HomeMy WebLinkAbout20040775 — Page 270
1 it is right now? Because that should be pretty
2 representative of what it will look like, you know,
3 how many cars are going out Wednesday night and
4 Sunday. If a traffic count wasn ' t taken, I don' t
5 think a good job is done .
6 Then last just to reiterate, I see some of
7 the benefits of connectivity but in total I think
8 it ' s a bad idea. I can ' t say it ' s all evil , just in
9 general . In total I think it ' s a bad idea .
10 And that ' s what I have to say.
— 11 CHAIRMAN LONG : Any questions of Mr .
12 Stember? Thank you very much.
13 MR . STEMBER : Thank you.
— 14 CHAIRMAN LONG: Mr . Leise, and then next
15 would be Lori Miller.
16 MR . LEISE : My name is Duane Leise . I live
17 at 2686 Pearl Howlett . I moved to the Elms about a
18 year and a half ago, maybe two years ago.
19 First of all , I want to do just a little bit
_ 20 of background on this . I do speak for a large number
21 of people . Mr . Frederiksen, who just got up and
22 spoke, I was taking fliers around the Farms just this
23 last Sunday and I swear this is true and this is
24 honest, he was the only person who said, " I favor
— 25 it . "
— 2004-0775
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1 I ran into quite a few people who are pretty
2 upset about what was going on and that ' s what my -
3 experience was, but that ' s hearsay and you really
4 can ' t take that .
5 I do want to say -- I want to say that this _
6 picture right here, that ' s true . I did not make that
7 up. To the best of my ability that is correct . It ' s
8 not placed quite where the first building is at , but -
9 it ' s kind of in between where the first building
10 would be at and the one where the large auditorium,
11 the 6 , 000-seat auditorium. -
12 Now, they' ll probably come back and say that
13 it ' s not a 6 , 000-seat auditorium. What has disturbed
14 me as much as anything has been the changing scenery, -
15 the changing story.
16 You ' re going to give entitlement to these
17 folks for the next 50 years and I don ' t see the
18 determination or the basis on which to give that
19 entitlement .
20 I would like to give you - - the very first
21 map - -
22 MR. MORRISON: Excuse me . Are these already
23 in the record?
24 MR. LEISE : No, these are not already in the
25 record. These are being presented presently.
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— 1 First of all , I would like to say personally
2 that although I do believe I speak for a lot of
3 people I believe in the individual and the energy and
— 4 the sanctity of the individual . I do not manipulate
5 people . I do not work one person against another to
6 get one ' s personal gains to himself .
— 7 CHAIRMAN LONG: Sir, can you please address
8 the Board? Thank you.
9 MR. LEISE : Yes, I will .
10 CHAIRMAN LONG: Thank you.
- 11 MR. LEISE : Let the record show that I
12 directed my comments to Mr. Rod Schmidt .
13 CHAIRMAN LONG: Sir, if you can just please
- 14 contain your comments to the Board, that would be --
15 thank you.
16 MR. LEISE : This map that you have in front
— 17 of you came out of a Rand McNally 2001-2002 copy. If
18 you ' ll notice, there ' s Firestone in darker parts and
19 there ' s Frederick that ' s there, and there ' s also a
— 20 scale there that says that it ' s two and a half miles
21 and two and a quarter miles . Likewise Mead is
22 standing up there and that ' s about two and a half
— 23 miles .
24 I called Bruce Barker on April 21st . That
25 was the day before the planning meeting, the day
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1 before, at 5 : 45 - - 4 : 45 in the afternoon. I presumed
2 that he was an officer of the court and that he would
3 want to see the law upheld.
4 What I received - - because I knew personally
5 by looking at Exhibit No. 6 in your folders that _
6 neither Mead, Frederick or Firestone had been sent or
7 accounted for referrals .
8 I also have in my possession presently Kim _
9 Ogle ' s document that takes into account those
10 referrals that have received comments back and those
11 that had not . Mead was there but Frederick and _
12 Firestone were not .
13 I do not have this as my demonstration. I
14 can give this -- I can put it into the record if you -
15 want me to, and that was dated April 15th.
16 So I called Bruce Barker, the County
17 Attorney, and told him that I believed that there was -
18 a potential of a jurisdictional defect because -- and
19 I 'm not a lawyer, let me first of all say that , but I
20 can tell you this , I want to see the law upheld. I -
21 want to see the people informed about decisions that
22 affect them most intensely.
23 Gosh, I can see how Pete goes over the top . -
24 I mean really think about it, he ' s got probably 80
25 percent of his personal wealth or maybe more into his
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1 house, and now you ' re going to have a 75-foot
2 building, and this we just found out today. We just
3 find it out today.
4 It ' s always a shifting target . Don ' t know.
5 When you ask specific questions, Mr. Jerke, when you
6 ask specific questions from these people it ' s always
7 a shifting target . It ' s like when you ask about ,
8 well , which arm is going to be taking which
9 particular things in as nonprofit and profit? Well ,
10 we don' t know, and that ' s what you get .
11 And I ' m sorry that I feel that way but
12 that ' s what I 've observed. That ' s the way I feel .
13 That ' s what I think. And so I want to also enter
— 14 into the record and make it known not just for the
15 record but for the people, for everybody.
16 I mean it ' s just flat wrong, when you call
— 17 the County Attorney and you say, "I think there ' s a
18 problem here" and just wah-lah, the next day Lee
19 Morrison shows up with, wah-lah, the two documents
— 20 that will be silver bullets .
21 Is that what you ' re about? Is that what
22 you ' re about? You put out the MUD document and you
— 23 leave residential on there . Why didn ' t you change
24 it? Why didn ' t you give us a heads-up?
25 You know, that ' s what you ' re about , aren' t
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1 you? Aren' t you supposed to be on our side too, or
2 are you? That ' s the question and I really think _
3 that ' s the question that all the citizens of Weld
4 County have to ask.
5 Are you on our side or are you on somebody _
6 else ' s side? And I ' ll tell you one thing, the law
7 should be on everybody' s side .
8 When Ms . Morgan said for these folks here _
9 all the I ' s should be dotted and all the T ' s should
10 be crossed, she was talking as a public person. It ' s
11 true . The law serves everybody. We lose that , we ' re _
12 - - I don ' t want to be there . And that ' s why I ' m
13 here . It ' s a patriotic duty. You've got to take
14 care of this stuff . -
15 And I also want to say does Bruce Nickerson
16 print his name? If you ' ll look at this , I have it
17 right here, does he print his name? And what ' s with -
18 the initials that are over on the other side there?
19 I don ' t know what that is .
20 And not only that , if you go over to the -
21 other side, which is from the Town of Frederick, and
22 I quote and I read -- now this is already in the
23 record. You guys should have already seen this . You -
24 should already be upset about it, but you ' re not .
25 You ' re trying to say, oh, we can slip by on this one,
Page 276
1 we can get there, we can go someplace else . I 'm
2 sorry.
3 "Dear Mr. Ogle, the Town of Frederick is
4 aware of the building plans for the LifeBridge
5 church. We want you to know that Frederick is not
6 opposed to those plans . "
7 What about the referral? That ' s what the
8 law says, let these people know what it is . Somebody
9 calling on the phone and saying, hey, you know, we
10 really need to get this planning thing going, Mr .
11 Morrison, we need to get this meeting going, we can' t
12 let it slide again, can' t do that because they
13 already once didn ' t put it into the file . They
_ 14 didn ' t advertise it .
15 So all the people who are going to come to
16 that meeting, who are side-stepped - - and believe me
— 17 it ' s very difficult for these people to come up to
18 public meetings like this and talk. It ' s very
19 difficult .
20 Okay, so the next thing we get to the MUD
21 plan. The MUD plan, you have on here residential .
22 You know what the law is based upon? It ' s based upon
— 23 the written word, and if the written word doesn' t
24 mean anything then how does a 5 , 000-car parking lot,
25 I don' t care if it ' s built now or it ' s built in 20
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1 years or 25 years or 45 years, how is that
2 compatible? -
3 How is that similar to residential , and
4 opening directly onto a street that has kids playing
5 on it? How is that compatible? -
6 And then you have Drew Scheltinga arguing
7 that there should be connectivity. Good grief , give
8 me a break. Where is the common sense? You see, -
9 with the houses, can you see that right here?
10 You see this right here? This little
11 anecdotal thing, let ' s get down off my high horse - - -
12 take it out of the light . Can we turn this puppy
13 off, Mr. Ogle?
14 CHAIRMAN LONG: Somebody else might want it -
15 on. We can see it fine .
16 MR . LEISE : My grandson came over, he ' s
17 seven years old and I enjoy every minute I have with -
18 him, and I ' ve been working on this . He doesn ' t come
19 over very often but he does come over, and I had this
20 all done and I kind of go, "Well , Hunter, now is this -
21 -- are these kind of the same? Are they kind of
22 similar? Are they kind of the same? "
23 And he kind of falls back from me and kind -
24 of - - I said, "Come on, you can do it . "
25 His final response was, "Come on, papa . "
Page 278
1 Kids know. Kids know. You know, you know,
2 you know, you know. You all know. Do something
3 about it . The buildings are too large .
4 Now, look at the Promontory. When the
5 Promontory was built there were no housing
6 developments around it .
7 You can put it down. Thank you, Pete .
8 When the Promontory was built there were no
9 housing developments within probably two and a half
10 to four miles . Now there are houses that are being
11 built up to it, right? They have a choice . It ' s not
12 something that ' s being foisted upon them. They have
13 a choice .
14 They can be there or not be there, and mind
15 you that ' s three-fourths of a mile away, people who
16 have a choice, and look at the marketing logo . The
_ 17 marketing slogan is live, play and work here . These
18 are being built for specific people who want to be
19 close to where they work, for the State Farm folks .
.- 20 Our folks in the Elms , well , it ' s going to
21 be less than a quarter of a mile . Our farthest
22 distance away, any house there, is going to be less
— 23 than three-quarters of a mile from these big
24 buildings . That ' s pretty - - you know.
25 Now, the other thing you have to say is you
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1 say, well , how come you ' re so kind of uptight about
2 these big buildings? For me, I prefaced myself
3 before, I believe in the sanctity of the individual .
4 I don' t believe in manipulating anybody else . I -
5 don ' t believe in trying to position them.
6 I ' m up for a good fight . I ' ll fight you on
7 a fair field and that ' s why I want the law upheld,
8 and I 'm not kidding about that . I ' ll go to the mat
9 for it . I will go to the mat .
10 There ' s another mock-up that ' s on here,
11 which shows right in the middle that house that ' s
12 right there, that ' s Mr . Rod Schmidt ' s house, that one
13 that ' s right in the middle there, that kind of white
14 one . So at any rate, they did have a deal and they _
15 got it switched from what I understand, that
16 originally the bigger buildings had been closer and
17 the smaller ones had been far away, but that ' s all _
18 hearsay and I ' m not sure about that .
19 I want to talk just a little bit about the
20 connectivity with Pearl Howlett . Pearl Howlett has a _
21 planned park on it , on that street, where the kids
22 are going to play. There ' s a mail house there and if
23 you see on this picture the kids are being picked up
24 from right in front of that -- right in front of that
25 park for school in the morning.
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1 Now, the interesting thing is Drew
2 Scheltinga -- and I hope I 'm pronouncing that right .
3 I don ' t like to butcher people ' s names too badly.
4 Mine gets crunched enough.
5 CHAIRMAN LONG: Drew will work.
6 MR. LEISE : Drew argued and said there
7 should be connectivity between neighborhoods . Well ,
8 how in the world is this LifeBridge a neighborhood?
9 Nobody lives there . In that area nobody lives there .
10 How can it be a neighborhood?
11 The contortions that you ' re putting the
12 language through here is absolutely amazing . It just
13 boggles me, and quite frankly I find it very
— 14 threatening and I find it very dangerous , because if
15 you' re willing to make these kinds of concessions - -
16 and the thing is, is it ' s like I 'm not against
— 17 LifeBridge having their dream. I don ' t want to block
18 them from having their dream.
19 In fact, when we went over and talked with
— 20 Bruce Grinnell the other day I said, "Look, you know,
21 if we happen to block you, if we can, because believe
22 me this is Goliath against David, if we happen per
— 23 chance to block you we want to look for a place that
24 will work for you. "
25 And just today I happened to hear that
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1 because the high school is going to be pushed off by
2 another year that several contracts on large pieces -
3 of property have become available over on County Line
4 Road 7 . I heard that just today.
5 Things can slip, slide . You 've got a -
6 50-year thing going here, guys . Do your duty. Do
7 what ' s right . Why rush into this?
8 If your Planning Department needs some work _
9 and you need to get it up to speed so that you can
10 guide this county into the future and truly make this
11 a place where we all want to be and we all want to -
12 live, then take the time and do it right . You can do
13 it . I know you can. The question is , will you?
14 Thanks for your time . -
15 CHAIRMAN LONG: Thank you. Are there any
16 questions of Mr . - - Commissioner Geile .
17 COMMISSIONER GEILE : Chairman, thank you . I _
18 would like to go to your map here and I would like to
19 kind of get your interpretation of a particular item,
20 and this is the MUD map. But if we go down here to -
21 the bottom you notice where it says neighborhood
22 center?
23 MR. LEISE : Yes . -
24 COMMISSIONER GEILE : And then it has that
25 little thing to it , and then you go up here and
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1 that ' s one of the circles that are drawn, which in
2 essence says that this property would be a
3 neighborhood center .
4 MR. LEISE : Right . I don ' t have anything
.. 5 against the neighborhood center. The only problem
6 is, as I think you already know, LifeBridge is going
7 to be drawing their congregation from all over the
8 place . Most of them are going to be coming in from
9 Longmont . That I take as being regional .
10 Not only that, if this church starts to do
11 an FM or a TV broadcast, they' ll probably be drawing
12 people from all up and down the Front Range .
13 Not only that, when they did their traffic
- 14 study they said, well , all the people are going to be
15 coming from Longmont . Hey, why would they be coming
16 from Longmont? Because that ' s where they are now,
- 17 right?
18 When they move out there, give them a period
19 of time and it will be centered around that point at
- 20 that point . It will be centered around there .
21 They' ll be coming from up and down the I-25 corridor.
22 You 've got to think this through, I mean it .
— 23 I 'm honest . I mean I 'm not trying to give you guys a
24 bad time . I will , I absolutely will , I ' ll take you
25 to the mat as much as I can. And I believe I ' m very
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1 strong, I believe I 'm very powerful , and why I 'm
2 powerful is because I 'm the individual .
3 CHAIRMAN LONG: Any other questions? Thank
4 you, sir.
5 MR. LEISE : Thanks for your time . Would you
6 like to have the document entered that has Kim Ogle ' s
7 document on the 15th that shows that Frederick and
8 Firestone were not anything in his documentation? _
9 CHAIRMAN LONG: It ' s up to you, if you would
10 like to enter it as - -
11 MR. LEISE : Yeah, I would like to. Will you _
12 guys look at it?
13 CHAIRMAN LONG: Sure . We look at it all .
14 Ms . Miller? And for the record Louise Leise
15 would be next .
16 MS . MILLER: My name is Lori Miller. I live
17 at 1896 Blue Mountain Road. I ' m representing myself , _
18 my husband and the people that live across the
19 street , the Cooks, who I expected to be here but
20 didn ' t make it today. _
21 I am not here representing a huge group. I
22 am here representing just a few of us who are upset
23 in the neighborhood. We have several issues that
24 we ' re very concerned about .
25 One of them is the width of 119 . When all
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1 this is built out it will be wider than I-25 . You ' re
2 looking at six lanes plus two turn lanes, looking at
3 eight lanes . I-25 is only six lanes . So 119 will
4 have more traffic and will be wider than I-25 , and
5 that concerns us greatly.
6 One of the other issues that we are
7 concerned about is obviously the width of Blue
- 8 Mountain Road. If you choose to open it up - - I
9 don ' t know if you can see on the map, Blue Mountain
10 Road right where the blue line is . I 'm just below
_ 11 the blue line and I ' m the second house in. So I 'm
12 right there .
13 I have an 18-year-old who drives a ' 67
— 14 Mustang way too fast . He ' s totaled three cars in two
15 years . You do not want my son driving through a
16 retirement center. I have one that ' s almost 15 .
17 He ' s getting ready to get his license . I have
18 another one that ' s 10 and hopefully she ' ll be better.
19 But we have over 20 children in a one-block
— 20 area of Blue Mountain, and I think opening Blue
21 Mountain up is asking for not only our kids to go the
22 other direction but for all of our friends, the
— 23 friends of our kids to come in through that
24 neighborhood.
25 You know, my kids have friends way over in
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1 Longview and if they can cut all the way through the
2 property they absolutely will , and I think it ' s a _
3 very dangerous situation that we ' re looking at if we
4 open up Blue Mountain. At 18 feet wide two cars
5 going slowly pass safely.
6 We ' re not talking about two cars that are in
7 a hurry to get out of church because I want to make
8 it to Perkins before somebody else does , and I know _
9 this . I am not a LifeBridge member, I go to another
10 church, but when I leave church I 'm the same way as
11 everybody else . Okay, what ' s the fastest way out of _
12 here and what ' s the closest restaurant? So, you
13 know, I ' m looking at this realistically.
14 I 've been to the meetings at LifeBridge . I
15 went over and I talked to Bruce Grinnell . He assured
16 me that all of my concerns , that they are taking care
17 of them, that I don' t need to worry about any of -
18 these issues .
19 Nobody wants connectivity. The only people
20 who want it is CDOT, and if the only people who want -
21 something don ' t have anything to do with either one
22 of the residential areas why are we even talking
23 about it? I think it ' s an issue that the planners -
24 took off of the Board. They feel it ' s very negative
25 impact on both sides of the street and I think they
Page 286
1 were very smart in their recommendations to you.
2 The other thing that concerns me is when I
3 went to their meeting at LifeBridge and I spoke to
4 them, because I 've been to every meeting that I 've
5 known about, they told me that they were in the
6 business of church. They were not in the business of
7 development .
_ 8 It appears to me that that is not what we ' re
9 looking at here . They are telling me that they are
10 not in the business of development and that they are
11 planning on selling off the lower half of the entire
12 half that you' re looking at here for someone else to
13 develop . That ' s what they told me .
14 And if you ask them they will tell you that ,
15 yes, that is what they may do. They don ' t know what
16 they ' re going to do and they will tell you right now
17 they don ' t know what they' re going to do, but they ' re
18 asking for all of this freedom to do whatever they
19 want to do when they don ' t even know what they want
.- 20 to do.
21 They' re asking for commercial and I asked
22 them, what kind of commercial are you going to put in
— 23 there, where my kids who obviously at 18 , 14 and 10
24 are walking to the commercial . They tell me that
25 they' re going to put commercial down there and it ' s
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1 going to be commercial one, commercial two .
2 well , to me that doesn' t mean anything . -
3 Tell me what that means . I am not -- you know, I 'm
4 not legal , I ' m not an attorney, I 'm not a public
5 speaker . I 'm an owner of a house with three kids and -
6 hope to be there for my grandkids . I want to know,
7 what commercial are we talking about?
8 Are we talking about a porn shop? That -
9 concerns me . He said, "I can ' t guarantee that . If
10 you go into general commercial I can' t guarantee that
11 there won' t be an X-rated porn shop there . " That
12 concerns me .
13 I ' m emotional about it because it is my
14 life . I live there and if I had built my house there -
15 after they built , you know, that would be my choice .
16 This isn' t my choice .
17 I agree with a lot of what Peter Gries says -
18 and I agree with a lot of what Rod says . I am very
19 torn. I love my neighbors, I love my neighborhood,
20 and I don ' t want to see this issue tear us apart , and -
21 that ' s what ' s happening.
22 And that ' s why I 'm hoping that you guys
23 being unemotionally involved can look at both sides -
24 of the issue and say realistically Weld County, look
25 at your own seal , do you see the Pepsi Center on it ,
Page 288
— 1 do you see a Fiddler ' s Green on it?
2 I see cows , I see wheat . I see - - I don ' t
3 know, I think it ' s a sugar beat . You know, I 'm not
4 sure . I see an oil lamp . I don ' t see the Pepsi
5 Center and I don' t see Fiddler ' s Green.
6 I have no problems with the church. I would
7 love to have a church as a neighbor . I have always
8 lived in a neighborhood where there was a church. As
9 a matter of fact, the last place I lived was three
10 blocks from the current LifeBridge church, and
11 they' re right , they have not always been good
12 neighbors .
13 I moved away from the neighborhood because
14 the traffic and the congestion was so bad over there
15 that we chose to take my daughter, who at the time
16 was four years old and was just learning how to ride
_ 17 a bicycle, out of the neighborhood because the
18 traffic was so bad.
19 We moved to a rural little tiny cul-de-sac
— 20 where she could learn to ride her bicycle without me
21 jumping up every time I heard a tire squeal
22 wondering, "Oh, my God, has she been hit by a car? "
— 23 So I understand that the issues of traffic are
24 important .
25 My other question to the LifeBridge people,
Page 289
1 which I will ask through you, is they have all this
2 land, why not put the church up clear at the top over
3 to the left where they ' re putting all of their
4 expensive housing, and why not put all of their
5 expensive housing where they' re planning on putting
6 the church, unless the people who are buying the
7 expensive housing don' t want to buy there because
8 they would have to look at the church?
9 I really wonder why they planned it this
10 way. The expensive housing that they are putting in
11 there is going to be on the opposite side of the _
12 church so that they will have the mountain view.
13 They are planning exactly the way if I were
14 doing it that I would plan it , but I would also not _
15 want to plan it with an existing neighborhood to the
16 east where you ' re completely blocking people ' s views .
17 And I think the people that they are really _
18 hurting, if this goes through I think they should be
19 offered an opportunity to sell at the highest market
20 value to the church. Let the church buy these houses _
21 from these people who are going to lose everything
22 that they have worked for .
23 They' re going to lose all of their views to _
24 a Pepsi Center block. Let the church people buy
25 those houses and then sell them to somebody who is
Page 290
1 aware of what is going in there .
_ 2 There aren ' t a lot of people that it ' s going
3 to drastically affect is my understanding, and I
4 could be wrong. You know, I don' t travel up in the
5 Elms . Interconnectivity is there between Meadowvale
6 and the Elms, but I don' t go up there . I have no
7 reason to be up there . I go out .
8 And if we open up Blue Mountain I ' ll tell
9 you I know from these kids -- Meadowvale Road goes
10 all the way around in a big circle . Blue Mountain
11 cuts through the circle . There ' s a stop at the
12 beginning of Meadowvale and then there is no stop
13 sign presently where it connects back into
14 Meadowvale .
15 But it ' s going to be a giant race track.
16 We ' re going to go down Blue Mountain, we go right, we
_ 17 go left , we ' re going to see who we can beat and get
18 out of there the fastest . It ' s natural , it ' s human
19 nature, and that ' s what we look at , is human nature .
.- 20 We ' re not looking at what ' s on this piece of
21 paper that says I 'm going to build at 45 feet, I 'm
22 going to build at 90 feet, wait, I 'm going to build
— 23 at 75 , I 'm going to build at 30 . I think you guys
24 need to tell them, what can they build?
25 Maximum height up against our properties at
Page 291
1 30 feet I think is reasonable . That ' s what our
2 houses are . Maximum height up against us at 30 feet
3 seems to be reasonable, and I think that 75 feet
4 overall for this building -- and I agree that you
5 need that for a fly space, but you don' t need that
6 for the whole building.
7 There is a section that they are asking for
8 for a fly space over their theater, and I don ' t know _
9 how a theater and a dinner theater and a Fiddler ' s
10 Green is part of a church, but that ' s not my issue .
11 My issue is , why does the whole thing have to be 75 _
12 feet? Why not just the space that ' s needed?
13 They started at 200 , they have brought it
14 down to 75 . What do they need? Ask them, what do -
15 you need? You said you needed 200 , then you said you
16 need 150 , then you said you needed 90 . Now you ' re
17 down to 75 . -
18 What do you need? Do you need 75? Do you
19 need 50 with a fly space of 75 over one building, and
20 a steeple, which is what most churches have? What do -
21 we need in this area?
22 We could use a church in the area . I think
23 it ' s a great addition and I think that if it moves in -
24 there I think it ' s going to improve the quality- of
25 life in our area .
Page 292
1 I have been to the church for many school
2 functions through St . Vrain Valley. My kids went to
3 school in Longmont . We moved out to Meadowvale .
4 They now go to Mead. I have one that drives all the
5 way into Skyline, so the new high school out there
6 will be of great benefit to all of us out there .
7 But their community has -- they have made
8 themselves available to the community, and I do
9 appreciate all of the choir concerts that we 've been
10 to there . They have a beautiful beautiful building.
11 And I think that if they build where we ' re at that
12 we ' re going to have a lot of the same goodness that
13 they' re going to give to the community.
14 But I think that you guys need to set a
15 standard. I don ' t think it ' s up to us as the
16 neighbors . I don' t think it ' s up to them to tell you
_ 17 what they have to have . I think it ' s up to you to
18 say realistically, okay, you need your 75 feet for
19 the fly space . Realistically you need 50 feet max
— 20 for a normal theater auditorium.
21 They want to build balconies ; they want to
22 build huge venues so that they can bring all these
— 23 people in. Well , my concern is that their huge
24 venues are way down the road but that they ' re asking
25 for something right now that is not realistic .
Page 293
1 They ' re telling us that this is a community
2 structure, but what they' re doing right now is
3 they' re tearing our community apart . We have people
4 living two houses away from each other that are
5 fighting. _
6 You know, I love all my neighbors equally.
7 You know, I keep to myself . I stay on my own
8 property. We had a fight when I moved in because I _
9 planted trees, trees that in 50 years are going to
10 block the view of my neighbor from the mountains .
11 I had to argue in front of a group of people _
12 why I could plant a tree that was this tall , because
13 in 50 years it would block a view. I think that was
14 a minor issue compared to what we ' re looking at here . _
15 I think that you guys are a lot smarter than
16 I am. They' re talking about senior living, which
17 would not bring in any income for the schools . -
18 They' re telling me it is not taxable for the School
19 District because it would be senior living, and there
20 are no children that live in senior living so there -
21 is no money coming in for the schools off of that
22 senior area .
23 The St . Vrain Valley School District , as you -
24 guys well know, is hurting desperately for money. I
25 think the residential area is going to help out but I
Page 294
1 think that the senior area isn' t . And I think that
2 the mixed use is great , but I think that you guys
3 need to say, okay, for taxation purposes half of what
4 they' re asking for cannot possibly be used strictly
5 for the church.
6 I think that they ' re asking for venues for
7 other reasons , Fiddler ' s Green type seating area .
8 That ' s not going to be for church uses . That ' s going
9 to be for other sources and they have even stated
10 that , that it ' s for other outside sources to come in
11 and use these venues for other things that will
12 generate income for the church. So I think that we
13 need to be very careful about how we ' re going to tax
14 this area .
15 I know I 've probably taken up more time than
16 you would like me to . It is very important to me on
— 17 a personal level . I have got a lot of money
18 invested. You saw this - - Rod Schmidt ' s house .
19 Well , mine is right here . Rod' s is here and mine is
— 20 here . That ' s how close I am to Rod.
21 I don' t think Rod has a personal venue in
22 what he ' s doing and I don' t think that he would stand
— 23 up here and tell you that we feel that this is a good
24 thing for the community if he didn ' t honestly believe
25 that , even though we 've agreed, you know, definitely
Page 295
1 the Farms is going to have it better than the Elms .
2 But we would like to make sure that you guys
3 know that we do care, and there aren ' t a lot of us
4 today who can afford to take time off again and show
5 up and wait all day long to speak to you. _
6 That ' s really all I have to say.
7 CHAIRMAN LONG: Thank you. Any questions
8 for Ms . Miller? Thank you very much. _
9 Louise Leise?
10 MS . LEISE : Good evening. My name is Louise
11 Leise and I reside at 2686 Pearl Howlett Road, _
12 District 2 , Weld County, and I represent myself
13 because as you can well see my husband is very
14 capable of representing himself as well as other -
15 people .
16 I am going to present some things this
17 evening that -- more of the what ifs and the unknowns _
18 that we have in this neighborhood potentially,
19 because right now we don' t have the structure built .
20 I have been following a situation in Costa -
21 Mesa, California, and I have talked to some of the
22 citizens in Costa Mesa because they are in turmoil
23 right now and their church is built . -
24 So what I would like to bring up is - - let
25 me get my notes together here . I think I need to
Page 296
_ 1 enter these as exhibits . I 'm sorry, I 'm a little
2 disorganized. Do I give these to you?
3 And I understand these issues are not
4 specifically related to what ' s occurring in our
5 neighborhood, but very definitely scenarios that
6 could possibly develop in the future, which leads to
7 my question. I would like to know if LifeBridge has
8 plans to apply for an FM license or to produce TV
9 shows for broadcast either indoors or outdoors .
10 The Costa Mesa neighborhood in southern
11 California has been traumatized for the past seven
12 years by the Trinity Christian Church, and just
13 recently the City Council stepped in and gave some
14 hope to the citizens .
15 They have been having tour buses sitting
16 outside of their homes idling for three hours with
— 17 noise and pollution. In fact, the woman that you see
18 on the front page of this newspaper I spoke to
19 yesterday. She installed $4 , 000 metal shutters in
— 20 order to shut out the noise and the light pollution
21 that ' s coming from that church.
22 I have to tell you that during the holiday
— 23 season, and I don ' t think this has ever been
24 addressed in any of the meetings or anything that
25 we 've had, that church puts on a million light
Page 297
1 display, and it goes from Thanksgiving until January
2 the 15th. So if there were any stars to be seen
3 there, there definitely are not anymore .
4 The Planning Commission had conditions for
5 outdoor taping, which I think are ridiculous . The
6 buses must leave the premises by 10 : 00 p .m. and not
7 be allowed to park near the homes . The exterior
8 lighting would be adjusted to avoid shining in the _
9 neighbors ' windows .
10 And, you know, I realize that we ' re not at
11 that point right now, but is this what we have to _
12 look forward to in the future? And who ' s going to
13 protect us at that point? Because we don' t have
14 municipality. We need somebody to stand up for us _
15 and at least put these conditions into place .
16 Because what ' s happened is they have shut
17 down the outdoor broadcasting. Their broadcasting _
18 started in a 250-seat auditorium. They decided
19 because it was so beautiful outdoors in the
20 summertime that they were going to bring this _
21 broadcast outside, and to the delight of the
22 parishioners and the viewers , but what about the
23 neighbors?
24 So City Council has stepped in and they ' re
25 taking a look at this situation. Talking to these
Page 298
1 people my heart goes out to them because they can' t
2 do anything about it right now. This building is
3 there . Ours isn ' t yet .
4 So I guess I 'm asking you, who is going to
5 protect us in the future for something like this?
6 And are there going to be broadcasting? Because from
7 what I understand the amphitheater, as I 'm reading
8 here, is for lecture classes , outdoor weddings,
9 community theater.
10 These people, if you' ll look at some of the
11 other conditions , the use of heavy equipment outside
12 is allowed from 9 : 00 a.m. to 6 : 00 p .m. In talking to
13 this woman yesterday they ' re putting up huge light
14 displays and all the scaffolding that ' s going up.
15 All the activity on the premises would end
16 at 10 : 00 p.m. Well , I think the kids need to be in
_ 17 bed a little bit earlier than that . Taping can occur
18 weekly on Thursdays and another 20 times a year .
19 So I know that this is a nightmare for them
— 20 and I don' t want this to be a nightmare for us . I
21 want this situation not to happen to our community
22 because basically you' re putting a small city in the
— 23 middle of three established residential
24 neighborhoods .
25 So I 'm asking you to take a look at this . I
Page 299
1 think that you have - - and I would like to put this
2 up also . Do you have this? _
3 CHAIRMAN LONG : I don' t believe with that
4 map in it . Thank you.
5 MS . LEISE : This is more on a personal basis
6 because I live across the street from the mail center
7 and this picture is in the morning with the kids
8 getting on the school bus . _
9 And if you' ll look at where the picture
10 location is taken, that ' s the community park that ' s
11 going in. They' re also doing some work on the _
12 parkway on Pearl Howlett , and if you ' ll look to the
13 left on that picture is where the parking lot is
14 going in, a 5 , 000-space parking lot .
15 And I don' t see how that possibly can be
16 compatible with what ' s going on with the kids
17 crossing Pearl Howlett . I mean it ' s just - - it ' s -
18 almost like a family thing too. From my home you can
19 see the kids running, skipping, walking across the
20 street, families walking over to get the day' s mail , -
21 walking the dog, and the kids are playing in the
22 concrete pad that ' s around the mail center .
23 If they have to cross Pearl Howlett , if you -
24 allow that interconnectivity to happen, all the
25 parents in that area are going to say, "Yeah, you can
Page 300
1 go out and play but you can ' t cross Pearl Howlett .
_ 2 You can ' t go over and play at the neighborhood park. "
3 And this is a very deep concern for us , and
— 4 I know that we ' re passionate about it but a lot of
5 what has been brought up in meetings have not even
6 touched on what could possibly happen if they start
— 7 broadcasting outside .
8 Okay, so I ask you to really take a look at
9 this and at least put some restrictions on, you know,
10 the future, because if this happens then there ' s no
- 11 going back. Thank you.
12 CHAIRMAN LONG: Are there any questions of
13 Mrs . Leise? Thank you very much.
14 We will take a 10-minute break and be back
15 at 6 : 30 .
16 (Recess was taken from 6 : 20 to 6 : 30 p.m. )
17 CHAIRMAN LONG: We ' re ready to reconvene .
18 Mr. John Fanton, or Jack Fanton?
19 MR. FOWLER: Jack Fowler.
— 20 CHAIRMAN LONG: Did you fill a card out ,
21 sir?
22 MR. FOWLER: Yes, I did.
— 23 CHAIRMAN LONG: Okay. Well , state your name
24 and address , please .
25 MR. FOWLER: Jack Fowler, 5501 Jay Road,
Page 301
1 Boulder, and being out of Boulder I would like to
2 thank you guys for tracking me down and notifying me _
3 regularly so I could come to these meetings , even
4 though it takes all day.
5 But anyway, I own the triangular piece, the _
6 big triangle right there, and I of course do not live
7 in Meadowvale and I 'm not a member of LifeBridge, but
8 I do represent the six owners of that parcel of _
9 ground, which I am one of those .
10 And as a little background, I would like to
11 say that I 've been in the real estate business for 48 _
12 years , active as a salesperson, and operated offices
13 in Greeley, Fort Collins, Loveland, Longmont , Boulder
14 and Nederland, and over those years I ' ve been very
15 active in sales and valuations of properties .
16 And I 've served on various committees ,
17 president of the board, realtor of the year, chairman _
18 of the legislative committee for both the Boulder
19 Area Board of Realtors and also the Colorado
20 Association of Realtors, and dealt with a lot of the -
21 issues that come up in the legislature, some of which
22 the laws come on down to the local levels .
23 And I have been a developer along with my -
24 real estate business , having developed 278 units at
25 Remington Post , 363 units at Gold Run, several
Page 302
1 smaller projects and one of which was a condominium
2 which was approximately a block and a half from the
3 music building, University of Colorado.
4 And I would just like to say that in looking
5 at this LifeBridge project here I feel that maybe
6 with the exception of 12 neighbors to the east in
7 Meadowvale Farms and - - or maybe 10 there and 12 up
8 in the northern Elms that are right backing up to the
9 church facility that may very likely have view
10 impacts as they pointed out and things of that
- 11 nature, when you get to the east of that it doesn' t
12 appear that those houses will have those kinds of
13 impacts .
- 14 And as far as being a property devaluation
15 in area, I don' t see that . And I say that from the
16 standpoint that , for instance, the condominium I
- 17 developed in Boulder we were selling units there when
18 we built it 12 years ago for $150 , 000 . It ' s a block
19 from a campus and they' re now selling for about 350- .
— 20 Well , the last one sold about a year ago for 350- on
21 a resale . And that ' s more than double .
22 I think the general area there, one
— 23 apprehension we had about it was that it ' s kind of a
24 NeverNeverLand area and it doesn ' t have strong
25 qualities .
Page 303
1 If you think about it , to the east of the
2 Meadowvale area there really is no housing out to _
3 I-25 . There ' s no housing to the south of it . It ' s
4 all industrial , south of the residential , and if you
5 think in terms of west of County Road 3 . 5 you don' t _
6 have to go very far and you ' re into an industrial
7 area again.
8 And I think a campus-like setting is going _
9 to be an asset to my development, and with the low
10 densities that they' re talking about , relatively low
11 for that many acres , there is resulting 30 percent in _
12 open space, and that ' s a lot , you know, and I can
13 picture what might be a very nice campus there .
14 And I feel that it will be an asset to what _
15 I 'm going to be doing on our piece of ground in our
16 development , and I think that overall that the people
17 in the area will find that it ' s going to be an asset -
18 to the value of their homes , with maybe the exception
19 that somebody that gets their view actually blocked
20 it will obviously be a detriment, but that detriment _
21 could very well be offset by the other amenities that
22 I 'm talking about .
23 And I 'm sure that those folks don ' t believe -
24 that , but that ' s my professional opinion and I ' m
25 putting my money where my mouth is because I own this
Page 304
— 1 land next door and I 'm saying I think it will be an
2 asset .
3 So as I said in the planning board meeting,
4 I think this is a very important issue for the
5 County, it ' s an important issue for the Meadowvale
6 people and for the LifeBridge people, and I would
7 like to see you all get it worked out the best you
8 can to please everybody.
9 Not everybody can get everything they want,
10 and I suggested that maybe at the last meeting maybe
11 LifeBridge needs to shuffle a little bit and do some
12 things to give a little bit to make this work.
13 And at this meeting I find that they have
_ 14 reduced some heights and reduced some densities and
15 have tiered some buildings, and it looks like they' re
16 trying and that ' s what it ' s going to probably take to
_ 17 make this happen, and I think they have made some
18 effort and I ' ll give them credit for that .
19 I have no interest in their operation. They
— 20 have asked me to do three things and one of them I
21 said no and two of them I haven ' t answered them on,
22 so they' re not - - I ' m not in their pocket or anything
— 23 like that .
24 So that ' s my opinion. Thank you.
25 CHAIRMAN LONG: Thank you, Mr. Fowler . Is
Page 305
1 there any questions of Mr . Fowler? Thank you very
2 much. _
3 Next is Darryl S . Denius, and after that
4 would be Robert Bram.
5 MR. DENIUS : Darryl S . Denius , 11719 Beasley
6 Road, which is in the Elms at Meadowvale and probably
7 the farthest street away from the proposed site . And
8 it ' s kind of interesting to speak here today because _
9 I make my entire living in real estate and having
10 been involved with all kinds of things but never one
11 so close to where I lived.
12 When I bought the house in December of 2000
13 I asked the salespeople at Ryland Homes , you know,
14 what was going on over here, and they really didn' t
15 say anything, and then I believe in the state of
16 Colorado there ' s no requirement for a new home -- for
17 a home builder to disclose anything, which is fine . _
18 You know, so I drove around looking and go,
19 what would I - - what would prevent me from buying
20 this house? And I drove around the area and the -
21 Vista Business Park was already there . I said, well ,
22 if another business park went in there I wouldn' t
23 have a problem with that . -
24 Kept going west on 119 . There ' s a McClain
25 distribution center, food distribution center . I
Page 306
1 said, well , if it was something like that , wouldn ' t
2 have a problem with that .
3 And then just south - - just east of the
4 McClain building there ' s another -- I 'm not sure of
5 their name but it ' s a similar size, one-story, looks
6 like an R and D facility, but low to the ground but
7 very large . I said if it was something like that I
8 wouldn ' t have a problem with that .
9 And then along came the information about
10 LifeBridge and the whole development , and I wanted to
11 let you folks know that the commercial piece is very
12 similar to me to the Vista Business Park or the
13 McClain, very low to the ground, and that ' s great ,
— 14 and the single family up top and the senior is great .
15 My biggest concern is going to be there just
16 hasn' t seemed to be enough information provided to
— 17 you gentlemen to make a decision 50 years out about
18 how big this really is going to be .
19 And I liken - - one of the gentlemen, I don ' t
— 20 know, who sat back here likened it to a community
21 college campus, and I think -- I agree, I think
22 that ' s exactly what it ' s going to be like and I think
— 23 that actually would be - - if it was a community
24 college campus setting it would be great .
25 But I believe that those high impact times
Page 307
1 we just don ' t have enough information, you gentlemen -
2 don' t have enough information to know exactly how
3 that ' s going to impact this area, and some of the
4 improvement requirements from the Planning Commission
5 right now just don ' t seem to be enough.
6 I don' t know if County Road 26 will have to
7 be paved all the way to Road 1 . It would seem to me
8 that would have to be a requirement because there ' s
9 going to be people coming off of County Road 1 . It
10 would appear that County Road 5 and County Road 7
11 would have to be paved ultimately if the size of this _
12 - - the church ' s project takes on that size .
13 And finally on to connectivity, I think
14 there ' s going to be enough connectivity via County _
15 Road 26 to County Road 5 . 5 , which runs right -- not
16 too far from my house, which there ' s going to be all
17 kinds of people who are going to come out of the _
18 LifeBridge community or the commercial center that
19 are going to try to find another way.
20 They' re going to come up and around Road 26 _
21 and down 5 . 5 that will allow you not to have to
22 connect Pearl Howlett or Blue Mountain Road in
23 whatever form the Commission decides if you decide to _
24 approve it .
25 Thank you.
Page 308
1 CHAIRMAN LONG: Thank you. Any questions
2 for Mr. Denius? Thank you very much.
3 Next is Robert Bram if you ' re still
4 available . And I ' ll check on that later. He might
5 be out .
6 Betty Ann Newby?
7 MS . NEWBY: I promise you I won ' t talk about
8 heights . As I see this - -
9 CHAIRMAN LONG: Would you give your name and
10 address first , please, for the record?
11 MS . NEWBY : Oh, I 'm sorry. I 'm Betty Ann
12 Newby. I live at 12250 Weld County Road 5 . Our farm
13 goes along Road 26 between 5 and 7 and I manage the
- 14 farm.
15 As I see this , it ' s sort of like a stage, a
16 theater happening . If you 've ever been back stage
— 17 you see there ' s a series of curtains, heavy curtains,
18 so forth and so on, and then there ' s this wonderful
19 scrim. I don' t know if you know that term or not ,
— 20 but it ' s sort of a shimmery almost transparent
21 curtain that there will be some action behind, like a
22 ballet, okay?
— 23 It seems to me like that ' s sort of what
24 we ' re looking at and we don ' t have much revelation
25 about what is behind it . When asked about a lot of
Page 309
1 things , sure, they' ve got footage for various things,
2 but when you ask about it they don ' t really have the
3 plans for that building. That amphitheater is not
4 just very firmed up . There ' s so many things . What
5 are the commercial buildings going to be? _
6 And furthermore, if we are looking through
7 this scrim and we see this movement back here, can we
8 be assured that this church is still going to be _
9 responsible for this when these commercial things are
10 in there? Do we know their true intent about how
11 long they' re going to keep that property, and when
12 that property is sold again it could be not what we
13 would really like to have in our neighborhood, not a
14 benign Starbucks in many ways . -
15 And furthermore, if in fact they are going
16 to keep this , going to do all the developing
17 themselves , does the mission that they have told us -
18 so generally, does that mission imply that they have
19 the expertise required to really do this size
20 development? -
21 There ' s three levels of residential housing,
22 lots and lots of houses , lots and lots of people .
23 There ' s two levels of commercial , and those things -
24 are all pretty fuzzy except for the assisted living
25 center . And it just seems to me like we don' t really
Page 310
1 have the facts and I 'm wondering if you all really
2 have the facts .
3 Now, in my neighborhood, that corner of Weld
4 County, the saying has always been, you know, we ' re
5 just the orphan child when it comes to services or
6 whatever, but when you start talking tax dollars then
7 we have all of the attention, and there ' s a little
8 bit more to it than that , I think.
9 You know, granted nobody - - I think - - I
10 have not found anybody who really says , "I don' t want
— 11 an old church there . " That ' s not it . They think a
12 church would be an asset .
13 But do they really have the competence to
14 handle this kind of a development? I just can ' t see
15 where their main mission is , as the pastor has
16 stated, to increase the faith of people and help take
.- 17 care of people .
18 Sure, they have done a lot of things,
19 donated a lot, worked with volunteers and so forth in
— 20 Longmont . They' re not the only church who ' s done
21 that . They' re not the only church who ' s done that .
22 That ' s what you expect a church to do, do
— 23 you not? Don ' t you expect a church to come forth
24 when people are in need? But does that qualify them
25 for all of this kind of building project that we
Page 311
1 don ' t have really exact details to?
2 Because I can see that this thing could
3 snowball . Even you folks as elected officials could
4 get sort of stuck in the mire of having said yes to
5 something that ' s got too many little, well , yeah, you
6 can trust them because they ' re a church, you know.
7 And I 'm not wanting to put it down. I ' m a
8 firm believer . I don ' t go to that church but I think
9 they will find a Newby if they look back in their
10 records far enough that was very active in that
11 church in the very early days .
12 The land that we have -- I 'm hoping that
13 some of the people who came here and who live in the
14 Elms particularly and Meadowvale maybe thought this _
15 would be a neat place because of our place . We raise
16 nothing but alfalfa, we board horses and we sell to
17 people who have horses , and right now it ' s beautiful
18 green.
19 We 've got water, we 've got irrigation water
20 this year . We ' re hallelujahing. But , you know, that _
21 ditch is - - we ' re sort of like - - there ' s one other
22 person basically beyond us and that ' s our lifeblood,
23 is that ditch, and that ' s where you want to have your _
24 nice little paths and stuff .
25 If you have come by Road 26 and you ' ll look
Page 312
1 at the corner where the older house is where the
2 paving quits because that part was sold off
3 separately, you will find two huge, huge, huge stacks
4 of trash. They put in instead of our regular open
5 ditch, which is maybe okay, that big wide plastic
6 culvert with a grate over it and all of this stuff
7 has been caught on that .
8 And we - - remember we didn' t have much water
9 last year, we didn' t get all of our fields watered,
10 and so we have all this trash and these nice little
11 paths sort of end up creating a lot of trash, and
12 that is sort of important to me .
13 Let me see . I 'm just -- I 'm just really so
_ 14 worried about all of these indefinite things ,
15 particularly the commercial part , and that ' s going to
16 be the furthest place from me, but I know that when
17 things started building up and the shops and the
18 stuff started coming in and the motels and the
19 whatever, you know, the kind of stores and the things
— 20 that happen in a place like that, at Del Camino,
21 which is I-25 and 119 , the crime rate I 'm sure if
22 you ' ll check figures will prove that there was a lot
— 23 more theft , a lot more stuff going on down there that
24 you don' t really want in your neighborhood.
25 And I 'm thinking on Road 5 if you measured
Page 313
1 it , if you went with the crow, it ' s four miles from
2 the Main Street of Longmont . Now, Longmont has fast
3 food stuff and various other things on this side of
4 town, or on the east side of town. Then you can go -
5 the same distance and you could be at Del Camino
6 I-25 , or you could go a little north and you could be
7 to that little area on I-25 .
8 As I look at these houses that are here,
9 I ' ll bet you most of them have got a three-car
10 garage . Do we really need to be that close, walking
11 distance to commercial services?
12 We ' re past the horse and buggy days . The
13 old days a community or a little town would grow up
14 where the blacksmith shop was . You had to go to the _
15 blacksmith shop. You don ' t go great long distances .
16 And I just -- I just can' t see that urgent
17 need for commercial stuff there that people are going _
18 to go to and participate in and that you ' re going to
19 fight with your kids about .
20 This one lady talked about her teenagers . _
21 As I remember when we were in Missouri , I mean it was
22 like a couple of miles , we had more battles over
23 going to Teetop to get a pop or whatever . It wasn' t
24 a bad place, but you know it was like you don ' t go
25 there to spend your money, you don ' t go there every
Page 314
— 1 single day, you know, and it ' s just something that ' s
2 an agitation as far as families go .
3 One thing I would like to ask you folks .
4 You' re all elected officials of this county. Don' t
_ 5 think just dollars . We ' re people over there . We ' re
6 people there and I would like for you to open up
— 7 those curtains, some of those curtains before you
_ 8 write a blank check on it . We ' re counting on you.
9 CHAIRMAN LONG: Any questions?
10 COMMISSIONER GEILE : At the break if I might
_ 11 ask you, you had some point -- and I apologize for
12 not being able to - -
13 MS . NEWBY : Oh, that ' s all right .
_ 14 COMMISSIONER GEILE : But you said that you
15 had some information on 26 . Would you mind sharing
16 that with us?
17 MS . NEWBY: Earlier today you were talking
18 about the paving done on 26 . Well , it stops short of
19 the corner and the reason is that little parcel where
— 20 the old-time house was, they sort of kept that
21 sentimentally, I believe, because that was the
22 honeymoon home of the E . L. Montgomery families,
— 23 E L M. That ' s why it ' s called the Elms .
24 And so what happened when they paved it ,
25 they paved it up to that part , so that leaves a
Page 315
1 little section of the road that isn' t there . Last
2 summer it was like I was praying that I hope they get -
3 this done before we have to bring the bale wagon up
4 here because we had like a two-foot drop.
5 So I 'm not looking forward to those kinds of -
6 things on some of the roads that we have to use, but
7 I can get around the town to my church and there ' s no
8 big problem. -
9 But I 'm sure that we will have a lot more
10 traffic there . People already since they paved 5
11 they ' re taking the short-cut from 5 off of 119 , 5 . 5 -
12 rather, 5 . 5 , coming north and then onto 26 and then
13 on up 5 to go on up to 66 and on. Just take the back
14 way, not to hit all that traffic and the stoplights
15 and so forth.
16 Does that help a little bit?
17 COMMISSIONER GEILE : Thank you.
18 CHAIRMAN LONG : Commissioner Jerke .
19 COMMISSIONER JERKE : Just one question.
20 What ditch are you on that services your farm? -
21 MS . NEWBY : We ' re on the Oligarchy.
22 COMMISSIONER JERKE : Okay. Are you upstream
23 from the proposal or downstream? -
24 MS . NEWBY: As I said, there ' s one other
25 person and us . Our ditch goes underneath the road
Page 316
1 diagonally. You ' ll see that sort of in front of that
2 yellow house that ' s still on 26 , and ours is , see, on
3 the north side so it goes diagonally in a culvert
4 under the road and that ' s where we get our water.
5 And we ' re just about the end of the line .
6 It ' s sort of feast or famine . We 've got water
7 running everywhere or we 've got none .
8 COMMISSIONER JERKE : Let me ask the question
9 a different way then. I don ' t know if you heard or
10 not, but the applicant potentially proposes to fill
- 11 in the Oligarchy Ditch across their property. Would
12 that harm or help you?
13 MS . NEWBY: We would have no water.
— 14 COMMISSIONER JERKE : That sounds like it
15 would harm you.
16 MS . NEWBY : That is something that cannot be
— 17 done .
18 COMMISSIONER JERKE : I would ask them to
19 address it then when they get back up here .
— 20 MS . NEWBY : That is something that cannot be
21 done because the Oligarchy Ditch is one of the older
22 apportioned ditches and you don ' t mess with the
— 23 apportionments on the ditches . It is the ditch that
24 goes through Longmont . Our ditch takes water into
25 Union Reservoir as a - - just sort of as a transit
Page 317
1 line into Union Reservoir.
2 I was hoping that Dan Grant would be here
3 because he knows much more about it than I do, but
4 that disturbed me a whole lot to think, oh, we ' re
5 just not going to have the Oligarchy Ditch.
6 Oh, yes, you ' re going to have the Oligarchy
7 Ditch. We have 13 and a half shares in the Oligarchy
8 Ditch and we will have our water. So if they' re _
9 thinking that , they will have another long culvert
10 kind of huge thing that they will have to put in,
11 which will be an expense . _
12 CHAIRMAN LONG: Any other questions? Thank
13 you very much.
14 MS . NEWBY: Thanks for asking that question. _
15 CHAIRMAN LONG: Danielle Di Donna?
16 MS . DI DONNA: My name is Danielle Di Donna
17 and I live at 11729 Montgomery Circle, which is the -
18 Elms at Meadowvale . I also happen to border Pearl
19 Howlett . The side of my house is right next to Pearl
20 Howlett , by the way. -
21 I appreciate the opportunity to speak with
22 you, with everyone here today. I also know how
23 important being at the end of this meeting and so I 'm -
24 going to try to make this memorable so you can
25 remember what I 'm - - remember, make this a memorable
Page 318
1 statement for you.
2 I wanted to speak about urbanization. Now,
3 let me just let you understand something. I come
— 4 from New York City. I see tall buildings, I lived in
5 some, and also I know - - that is urbanization.
6 That ' s a concrete park in a lot of ways, besides
7 Central Park, of course .
8 What is urbanization? I mean because this
9 is what we ' re calling this . We ' re calling this an
10 urban center, an urbanized community.
11 I also have lived in central Denver . I have
12 - - I currently still own a home there . To me an
13 urbanized center is an area that provides similar
— 14 services . It ' s a community that has businesses .
15 It ' s a community that has residential .
16 Now, for me -- but when you look at central
— 17 Denver, now let ' s look at Washington Park, let ' s look
18 at Park Hill , let ' s look at Cheesman Park or
19 Observatory Park. Those are -- those are part of the
— 20 urban center of central Denver.
21 I know all of you may at one point have
22 either lived down there, have been down there . You
— 23 don' t see too many buildings or facilities down there
24 that are going from you have a house that ' s - - down
25 there - - the houses down there, a lot of them are
Page 319
—
1 single stories .
2 So you may have a house that ' s 20 feet high
3 as opposed to 35 feet or 30 feet high, but 20 or 30
-
4 feet high. You don' t see 70 , 80, 90-foot buildings
5 next to these homes unless you ' re looking at downtown _
6 Denver, which is the center of Denver. It ' s the
-
7 city.
8 So looking at that from an urbanized point _
9 are we looking at -- this is not an incorporated part
10 of Colorado . This is not called a city. This is
11 unincorporated. It ' s Weld County. _
12 There ' s no - - Greeley is a city. You have
13 Longmont, the city of Longmont . You have Fort
14 Collins as a city. This is an area that is basically _
15 an area that has no designation as a town nor a city.
16 So I urge you to look at this and say what
17 are you servicing, what are you putting here? Are we _
18 putting a Denver Tech Center? Now, Denver Tech
19 Center does not have 70-foot buildings even down
20 there abutting a 25-foot residential community. -
21 They have some townhomes down there but they
22 came in after the fact . The people who choose to
23 live in those townhomes are choosing to buy into -
24 being close to their workplace, and with I-25 today I
25 don' t blame them.
Page 320
1 So that ' s what I want to say, that ' s what I
2 want to bring up about the urbanized point , is that I
3 know we ' re looking at moving businesses up here, I
4 know we ' re looking at developing other business
5 centers because of the traffic concerns within
6 Colorado and because of where the growth is going in
7 northern Colorado, I understand that .
8 But what I ' m concerned about is let ' s look
9 at where we ' re putting the urban centers , how they' re
10 going to attach to the cities , and you know what --
11 let ' s look at the planning of it , and like Betty I 'm
12 concerned that that commercial area will bring in
13 more crime .
— 14 There is crime because of Del Camino . It
15 has happened in our own neighborhood. We 've had
16 thefts , we 've had break-ins , we 've had people
— 17 stalking our neighborhoods, and the cops have been
18 called continuously.
19 So the only thing I have heard about the
— 20 urbanization is that Longmont may want to annex this
21 property, but then that ' s still not the center of
22 Longmont . The center of Longmont is Main Street .
— 23 That is where their city center is . So, therefore,
24 then I state does that make sense putting these types
25 of - - these large sized buildings in that type of
Page 321
1 area?
2 I mean also another definition of an urban
3 center would be efficient public transportation.
4 Coming from New York we had subways, we had buses , we
5 had cars , we had our own two feet . I don ' t see the
6 efficient transportation system up here yet .
7 They' re trying to develop it, yes , down on
8 I-25 down towards Denver . I don' t see the plans . I _
9 do know that -- I 'm sure it ' s rumored that they will
10 come up that way. It hasn' t happened yet . It ' s
11 going to take seven years to get I-25 built , the
12 public transit built down there . It ' s millions and
13 -- you know, billions of dollars .
14 So I again ask an urbanized center would
15 provide appropriate public transportation. There is
16 none here . Most people, I would say a large -- I
17 mean it looks to me a large percent of the people _
18 must drive their own cars to get to work if they work
19 in Denver or if they work north within Fort Collins
20 or Greeley. _
21 I mean look at Glenn Vaad. He has to come
22 up here . He has to drive on I-25 . He doesn ' t have a
23 bus to take to go to work. There is no bus system _
24 that drops you off and says I 'm going to get you - -
25 Look at Park Hill . If you look in central
Page 322
1 Denver there is a public transportation system
2 available to service an urban area, and it was put in
3 place to do that . So again, that ' s one of my points .
4 I urge you to look at that and say, what are you
5 really looking at driving into this community?
6 Because these services don ' t support that
7 idea of an urban center currently, nor may in the
8 future do I - - as of this point do I see this
9 attached to the city, in the middle of the city. I
10 would build out the city before I would go in and
11 become a sprawling LA. It might be more efficient .
12 You can get better public transit that way. So
13 that ' s one of my points .
_ 14 This leads me into the idea of opening up
15 Pearl Howlett and Blue Mountain Road. Let me give
16 you an example . If you line up the many children
17 that we have in our community -- I don' t know the
18 exact number for Elms but I do know it ' s not uncommon
19 to see people with two or three children, or an
— 20 example on my own street I have someone with eight
21 children.
22 So you line them all up and have them
— 23 standing in the back of this room, I want every one
24 of you to decide which one you' re going to pick when
25 someone comes driving down that road to be the
Page 323
1 sacrificial goat who ' s going to get hit that day.
2 Which one of these children? Do you want it
3 to be Rod' s son, Lisa ' s daughter? Because that ' s
4 what you' re doing if you ' re opening up Pearl Howlett
5 and if you ' re opening up Blue Mountain Road.
6 There are bus stops . There is a bus stop .
7 We had to move our bus stop, for an example, in Elms
8 from County Road 5 . 5 because of the traffic concerns _
9 and the children ' s safety. We moved it to Pearl
10 Howlett , to the mail room center. It ' s off , it ' s off
11 of 5 . 5 . It ' s off of a road that would be of concern _
12 that could keep the children safe in the community.
13 So have the individuals in Farms . They
14 moved their bus stop from County Road 5 . 5 up into -
15 their mail center, previously than we did, at a prior
16 point than we did.
17 So I urge you to look -- so I urge you to -
18 also look at that in terms of what we ' re looking at
19 and saying, let ' s protect our children, let ' s not
20 open up Pearl Howlett or Blue Mountain because that -
21 will increase - - because the idea, I can tell you, I
22 live on it , an extra 380 cars a day - - there ' s not
23 300 - - I don' t think there ' s 50 - - I don' t even think -
24 there ' s 25 cars that go down that road now a day.
25 It would be a huge difference, and I 'm sure
Page 324
1 Blue Mountain - - the people who live on Blue Mountain
2 Road may say they see five, 10 , and that ' s the
3 residents , okay?
4 So my point is let ' s look at that and say
5 you ' re looking at an exponential number larger than
6 what we personally see . I didn ' t come to this
7 meeting prepared to count how many cars I saw the
8 other day driving up and down my street .
9 I mean another thing just to mention, we had
10 a very serious traffic accident just this week. An
11 insulation truck totaled a gentleman ' s truck because
12 he went through a stop sign. He just failed to
13 ignore -- he said he was sorry but he failed to
14 ignore it . The guy ' s truck was totaled. He was very
15 lucky he didn' t have his daughter in the truck with
16 him. Those are things that could occur if we allow
_ 17 that .
18 Another point I would like to make is that
19 - - can we bring up the slide that had the information
20 about the 70 percent of the first floor? May we do
21 that? First floor space, I just want to bring up
22 that so I can bring up a point .
— 23 I come from a very strong financial
24 background. I have worked on Wall Street , I love
25 numbers, and I just wanted to bring up a point about
Page 325
1 that so that we are very clear that there is a
2 possibility that this -- first of all , there ' s one _
3 factual point on this that is -- that we need to
4 adjust some of the numbers on here .
5 The Elms only has 261 lots and there are _
6 only 131 homes built to date, so it is only platted
7 for 261 homes , and if we ' re talking about that space
8 that we just had up there before, that ' s the space of _
9 where the church campus is , our Elms , the Elms at
10 Meadowvale is the size of that church campus platted
11 piece of land. _
12 I ' m sorry if I 'm not using the right term.
13 But that is the same size . The reason why I know
14 this , I 'm on the Homeowners Board. I also represent _
15 the members on our Homeowners Board. So we ' ve been
16 involved a lot .
17 So if the developer is saying there ' s 392 , I _
18 would care to differ on that because it ' s 261 lots
19 between Genesee and what Ryland built . And I have
20 factual papers on that . You can see what is filed _
21 with the County.
22 So if we look at that we then go, what is
23 the amount of square footage of 60 percent on the _
24 first floor? Well , I went back and did my
25 calculations for that to help bring - - I mean I did
Page 326
1 my calculations . I 'm very good with math, but am I
2 perfect, no, but let ' s just take this into
3 consideration.
4 It ' s only 832 , 000 square feet compared to
5 the 1 . 1 million square feet on the church campus from
6 the Elms, okay? So that , therefore, is only 19 . 18 ,
7 19 . 2 acres , okay? And then it ' s also only 12 percent
8 coverage for the buildings , driveways and walks .
9 Based on the number, the one number change,
10 it is not 392 homes, okay? I just wanted to bring up
- 11 that point as I know everybody has worked hard and
12 there may be some missed numbers here and there, but
13 I don ' t want what you evaluate to be based on wrong
14 numbers here today.
15 I understand that -- I 've been in the
16 financial world long enough to know there are times
- 17 we make a mistake on a minor number, but if it makes
18 - - if you make a decision based on that I would like
19 you to have the accurate numbers .
— 20 So that is what I would like to bring up
21 today. The thing is I really would like you guys to
22 consider what you guys are considering an urban
— 23 center, what you consider what you ' re going to put in
24 an urban center because this will affect what else is
25 built in Weld County.
Page 327
1 And I know every one of you wants to be
2 leaving -- when you leave someday, when you leave
3 this Board someday, to be leaving a legacy of
4 something you can be proud of, and I 'm sure what you
5 guys will - - what every one of you will say, not you
6 guys and that ' s southern -- I 'm trying to get out of
7 that southern thing. I don' t want to go to Dallas
8 too much. I never used to say it till I traveled.
9 But I know you all want to leave a legacy
10 that say I was a part of this, I am the one who
11 helped make this happen, helped make Weld County what _
12 it is 20 years from now, 30 years from now.
13 So I would implore, you know, I really would
14 advise you to please look at what you want your urban _
15 centers to be . Look at what you think the heights
16 for compatibility are .
17 And no, I don ' t mind a church in my back _
18 yard, but I do mind, like Peter Gries , like others,
19 like Lisa who has spoken and Meadowvale Farms, I do
20 mind the massing. I do mind the large buildings . _
21 If it was downtown Denver and I chose to
22 live there, I would say fine . If it was New York
23 City, that would be great . But I really would like _
24 you guys to look at this and look at what the numbers
25 are really saying and look at the concerns of every
Page 328
1 one of your constituents .
2 These are the people you know. Some of
3 these people - - you may not know these people but
4 these could be your neighbors . So please look at
5 that and consider the big picture and what you want
6 your legacy to be .
7 So thank you very much for letting me speak
8 today and I hope you guys can help our community grow
9 but help it grow in a wise way. Thank you.
10 CHAIRMAN LONG: Are there any questions?
11 Thank you very much.
12 Rich Salm? And I believe that ' s it unless a
13 Robert Bram came back in or Mr. Fanton.
14 For the record if you could please state
15 your name and address .
16 MR . SALM: My name is Richard Salm. I live
17 at 11713 Montgomery Circle, the Elms at Meadowvale
18 and Weld County District 2 .
19 In batting cleanup here, I ' ve been taking
— 20 notes throughout this process today so I 'm going to
21 touch on a bunch of different points .
22 The first thing I want to say is I want to
— 23 start with a quote from Bruce Grinnell . In a meeting
24 he said, "You can only judge who we are by what we
25 have done . "
Page 329
1 And so I thought about that and said, well ,
2 goodness gracious , we ' re looking at them possibly
3 being a new neighbor or being new neighbors together.
4 I thought I would take a stroll where they' re
5 currently located and talk to some of their current
6 neighbors to see what kind of neighbor we might be
7 expecting to have in the future .
8 And Mr. Geile, I 'm glad you brought up the
9 issue of the weed zoning violations . I did that at
10 the planning hearing and caught a lot of heat for
11 doing that from the Planning Commissioners . Not that
12 it ' s a big issue for me but you made it a little bit
13 easier for me .
14 But speaking of the weeds, I talked to half
15 a dozen neighbors that abut directly up against the
16 applicant ' s property right now and weeds were an
17 issue for several of those neighbors there . Their -
18 biggest complaint -- well , they had a couple of major
19 complaints .
20 One was that the applicant they complained _
21 didn ' t bother to cut their weeds down at all behind
22 their property. In fact , the current neighbors that
23 live there have taken it upon themselves to go out -
24 and cut those weeds down because the applicant they
25 told me wouldn' t do it, so they' re just doing it
Page 330
1 themselves . So that was pretty annoying for them.
2 The other thing too that they shared with me
3 is that when LifeBridge moved into that area and
4 built they showed the community this wonderful plan
5 of a 20-foot high church and chapel building located
6 close to Highway 119, and the people that I spoke to
7 thought, you know, wow, that sounds pretty good, we
8 would like to have a church as a neighbor and in our
9 back yard.
10 Well , what they actually did was they built
11 the building more than twice as tall . It was
12 supposed to be 20 feet tall and they built it like 40
13 or 44 feet tall and put it smack up against the
14 easternmost border of the property so it maximized
15 the visual impact on those neighbors directly
16 abutting to it . And so people are pretty annoyed
— 17 about that too . So I want to share that with you.
18 The next point I wanted to make is that
19 you 've heard some testimony from the Farms at
— 20 Meadowvale, people from the Elms at Meadowvale . Some
21 of the folks in the Farms are very much in favor of
22 the zoning application being approved and I think
— 23 it ' s probably fair to say that a lot of the concerns
24 that the folks in the Farms have have been addressed,
25 save for the connectivity of Blue Mountain Road, but
Page 331
1 it ' s also fair to say that they' re not facing the
2 major impact of having the church campus directly on
3 their border either.
4 That ' s planned to be situated further north
5 next to the Elms at Meadowvale . So it ' s the folks in
6 the Elms that are going to take the brunt of the
7 impact from that church campus building up there . So
8 if you ' re hearing some difference of an opinion
9 between the two neighborhoods, I think that probably
10 explains it right there .
11 And then again speaking of that same point, _
12 you know, if - - well , and this speaks to some real
13 estate value issues . The first person that we met
14 with with LifeBridge when we wanted to gather
15 information about this application was Bob
16 Frederiksen, who lives in the Farms at Meadowvale and
17 is also on the fund raising committee for LifeBridge
18 to raise the money to make this project a reality for
19 them.
20 And we were told that the original plans _
21 called for the church campus to be in the southern
22 part of their property and then the senior housing
23 and residential was to be to the north, and we were
24 told that he was able to get that switched around so
25 that the church campus would be to the north and the
Page 332
1 residential community would be to the south, which is
2 clearly in favor of the Farms .
3 So, you know, the point being is if the
4 church campus is so wonderful for the property
5 owners , you know, why the flip on that, when having
6 the most traffic intensive part of the development ,
7 you know, where it could be close to Highway 119 it ' s
8 being pushed to the north now where it ' s going to
9 exacerbate those traffic issues .
10 Also with respect to real estate issues and
11 in direct rebuttal to some of the comments that Bob
12 Frederiksen made, we know through the grapevine that
13 Genesee to the north has lost several contracts on
— 14 homes that were for sale as a direct result of those
15 people finding out about the zoning application. So,
16 you know, there has been some financial impact as a
— 17 result of this application.
18 So, you know, exactly what ' s going to happen
19 to the property values , I don' t have a crystal ball
— 20 and nobody else here does, so we don' t really know,
21 but that I can state with some certainty, is that it
22 has had some impact on Genesee already.
— 23 Let ' s see . I want to make some additional
24 points regarding the connectivity of Blue Mountain
25 Road and Pearl Howlett, which you 've heard a lot of
Page 333
1 people make comments . There ' s a few things I think
2 maybe you haven ' t heard, and I apologize, I don ' t
3 want to be redundant , but I do want to make sure that
4 we ' re thorough and that all the points get covered.
5 In regards to Matt Delich, the traffic
6 engineer ' s study about how much traffic would be
7 generated on Pearl Howlett and Blue Mountain Road
8 respectively, those numbers , 380 and 180 , are average _
9 numbers . We 've heard nothing about what the
10 potential peak numbers would be .
11 And I think it ' s important to look at -- you _
12 know, if you have to make a decision on whether to
13 have connectivity or not, if I were in your shoes it
14 would be important to have the whole picture and I 'm _
15 concerned about the peak traffic, not necessarily
16 averages, because peak traffic speaks to real life,
17 not textbook issues . _
18 In addition, in Matt Delich' s study it
19 states that at full buildout of the PUD at the
20 intersection of 3 . 5 and 119 it has the potential to _
21 reach traffic level of service F, which I 'm not a
22 traffic engineer but that ' s been explained to me
23 that ' s pretty darn close to gridlock at that point .
24 And in meetings with LifeBridge they have admitted
25 that , yeah, it ' s possible there will be 15 to
Page 334
1 20-minute waits at that stoplight intersection of 3 . 5
2 and 119 .
3 Well , you don ' t have to be a rocket
._ 4 scientist and you don' t have to be a traffic engineer
5 either to understand human nature, that if there is a
6 traffic jam, you know, that ' s going to take folks 15
-. 7 to 20 minutes to get out of, it ' s human nature for
_ 8 people to take the easiest and fastest way out .
9 And that ' s what our concerns are relative to
10 the connectivity issue, is during those peak times
11 when, you know, the play lets out , the concert gets
12 out, mass lets out and there ' s this big bolus of
13 traffic that needs to get out of there, you know, we
14 anticipate that there are going to be people in a
15 hurry, that maybe have a little road rage developing
16 because they have been waiting a long time, they' re
_ 17 going to take the easiest way out and that would be
18 through Pearl Howlett and Blue Mountain Road.
19 And these are not folks that are residents
— 20 or homeowners in the area; these are most likely
21 going to be people that live somewhere else and don' t
22 have a vested interest in our own personal safety
— 23 there .
24 And I think from that standpoint
25 connectivity represents a tremendous safety risk for
Page 335
1 the residents of our two communities , and I would
2 urge you to stand with us and LifeBridge on this
3 issue and not let connectivity go through.
4 I would, however, support connectivity via
5 trails . You know, I like riding a bicycle, I like -
6 going for walks , and if this development goes in I
7 think that would be very acceptable to me . And I
8 can ' t speak for everyone but that ' s just my input on -
9 that .
10 I 'm getting close . I ' ll try to be brief .
11 Number three, the noise issue . You know, there ' s -
12 been very little discussion about the potential
13 impacts of noise .
14 We know that the applicant has agreed to -
15 build some berms to try to mitigate some of the road
16 noise and reduce lighting impacts . I think it
17 remains to be seen relative to the difference in -
18 grade between the two communities how effective those
19 berms are going to be .
20 But of more concern to me is if they get the -
21 allowance to build a 1 , 500-seat outdoor amphitheater
22 on their property, that has a potential of generating
23 a huge noise impact . -
24 And, you know, there ' s been some discussion,
25 you know, if you want to build a tall building can
Page 336
1 you dig into the ground and sink it in? And what
2 we ' re hearing is , you know, the answer to that is no
3 because there is lots of shale beds there and the
4 bedrock is pretty high in the land, and maybe they
5 could do it but we would have to put up with some
6 blasting for a few years while they do it .
7 well , if you follow that logic, you know, I
8 think it ' s important to ask the question, well , how
9 would this 1, 500-seat amphitheater look? If you look
10 at places like Fiddler ' s Green where there ' s a grade
_ 11 to the land and the stage is down lower than where
12 the audience sits, if they cannot dig into the ground
13 then what is that going to look like?
_ 14 What kind of noise mitigation will there be
15 to protect us from loud concerts late at night or
16 enthusiastic early a.m. services on the weekend?
— 17 Now, I know the applicant has pledged that there ' s
18 going to be no noise impact, but I think if you look
19 from a practical standpoint just how are they going
— 20 to do it is my question.
21 And furthermore -- you know, I guess that ' s
22 one question for the applicant to answer . Number
— 23 two, let ' s say, you know, they do gain permission to
24 build that amphitheater and we do have issues with
25 noise where it ' s really loud.
Page 337
1 I don' t know if you've ever spent time
2 outside of an outdoor concert arena, but if you ' re in
3 the general neighborhood outside of it what you hear
4 is not the full music because different frequencies
5 are going to transmit at different levels of
6 efficiency. What you really wind up with hearing is
7 a lot of booming bass noise coming out of it .
8 So let ' s say down the road we have an issue _
9 with that and it ' s become a problem for us . What
10 recourse do we have with the County to get redress on
11 that issue? Is there any ordinance that controls the _
12 amount of decibels at what frequencies that they can
13 produce?
14 CHAIRMAN LONG: Those questions will be _
15 answered. We 've taken those notes on the questions
16 regarding that earlier .
17 MR. SALM: Super . I appreciate that . I
18 would be interested in knowing the answer myself .
19 And then -- you know, and I ' ve heard that
20 Weld County itself doesn' t have any noise ordinances, _
21 that it ' s not specified. Well , if that ' s the case,
22 and I don' t know if it is or not, but let ' s just say
23 that is the case, then our only opportunity to really -
24 address this issue is right here and right now, or I
25 suppose when they put in for the specific platting,
Page 338
1 perhaps we would have another opportunity to address
2 that issue .
3 But I urge you, please ask those questions
4 and take that into consideration because none of us
5 are interested -- we may be interested in attending
6 some of those concerts but we certainly want that to
7 be by choice . We don' t want to have our quiet
8 community interrupted by blasting music imposed on
9 us . I think you can understand that .
10 CHAIRMAN LONG: Duly noted.
11 MR. SALM : Thank you. In closing, you know,
12 there ' s just talk on the street, and I ' ve been
13 engaged with this zoning application issue since like
_ 14 last September and I 've learned more about land use
15 and planning and zoning than I ever thought I ever
16 would in my life, but what I 've picked up along the
— 17 way is very disturbing to me because there ' s just - -
18 there ' s talk on the street that in Weld County this
19 process is corrupt , like this application was decided
— 20 a long time ago and LifeBridge is so big, it ' s so
21 powerful , has so much money and so connected that,
22 you know, they ' re just going to get their way and
— 23 they' re going to do whatever they want to do .
24 I don' t want to believe that . You know, I
25 want to have faith that as a voter in Weld County and
Page 339
1 you as elected officials , you know, are acting
2 impartially and will consider, you know, everything -
3 on the merit based on what ' s presented in front of
4 you. That ' s what I want to believe .
5 You 've got an opportunity, gentlemen, to _
6 take a stand and show that impartiality. We want you
7 to be fair .
8 You know, we ' re not saying, well , just side
9 with us , the homeowners, you know. I mean LifeBridge
10 is a landowner, they 've got rights too, but we ' re
11 landowners and homeowners and voters in Weld County
12 and so do we, and I just want to have confidence that
13 you ' ll take that into consideration and, you know,
14 you 've got a perfect opportunity to do that .
15 The other thing, guys, we 've got a really
16 good opportunity to do this development right . I
17 mean if we do it right it ' s going to be really good
18 for all of us and all I want to do is, you know, take
19 part in this process and help ensure that whatever
20 goes in there is good.
21 Because I 'm not so naive to think that
22 nothing is going to be developed. I know it is and I
23 totally accept that . I just want to make sure that
24 it ' s really good, not just for me but everybody
25 involved.
Page 340
1 Thank you very much.
2 CHAIRMAN LONG: Any questions for Mr. Salm?
3 Thank you, sir.
4 MR. SALM: You' re welcome .
5 CHAIRMAN LONG: This is the last of the list
6 that I had. Is there anybody else who has not
7 participated and might like to?
8 Seeing none I will close that portion of the
9 public hearing process . You might be -- you might
10 hear things or something that might , how do I say,
- 11 make you enthusiastic to want to participate again,
12 but now that chance has been closed to the public .
13 We have heard that testimony and it is now part of
14 the record.
15 Counsel had some issues to discuss at this
16 point and then we ' ll proceed.
17 MR. MORRISON: I guess the first issue is ,
18 are you interested in this material from the Health
19 Department? It includes a summary of the statute as
— 20 well as a comparison of decibel levels .
21 CHAIRMAN LONG: Uh-huh.
22 MR. MORRISON: That ' s been marked as Exhibit
— 23 AA.
24 CHAIRMAN LONG: Counsel , this is State
25 statute --
Page 341
1 MR. MORRISON: Well , the front page is State
2 statute . The question was just raised whether Weld
3 County has a separate noise ordinance . The answer is
4 they do not . They do apply standards through certain
5 zoning cases, including a special review process , but
6 essentially they follow the State law.
7 The other part of that question was whether
8 the State law distinguishes between different
9 frequencies . To some extent it does because it
10 provides that shrill noises can be considered a
11 public nuisance at five decibels less than those
12 listed in the classifications . It does not address
13 low frequencies, which appears to have been the party
14 testifying ' s main concern. But C .R. S . 25-12-103 is
15 the governing statute .
16 CHAIRMAN LONG: Thank you.
17 MR. MORRISON: If you want me to go on to _
18 some of the other legal issues .
19 CHAIRMAN LONG: Yes .
20 MR . MORRISON: The first is this _
21 constitutional issue involving establishment of
22 religion. I think it ' s interesting - - Mr. Gries has
23 tried out a number of theories that are _
24 constitutionally based having to do with the
25 relationship of State to church and this one is
Page 342
1 different than the one he noted at the Planning
2 Commission.
3 I would have to say I don' t - - I would
4 advise the Board that I don ' t agree with his
5 argument . First of all , he presumes that there ' s a
6 diminution in value . You would have to sort through
7 the evidence but at least there ' s been testimony on
8 both sides .
9 Secondly, there ' s no -- even if there were
10 diminution in value that doesn' t constitute a taking
11 when the neighbors claim that per se . I mean there ' s
12 a number of factors, so it sort of skipped over all
13 those .
— 14 But even if there were I don' t think that
15 even comes close to establishment of religion, which
—
16 as I understand it is his argument , that somehow by
— 17 approving this you ' re establishing this as a
18 religion.
..
19 And the basic test , although it ' s been
— 20 modified somewhat, on the establishment clause is a
21 State practice is valid if it has a secular
22 legislative purpose, that is a purpose not related to
— 23 the religion, its principal or primary effect neither
24 advances nor inhibits religion, and it does not
25 foster excessive government entanglements with
Page 343
1 religion.
2 Part of that is that your decision today
3 needs to be based on neutral issues , not on whether
4 it ' s a church or not , and I think with all the hours
5 of testimony there ' s been virtually none related to
6 the issue of the worship . It ' s all related to the
7 land use attributes , the size, the traffic and things
8 like that . _
9 And that test has been modified and in some
10 cases but still it requires that there be a
11 government endorsement and - - or government _
12 sponsorship and a coercion requiring people to attend
13 or participate in that religious process . There ' s no
14 cases that even suggest a land use decision in this _
15 capacity even comes close to that .
16 I won' t, unless the Board wishes me to, go
17 through all the other possible religious arguments or
18 constitutional arguments dealing with religion
19 because I said that ' s the only one that was advanced
20 today. The basic test is ironically known as the _
21 lemon test from the case it comes from.
22 There was another question about the
23 complaint letters regarding Mr. Ogle . At least the
24 most recent one that I have seen is in the record.
25 It was placed in the record as opposed to having the
Page 344
1 Board deal with that on a separate basis because the
2 issues were intertwined with the issues you have to
3 decide in this quasi judicial process .
4 And I don' t think it would have been
5 appropriate to attempt to deal with that on a
6 personnel basis , regardless of the merits of the
7 allegations, outside of this hearing process , because
8 it dealt with the handling of this case, the notice,
9 referrals , all these kinds of things that are part
10 and parcel of the discussion today.
_ 11 Along that line, the referral letters back
12 from Frederick and Firestone, the requirement that
13 the referral be done is one that relates to that
_ 14 jurisdiction under the agreements and under the Code,
15 getting the opportunity.
16 There ' s not a third-party beneficiary of
— 17 that requirement and in the case of Frederick and
18 Firestone both indicated, albeit late in the process ,
19 that they were not contesting the lack of referral
— 20 and were not going to raise the issue to require the
21 process to wait for their analysis .
22 Mead is really a different issue . There was
— 23 a referral made . There ' s a dispute as to the
24 adequacy of the referral , there ' s a dispute about
25 who ' s entitled to respond back to this Board, but
Page 345
1 it ' s not a case where none was made .
2 The last issue I wanted to address , and I ' ll
3 have to apologize because I don ' t remember the
4 terminology the applicant was using, but essentially
5 they were - - I heard them to be saying, well , if we _
6 get this zoning we ' ll have a vested right in this
7 proposal , and technically that is - - there is not a
8 vesting under the statutory process until and unless _
9 a final plan is approved.
10 So there ' s certainly a higher degree that a
11 final plan would be approved once you get the zoning _
12 in place that ' s consistent with that zoning than if
13 you haven' t accomplished the change of zone to PUD.
14 There ' s not a guarantee of a particular result when _
15 the final plan is considered, nor is there a
16 statutory protection to the applicant if the
17 situation changes or the Board denies a final plan _
18 having approved the zoning itself .
19 CHAIRMAN LONG: Commissioner Geile?
20 COMMISSIONER GEILE : Thank you, counsel , for
21 getting into that, but I did have a question along
22 that line . With the PUD you ' re talking about a
23 concept?
24 MR. MORRISON: Well --
25 COMMISSIONER GEILE : You' re talking about a
Page 346
1 concept beyond what is as an example Phase 1 , the way
2 they presented Phase 1?
3 MR. MORRISON: My understanding, and
4 planning may correct me, originally the applicant had
5 hopes of doing this as a specific development plan.
6 From the record at the Planning Commission I
7 understand that they are no longer pursuing that and
8 that they expect to have to go through final plan
9 hearing process for each of those final plans .
10 That means it is a - - if you take -- I don ' t
- 11 know that there ' s a dispute now, but planning staff
12 is recommending that it not be done as a specific
13 development , it will be a conceptual PUD .
- 14 COMMISSIONER GEILE : And along that line,
15 there has been a lot discussed as far as square
16 footage, number of units . If we were to approve this
17 as presented do we lock ourself into that , the square
18 footage, the number of units? What concept I
19 guess --
- 20 MR . MORRISON: Well , I think the concept is
21 generally the densities , the possible uses , so I
22 would say that - - but not the design on the ground.
— 23 So I think you probably - - again, you ' re not locked
24 into the particulars of the plan but you have taken
25 that step toward accepting the densities, the bulk
Page 347
1 and those kinds of requirements and allowances if you
2 approve the change of zone .
3 The details of how that ' s executed remain
4 for the final plan, but I think you probably commit
5 toward that kind of density if you - - you know, if
6 you make that kind of decision in the change of zone .
7 CHAIRMAN LONG: Any other questions for
8 counsel? Thank you, counsel . -
9 With that our next step would be the
10 applicant response .
11 MR. GRINNELL : My name is Bruce Grinnell , -
12 administrator at LifeBridge, 10345 Ute Highway in
13 Longmont .
14 The first issue I would like to address is _
15 this lot coverage comparison. The -- I would agree
16 with Danielle, the number of lots is not the same as
17 the Elms . It ' s similar only in the density. The
18 church campus is 160 acres and what we were after is
19 to get something similar in density.
20 If you look at the density, it breaks it -
21 back, the 392 homes ends up being 2 . 4 homes per acre .
22 So that ' s the density there, so we ' ll start with that
23 as the density. -
24 If you had 392 homes that ranged from 2 , 800
25 to 3 , 200 square feet per home, which is what we
Page 348
1 understand theirs do, you get an average of 3 , 000
2 square feet . That gives you 18 - - and if 60 percent
3 of 3 , 000 square feet is 1800 square feet , there ' s
4 roughly 1 , 000 square foot per driveway and 400 square
5 foot of sidewalk per house .
6 So the total of those is 3 , 200 square feet
7 per home, times the 392 homes is how you come up with
8 the 1 . 255 .
9 Similarly on the church it ' s 1 . 5 million
10 square feet . 70 percent is 1, 050 , 000 with 100 , 000 of
- 11 sidewalks .
12 So that ' s just a clarification there .
13 what we would like to do right now is talk a
- 14 little bit about compatibility. There have been
15 questions on our plan in regards to the compatibility
16 of the church campus on the site . We understand that
— 17 there may be possibly subsequent challenges to our
18 plan if we ' re approved it and therefore we believe
19 it ' s necessary and worth the time to address the
— 20 issue of compatibility with respect to the church
21 campus portion of the site .
22 Compatibility as Webster defines it is being
— 23 capable of living or functioning harmoniously with
24 others . Compatibility in land use is defined as the
25 ability of the use or structure to co-exist with a
Page 349
1 neighbor use or structure . The compatibility test is
2 at the point of transition and the point of
3 transition in this case is the property line .
4 So I guess the two points here is when
5 you ' re testing compatibility you test it at the
6 property line and the compatibility is defined in
7 land use as the ability to have co-existing uses .
8 Co-existing is not the same as . Not all of
9 us in this room are the same . Certainly there are
10 male and female and bigger and littler and et cetera,
11 so we all co-exist . It ' s not necessary to be the _
12 same to co-exist is my point .
13 Compatibility in the MUD Code states this ,
14 "New development should consider compatibility with _
15 existing surrounding land use in terms of general
16 use, building height , scale, density, traffic, dust
17 and noise . "
18 So in the MUD this is the test . New
19 development should be compatible in these
20 terms . So I would like to talk about each one just _
21 briefly.
22 General uses, what are the uses? The use is
23 a church with the residential , the retirement and the _
24 neighborhood center. There hasn ' t been much
25 conversation about the inconsistency of the
Page 350
1 residential . The neighborhood center is clearly
2 identified on the plan as being consistent with what
3 Weld County intended.
4 How does a church fit into the surrounding
5 land uses? Churches are located in neighborhoods .
6 This site is surrounded by neighborhoods . Churches
7 are allowed uses in a PUD. Churches are allowed uses
_ 8 in a neighborhood center. We feel like from that
9 standpoint that they can co-exist .
10 Building height, there ' s been a lot of
11 conversation about building height . We believe that
12 the building heights as measured at the point of
13 transition is the issue . To make them co-exist you
14 have to be compatible at the property line .
15 None of the buildings that we ' re proposing
16 here today, particularly the ones that have drawn all
17 the attention, the 75-foot buildings , are very close
18 to any property line . They' re all mitigated with
19 large, very large amounts of setback. This plan
— 20 wouldn ' t be possible unless one owned 160 acres .
21 People made references to the Pepsi Center
22 and Pepsi Center sized buildings . The Pepsi Center
— 23 is 128 feet, just for the sake of comparison.
24 As was shown by our wireline diagrams, we
25 will have much less impact with our building heights
Page 351
1 at the point of transition than the current -
2 residential development will have on us at the point
3 of property line, at the point of transition.
4 I think that Mr. Donohoo made the point that
5 we ' ve been trying to make . He made the -- I don ' t
6 think he remembered that we dropped the building
7 height to 35 feet at 125-foot setback. That was
8 something we did this morning.
9 So he was talking about a 45-foot high
10 building at 125 feet and certain angles and et
11 cetera . I believe the result was that at 125 feet _
12 any building over 13 feet high would block a 75-foot
13 building at 700 feet, which is as close as any of the
14 700 feet buildings could be . _
15 What we ' re proposing is a 35-foot building
16 at 125 feet at this point . Therefore, it stands to
17 reason that anything beyond that won ' t be seen. You _
18 won' t be able to see anything beyond a 35-foot
19 building that ' s put up 125 feet from the property
20 line . _
21 We feel that it ' s reasonable to ask for
22 35-foot buildings 125 feet from the property line .
23 We feel like those building height mitigations are _
24 the things that make this compatible .
25 Certainly a 75-foot building as close as the
Page 352
1 Building Code would allow it to be built next to the
2 property line isn' t compatible, and we ' ve spent a
3 great deal of time with staff with this particular
4 issue and we believe it ' s an issue of impact .
5 Scale . Scale is lot coverage and we believe
6 that we 've shown just by the slide a little bit ago
7 that the lot coverage of the church campus is 45
8 percent . Lot coverage on a residential neighborhood
9 with a density of 2 . 4 is 43 percent , which is
10 comparable . Insomuch that it ' s comparable we feel
11 like that they can co-exist together with respect to
12 scale .
13 Density. Density, the test is how many
14 square feet are on the site? We ' re requesting a
15 million and a half square feet and that ' s very
16 comparable to that of a typical residential
17 neighborhood on the same number of acres , and
18 insomuch that they' re virtually the same or we were
19 within the range we feel like as well they could
— 20 co-exist from the test of density.
21 Traffic . Traffic, I believe that Matt
22 showed that the traffic generated by a typical
— 23 residential neighborhood was similar to the traffic
24 that would be generated on this campus .
25 I want to make another clarification on the
Page 353
1 traffic, and Mr . Jerke, I ' m not -- I think this was
2 your question and I 'm not sure so I 'm going to answer _
3 a question that I think we didn ' t .
4 The 8 , 250 car trips a day on the church
5 campus is not an average of a week. It ' s a _
6 compilation of car trips per day based on the uses on
7 the campus that we project during the week.
8 So currently we have a fair amount of _
9 traffic on our campus per day, and if in fact there
10 was one and a half million square feet on that campus
11 we expect that there would be 8 , 250 car trips per day _
12 as a result of the activities and uses of that
13 facility during the week.
14 So whether it ' s uses that the church itself _
15 is doing with a Bible study or something or whether
16 it ' s the recreation or all the other things that you
17 heard that happens in the facility, the total of -
18 those is a result of - - and it doesn' t have anything
19 to do with the Sunday. So the 8 , 250 is independent
20 of Sunday. -
21 Back to traffic, I believe we ' ve shown that
22 the traffic is comparable and if those traffic rules
23 are comparable it seems that that also means that -
24 they could co-exist , because you could switch one for
25 the other . I guess the question would be times of
Page 354
1 the day, and insomuch that most of the church traffic
2 is off peak to the rest of the traffic it might mean
3 that they could co-exist better .
4 Dust . Colorado Department of Health
5 standards provide the limitations on the site for
6 dust control . We have to meet those regulations no
7 matter what they are . No matter what was developed
8 on the site, you have to satisfy the Colorado
9 Department of Health on dust , and we feel that if we
10 comply and other people that were there comply that
11 they would be similar and could co-exist .
12 Noise . The noise level I believe is 55 dB
13 at the property line, which is once again the point
14 of transition, during the day and 50 dB in the
15 evening, and my understanding is we ' ll get back to
16 that at some point .
- 17 But I don ' t know what those are . My
18 understanding is 50 dB is similar to a room full of
19 people or something just slightly less than that, and
— 20 55 is a crowded room full of people .
21 I believe the Chateau payment is something
22 that we don ' t really have a choice over . Chateau
— 23 payment is one that we ' re required to make . We ' re
24 required by some statute to reimburse whoever put the
25 money up, and if that was Longview people, McStain or
Page 355
1 whoever that group is, are we prepared to, yes .
2 So to whatever degree we need to pay them
3 back for whatever monies they have invested, we ' re
4 certainly willing to . We 've known that we need to
5 and there ' s no issue on our end as far as -- and we -
6 recognize that .
7 The Oligarchy, we have a signed agreement
8 with the Oligarchy. The Oligarchy is piped in -
9 several areas . As a matter of fact , it ' s piped
10 across the Elms as well as -- and I think that Ms .
11 Newby was talking about it there in the grates and et _
12 cetera, and those grates are an issue no matter what .
13 And we have no intention of filling in the
14 Oligarchy without creating a new transportation path -
15 for the Oligarchy. That ' s clearly the way it is in
16 the agreement that we have with them.
17 The location of that pipeline is yet to be -
18 determined. They' re willing to work with us on it
19 and I believe that ' s what the agreement says .
20 There were several issues that were brought
21 up that were final plat issues and to the extent
22 those are -- I mean we recognize this change of zone
23 and a lot of issues about the intent of what we -
24 intend to finally do with the property at some point ,
25 we believe those are final plat issues . So just make
Page 356
1 that comment .
2 Property values , I just want to make a
3 comment on that , that some people the property values
4 are going to go up and others are going to go down,
5 and I 'm not exactly sure why some adjacent to the
6 property go up and others of us that own property
7 adjacent to the property go down.
8 And let ' s see, the building locations , we
9 never intended to put the church campus where the
10 senior housing is . We had looked at putting it up
— 11 where the single family housing is, up on the hill
12 because it ' s a pretty view, and that ' s where we
13 started and found out we didn' t have enough space,
— 14 and as soon as we made an estimate as to how much
15 space we really needed we pushed it over to the
16 160-acre piece .
— 17 Also the building heights , it all goes back
18 to the same issue, building heights and setbacks and
19 offsets and et cetera, it was the only place that the
20 uses fit .
21 I believe that ends our portion.
22 CHAIRMAN LONG: Questions? Commissioner
— 23 Jerke .
24 COMMISSIONER JERKE : Thank you, Mr .
25 Chairman. I did have a few more questions that came
Page 357
1 to my mind during the process . I ' ll ask them.
2 I believe it was Mrs . Leise that brought up
3 the concept of outdoor broadcasting or filming and
4 how that ' s a problem in a facility in California, I
5 believe . Would you folks be amenable to some kind of
6 a requirement or condition of approval that would
7 limit your outdoor broadcasting ability in some way,
8 perhaps to hours or to decibels or to something like
9 that?
10 MR . GRINNELL : Sure, I would be amenable to
11 that .
12 COMMISSIONER JERKE : Okay. A couple of
13 other questions . What is the present use of the 300
14 and some acres of land?
15 MR. GRINNELL: Agricultural .
16 COMMISSIONER JERKE : And that would be
17 continued for this year, you assume?
18 MR. GRINNELL : Yes . We are -- we ' re under
19 agreement right now with the farmer .
20 COMMISSIONER JERKE : I think my overwhelming
21 question on it would be in light of some allegations
22 that were made by some of the opponents , how are you
23 going to take care of over 300 acres of land as you •
24 transition over the next 50 years? That is a very
25 large land mass to take care of . The stewardship has
Page 358
1 got to be there .
2 MR. GRINNELL : Sure . On Phase 1 , if we can
3 pull up the diagram - - continue to be farmed is the
4 answer . We show that on our site plan, so that there
5 are -- this right here on the site plan indicates
6 agricultural . I know the colors are difficult , but
7 this area up here, all of this area and all of this
,. 8 area we intend to continue to farm.
9 COMMISSIONER JERKE : So you would simply
10 rent out to a local farmer for a number of years and
_ 11 slowly transition in basically?
12 MR. GRINNELL : Yes .
13 COMMISSIONER JERKE : Okay, thank you. The
- 14 final question I had was an allegation by an opponent
15 as well that is perhaps a bit more sensitive but I
16 think we ought to know if there is some kind of other
— 17 deal that ' s in the wings that some principals that
18 would be within your church organization would be
19 able to profit from that is land that would be before
— 20 us soon in some other land use case . Can you tell us
21 about that if that exists?
22 MR. GRINNELL : There ' s a piece of property
— 23 right here, which is immediately to the west of the
24 Elms - - I mean Longview, I 'm sorry. It ' s getting
25 late . Sorry. I believe it ' s 57 acres . There are
Page 359
1 six of us that are members of the church that
2 purchased that property. _
3 It had been previously owned by Newsong
4 Christian Church -- or Newsong - - it ' s a four-square
5 church, but anyways Newsong Church. They offered it _
6 to LifeBridge .
7 LifeBridge had a contract on it that fell
8 through and then another contract on it that fell _
9 through, and by the time that the contract - - Newsong
10 finally was - - the deal was made, LifeBridge was no
11 longer interested.
12 We disclosed it to the elders of what was ,
13 going on and asked them if it would be a conflict of
14 interest from their perception if we purchased it . -
15 The reason that we went -- and they said no . The
16 reason that we were interested in purchasing it in
17 part was there is probably going to be some
18 profitability, one, unless all the property values go
19 down, and two, that it provides some direct benefit
20 to LifeBridge . -
21 There are an extremely large dollar amount
22 of off-sites that need to be brought to this site in
23 order to develop it . You ' ve heard some of the -
24 referral agencies about water and sewer and other
25 issues, streets as well .
Page 360
1 LifeBridge also owns a 129-acre parcel
2 surrounding concepts direct, which is in the city,
3 and so as the development of a road up through here
4 were to be made this property would share in the cost
5 of the road and it would share with the off-sites
6 that are generally being brought to this site .
7 Our agreement with the church, it ' s just a
8 handshake so to speak, but our agreement is to pick
9 up our fair share of the off-sites to help mitigate
10 the total cost of off-sites to LifeBridge .
11 So yeah, we do own it . There are six of us
12 that do . I believe we have a sketch plan in, is that
13 correct? Yeah, we have a sketch plan application in
14 on that parcel to be developed residentially.
15 COMMISSIONER JERKE : Thank you.
16 MR. GRINNELL : You bet .
17 CHAIRMAN LONG: Commissioner Geile .
18 COMMISSIONER GEILE : Yeah, I did have a
19 couple of questions . Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
— 20 I guess my main question, if we move ahead
21 with this today and approve it , in your opinion as
22 far as the square footage of the envelope what are we
— 23 approving, or what are we in essence -- if we approve
24 the concept today as explained by counsel , in your
25 opinion what does that give you -- what in essence
Page 361
1 does that tell you you can do with this property?
2 MR. GRINNELL : Are you talking specifically
3 the 160 acres or the whole site?
4 COMMISSIONER GEILE : No, I 'm just talking
5 about the church.
6 MR. GRINNELL : Okay.
7 COMMISSIONER GEILE : And what I ' m really
8 after is this thing really could be overload on this _
9 particular property, and as we ' re moving down the
10 road maybe some of those things are going to become
11 apparent , and my question is , what flexibility is _
12 there for us to deal with that and say, you know, 1 . 2
13 million square foot on this envelope is not
14 appropriate, it should only be 750 , 000 , or maybe from -
15 your perspective?
16 The other question -- and I 'm going to have
17 to apologize because I 'm going to have to ask for a _
18 break, but I have two questions I would like to put
19 to you and if it would be all right, Mr . Chairman, I
20 would like to take a quick break. -
21 But the other thing would be getting back to
22 -- I want to make sure I understand, the east
23 property line on this exhibit that we 've got here -
24 would be the east property line - - can you point it
25 out?
Page 362
— 1 MR. GRINNELL : Right there .
2 COMMISSIONER GEILE : All right . And then
3 we ' re talking about the section line of Section 5?
— 4 MR. GRINNELL: Yes .
5 COMMISSIONER GEILE : What ' s the difference
6 between the two?
7 MR. GRINNELL : It ' s the same .
- 8 COMMISSIONER GEILE : It ' s the same?
9 MR. GRINNELL: Yeah.
10 COMMISSIONER GEILE : Okay. So I guess my
_ 11 question would be, if we ' re talking about north of - -
12 we ' re talking about just where the church envelope
13 would be located?
_ 14 MR. GRINNELL : Yes .
15 COMMISSIONER GEILE : It would seem to me
16 that we 've heard enough testimony and have seen
— 17 enough that you ought to at least consider a 400-foot
18 setback rather than the 125 up there, and I would
19 just like to leave that with you for a minute, if you
— 20 wouldn' t mind, Mr . Chairman, because I really do need
21 to take a break.
22 CHAIRMAN LONG: We ' ll be in recess for five
— 23 minutes .
24 (Recess was taken from 8 : 07 to 8 : 15 p.m. )
25 CHAIRMAN LONG: We ' ll reconvene at this
Page 363
1 time . I think the question raised by Commissioner
2 Geile, if you ' re ready to address that .
3 MR. GRINNELL : Yeah, there were two as I
4 recall . The first one has to do with what do we get
5 if we ' re approved today, I think, in general and I
6 think it ' s with respect to the church campus .
7 I believe what we get, it ' s the ability --
8 we get a zone change on the ground with the ability _
9 to submit a final plan that ' s subject to approval of
10 staff , Planning Commission and the Board again on a
11 development plan, on a specific development plan. I
12 think that ' s what we get . I 'm probably not saying
13 that very well .
14 COMMISSIONER GEILE : Okay, as far as _
15 commitments , do you feel that you' ll have a
16 commitment for a campus that would equal 1 . 2 million
17 square foot or whatever that number - - -
18 MR. GRINNELL : I think we would have the
19 ability to ask, and I think that you all have to
20 approve it . -
21 COMMISSIONER GEILE : So is it your opinion
22 that as you ' re moving down the road and you ' re going
23 to bring these plans back to us every time you move -
24 ahead that we would still have the flexibility of
25 disagreeing and reducing the size if in fact it was
Page 364
1 not conducive to the development, surrounding area?
2 MR. GRINNELL: I guess it ' s our
3 understanding that you would have to then change the
4 zoning, but you certainly have the right to do that .
5 COMMISSIONER GEILE : The second question
6 then had to do with the 400-foot right-of-way?
7 MR. GRINNELL : Yeah, and that one I just
8 need some explanation on. One - - not so much the
9 question about 400 feet . That I understand. What is
10 it that that you ' re trying to achieve --
- 11 COMMISSIONER GEILE : What I 'm trying to do
12 is to create a land use buffer between the people who
13 live at the northern part of the area and your
— 14 particular project , the church campus .
15 In other words, as we 've heard, especially
16 from one lady that was sitting over here, and I have
— 17 her in my notes , that she looks out her front window,
18 you know, it ' s going to all be disappeared. And when
19 you think of 125 foot if all of a sudden you have a
— 20 75-foot structure right in front of you, you know,
21 that could have a negative effect on your residential
22 attitude I guess you might say.
— 23 But my question is , is why wouldn ' t you
24 agree to a 400-foot setback of open space between
25 property line and in essence your campus?
Page 365
1 MR. GRINNELL : And then what would the
2 building heights be at that point?
3 COMMISSIONER GEILE : You tell me what they
4 would be .
5 MR. GRINNELL : Just to make sure that I _
6 understand, you understand so to speak. There ' s 125
7 feet right here with nothing in it and then the next
8 125 feet is 35 is what we ' re suggesting . _
9 So at 250 feet off the property line then it
10 goes to 45 and at 400 feet off the property line
11 currently what we ' re suggesting is that it goes to _
12 55 , and then at 700 feet off the property line it
13 goes to 60 . Is that the way you understand it is
14 right now? _
15 COMMISSIONER GEILE : Where is the 75-foot?
16 MR. GRINNELL : The 75-foot is currently at
17 700 feet setback, I believe . Actually - - yeah, it _
18 is . There couldn ' t be anything over 60 feet closer
19 than 700 feet from the east property line . Is
20 that --
21 COMMISSIONER GEILE : I 'm beginning to
22 understand.
23 CHAIRMAN LONG: Commissioner Jerke?
24 MR. GRINNELL : If I could go over here one
25 more time, I ' ll just try to talk loud enough, or does
Page 366
1 she need it on this?
2 CHAIRMAN LONG: You can talk loud enough. I
3 don' t think that will probably go that far .
4 MR. GRINNELL : It ' s too late in the day to
5 break things?
6 Okay, this is the east property line . This
7 is the Elms development right here . Currently what
8 we have in our church campus bulk requirements is 125
9 feet with nothing, and then the next - - from 125 to
10 250 feet , that 125-foot envelope, we ' ve changed it
11 today to 35 feet in height maximum.
12 From 250 to 400 feet , so that 150-foot
13 envelope has a maximum height of 45 feet . From 400
_ 14 to 500 feet , that 100-foot envelope has a maximum
15 height of 55 feet . Beyond that it goes to 60 , so
16 from 500 feet to 700 feet the maximum height is 60 ,
_ 17 and only when you get past 700 feet does the maximum
18 height go above 60 to now 75 .
19 I might also point out that this area right
— 20 here is the only area on the entire campus where
21 buildings could be above 60 feet , and in addition to
22 that to provide some mitigation based on I believe --
- 23 it ' s Ms . Braunagel that you ' re speaking about maybe,
24 but because of conversations with her specifically
25 what we 've done at this point is allowed this portion
Page 367
1 of this and currently as a part of our application
2 we 've agreed not to build anything in that site for
3 10 years .
4 CHAIRMAN LONG: Counsel , questions?
5 MR. MORRISON: Mr. Gries had recited some
6 numbers he was asking for as a representative of his
7 group . He didn ' t submit the written exhibit . He ' s
8 asking if that could be done now. He thinks that may _
9 be relevant to this current discussion. It ' s within
10 your discretion if you want to open that up .
11 CHAIRMAN LONG: Sure . I wrote them down but _
12 that way we would all have the same numbers .
13 Any other questions right now for Mr.
14 Grinnell regarding - - because I 'm looking at this
15 packet here that has numbers on it and they' re not
16 what you' re stating. I 'm seeing 125 to 400 feet is
17 set at 45 feet, and so if you ' re proposing a _
18 different number set I don' t have it .
19 MR. GRINNELL : That ' s what we changed today.
20 CHAIRMAN LONG: I don' t have that . _
21 MR. MORRISON: So we 've got three sets of
22 numbers . We have the one that was earlier in the
23 application, the one that was proposed by the _
24 applicant, and another set proposed by the
25 neighborhood.
Page 368
— 1 CHAIRMAN LONG: Right , so I guess I don ' t
2 have anything.
3 MR. GRINNELL : So on the chart you ' re
— 4 looking at right now where you have the range that
5 says 125 to 400 is 45 feet , it needs to be split in
6 half .
7 CHAIRMAN LONG: What do you mean?
8 MR. GRINNELL : That one line needs to now
9 say 125 to 250 is 35 feet and 250 to 400 is 45 feet .
10 CHAIRMAN LONG: 250 to 400 , okay, 45 feet,
- 11 and then what ' s the next line where the line says
12 approximately Elms property line?
13 MR. GRINNELL : So --
- 14 CHAIRMAN LONG: Because there ' s four lines
15 here .
16 MR. GRINNELL : The three lines of text box
17 all go together . They aren' t --
18 CHAIRMAN LONG: So what would your next
19 expanse be after 400? It would be from 250 to 400 .
- 20 MR. GRINNELL : I ' m sorry. After 400?
21 CHAIRMAN LONG: Yes .
22 MR. GRINNELL : After 400 , yeah, it ' s as per
— 23 the chart . From 400 to 500 is 55 feet --
24 COMMISSIONER GEILE : Wait a minute now.
25 Where are we? Okay, let me tell you what I have .
Page 369
1 MR. GRINNELL : Yes .
2 COMMISSIONER GEILE : Excuse me . I was in
3 the wrong -- let me make sure I understand it .
4 MR. GRINNELL : Okay.
5 COMMISSIONER GEILE : From -- _
6 MR. GRINNELL : Can we just maybe go through
7 the whole chart?
8 COMMISSIONER GEILE : Yeah. _
9 MR. GRINNELL : Okay. I ' ll try to do it from
10 back here . You start at the top of the chart . From
11 the west property line over here there ' s nothing _
12 within 125 feet and therefore there are no buildings
13 and therefore there ' s no reference on this chart ,
14 okay? So everything for the buildings starts at 125 . _
15 Okay, so from the west property line 125
16 feet to 400 feet , that ' s this range right here, would
17 be 45 feet high, from the west property line . The _
18 next line here from 400 to 500 feet is 55 feet high,
19 and then anything over 500 feet is 60 feet, up to 90
20 in this box right here - - I ' m sorry, 75 . -
21 If we could look at the north property line,
22 from the north property line in 125 feet to 400 feet
23 is this area right here, and the reason it doesn ' t -
24 impact any of this is that there ' s a special caveat
25 that staff has asked that nothing above the tracks ,
Page 370
1 nothing north of the tracks go more than 45 feet . So
2 that ' s why the box doesn' t continue across .
3 From the north property line down, from 125
— 4 to 400 it ' s 45 feet high. From 400 to 700 feet it ' s
5 55 feet high. That ' s this green in here . And then
6 from 700 to 1 , 300 feet is limited to 60 feet high.
— 7 And then only after 1, 300-foot setback from the north
_ 8 can the buildings go up to 70 .
9 CHAIRMAN LONG: 75?
- 10 MR. GRINNELL : 75 . It ' s getting late for me
_ 11 too .
12 Now we deal with the east property line . We
13 start at 125 , so from 125 to 250 we 've changed it to
- 14 35 feet . From 250 to 400 it ' s 45 feet . From 400 to
15 500 it ' s 55 feet . From 500 to 700 it ' s 60 feet . And
16 after 700 it ' s 60 , up to 75 .
- 17 And just as a clarification on this box,
18 it ' s not all -- not everything in this box can be 75
19 feet . Only 20 percent of that box could ever be 75
— 20 feet . 80 percent of that box is 60 .
21 CHAIRMAN LONG: Must be at 60 or under?
22 MR . GRINNELL : Must be .
— 23 COMMISSIONER GEILE : Anything that ' s 75 feet
24 would have to be approved as far as the location
25 within that box?
Page 371
1 MR. GRINNELL : Yes .
2 COMMISSIONER GEILE : Would have to be
3 approved in a final plan that were to come back to
4 this Board?
5 MR. GRINNELL : Yes .
6 MR. MORRISON: So that -- these are the
7 numbers that Mr . Gries recited in the record. He
8 didn' t provide a written copy and this is Exhibit BB,
9 so everyone knows or we reiterate what was stated by
10 him. -
11 These only relate to the east property line . _
12 He would start at 400 and go to 700 feet at a 30-foot
13 height . The section line on Section 5 would start at
14 700 and go to 1 , 000 at 40 feet . The approximate Elms
15 property line would start at 1, 000 and go to 50 , and
16 then the next entry below that with a single
17 exception at 72 feet for the fly space . _
18 CHAIRMAN LONG: Fly space of 72 with the
19 bulk under 60 .
20 MR . MORRISON: Yeah. Well , 50 . He shows _
21 that as 50 .
22 CHAIRMAN LONG: Okay.
23 MR. GRINNELL : Mr. Geile, and I haven' t
24 answered your question yet , but did the clarification
25 -- do we still have a question?
Page 372
1 COMMISSIONER GEILE : No, I think I have a
2 better understanding of the way you 've tapered it up
3 with the 30-foot -- the 35-foot, that would be a
.. 4 residential . 40-foot , what would that be? It could
5 be what? The 35-foot would be what kind of
6 structure? It would be something associated with the
— 7 church?
8 MR. GRINNELL : Yes .
9 COMMISSIONER GEILE : 40-foot would be
10 something associated with the church?
.. 11 MR. GRINNELL : Yes .
12 COMMISSIONER GEILE : Or 45 . 55 would be
13 associated with the church?
14 MR. GRINNELL : Yes .
15 COMMISSIONER GEILE : And so would 75 .
16 MR. GRINNELL : Commissioner, if you look at
17 this cross-section right here, it ' s an envelope
18 that ' s similar to this except for this maximum height
19 right here is 90 and we 've -- it ' s now at 75 . I
— 20 believe that it would be here .
21 COMMISSIONER GEILE : I understand that, Mr.
22 Grinnell .
— 23 MR . GRINNELL : Okay.
24 COMMISSIONER GEILE : Thank you.
25 CHAIRMAN LONG: Commissioner Masden.
Page 373
—
1 COMMISSIONER MASDEN: Thank you. Yes , if we
2 change these numbers and set this and approve this
3 tonight , is it your understanding it ' s still just a
-
4 concept , that we can come back at the final hearing
5 and change this? _
6 MR. GRINNELL : Are you talking about the
7 bulk -- when you say this, can you be a little bit
8 more specific? _
9 COMMISSIONER MASDEN: Yeah, the height --
10 the distance off the property lines , things of this
11 nature, we can still do some adjustments? _
12 CHAIRMAN LONG: Counsel , you might want a
13 clarification.
14 MR. MORRISON: I don ' t believe so . I think _
15 these are the concept but there has to be something
16 approved that has some some - - that draws some
17 boundaries about what is going to be allowed in the _
18 future design.
19 What ' s designed within those stepped-up
20 height limitations is for the final plan, but I think _
21 you ' re -- I don' t think you can then turn around and
22 lower those without agreement from the applicant - -
23 CHAIRMAN LONG: For a change of rezone -
24 before an application was made . Any questions?
25 COMMISSIONER MASDEN: No .
Page 374
1 CHAIRMAN LONG: I had a few, if I may. Did
2 you have another one?
3 COMMISSIONER GEILE : No, I was just -- the
4 setbacks that were presented by Mr . Gries , Peter,
5 could you expand on that as to what your opinion is
6 by looking at those and giving those some
— 7 consideration?
8 MR. GRINNELL : What I understood them to be
9 was that from the property line to 400 feet there
10 would be no buildings at all . From 400 to 700 feet
- 11 the maximum -- there could be buildings and they
12 could be up to 30 feet high. From 700 to 1 , 000 feet
13 there could be buildings that could be up to 40 feet
., 14 high, and only after 1 , 000 feet could there be
15 buildings up to 50 feet high.
16 Now, that changed virtually - - it ' s a little
17 harder to describe, but it wouldn ' t quite be this
18 configuration but it would be similar -- it was
19 negotiable on the other setbacks from the other
— 20 property lines, but not negotiable on the east
21 property line .
22 So if he wasn ' t insisting that each of these
— 23 be 400 , 700 and 1 , 000 from the south or the north or
24 the east - - I ' m sorry, the west, but he asked
25 specifically for those -- and the maximum building
Page 375
1 height on the church campus at that point would be 50
2 feet with one exception, that is a fly space for our
3 Phase 1 building, our theater or the fly space in
4 the, quote, unquote, theater . Everybody calls it a
5 theater . It ' s actually an alternative worship space
6 for Sunday morning is why we ' re building it .
7 But that thing is up to 72 feet for that fly
8 space and that fly space only, which would have a
9 footprint of about 1 , 500 square feet , something like
10 that . So there would be approximately 1, 500 square
11 feet allowed above 50 to 72 for that one use only. I _
12 believe that was what he asked.
13 CHAIRMAN LONG: And what ' s your response?
14 You 've described it but I 've not heard really a _
15 response .
16 MR . GRINNELL : Oh, I 'm sorry. I thought - -
17 insomuch that 30-foot high buildings could in essence _
18 be constructed within 35 feet of the property line,
19 it seemed unreasonable to request a 400-foot setback
20 before you even got the buildings at all , and then we _
21 were clear at 700 feet before you could have a
22 building over 30 feet high.
23 And then with the maximum building height of _
24 50 at 1 , 000 feet , it ' s not a workable -- it ' s not a
25 workable alternative for the church. So when I
Page 376
— 1 called him and responded to him last night , I
2 believe, I believe that ' s what I said.
3 MR. GRIES : All was negotiable . He refused
— 4 to negotiate .
5 CHAIRMAN LONG: Excuse me . Thank you.
6 Commissioner Geile .
7 COMMISSIONER GEILE : I would like to go back
8 to my original question now that we have the numbers
9 in front of us . The east property line, the first
— 10 number, would you consider nothing being constructed
- 11 in the first 400 feet and then everything else remain
12 the same? I 'm still looking for that open space
13 buffer zone of 400 feet .
- 14 In other words , from here to here would be
15 400 feet and you couldn' t build in it , so which means
16 then it would read from 400 feet to 500 feet you
17 could still do 45 and you could dah, dah, dah, dah,
18 dah, if the dah, dah, dah, dah, dah' s made any sense .
19 MR. GRINNELL : Well , somewhat . What would
- 20 the height be at 400 feet?
21 COMMISSIONER GEILE : The height at 400 feet
22 would be --
- 23 MR. GRINNELL : The same as the table now
24 says and that ' s 55 feet?
25 COMMISSIONER GEILE : Well , it would be 45
Page 377
1 feet .
2 MR. GRINNELL : Currently at 400 feet it _
3 starts the 55-foot area .
4 COMMISSIONER GEILE : That ' s correct , so
5 that ' s what it would be . _
6 MR. GRINNELL : And when you say nothing is
7 built, does that include parking?
8 COMMISSIONER GEILE : I think that would have _
9 to come in in the final plan.
10 MR. GRINNELL : Because to lose 400 feet is
11 approximately 14 percent of the site for nothing but
12 open space . My initial reaction is that it ' s -- one,
13 is it ' s not big enough to farm. You would have to
14 maintain it . -
15 It would mean additional setback for any
16 buildings due to parking areas . It would take the
17 road out of it that ' s in there right now and -- I -
18 hear what you ' re saying and I 'm trying to work with
19 you on this one .
20 COMMISSIONER GEILE : Well , the road would -
21 still apply. That wouldn' t change . And I think we
22 would consider as long as it ' s well buffered or well
23 landscaped would be a parking area . -
24 MR . GRINNELL : If I could have some -- if we
25 could state it such that it wasn' t nothing and that
Page 378
1 it was a building envelope, would that be - - would
2 you consider that?
3 CHAIRMAN LONG: Commissioner Jerke .
4 COMMISSIONER JERKE : It seems to me that
5 we ' re asking a lot of one applicant that may need to
6 talk with others in the flock to determine what they
7 would like to do . To ask to give up 100 yards is a
- 8 football field, stretched out across a half a mile or
9 so, I suppose, to me that ' s a pretty big taking to
10 just be able to get a quick response on, in my
- 11 perspective .
12 COMMISSIONER GEILE : Well , and I understand
13 that , Commissioner . What I 'm trying to do, though,
_ 14 is to come up with some kind of a compromise so that
15 we can move ahead with this development one way or
16 another as far as decision, as far as a decision
17 tonight .
18 MR. GRINNELL : Commissioner, when I went
19 back to the initial question was what are we trying
— 20 to accomplish, because I -- and I think what you ' re
21 trying to accomplish at this point , if I understand
22 you right, is some mitigation in some way.
— 23 That ' s why we 've tiered I guess the building
24 envelopes , to try to accomplish that , and to put it
25 so that at 400 feet there ' s a 55-foot wall doesn' t
Page 379
1 seem to -- I 'm not sure that that would provide the
2 mitigation that we might if we would step it up from _
3 the edge . But I ' m - -
4 CHAIRMAN LONG: Commissioner Masden.
5 COMMISSIONER MASDEN: Thank you, Mr . _
6 Chairman. You ' re talking about doing some compromise
7 here . I 'm just sitting here looking at it . What if
8 we started at 250 feet and then went to our table of _
9 35 feet, 250 to 400 , and go through our heights that
10 way?
11 MR . GRINNELL : So increase the distance to -
12 the first building to 250 feet?
13 COMMISSIONER MASDEN: Yeah, and then 35
14 feet . -
15 MR. GRINNELL : And that building would be at
16 what height?
17 COMMISSIONER MASDEN: 35 feet . -
18 MR. GRINNELL: Then I have an envelope to
19 split there somewhere, and that -- so from 250 to
20 what would be 35 feet? -
21 COMMISSIONER MASDEN: 250 to 400 .
22 MR. GRINNELL : And then after 400 it goes to
23 55 feet? -
24 COMMISSIONER MASDEN: Say 400 to 500 would
25 be your 45 and then we would just go back to the
Page 380
1 table that way.
2 MR. GRINNELL : We need to add - -
3 COMMISSIONER MASDEN: Yeah, go from - -
- 4 MR. GRINNELL : We might be able to work
5 something out .
6 COMMISSIONER MASDEN: Yeah, 500 to 700 feet
— 7 would be your - -
8 MR. GRINNELL : It ' s a fairly complicated
9 table is why I ' m asking .
10 COMMISSIONER MASDEN: Yeah. You would go to
_ 11 your 400 to 500 feet at 45 feet, your 500 to 700 feet
12 at 55 , and then 700 plus would go to - -
13 MR. GRINNELL : Can I have just a minute?
_ 14 COMMISSIONER MASDEN: Oh, sure .
15 MR. GRINNELL : I don ' t know how well you can
16 see this diagram, but the thing we added this evening
17 was this pink envelope of 35 feet . If we were to not
18 build any buildings in that and left the rest of the
19 bulk requirements table the way it is, that would
— 20 give you 250 foot from the property line not only
21 from the Elms but also from Meadowvale Farms with
22 nothing in it .
— 23 MR. GRIES : The road was going there anyway,
24 no change .
25 CHAIRMAN LONG: Excuse me . Sir, you 've been
Page 381
1 warned. Thank you.
2 So your proposal is nothing basically for
3 250 feet and then go to the table?
4 MR. GRINNELL : It would be to come up with a
5 bulk requirements table that matches that drawing,
6 but tonight - - this morning, sorry, we talked about
7 changing that area which is currently pink, had been
8 before this morning 45-foot zone . _
9 And what we did last night was we recognized
10 the need to mitigate the 400-foot zone - - 400-foot
11 height - - 45-foot height right there . So we changed _
12 it to 35 feet this morning and that was one of the
13 requests we made .
14 So what I ' m offering at the moment is to
15 allow us to in lieu of asking for 35 feet in that
16 pink area to put no buildings in the pink area, which
17 would effectively increase the distance from the -
18 property line to the first building to 250 feet .
19 CHAIRMAN LONG: Commissioner Geile .
20 COMMISSIONER GEILE : Okay, and then where -
21 would the road be?
22 MR. GRINNELL : My understanding is the road
23 would still be allowed in that area . -
24 COMMISSIONER GEILE : Well , that would be in
25 the final plan.
Page 382
1 MR. GRINNELL : That ' s subject to final plat .
2 Roads aren ' t identified per se here . It could be a
3 building - - and that was the question and that was --
4 this negotiation was based on a conversation with
5 some homeowners and their point was to me that there
6 was no need -- they had no guarantee that a road had
— 7 to go there, and that if we moved the road we could
8 put a building up within 125 feet of the property
9 that was 45 feet high and I agreed, and that ' s why we
10 changed it to 35 feet .
11 And what we ' re saying here today is that to
12 further compromise we would - - not to reiterate but
13 do what we just talked about .
14 CHAIRMAN LONG: Any other questions? Oh,
15 I ' ll go back to mine, I guess . The question was
16 brought up before by public testimony of a question
17 just in regards to the traffic count . What ' s the
18 traffic count at the church now?
19 MR. GRINNELL : What day?
— 20 CHAIRMAN LONG: On a Sunday, on a peak
21 period.
22 MR. GRINNELL : Okay. We talked about
— 23 weekday traffic so much of the other time .
24 CHAIRMAN LONG: Well , let ' s hear the basic
25 comparison of apples to apples of what is existing at
Page 383
1 the current facility.
2 MR. DELICH: I hope I can answer this . What _
3 I did was --
4 CHAIRMAN LONG: If you could state your name
5 again for the record. _
6 MR . DELICH: I 'm sorry. Matt Delich. What
7 I did was take information given to me by the
8 LifeBridge community on their current facility, which _
9 is 4 , 900 square feet for your service area, your
10 church service area, 4 , 900 square feet , and they gave
11 me the count information, the parking type _
12 information for their service on a Sunday morning.
13 There were one, two, three or four - - three
14 services , and what I did was worked out a ratio of _
15 the square footage of their church service area and
16 their parking count and I took the highest number,
17 their highest church service and worked out the ratio _
18 of cars versus square footage .
19 The new facility will be 90 some hundred
20 square feet? I think it was about 9 , 500 square feet , _
21 so I applied that same ratio to that and got a new
22 number of cars and that ' s how I calculated the church
23 service . So I can' t tell you specifically - - well , -
24 not on the fly here, but you see what I did, though?
25 CHAIRMAN LONG: Yeah, I see the process you
Page 384
1 used to get there . Okay, thank you.
2 MR. DELICH: Does that satisfy?
3 CHAIRMAN LONG: Yes . Any other comments
4 that you would like to make in regards to responses?
5 MR. GRINNELL: This is Bruce Grinnell again.
6 No.
7 CHAIRMAN LONG: Okay. Any questions for
8 staff at this point? Commissioner Geile .
9 COMMISSIONER GEILE : Yeah, I would like to
10 -- and I know counsel went through it , but I would
11 like to have some more discussion around the referral
12 process, where we stand with that .
13 I also have Exhibit 6 up, Kim, and as I 'm
14 looking down through that I see where all the
15 referrals went out, and again this is Exhibit 6 and
16 it ' s dated -- referrals were sent December 23rd,
— 17 2002 , and received by January 17th, 2003 .
18 And I would assume that everything marked on
19 here was sent , and to get back to some of the
— 20 testimony that has been presented, the only
21 municipality, if I 'm reading this right , was Longmont
22 and then the only one that was sent a referral .
— 23 So what I need to do is getting back to the
24 testimony and the reference to this exhibit is for my
25 mind to find out exactly who did receive referrals
Page 385
1 and how did the process work. Can everybody hear
2 what I just said? _
3 MR. OGLE : Kim Ogle, Department of Planning
4 Services . Staff sent out a referral to the City of
5 Longmont , got response back for exhibit - - _
6 CHAIRMAN LONG: Can you speak up, please,
7 Kim? Thank you .
8 MR. OGLE : Staff hand-delivered a referral _
9 packet to the Town of Mead, which we have a signed
10 receipt for after that date . We asked for a - -
11 COMMISSIONER GEILE : Why is it not marked on -
12 Exhibit 6?
13 MR. OGLE : At the time staff did not send a
14 referral to the Town of Mead. We asked for a _
15 continuance at the hearing for Planning Commission to
16 give the Town of Mead an opportunity to respond to
17 our referral . -
18 COMMISSIONER GEILE : Do you have another
19 exhibit in the record that shows that that was sent,
20 hand-delivered or whatever? -
21 MR. OGLE : I don' t know offhand. I do know
22 that we have a receipt for it , though, yes .
23 MS . MIKA: Monica Mika, Department of -
24 Planning Services . Sorry about that . To answer your
25 question, because of the continuance we did
Page 386
- 1 hand-deliver the packet to the Town of Mead and I 'm
2 not sure what Kim has to validate that . We do have
3 the referral back from them to ensure that they did
4 get it .
5 There was some confusion over getting
6 referrals to the Town of Firestone and Frederick, so
7 those communities were contacted and given the
8 opportunity to comment and they did submit those into
9 the record.
- 10 That isn ' t - - that isn' t the normal
11 established process . I mean obviously best case
12 scenario is they should have all been notified sooner
13 in the process than later, but that didn ' t happen.
14 COMMISSIONER GEILE : Okay. So then we - - I
15 guess I 'm trying to establish - - we 've had some
16 reference to - - the counselor from Mead made
- 17 reference to certain -- and I didn ' t write them down
18 and I should know them but it ' s getting late in the
19 day, so maybe you might know them, Monica, but there
- 20 are certain codes that we follow in the referral
21 process and there were references made to that , also
22 to the three-mile rule, which there is different
— 23 requirements as it relates to different bodies .
24 So my question is , can you help me
25 understand how we have fulfilled those requirements
Page 387
1 and those obligations?
2 MS . MIKA: I sure can. As part of the
3 requirement for referral it ' s to ensure that prior to
4 hearing processes that - - and during the actual
5 application process that municipalities are given the _
6 opportunity and made aware of land use applications .
7 The Code specifically says the role of a referral is
8 to allow a municipality to provide you a _
9 recommendation.
10 And so the fact that those recommendations
11 are in the case would in essence to me say, yes , we _
12 did satisfy that obligation. Did we do it in the
13 most expedient fashion? No, we did not .
14 COMMISSIONER GEILE : My question, if this _
15 were to proceed to another venue, counsel , is the
16 approach that we 've used and the process that we ' ve
17 used, is it defensible? _
18 MR. MORRISON: Yes, presuming you follow up
19 and make the appropriate findings in your decision,
20 but the - - by the way Exhibit 201 is a referral _
21 response from the Town of Mead dated April 18th.
22 There is not in the record the actual record of
23 referral . Apparently planning staff has it in their _
24 file .
25 The only - - I think you need to make some
Page 388
1 judgment on the one from Mead because there ' s been
2 some dispute, both the written response and testimony
3 has been somewhat at odds, so I think you need to
4 evaluate that before making a decision.
5 But as far as the others, those were -- they
6 said they didn ' t need anything further to make a
— 7 referral , and I think that they are the party to whom
8 the issue revolves around.
9 It ' s not the same as a public notice
10 provision, which could apply to someone we don' t even
_ 11 see today because they didn ' t get notice if notice
12 was incorrect .
13 CHAIRMAN LONG: Any other questions? Can we
_ 14 see that?
15 MR. MORRISON: Which one? I haven ' t marked
16 it yet . If you want to admit it , it would be Exhibit
- 17 CC .
18 CHAIRMAN LONG: Commissioner Jerke .
19 COMMISSIONER JERKE : I think I would like to
— 20 take a look at that before I comment .
21 MR. MORRISON: Now, this is the receipt . As
22 I said, Exhibit 201 is actually the referral
— 23 response .
24 CHAIRMAN LONG: Can we have a copy of that?
25 MR. MORRISON: It ' s in your record.
Page 389
1 CHAIRMAN LONG: Commissioner Jerke .
2 COMMISSIONER JERKE : Mr. Chairman, if I
3 might, I think I ' m going to at least bring up the
4 idea, not going to make the motion at this point
5 until I hear from my colleagues whether or not they
6 think it would be appropriate or not , but I ' m going
7 to bring up the idea of continuing this case .
8 It seems to me that there are potential at
9 least allegations of irregularities concerning timing
10 as well as perhaps the quantity or quality of
11 materials that were in the referrals . _
12 That would really be my sole basis for
13 wanting to continue this, because I don' t want that
14 to serve as a basis for a lawsuit potentially against _
15 the applicant , potentially against the County, and I
16 fear that that could be the basis to potentially
17 overturn something. _
18 So I do want to bring that up to my
19 colleagues and see if they think that that does make
20 sense or not , and we can talk about timing later. _
21 The other positive aspects I guess to look
22 at from the applicant ' s perspective may well be the
23 fact that they would have opportunity to work through _
24 some of the problems that have manifested themselves
25 today, issues obviously with neighbors , connectivity,
Page 390
1 height , the staggered effects, the oil and gas is
2 significant in my mind still because it does need to
3 be handled really properly before we ever get to
4 final .
5 And so with that I ' ll let my colleagues
6 comment on it, but I do have a date in mind should we
7 decide to move down that road.
8 CHAIRMAN LONG: Commissioner Geile .
9 COMMISSIONER GEILE : Well , Commissioner, I
10 agree with you. I want to make sure that we do have
11 everything in place and it ' s done appropriately
12 because I think we all know that the next step on
13 either party ' s side no matter how the decision that
_ 14 we would render would come down would be the 106
15 process, which would have a district judge look at
16 it , isn' t that right , counsel , and could render a
_ 17 decision based upon many things, and to me to have
18 this covered I think would be appropriate .
19 And then we have -- in essence have - - in
— 20 view of what you 've done it just reinforces it . It
21 makes sure we 've gone that next step, Kim, to ensure
22 that we don' t have something down the road that would
— 23 come back and be a deterrent - - excuse me, I 'm
24 beginning to run out of words here, but could come
25 back and be a problem as far as the way we have
Page 391
1 either rendered a decision or have dealt with certain
2 facts in the case . So I would concur with you,
3 Commissioner.
4 CHAIRMAN LONG: Commissioner Masden?
5 COMMISSIONER MASDEN: Thank you, Mr .
6 Chairman.
7 COMMISSIONER JERKE : Go ahead.
8 COMMISSIONER MASDEN: I too have major
9 reservations on especially the oil and gas agreement
10 and get something worked out there or at least close
11 to finalize because that is a major issue . -
12 And I know we 've continued cases before, so
13 we ' re not setting a precedent here . We have
14 continued cases because of that and I think in light _
15 of everything that has come up here in the last few
16 hours with everyone, with neighbors , with the County
17 looking at different setbacks, building height _
18 envelopes, things of this nature, the applicant can
19 go back and maybe fine-tune theirs a little bit, we
20 can look at a few things with the County, and come _
21 back and have a shorter hearing next time . I would
22 concur .
23 CHAIRMAN LONG: Commissioner - - or counsel? -
24 MR. MORRISON: Before anyone makes a motion,
25 I think if you ' re headed that way you need to
Page 392
1 consider what form of testimony on what issues, how
2 limited that would be . You know, it ' s up to you if
3 you want to hear another 12 hours , but you may wish
4 to limit the testimony and the manner in which it ' s
5 submitted so that the same ground doesn' t get
6 replowed. But I think you' ll need to be specific
7 about how you want to go about that .
8 CHAIRMAN LONG: Thank you, counsel .
9 Commissioner Jerke?
.. 10 COMMISSIONER JERKE : Thank you, Mr.
11 Chairman. I think it almost goes without saying, but
12 I ' ll say it anyway, that obviously when we go and
13 redo this the idea would be to do a new referral in
14 which we obviously include all of the parties that
15 needs to be referred as well as - - and I would
16 suggest this, the entire sign-up list for today so
- 17 that people would understand that there is going to
18 be another hearing .
19 Having said that I would want to go ahead
— 20 and suggest that we go ahead and restrict this just
21 as counsel has suggested, go ahead and restrict it to
22 the items that we ' re mentioning here at this point ,
— 23 that we ' re going to talk about oil and gas, we ' re
24 going to go ahead and talk about heights , the
25 setbacks obviously, connectivity, other issues , kind
Page 393
1 of grasping here at this point , but the issues that
2 we find that are significant obviously.
3 And I think we would also want to take a
4 look at limiting to two or three spokesmen for each
5 side perhaps . Something like that might make some _
6 sense so that we don' t get into a real long
7 dissertation again from the public .
8 CHAIRMAN LONG: Any other comments? _
9 I guess I ' ll make a few comments . I 'm in
10 agreement with this scenario that has been proposed
11 here . Being able to limit it - - although we haven' t _
12 really decided on anything, you know, regarding Blue
13 Mountain and Pearl Howlett , as far as those
14 connectivity issues and things, so there ' s a lot of _
15 issues to cover .
16 But we 've heard basically the testimony from
17 both sides on those issues so we could be able to go _
18 without any further testimony on some of those .
19 But just allow to be able to revisit the
20 areas and I think we need to be specific if we can as -
21 far as oil and gas, any height changes or setbacks
22 that would go along with that area, and the other
23 ones that we ' re going to have to decide anyway as far -
24 as the connectivity goes .
25 Any other issues?
Page 394
1 COMMISSIONER GEILE : I think you 've just - -
2 if I could, Mr . Chairman, I think you pretty well
3 described them because the issues that you 've
4 mentioned, especially the connectivity issue, I
5 certainly have some comments and I think we 've heard
6 enough testimony on that to not bring that back. I
7 think that needs to come back as a deliberation, once
8 we bring the case back to us .
9 In other words , this would not prevent us
10 from - - we have not proceeded in rendering any
11 decision and the basis for that decision, so we could
12 bring connectivity back to us - - we could discuss
13 connectivity and it doesn' t necessarily have to be
- 14 something that goes out and requires further analysis
15 or further elaboration.
16 MR. MORRISON: Can I propose a slightly
— 17 different approach? And that is if you do referrals
18 and ask the applicant to address the possible changes
19 in the heights and setbacks that - - and ask staff to
— 20 review the referral - - well , the referrals will be
21 redone, that maybe one way to do -- accomplish this
22 would be establish a time frame prior to the hearing
— 23 which everything in writing needs to be submitted and
24 limit the testimony on all sides to new issues that
25 arise from that written documentation.
Page 395
1 Because we ' re at a stage where the applicant
2 has already done their rebuttal . If new things come -
3 up, it ' s not inappropriate to reopen the hearing. My
4 concern is just reopening the hearing in total .
5 So I think one way to do it would be provide _
6 - - all the stuff has to be addressed in writing prior
7 to a date that would allow everyone the opportunity
8 to review the new materials and be prepared to -
9 comment on new evidence .
10 CHAIRMAN LONG : Commissioner Geile .
11 COMMISSIONER GEILE : I concur with that,
12 counsel , if I may, but there could be - - if in fact
13 -- we have somewhat of a disagreement with as an
14 example the Town of Mead that was presented by one of -
15 their counselors today, so they might want to come
16 back with more of an elaborate presentation.
17 In other words, I want to make sure that -
18 anybody who feels in the referral process that they
19 were not given adequate information to make a
20 referral would be given that opportunity to make a -
21 presentation to us .
22 And I 'm not saying that it would be
23 unlimited presentation as much as I ' m saying they -
24 would be able to deal with the referral and come back
25 - - I guess I 'm saying it would be unimpeded but they
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