately two weeks later we went back
7 based on a meeting of about 12 individuals from the
8 Elms and Meadowvale Farms and basically what it came _
9 down to is airing 10 key points that we felt needed
10 to be mitigated.
11 During the course of that time Mr. Grinnell _
12 and Rex Golden and the members of the development
13 team from LifeBridge actually took some of the
14 initial conversation and began making changes to _
15 their application that affected the development .
16 There were really 10 key factors . I won ' t
17 go into them but I will say this , that of the 10 key _
18 factors that were aired during our second meeting we
19 believed nine of them were answered - -
20 MR. GRIES : What were the maximum heights
21 next to you --
22 CHAIRMAN LONG: Excuse me, Mr . Gries .
23 MR. SCHMIDT: Don ' t even go there .
24 CHAIRMAN LONG : Sir, please, you know the
25 process and the rules , so please adhere to them. If
Page 244
1 you need to remove yourself for awhile to calm down,
- 2 that ' s fine . Thank you.
3 MR . SCHMIDT : That ' s why I asked to go after
4 him.
- 5 There were 10 key factors and of those 10
6 key factors nine of the factors were answered to the
7 approval of a majority of the people on the team that
- 8 have placed the request . The one key element that
9 was a struggle was the heights , which obviously
10 continues to be a situation today.
- 11 I would submit this . I would submit that
12 the church has done more than their fair share in
13 terms of working with the communities to hear our
14 issues and to come - - and to work with us in a
15 reasonable fashion to develop a subdivision that to
16 Mr. Pierce ' s comments will add value, intrinsic value
17 over the long term to the entire neighborhood in that
18 area.
19 When I see a 76 percent reduction in terms
20 of the maximum footage over 60 feet , when I see a 70
21 percent reduction in the amphitheater, which was a
22 major contention of ours, when I see a 25 percent
23 reduction in terms of the overall square footage of
24 the church campus , I think there have been huge
25 strides made in terms of mitigating the issues with
Page 245 1 the neighbors in the subdivision.
2 Relative to heights , I would tell you this , —
3 that a majority of the people in the Farms are
4 satisfied. Now, does that mean we wouldn' t prefer to
5 see prairie dogs and pocket gophers and foxes and —
6 deer out there for the rest of our life? Absolutely.
7 None of us here would say anything different .
8 But the fact of the matter is development is —
9 inevitable and so what we are looking at is a
10 development that will be created that ' s harmonious
11 with our development and something that we can be _
12 proud of long term.
13 And to Mr . Gries ' question, LifeBridge as
14 one of the concessions agreed -- had an agreement _
15 that they would go to a 25-foot single family, single
16 story structure in the first row of homes on the
17 development directly west of our house . On the very _
18 initial plat that was planned approximately six
19 months previous they had row homes .
20 So we feel like we personally in the Farms _
21 made great strides in terms of creating something
22 that was harmonious with our development .
23 I would like to talk to you about what I _
24 perceive as probably the main issue and the only
25 issue that we see in the Farms relative to the staff
Page 246
1 recommendation from the Planning Commission meeting.
2 We ' re very grateful that the Planning
3 Commission made the recommendation to take out
4 connectivity on both Pearl Howlett and Blue Mountain
5 Road. The concern still exists and we think that
6 based on the numbers that we presented today by the
7 traffic engineers that on the basis of 180 additional
8 trips per day during non-peak time on Blue Mountain
9 Road and an additional 380 additional trips a day on
10 Pearl Howlett , it somehow defies the laws of
11 economics that it would be justified to include
12 connectivity in this proposal .
13 I would say this, I look at our developments
14 and there are some similarities, there are some
15 differences between the Farms and the Elms . In the
16 Farms we have what I would consider a little bit more
17 - - a little older clientele, I won ' t say more mature
18 but I ' ll say old older, but we do have a substantial
19 number of children.
20 On my cul-de-sac alone we have eight homes
21 and I believe it ' s 17 or is it 20 children? 20 kids .
22 I will tell you that if I am a retiree living in the
23 retirement village I would not want my kids coming
24 through the neighborhood.
25 They have a lot of play toys, and I think
Page 247
1 that putting connectivity would actually be more of a
2 detriment to the retirement village in terms of -
3 marketing those properties than it would be to us .
4 And personally I 've got a 10-year-old son who ' s all
5 boy. I do not want him going into a retirement _
6 village, period.
7 I do believe and I appreciate, Mr . Jerke,
8 your comment about like-kind developments . While we _
9 are residential and the retirement village would be
10 residential , I do think there are some inherent
11 differences between a retirement village and a _
12 community that ' s relatively young to middle age
13 couples with a large number of children, and I would
14 hate to see connectivity based on that . _
15 I think it ' s very similar in the Elms .
16 There are a lot of younger children running around.
17 There will be a lot of young children running around _
18 for days and years to come, and I think it ' s
-
19 certainly - - any traffic coming outside of the
20 neighborhood certainly poses a risk to safety of the
21 children.
-
22 The last thing I would say - - and I have a
23 question for Drew.
24 CHAIRMAN LONG: Pass it through us and then
25 we ' ll refer it at the appropriate time .
Page 248
1 MR. SCHMIDT: Okay. It is my understanding
2 that Blue Mountain Road does not meet current County
3 Code, and I do not know what the existing easement is
4 but I do know we have an 18-foot paved road that goes
5 immediately into a bar ditch on either side of the
6 road.
7 It would be my assessment that to put any
8 road in there that would meet - - come close to
9 meeting County Code there would be a fairly
10 significant cost associated with it relative to the
11 -- to securing additional property from the
12 homeowners , and I would venture to guess there are
13 not too many of us that would be willing to deed that
14 over without compensation.
15 And I certainly think that because of the
16 structure of the interior roads on Blue Mountain Road
17 it would probably also include - - in fact , could we
18 bring up the slide - - Kim, that slide that you are
19 looking at?
20 There ' s another slide that shows the
21 structure of Blue Mountain Road and the Elms . That
22 one right there . Bruce, do you have that little
23 pointer there?
24 Okay, if you take a look, I would submit
25 that if you were to look at interconnectivity on this
Page 249
1 property you would not only be looking at widening
2 this road right here but there ' s also Meadowvale Road -
3 right here .
4 I don ' t know if it would be necessary but I
5 think the possibility would probably exist that you -
6 would have to do that at the same time, because that
7 is the other main road that wraps around down here
8 and goes out of the subdivision, and it is possible -
9 from this stop sign right here to go either up here,
10 down here -- too much coffee this afternoon. Up
11 around here, over here or down here . _
12 So I think the reality exists that to add
13 connectivity would ultimately mean expanding out all
14 of the roads in Blue Mountain -- in Meadowvale Farms , _
15 and that in my estimation is about two to two and a
16 half miles worth of roads . Okay?
17 Relative to the benefits , I do - - I think _
18 myself and several of the neighbors in our
19 subdivision agree that there are some inherent --
20 should I wait while he does his thing? _
21 CHAIRMAN LONG: Please continue .
-
22 MR. SCHMIDT : Okay. I think there are other
23 inherent benefits of this community. I do believe
24 personally, and this is a personal opinion, this is
-
25 not a professional opinion, but I do believe that it
Page 250
1 will add value to our community both inherent - - from
2 an intrinsic standpoint as well as from a monetary
3 standpoint .
4 Certainly having a controlled and sustained
5 growth pattern of a 50-year buildout to the north of
6 us does not necessarily impact , in my opinion, most
7 of us in terms of any home resale . I can empathize
8 with Vicki because she and Duane live right in the --
9 right in the line of Long ' s Peak and that will be
10 taken away, and I empathize with that .
11 But I do believe overall , that over the long
12 haul this community and the sustain and control
13 growth that it presents will add value to our
14 community and I believe that we will see that over
15 time .
16 From a value standpoint , I think personally,
17 from a very personal standpoint , I 'm very pleased to
18 see a community that would have both older adults ,
19 which I 'm quickly approaching, and young children at
20 heart , and I do believe that this development
21 presents an opportunity to cater to segments of the
22 population that aren' t necessarily looked upon.
23 I think long term, and this again is my own
24 personal belief , not the belief of the homeowners as
25 a whole, I do believe that having retail services
Page 251
1 long term will be a benefit to us . I would love
2 nothing more than to have a new Starbucks , so if _
3 anybody wants to buy a Starbucks franchise and open
4 it up, it would be a great opportunity for us to have
5 convenience of services versus going and having to _
6 drive into town.
7 I would also concur with several other
8 comments that I do not want to see strictly a _
9 residential site on this property. I think that the
10 diversity and some of the flexibility adds a
11 uniqueness to the area and certainly offers up a lot _
12 of potential services for us that currently don ' t
13 exist .
14 Finally, just in closing, I would tell you
15 this , I speak for a large number of neighbors . The
16 inference was made that there was representation
17 there representing all of the neighborhoods . That is
18 not so .
19 There are a large degree of members of our
20 neighborhood who are very satisfied with the
21 development as it is proposed currently. I think
22 they' ll be even more satisfied on one contingency,
23 that connectivity is not a part of this
24 recommendation from the County Commissioners .
25 Number two, LifeBridge has been a community
Page 252
1 mainstay for 100 years and I would like to thank them
- 2 for the integrity they have shown and the willingness
3 they have shown to work with us in spite of some very
4 obvious obstacles that they have been facing, from
- 5 the political pressure, from the community pressure,
6 and I want to thank them all for the integrity they
7 have shown in keeping their wits and continuing to
8 work with us up to the eleventh hour, actually the
9 eleventh and a half hour .
10 I 'm going to speak from a very personal
11 standpoint and I am going to speak now to the members
12 of LifeBridge planning committee and the County
13 Commissioners . There are those in our community who
14 do not echo the feelings of some of the rhetoric,
15 some of the sensationalism, some of the distortion of
16 facts that have been presented throughout this entire
17 process, and I want to apologize on behalf of our
18 neighborhood if there has been any association to
19 those with our neighborhood.
20 We are deeply grieved by it and we apologize
21 for it , but we do not want it to reflect on our
22 neighborhood as a whole . That ' s not to say there
23 aren' t neighbors in our neighborhood that may feel
24 that way, but as a whole we do not, and I thank you
25 for your forbearance in that respect .
Page 253
1 I think I ' ll conclude with that .
2 CHAIRMAN LONG: Okay. Questions? _
3 Commissioner Jerke .
4 COMMISSIONER JERKE : Thank you, Mr.
5 Chairman. Are you a LifeBridge member? _
6 MR. SCHMIDT : No, I 'm not . I am a Christian
7 but I go to Denver to church.
8 COMMISSIONER JERKE : Thank you. Second _
9 question, related to connectivity, it seems like it ' s
10 a double-edged sword to me from the way I look at it
11 on this proposal , because if you want to go to _
12 Starbucks you wouldn ' t have to go out onto 119 to go
13 to it .
14 MR. SCHMIDT: I walk on the green belt . _
15 COMMISSIONER JERKE : Pardon?
16 MR. SCHMIDT: I walk on the green belt .
17 COMMISSIONER JERKE : But it is a serious
18 question with respect to the ins and outs that
19 obviously people will have . Obviously there ' s a lot
20 of homes in the neighborhoods that have been built up
21 around it?
22 MR . SCHMIDT : Actually 89 in our
23 subdivision.
24 COMMISSIONER JERKE : And then there ' s two
25 other subdivisions besides that?
Page 254
1 MR. SCHMIDT: Sure, and I speak specifically
— 2 on behalf of our subdivision now.
3 COMMISSIONER JERKE : Okay. It just strikes
4 me that it is a double-edged sword and if you prevent
5 LifeBridge from coming out it also prevents you from
6 going in?
7 MR. SCHMIDT: Mr . Jerke, I really believe
8 there ' s more inherent harm to a retirement village
9 being built and having connectivity in our
10 subdivision, because I ultimately would say that in
11 20 years when I ' m old and gray I would -- if I chose
12 to live in that community I 'm not sure I would want
13 16-year-old kids tearing down the street .
14 And we all know that we can put speed bumps
15 in roads and things like that , but that ' s not going
16 to contain a 16-year-old. I think there ' s more
17 inherent - - there ' s not enough inherent value in
18 creating connectivity to overcome what I perceive as
19 the detriments and the negatives .
20 COMMISSIONER JERKE : Okay, thank you.
21 CHAIRMAN LONG: Any other questions? Thank
22 you, sir .
23 MR. SCHMIDT : You ' re welcome .
24 CHAIRMAN LONG: Bill Norris . Oh, and let me
25 call - - if I could right after Mr . Norris , John
Page 255
1 Fanton we ' ll have you up, so just kind of be ready.
2 Thank you, sir .
3 MR . NORRIS : Okay, Bill Norris, 1872 Blue
4 Mountain Road, which is right there, and I want to
5 talk about connectivity. Did you get where it was? _
6 CHAIRMAN LONG: I didn ' t see that , sir .
7 MR. NORRIS : I 'm sorry, right there .
8 CHAIRMAN LONG: Very good. Thank you. _
9 MR. NORRIS : Blue Mountain right there and
10 Blue Mountain right across there, right through the
11 middle of the 12-acre park and right through the _
12 center of the retirement village, which doesn' t seem
13 to me like that ' s very conducive to good planning .
14 But I 'm opposed to interconnectivity and I _
15 think something that hasn' t been addressed - - and I
16 know that some of you have been up and looked at the
17 area and I appreciate that, but Blue Mountain Road is _
18 only a name but it ' s just a little bit long . It goes
19 down here . It ends right about there .
20 I ' ll try that one more time . Blue Mountain
21 starts there and runs down here and ends
22 approximately in this area right out here, and at
23 that point it intersects Meadowvale Road, which is
24 also not a public access road. So there you go back
25 north a little bit and catch another non-public
Page 256
1 access road, so you ' ve got three non-public access
.- 2 roads that you 've got to catch to get back out to
3 County Road 5 . 5 .
r
4 And your plans of opening connectivity means
5 that you ' re going to take over all three of those,
6 mandatorily, or just take Blue Mountain Road straight
7 out to 5 . 5 , which means going down a very steep
_ 8 slope, putting two sharp curves in it , and just
9 everything about it is a nightmare .
10 As has been previously addressed and I 'm
11 going to touch on it lightly, Blue Mountain Road is
12 18 feet wide and Kim will keep me honest but I think
r 13 it ' s approximately a 15-foot easement on each side,
14 so we 've got about 48 feet .
15 15 feet on each side comes off of people ' s
16 driveways . And that ' s probably not the end of the
17 world, but that shortens their driveways and
18 eliminates off-street parking.
19 We may have a requirement for on-street
20 parking now. That makes Blue Mountain Road even
21 wider . That goes beyond your right-of-way. So now I
22 think you ' re talking condemnation of property in
23 order to provide on-street parking, curbs, gutters ,
24 sidewalks, which also gets up pretty close to
25 people ' s bedrooms .
Page 257
1 I 'm not really sure that there ' s a dollar
2 value, considering the amount of money that ' s going -
3 to cost, and I really don' t know how much it is , but
4 we ' re going to handle 180 cars a day? It just
5 doesn ' t seem reasonable . -
6 I guess the -- I don ' t want to use up too
7 much more time, but I think we have some of the same
8 problems at Pearl Howlett and I guess the only thing -
9 that I ' ll touch on there and I ' ll shut up is I think
10 you ' re going to have to condemn property up there to
11 make Pearl Howlett go through to the church ' s -
12 property.
13 And as a taxpayer I hope you don' t do a
14 property assessment on me to pay for the new road. -
15 If you don' t I guess what that means is you gentlemen
16 are going to help me pay for it because it ' s going to
17 come out of taxpayer funds, and that ' s not really
18 prudent .
19 Thank you for your time .
20 CHAIRMAN LONG: Any questions for Mr . _
21 Norris? Thank you, sir, appreciate it .
22 Mr. Fanton, if you ' re still here .
23 Okay. Bill Golliher? Please come forward,
24 and then Scott Owen will be after him.
25 Please give your name and address for the
Page 258
1 record, please, and welcome . Thank you.
2 MR . GOLLIHER : Bill Golliher. I represent
3 my wife, Ellen, and we live at 11700 Montgomery
4 Circle in the Elms .
5 I just want to talk to the subject of common
6 sense here . There ' s been a lot of discussion on
7 heights and connectivity and all of that , but I have
.- 8 some issues with law enforcement . I 'm not convinced
9 that the sheriff ' s department the way they responded
10 that they can handle law enforcement for this
11 development when he readily admitted that they' re
12 understaffed according to plan presently.
13 If we -- if you do approve this plan and we
- 14 have a I believe 2 , 500-seat church, the 1 , 500-seat
15 auditorium, a 6 , 000-seat performance hall , 5 , 000
16 parking spaces , you know, the church obviously has
- 17 aggressive plans to grow. We ' re not going to put in
18 5 , 000 parking places unless we ' re going to utilize
19 them. We ' re not going to put in performing arts
20 unless it ' s going to be utilized.
21 So once those things are being used seven
22 days a week are we going to have law enforcement
23 traffic control? The traffic study I have no
24 confidence in, you know, and I have no expertise at
25 all , but it just doesn' t make sense .
Page 259 —
1 There ' s been no thought given to 5 . 5 , no
2 discussion about County Road 5 , County Road 7 , once —
3 we ' re getting thousands of people in for these
4 events, not only church on Wednesdays and Sundays but
5 using the auditorium possibly seven nights a week, —
6 seven days a week, all the other activities .
7 So I really think there ' s other areas beyond
8 the height , the connectivity and all of those issues -
9 that have been covered that the planning and other
10 people haven ' t talked about, and it ' s the common
11 sense things . -
12 You know, why haven ' t we discussed - - you
13 know, people are going to use 5 . 5 . There ' s not going
14 to be a light down there . Somebody is going to get _
15 killed. That ' s why there ' s a light at County Road
16 3 . 5 and 119 , because of accidents .
17 And when you get several thousand people
18 coming out of there, they ' re going to find - - it ' s
19 like water finding leaks . They see a traffic jam on
20 3 . 5 , they' re going to start finding ways out of this
21 development and 5 . 5 is going to be one of them,
22 County Road 5 and County Road 7 .
23 So I would like you to give some thought to
24 that with the aspects of law enforcement and fire and
25 medical care and the future traffic problems that
_ Page 260
1 this could bring . And not only - - you know, the
2 traffic, it could be 800 homes and we ' re going to
3 have that same issue .
4 But I see a problem of several thousand
-_ 5 people possibly on a daily basis going in and out
6 using these facilities . How are we going to deal
7 with that with law enforcement and with traffic?
8 Thank you for your time .
9 CHAIRMAN LONG : Thank you. Are there any
10 questions of Mr. Golliher?
11 COMMISSIONER GEILE : I just had one comment ,
12 if I may, Mr . Golliher. We have the same concerns
13 you have about - - and you mentioned 7 . We ' re doing a
14 study of 7 . 5 and we ' re doing it from a connectivity
15 issue or as a side road issue because we 've got to
16 find a way to move traffic parallel to I-25 .
17 But the point is there ' s another thing
18 that ' s playing out here and that is the location of
19 the new high school by St . Vrain, and that ' s going to
20 be north if you were to take -- go north of 119 on
21 7 . 5 and go up the bluff, it ' s not too far up that
— 22 bluff where the high school would be located.
23 MR. GOLLIHER : Up 5 . 5?
24 COMMISSIONER GEILE : I 'm sorry?
— 25 MR. GOLLIHER: Up 5 . 5?
Page 261
1 COMMISSIONER GEILE : Up 7 . 5 , on 7 . 5 north of
2 119 , if you go up the bluff, go over kind of the new -
3 ponds and all that and up there .
4 MR. GOLLIHER: Okay.
5 COMMISSIONER GEILE : And the only reason I
6 mention that is I think you ' re exactly right, this
7 whole transportation configuration is going to have
8 to be looked at , but just so you know we are looking -
9 at that simply because of the growth issues, not only
10 as they exist now but will exist down the road, will
11 have in this area . _
12 MR. GOLLIHER : You know, I 'm bringing that
13 up because it was not brought up in the Planning
14 Commission meeting and there really hasn ' t been a lot -
15 of discussion about those other alternative routes .
16 And we have people in the neighborhood now
17 that take kids up to the Mead area for school and use _
18 7 presently, and given what development will go into
19 that area that obviously there ' s going to be more and
20 more traffic going north out of there and along 26 on _
21 the northeast end as well .
22 So I just - - I wanted to express our
23 concerns not only about the setbacks , the heights ,
24 the connectivity which have been covered by other
25 people, but I have strong concerns about law
Page 262
1 enforcement and fire, medical and the traffic issues .
2 Thank you.
3 CHAIRMAN LONG: Any further questions?
4 Seeing none, thank you, sir.
5 MR. GOLLIHER: Thank you.
6 CHAIRMAN LONG: Just in case you were out of
7 the room, is there a John Fanton that wanted to
.- 8 testify? I just wanted to -- I saw some people come
9 back in the room. I didn ' t want to have them miss
10 the opportunity.
— 11 Mr . Scott Owen?
12 MR . OWEN: My name is Scott Owen. I reside
13 at 21469 Weld County Road 3 . I 'm also a - -
14 COMMISSIONER GEILE : Excuse me, if I may.
15 Where did this come from?
16 MR. MORRISON: I 'm sorry, that ' s Exhibit V,
17 the Schnepp letter. It came in at noon to the Board
18 and I 've marked it and distributed copies , so it was
19 submitted during one of the breaks .
20 CHAIRMAN LONG: Okay, thank you .
21 COMMISSIONER GEILE : Excuse me, sir.— 22 CHAIRMAN LONG: Please continue .
23 MR. OWEN: Again, my name is Scott Owen.
24 I 'm at 21469 Weld County Road 3 . I 'm also a partner— 25 in the parcel of property jest west of Longview, and
Page 263
1 I want to say I appreciate the opportunity to stand
2 in front of you today and voice my support for this -
3 project .
4 I have been fortunate enough to grow up in
5 this community, definitely seen a lot of change and a -
6 lot of growth, and whether we ' re going to continue to
7 see that change and growth I don ' t know. I think one
8 would guess that we will in this community, and I _
9 believe that if that is the case that the kind of
10 project that is before you today is going to be a
11 tremendous benefit to those that continue to move _
12 into this area .
13 And I do believe that if in fact that growth
14 does not continue that I would have to think that _
15 surrounding neighbors, not to minimize any of the
16 issues today, but the folks within the Farms and the
17 Elms will probably have one of the greatest
18 situations that has ever happened their way. If
19 that ' s the case, if the growth is not there, I really
20 don ' t believe that the church will be able to grow
21 with that type of a pace .
22 And those are my comments . Any questions?
23 CHAIRMAN LONG: Any comments or questions
24 for Mr . Owen? Thank you - -
25 COMMISSIONER JERKE : Are you a member of
Page 264
1 LifeBridge?
2 MR. OWEN: Yes, sir, I am.
3 COMMISSIONER JERKE : Thank you .
4 CHAIRMAN LONG: Bob Frederiksen? And then
5 after Bob would be -- Michael Stember would be on
6 deck.
7 MR. FREDERIKSEN: My name is Bob
8 Frederiksen. I live at 1820 Meadowvale Road. Right
9 off the bat, I am a member of the LifeBridge
10 Christian Church, as Peter has already disclosed
11 that , but I did want to make a couple comments .
12 One, I am a registered appraiser for
13 property and I don ' t see the value of the property at
14 Meadowvale Farms or the Elms deteriorating because of
15 the LifeBridge project .
16 The reason I say that is the economy today
17 is on a decline now or stable anyway, but in some
18 areas of homes over $350 , 000 it is starting to show a
19 decline regardless of where you live . So I ' m saying
20 that to blame that onto the church at this point in
21 time might not be the appropriate viewpoint to take .
22 I just want to say that just in our
23 neighborhood the homes have increased over three
24 years 18 to 20 percent, so I think we ' re doing
25 something right . People want to live there, people
Page 265
1 know that we are going to be building, we are going
2 to have a church to the west , we ' re going to have a -
3 senior development to the west of me, and it hasn ' t
4 seemed to stop them.
5 So I concur with Rod Schmidt and I concur
6 with Frank Pierce on their viewpoints and I support
7 them, and I just want you to know that I think we ' re
8 doing the right thing by moving forward with this -
9 project and not everybody is on the opposition. As
10 Rod said, we represent Meadowvale Farms and I know of
11 maybe a couple people that are maybe opposed but on -
12 the other 80 I would say they' re with us .
13 So again, we kind of want to stand alone on
14 this issue . Thank you.
15 CHAIRMAN LONG: Any questions? Commissioner
16 Geile .
17 MR. FREDERIKSEN: Yes, sir .
18 COMMISSIONER GEILE : Mr . Frederiksen, are
19 you a MAI?
20 MR. FREDERIKSEN: I 'm a registered appraiser
21 for the State of Colorado.
22 COMMISSIONER GEILE : Okay. If you were - -
23 what is -- do you appraise a lot of homes or
24 residential or what?
25 MR. FREDERIKSEN: Mostly residential ,
Page 266
1 condos, modulars , that kind of thing, farm property.
2 COMMISSIONER GEILE : The reason I asked is
3 because if - - you know, you ' re a member of
4 LifeBridge, which means it could be construed that
5 you' re providing information to us on their behalf,
6 but if you were actually put - - have you ever had to
7 testify before a body based upon your findings?
_ 8 MR. FREDERIKSEN: No, I have not . No, I
9 have not .
10 COMMISSIONER GEILE : If you had to testify
- 11 in this case based upon your statements could you do
12 that?
13 MR. FREDERIKSEN: Yes, I could.
- 14 COMMISSIONER GEILE : Substantiate them?
15 MR. FREDERIKSEN: Yes, I could.
16 COMMISSIONER GEILE : Okay, that ' s what I
17 wanted to know.
18 CHAIRMAN LONG: Any other questions of Mr.
— 19 Frederiksen? Thank you, sir.
20 MR. FREDERIKSEN: Thank you.
21 CHAIRMAN LONG: Michael Stember, and then a
22 Duane Leise on deck afterwards .
23 MR. STEMBER : I 'm Michael Stember of 2232
24 Meadowvale . I came here - - I looked out of my back
— 25 yard yesterday just to make sure I had figured
Page 267
1 everything out right . I don' t actually see the
2 church. My neighbor ' s house actually blocks it . -
3 So what do I care? Because I think it ' s a
4 bad precedent to have such a large building pretty
5 much anywhere in the middle of someplace that ' s -
6 already built up.
7 Somewhere there is a picture of I think a
8 State Farm building? It was all by itself . It was _
9 just dirt all around. So if somebody put a house up
10 and they didn ' t have a view, you know, that would be
11 kind of foolish to complain about it , sort of like _
12 somebody building a house at the end of a runway and
13 complaining about the plane noise . So that ' s why I
14 think that ' s kind of a silly argument . _
15 You know, we ' re getting a surprise . I 'm not
16 getting a surprise because I 'm not really going to
17 see it unless I drive up the Elms . It ' s a little bit _
18 of my brother ' s keeper, I don ' t want them to have to
19 look at it either . All right?
20 At the beginning you said it ' s like kind of
21 judicial hearings that you gather evidence . Clearly,
22 Commissioner Geile, you went there and I appreciate
23 that . You must have went up there and driven around
24 a little bit and taken a look. I was wondering if
25 all the other Commissioners had done that because,
Page 268
1 you know, obviously you see the evidence in three
2 dimensions rather than the flat pictures .
3 I would recommend that you park by the side
4 of the road by 119 , between 3 . 5 and 5 . 5 , and just
5 look north and get an idea . You know, here is some
6 modular homes, maybe 15 , 20 feet tall , and off to the
7 east there will be some buildings that are maybe 30
_ 8 feet tall , and picture I guess a 75-foot tall
9 building, just in three dimension so you can see it .
10 I don' t know if it will change your mind but that ' s a
11 gathering evidence thing.
12 The other thing is -- let ' s see . A lot of
13 questions were asked of LifeBridge that seemed more
14 appropriate to be somebody more impartial . Let me
15 find my notes here .
16 Example about the lot coverage, they did the
17 math about the lot coverage in the Elms is this and
18 the lot coverage that will be in the church area is
19 this other thing and they' re about the same . They
20 did the math, you know, it ' s -- they have a vested
21 interest in making it look good.
22 The same thing about the value of the
23 resources in the ground. You know, if there ' s only
24 $7, 000 worth of resources in the ground somebody
25 would have to be a real fool to pull it out , so, you
Page 269 —
1 know, maybe that ' s - - is that true or not? I don' t
2 know. —
3 Also you asked some questions about the
4 complaints from Boulder County and Longmont . Is that
5 all the complaints there were? I don ' t know. —
6 It ' s just noxious weeds? If that ' s all it
7 was I can ' t imagine, you know, Boulder County and
8 Longmont are saying, "No, sorry, you can' t build —
9 here . "
10 Mr . Grinnell said there is enough room in
11 fact to build there, and nobody likes moving, packing _
12 stuff up in boxes and hauling it away.
13 I recommend you talk to your counterparts in
14 Longmont and Boulder County and find out why are they
15 being told, "No, you can' t build. " You know, just so
16 you get impartial information.
17 About the traffic count at 119 and 3 . 5 , _
18 there ' s a traffic count now, that ' s a good thing to
19 do, and there was a traffic count that was taken at a
20 community college, which is admittedly not quite the _
21 same because you don ' t have an enormous literal rush
22 hour .
23 I was wondering -- I can' t ask them a _
24 question but maybe you could ask them later, was
25 there a traffic count taken by the church now, where
Hello