HomeMy WebLinkAbout20040780 128
1 AFTERNOON SESSION
2 THE CHAIRMAN: Okay. We' ll open this meeting up
3 for public comment. I will call the name of the first
4 speaker and then the next speaker that follows. So please
5 come up and be prepared.
6 The first speaker will be Darla, and I apologize
7 for butchering your names before I do it, Darla Gabbitas.
8 MS. GABBITAS: Gabbitas (pronouncing) .
9 THE CHAIRMAN: Gabbitas (pronouncing) . See, I
10 couldn't win on that one. The next speaker will be Vicki
11 Braunagel.
12 MS. GABBITAS: I couldn't say that last name the
13 first time I pronounced it either.
14 Speak up? Okay. Is that better?
15 THE CHAIRMAN: Is it on? Okay.
16 MS. GABBITAS: There we go.
17 THE CHAIRMAN: Okay.
18 MS. GABBITAS: Is that better? I 'm usually very
19 loud, so I ' ll apologize if I get too loud.
20 My name is Darla Gabbitas. My husband and I, Ian,
21 have two children, and we live at 11627 Victor Drive, and
22 that address is in the Elms at Meadow Vale, right next door
23 to the Farms at Meadow Vale. I 'm not from here, as my accent
24 might give away, so you' ll forgive me if I 'm a little
25 nervous. I 'm not used to such formal proceedings for these
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1 type matters. Back home where I 'm from, two or three of you
2 guys would have come over to my house to have a cup of
3 coffee, and you would have looked at my situation and
4 discussed it with me. You might not have agreed with me or
5 ruled in my favor, but we would have talked about it over
6 coffee. So I 'm a little nervous. Thank you for your
7 service, and thank you for listening to me.
8 THE CHAIRMAN: Don't push that microphone away from
9 you because --
10 MS. GABBITAS: I just have a very short time to
11 present our -- my side of the story to you, and I know you've
12 read the file materials and you're familiar with the subject.
13 So I hope you can appreciate that my brief remarks hit
14 highlights of points that could take days to delve into and
15 to discuss thoroughly.
16 I find myself in a unique position today of
17 agreeing with Mr. Grinnell. We've had many discussions in
18 the past over the course of this application where we did not
19 agree. And today we have found something to agree about, and
20 I 'm very pleased and proud about that.
21 LifeBridge is a fine entity. They're very nice
22 people, and all the people in our neighborhoods are very nice
23 people as well. But, to me, LifeBridge only represents
24 traffic. And we agree, Mr. Grinnell and I , and LifeBridge
25 and I agree that traffic through Pearl Howlett and Blue
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1 Mountain Road is not appropriate. And I am only going to
2 talk about traffic and safety. Those are the only points
3 that I am here to make today, and to ask you to say no to
4 connectivity.
5 We are not opposed to pedestrian connectivity and
6 bike paths and any kind of connectivity other than vehicular
7 traffic. And so my remarks are addressed to that.
8 In preparing for today, I read the ordinances, read
9 most of the file, read the traffic study, and found myself
10 needing to go consult a dictionary; the Oxford English is the
11 one I looked at. And I looked up the definition of "shall. "
12 You' ll know why in a minute. Shall means must, and it
13 expresses a duty to the person it ' s directed to.
14 I looked up the definition of compatible.
15 Compatible means well-suited, consistent and used in
16 combination. I 'm certainly not teaching you guys anything
17 new. I 'm only sharing with you the things I had to go learn.
18 I also looked up the definition of existing, and
19 existing means what's already there. So, with that as a
20 background.
21 In reviewing the traffic study that was done in the
22 summer of 2002 , prior to connectivity becoming an issue in
.23 this matter, and in reading Mr. Delich's -- I hope I didn't
24 butcher your name, I 'm sorry if I did -- his memo of February
25 that updates the traffic study, I found myself going back
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1 time and time again looking for the page in here and the
2 traffic study that concerns Pearl Howlett, that concerns Blue
3 Mountain Road. Not one page. Not a single car issue in the
4 entire traffic study goes to opening Pearl Howlett. It
— 5 doesn't consider it. It doesn't consider connectivity with
6 my community.
7 It also doesn't consider some new communities that
8 are being planned south of Mead. Currently, I am aware that
9 there is a 700-acre development of less than quarter-acre
— 10 home sites going in which will generate traffic, and I
11 understand from LifeBridge that it' s their plan, their hope
—
12 and their prayer that they would draw 2 percent of all these
13 community members to their congregation. That means traffic
14 not considered in the traffic study from a different area and
15 a different flow and a different pattern.
16 And quite frankly, with all due respect to the
—
17 traffic scientists and the traffic engineers, I respect their
18 field immensely, but to me, it' s kind of like the weather.
19 The weatherman can tell you that it' s not going to snow, and
20 you walk outside and that white stuff is falling on your
21 head. It' s snowing. And when the traffic engineers tell you
22 that I-25 should handle all the flow and you should never
23 have problems, when you're sitting in the traffic stop, in
24 the stopped traffic on I-25 trying to get to Denver for 30
25 minutes, the human element is what is missing. It's the
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1 human element that caused the car accident. It 's the
2 unpredictability of the weather. And it's the
3 unpredictability of this traffic without any study at all
4 through Pearl Howlett that seriously concerns me, my family
5 and all of my neighbors.
6 I don't think that we' ll hear from any citizen at
7 all, any member of LifeBridge Church and from no one other
8 than the traffic planner for the government who supports this
9 idea of connectivity.
10 If you take that human element I was just speaking
11 of and you apply it to LifeBridge and you say that on a very,
12 very modest day there are 1, 500 cars at any event at their
13 facility, and you apply that I want to get home now, I want
14 to get home, first human element, and you say that half of
15 them decide to go out Pearl Howlett instead of the way that
16 the traffic engineers say that they will want to go, then
17 that' s about 700 cars that are going to come flow through our
18 neighborhood.
19 Now, that's a very modest, modest interpretation.
20 In fact, the gentleman who spoke about three speakers ago
21 said that there would be 8, 250 trip ins at a worship service
22 that would be the zone that would be connected to Pearl
23 Howlett.
24 Now, there isn't a traffic study for me to refer
25 back to, so I 've used my common sense, and I 've observed the
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1 traffic on Pearl Howlett. And currently it is my best guess,
2 in trying to be very honest, that we get a few hundred car
3 trips per month on that road. It is the rural nature and
4 flavor of that community that attracted the homeowners in the
— 5 Elms and the homeowners in the Farm. Many relied on the MUD
6 to know what was going on around them, and many relied on the
—
7 appearance of the community, that existing community. And
8 they relied on it to know that it would be low traffic, safe
9 for their children, and a quiet place to live without
— 10 traffic. And that is what they want to maintain, as do I .
11 I think the most important thing that' s not
12 considered in this traffic study right here is that the
13 future of my children and the children of my neighbors, we
14 have to cross the street, Pearl Howlett Road, to get to our
15 mail center. That's something most children ride their
16 bicycles with their parents to go do. We cross that street
— 17 to get to the future site of our playground for our
18 community, something that we would like to let our children
19 ride their bikes to without having to have a traffic
20 policeman, red lights and other things that are known in high
21 traffic areas in larger communities. It is the rural flavor
— 22 of this community that we want to preserve through traffic
23 control. Connectivity means no traffic control for our
24 community.
25 I think another thing that this traffic study did
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1 not consider is the significant cost of connectivity. It
2 doesn't talk about what 's going to happen at the intersection
3 of 5 1/2 with 119, which as you flow out Pearl Howlett and
4 Blue Mountain Road, that' s where you get to. You get to 119.
— 5 There' s no red light there currently. There 's no stop sign.
6 There 's no traffic controls whatsoever.
—
7 THE CHAIRMAN: You need to wrap it up.
8 MR. GABBITAS: Yes, sir. Thank you.
9 With all due respect to the public safety officer
— 10 who spoke before me, and he spoke about the quality of life,
11 I would submit very respectfully to him and to this board,
12 that I and my neighbors are the best judges of our quality of
13 life. I don't want it, we don't want it, Mr. Grinnell and
14 LifeBridge don't want it. Please don't put it in.
15 I would finally direct you to the law, in Section
16 26-170C-1.c, "Access to properties in the PUD, " that means
17 from LifeBridge, "shall preserve the existing and future
18 function of roads and highways affected by the proposed
19 development. " We want the existing function of our road
20 preserved.
21 In conclusion, I shall thank you again, and I
— 22 submit to you that it is my humble opinion that it is your
23 duty as our Planning Board to require the new traffic uses to
24 be compatible with our streets, our homes, our children' s
25 parks, our mail center, our quality of life. Please say no
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1 to connectivity. Thank you.
2 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you. Hold on a second. One
3 of the Board would like to ask a question.
4 COMMISSIONER ROHN: It 's actually for Frank.
5 THE CHAIRMAN: Okay.
6 COMMISSIONER ROHN: On -- never mind.
7 THE CHAIRMAN: Okay. Thank you.
8 MS. GABBITAS: Thank you.
9 THE CHAIRMAN: The next speaker is Vicki Braunagel.
10 After her, it' s Myrna Sullivan.
11 MS. BRAUNAGEL: Good afternoon. My name is Vicki
12 Braunagel. I 'm here on behalf of myself and my husband,
13 Duane Braunagel, and we live at 11677 Montgomery Circle in
14 the Elms at Meadow Vale.
15 In order to place the location of our home, I need
16 to tell you that we abut the eastern boundary of LifeBridge
17 property, that we are directly behind the fellowship hall and
18 dinner theater. And you will note that it is defined on the
19 map as fellowship hall and dinner theater, which is to be
20 constructed in Phase 1 of Filing 1, which is a 60-foot
21 building with 90-foot portions and approximately 158 , 000
22 square feet. That is what we will view through our windows
23 to the west.
24 We have both lived in communities with churches.
25 In fact, we have lived behind a church before, and we were
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1 pleased to believe we were going to have a church as a
2 neighbor. And I think we still will have a church as a
3 neighbor. I 've seen churches work very compatibly, and
4 they're a very intragel part of the community. It is the
5 massive size and the towering heights of these buildings that
6 render it incompatible with the surrounding uses.
7 As everybody has noted for you already, and your
8 attorney knows, and you will already know, under the Zoning
9 Code and the PUD and the MUD Codes, approval here can only be
10 granted only if the applicant has met its burden of proof to
11 show uses compatible with the surrounding uses. That
12 standard, in my opinion, obligates you to resolve all doubts
13 in favor of the neighbors.
14 We have a letter on file from my husband and I ,
15 dated March 5, 2003 , and it addresses a number of issues,
16 some of which have been resolved by the church in their
17 concessions. But I want to focus today on the heights
18 because I believe it' s the heights of the large buildings
19 that are the most obtrusive and intrusive part of this
20 proposed development.
21 The Planning Staff focused on the heights as well.
22 And commenting on the 120-foot proposed heights, which were
23 requested, the Planning Staff found that they did not meet
24 the compatibility standard. They did find that should those
25 heights be reduced to the 90 foot, which they are currently
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1 reduced to, that would constitute compatibility.
2 I want to tell you I think that does not comply
3 with common sense. 120 foot would constitute basically two
4 Greeley National Bank, now Bank One, stacked on top of each
5 other; clearly not compatible. But does a building just
6 slightly shorter than the Pepsi Center in Denver, which seats
7 20, 000 people, placed in the middle of residential
8 neighborhoods constitute compatible? Doesn't that just
9 simply take the absurd to merely ridiculous?
10 I believe that this building, if constructed, is
11 probably the largest, tallest building in Weld County. If
12 you can tell me where there' s another one, I ' ll be happy to
13 go look at it. But does it make sense, common sense, to
14 define compatible as putting the largest, tallest building in
15 the County amongst three existing residential communities?
16 The uses which drive these requested heights are
17 not church-related uses. There' s not a church in the County
18 that comes close to these heights. The need for the heights
19 are related to the theater usage; (inaudible) space, double
20 balconies requested for theater uses. By your code, a
21 theater use is a C2 general commercial use.
22 If you look, as we all have, at the MUD structural
23 map, it designates this area as residential. It designates a
24 neighborhood center along 119 . The area north of the
25 Olagachy Ditch, which you will see, is all shown as
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1 residential, and yet that is the location for these high,
2 tall uses, which are commercial in nature.
3 I believe that in order to approve those uses in
4 that location, you are constituting an amendment of the MUD.
5 Is that what you intend?
6 THE CHAIRMAN: You need to wrap it up.
7 MS. BRAUNAGEL: Yes, sir.
8 I would propose a different test for compatibility.
9 I would ask you to think about sitting in the homes of your
10 parents with this proposed structure and set of structures to
11 be built behind their home within a few hundred yards of
12 their back door and their major windows and ask yourself,
13 could you explain to them how it was compatible with their
14 30-foot residential dwelling. Could you justify to them a
15 vote to recommend approval?
16 This is a lovely part of the county. It' s why most
17 people moved here. It 's a part of the county that' s going to
18 experience growth; we know that. There' s been a tremendous
19 amount done by the Planning Staff, by you all, to come up
20 with a way to manage that growth, and to preserve the visual
21 corridors and the scenic attributes and the aesthetics of
— 22 this community. Please don't place in the middle this
23 massive towering structure which will become the focal point
24 for all eyes as they look west. You will dwarf the meaning
25 of those visual corridors, and you will leave us with a
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1 blight on the future development of this part of the county
2 for the rest of our lives. We urge you to recommend denial
3 for the County Commissioners.
—
4 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you.
— 5 Myrna Sullivan? Next up is Kathy Oliver.
6 MS. SULLIVAN: My name is Myrna Sullivan. I live
7 at 11753 Center Drive, and I am here representing my husband,
8 Wesley, and myself.
9 We moved here recently from the Washington, D.C. ,
10 northern Virginia area. We took our time finding a home. I
11 came out here on three different occasions, spent 27 days
12 looking at houses and looking at views and making my decision
13 based on the neighborhood and what was planned for the open
14 spaces nearby. What I saw on the open space nearby was
15 residential. So I wasn't concerned about losing views and
16 purchasing a very expensive home with that in mind.
— 17 I 'm also concerned about the fact that I don't see
18 any environmental studies, anything that has been done by
19 Wildlife because I have noticed this past winter that there's
20 an awful lot of geese and other migrating birds that come
21 through the area. There are ponds. The ditch has to be
— 22 affected. And I 've noticed on the plans that a portion of
23 that ditch will be moved and closed in, and I would like to
24 know how that is going to affect the wildlife. I think
25 that ' s very important, moving out of a major concentration of
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1 people. It was a big thing for us to be able to be around
2 the wildlife, to be able to see the stars at night. I walked
3 out of the house the first night we were there, and I said,
4 wow, I can actually see the stars. They're not encrowded in
— 5 smog. It's wonderful. They look so close. And I think that
6 is something that has to be addressed with the light
7 pollution as well and something that we all need to consider,
8 not just in an endeavor the size of LifeBridge. I have
9 absolutely nothing against any church. I am an active member
10 in a church. I have family in the ministry. It is not an
11 issue of church. It is the absolute monster size of this
—
12 facility in small community.
13 I believe it would be better served to place that
14 situation out in a different area where it would not have an
— 15 impact on the existing communities.
16 I also got my calculator out when I was looking at
17 the trips per day. With two points of egress, which is what
18 we would prefer, that ' s an awful lot of trips a day going out
19 of LifeBridge when you're talking 26, 000 trips a day.
20 If you bring those through connectivity down Pearl
21 Howlett, that would mean Pearl Howlett would absorb about
— 22 1, 083 car trips a day. That would be about 135 car trips per
23 hour, and that's just on the numbers of 26, 000 trips a day.
24 That would be giving three major points of egress, and I am
25 adamantly against that because of the park and the mail
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1 center being right there. There ' s 200 feet of that street
2 that fronts our park, and I feel that it' s very important
3 that that be taken into consideration. And I thank you for
4 your time.
5 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you. Kathy Oliver. The next
6 up is Anda Brenholt. And please, I would reiterate to you,
7 try not to be repetitive. If you have something new to add,
8 we'd love to hear it, but in the interest of time, we really
9 can't go over the same issues over and over and over.
10 MS. OLIVER: Thank you.
11 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you.
12 MS. OLIVER: I 'm Kathryn Oliver. I live at 2385
13 Homestead Place, Longmont 80504 . I am a resident of Meadow
14 Vale Farm.
15 For about 70 years, beginning in 1926, the 100
16 acres in the southernmost section of this application
17 belonged, first of all, to my grandfather and then to myself
18 and then -- then to my father, and then to myself. So from
19 my grandpa, to my father, to myself. So that' s a 70-year
20 period of time.
21 Some facts, though. I don't own that land now.
22 The only way to exercise control over that land is to own it.
23 As recently as February, a judge in the Weld County Court
24 ruled that the only way residents can protect views is to
25 purchase the air space over the land. Weld County does not
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1 have a preservation of view ordinance. The State of Colorado
2 does not have a preservation of view law.
3 Over my distant past, the Weld County Commissioners
4 approved a trailer court for this site. However, it was not
— 5 built. A large vitamin manufacturer presented a proposal for
6 this site. Pulty Homes proposed 850 homes for this site.
7 none of these, I might mention, included any proposal for
8 interconnectivity.
9 This property is in the MUD. Did I really like the
— 10 time when we harvested wonderful crops of sugar beets from
11 this property? Yes, I did. Do I support the application of
12 LifeBridge Church for this property? Yes, I do. It' s the
13 best I 've seen since the MUD was put in place, and, yes, I
14 support the application because of the hard work of many of
_ 15 my neighbors at Meadow Vale Farm and because of the efforts
16 of LifeBridge Church to work with my neighbors when
17 (inaudible) and foster compatibility.
18 Would I rather have sugar beets? Yes, but there
19 haven't been sugar beets there for quite a few years.
20 Mr. Grinnell has been open to discussions. He has
21 been hospitable in every way. Along with his church leaders,
— 22 he has ultimately fostered genuine compromise in the best
23 interest of myself and of my neighbors at Meadow Vale Farm.
24 This is the first point that I wish to make.
25 My second point is as follows. It' s a matter that
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1 is of really great concern to me and I believe of great
2 concern to my neighbors at Meadow Vale Farm. It' s the issue
3 of interconnectivity with Blue Mountain Road.
4 THE CHAIRMAN: Ma'am, we've already gone over that
— 5 a half a dozen times, so I don't think we need to go over it
6 again. So you need to wrap it up.
—
7 MS. OLIVER: I will. Seven years ago the Weld
8 County Planning Commission approved the rural, low-density
9 subdivision of Meadow Vale Farm. This included one-acre
— 10 lots. We ride horses in our streets. We raise chickens on
11 our one-acre site. We have 4H projects. Our streets are 20
— 12 feet wide. They were designed, approved, instructed and
13 accepted by Weld County. We maintain these streets.
14 I won't go over Bruce Grinnell 's statements at your
15 request because his comments on interconnectivity are pretty
16 much what I would have said.
— 17 It' s not hard to get there from here. The west
18 (inaudible) section of what many of you recall as JCK Farm
— 19 has always been easy to get to. It's accessible to the
20 entire farm. We've always found it simple to get here from
21 there and there from here.
— 22 Interconnectivity doesn't fit here.
23 Interconnectivity shouldn't be forced backwards onto a
24 neighborhood not designed for it. This is (inaudible) . It
25 (inaudible) what has been designed by planners as a
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1 (inaudible) subdivision, not just Weld County planners, but
2 other planners. I think there are people here from Weld
3 County Planning that can support the fact that Meadow Vale
4 Farm has been regarded as a (inaudible) subdivision.
— 5 Interconnectivity seeks to redefine in a most
6 negative manner in this neighborhood.
7 I would be happy to entertain any questions that
8 you might have. Are there those on the Planning Commission
—
9 that would have any questions at this time?
— 10 THE CHAIRMAN: Are there any questions?
11 (No response. )
—
12 THE CHAIRMAN: None. Thank you.
13 MS. OLIVER: All right. Thank you very much.
14 THE CHAIRMAN: Anna Brenholt. Next up is Debra
15 Jenkins.
16 MS. BRENHOLT: Good afternoon. My name is Anda
17 Brenholt, and I live at 11689 Montgomery Circle.
18 This is really emotional for us. If you could
19 please -- it directly impacts our lives and our families, so
20 please just let us speak so we could at least have a fighting
21 chance. That's first. Okay. I 'm going to take a deep
— 22 breath
23 Pastor, you told a story, and I 'm going to tell you
24 my story, too. I 'm originally from Wisconsin, and I 've moved
25 nine times in the last 16 years. When we moved to Colorado,
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1 I finally told my husband, that' s it, I am not going
2 anywhere. And we decided to take our time and find a
3 community where we can raise our three children. I 'm the
4 mother of three children. My son has gone to three
— 5 elementary -- four elementary schools, excuse me, in the last
6 three years. I 've chosen this community because I wanted a
—
7 safe rural, pastoral setting to raise my setting. I chose it
8 because of the views and the open space. I chose it because
9 my kids can walk across the neighborhood and see their
— 10 buddies play. I chose it because in the evenings I hear
11 coyotes running in the open space. I chose it because I hear
—
12 geese in the morning. I chose my community. I don't want
13 LifeBridge's community to choose me. Thank you.
14 If LifeBridge's community, this campus, which I see
15 as a commercial campus with the church affiliated, and I 'm
16 sorry if that offends anybody, but this is a church with a
— 17 major commercial development around it. I welcome a church.
18 I would love to have a church. In these days and times with
19 the war in Iraq, we need a solid foundation to build on. I
20 would welcome LifeBridge, but I also don't want the
21 monstrosity that they want planned. A church building,
— 22 wonderful. I don't want commercial development. I don't
23 want all that with it, please.
24 Like I 've said before, I 've chosen my community.
25 I 've chosen the rural pastoral setting, and I 'd like to be a
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1 part of the planning myself of what we'd like to have in the
2 community.
3 If LifeBridge does come in, my husband and I
—
4 already have discussed that we will sell and we will move
— 5 again -- again. My son this morning -- my husband took him
6 to McDonald' s for breakfast, and he said, "Dad, I really like
7 my school. I really like it here. I don't want to move
8 again. So, please, don't make me move. " Thank you.
9 THE CHAIRMAN: Next up is Debra Jenkins, followed
10 by Paul Hallmark.
11 MS. JENKINS: Hello, my name is Debra Jenkins. I
—
12 live at 11723 Pleasant Hill Road, Elms at Meadow Vale.
13 First of all, someone had requested that I read a
14 letter from them. He's also in our community. He' s not able
15 to be here -- Ken Auer. He had sent this originally to Glenn
16 Vaad, V-A-A-D.
—
17 "I am writing with much concern over the mega
18 church to be located north of Highway 119 and east of County
19 Road 3 1/2 that is proposed.
20 "When we moved into our retirement home last
21 October, we had no idea of the magnitude of the church that
— 22 is planned to be built behind us, literally in our back
23 yard. " They are in the homes right -- or right behind or
24 right in front of the open space.
25 "We knew the land was zoned residential, and that a
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1 church would be built with respect to the surrounding area.
2 If you were to poll a large group of people and ask them if
3 they would object to a church being built in their community,
4 I 'm sure they would be in favor of it.
5 "Webster' s definition of a church is a building for
6 public, and especially Christian worship, not a commercial
7 complex consisting of an amphitheater, schools, senior
8 center, retail building, thousands of motor vehicles, noise
9 and light pollution, and all under the umbrella of the word
10 church.
11 "I believe if a group of businessmen/women want to
12 pursue the mega complex idea, build it in a location already
13 zoned for commercial business where such things as traffic,
14 noise, light, pollution and extra law enforcement is always
15 factored in.
16 "I 'm confident if you put yourself in our position,
17 you would want this property zoned residential or possibly
18 green belt. Thank you. Ken Auer. "
19 Now, for me, what I want to say is someone had said
20 that they were talking about bringing heart to this
21 community. Well, this is the face of heart to this
22 community. I have my two children here. We originally grew
23 up in Wyoming, but we lived many years in San Francisco. We
24 moved out here to live in a community that we built in, and
25 if we wanted to live elsewhere or have the development, a
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1 neighborhood grocery store, a neighborhood whatever they
2 want, whatever they're bringing in, I would have stayed in
3 Boulder County. We moved out of Boulder County to Weld
4 County, to this area, because it was so inviting for my
5 children, and you connect all the -- you could connect all
6 the streets and you have access. You're inviting people we
7 don't know. My children will never -- won't be able to ride
8 their bikes in a street if you have other cars going through.
9 It's not going to be safe, and it' s just going to lose what
10 we bought for.
11 And, you know, I just wanted to put a face to the
12 heart that' s always there in our community. They didn't go
13 around asking us do we want -- you know, they're inviting us
14 to their neighborhood that they want to build. But, you
15 know, we're happy with what we have. And had they asked and
16 had they taken into account what we really wanted, it would
17 have never been proposed. And that' s all that I have to say.
18 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you. Paul Hallmark. And
19 after Paul will be Danielle Didonna, I think.
_ 20 MR. HALLMARK: Good afternoon. My name is Paul
21 Hallmark, and I live at 1964 Blue Mountain Road. And there's
22 just a couple things because a lot of the things I wanted to
23 talk about have already been addressed, and I don't want to
24 waste your time. But there's two issues in regards to
25 connectivity I do want to bring up.
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1 If you guys think that connecting Blue Mountain is
2 just going to affect Blue Mountain and Pearl Howlett, I think
3 you're gravely mistaken because Blue Mountain dead ends into
4 Meadow Vale Road, and, people, it' s going to affect our whole
5 development.
6 The other thing is the County approved these roads
7 at 20 feet wide. So if you go out to the west end of Blue
8 Mountain and figure out the width of the roads, where they're
9 going to have to be, look at how much it' s going to invade
10 into people's homes there. It's -- for many people there,
11 it' s just unacceptable.
12 So I just wanted to add that, and that' s it. Thank
13 you.
14 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you. Danielle. Next up is
15 Kim Kittilson.
16 MS. DIDONNA: This is going to be interesting.
- 17 It 's a podium that's smaller than me.
18 Hello, everyone. I came here today to talk to you
19 about what is being proposed here. My name is Danielle
20 Didonna, and I live at 11729 Montgomery Circle in the Elms at
21 Meadow Vale. I represent myself and my husband, Tom.
22 I, too, don't -- I, too, oppose this proposal that
23 is going in currently. What is being proposed is many
24 concerns to me, but the one I will speak today is about the
25 traffic. I am going to speak about the opening up of Pearl
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1 Howlett, what the opening up of Pearl Howlett means to me.
2 First of all, my house borders Pearl Howlett.
3 Therefore, I do see every day what dollars go to, what goes
4 on on Pearl Howlett. I notice many people walking at all
5 times of the day, every day of the week, with their children
6 and their dogs. Sometimes the dogs are on leash, sometimes
7 the dogs are walking nicely next to them. And where they're
8 going is they're going to their mailbox, they're going to
9 take a walk through the community because they want to take a
10 nice long walk with their kids or their animals, to take them
11 for that long walk.
12 If you do allow Pearl Howlett to be opened up,
13 instead of them walking freely, or if the kids go and run,
14 and they're playing with the ball and they accidentally walk
15 into -- have to go into the street to get that ball, they
16 won't be able to. They're going to have to walk with much
17 more caution. This is because of the concern of the amount
18 of cars that is going to be driving down Pearl Howlett on a
19 daily basis. Right now there isn't, which is why we're
20 there. That' s why we moved there. We looked at -- we looked
21 for nine months for a home in this area, for up in northern
22 Colorado. It took us nine months. We looked at more rural
23 settings. We looked at settings where it was many miles to
24 get near a highway. I only looked in other settings that
25 were closer. We found this was a nice medium that had access
—
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1 to a highway, but also at the rural setting. And that' s one
2 of the reasons why we moved here, too, was because it had
3 that privacy, the quietness and that rural aspect, to give
4 that chance -- we all had a safe community in a private
— 5 community in which to go to.
6 Also, so just you know, not only do we have a park
7 that's on Pearl Howlett. That 's where our mailbox is.
8 That' s every homeowner has to go there to get their mail.
9 And thirdly, that is where our school bus stop is. Every
— 10 child in our neighborhood goes to that -- goes to the mailbox
11 center every day to go to school, and then walk home in the
12 afternoon. I watch them walking home in the afternoon, I can
13 tell you. They meander. They don't walk on the sidewalk,
14 guys, they meander, as all kids do.
— 15 Now, do the parents then need to be there every day
16 once we have that traffic? I mean, this is what -- we're
17 allowing our children today to be able to live in a setting
18 that I personally grew up in. I grew up in New York State,
19 up near Woodstock, New York, where it was safe to walk in the
20 streets. You could walk down the street. You didn't have to
21 worry that a car was going to clip you.
22 Also, what I want to talk to is, one of our
23 homeowners -- also would like to speak to us about safety.
24 One of our homeowners, who is a retired police officer, spoke
25 to this, is about the safety of our streets and homes. With
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1 the sheer volume of cars in our neighborhood, the safety of
2 our neighborhood is severely altered. We will have not only
3 the cars. We will also have the many strangers driving
4 through our neighborhood, scoping out our houses. But let me
— 5 tell you this: This is a reality. I 've called the cops four
6 times. Other neighbors in my neighborhood have called the
7 cops about this. We had auto thefts already, we have auto
8 break-ins. We have already had home thefts and vandalism to
9 a number of our homes in the past year. This is all
— 10 documented with the Sheriff' s Office currently. We also have
11 had many times where we had many vehicles, which we now have
—
12 license plates and a description of them that we have been
13 watching to make sure nothing happens, that we calmly report
14 to the police. I 've called personally on one automobile that
— 15 came back four times.
16 THE CHAIRMAN: Okay. You' ll need to wrap it up.
17 MS. DIDONNA: Okay, one second. What I am asking
18 is that we are concerned about what is going on. We do not
19 want Pearl Howlett opened up, and we also -- one of the
20 things I am asking, I 'm asking you to make a recommendation
21 not to open up Pearl Howlett Road and not to let them put
22 this church campus building there because that will only
23 invite the traffic in our community. This is not compatible
24 with what our community is. As was stated on the MUD, it was
25 looked at as if it was a residential area. We all looked --
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1 and many neighbors looked at what was going on.
2 I do want to ask one question, is who is going to
3 be paying for Blue -- if you guys choose to open up Blue
4 Mountain Road, who pays for that area to be built, to improve
5 that area so Blue Mountain Road could be an open road?
6 THE CHAIRMAN: That would have to be part of the
7 developer' s expense.
8 MS. DIDONNA: Well, one of the things I want to
9 say, is we also just -- in closing, we do have -- Weld County
10 wants to -- let me just say this: Weld County Road 26 is two
11 blocks away from my house. We don't need Pearl Howlett
12 opened up. So what I am saying is I would make a
13 recommendation today to you to recommend not to have this
14 development go in.
15 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you. Kim Kittilson. Next up
16 is Frank Pierce.
17 MS. KITTILSON: My name is Kim Kittilson, and I am
18 representing myself, as well as my husband and my two
19 children. And we live at 11710 Montgomery Circle.
20 I would just like everybody to imagine that they
21 worked hard all their life, they saved their money, they
22 finally decide to buy the home of their dreams. It' s in a
23 nice quiet neighborhood, a great place for you to raise your
24 kids, which is what we did. And then a couple years later
25 you find out that there' s going to be a church in the open
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1 space behind you. And at first we thought, great, a church.
2 What better neighbor could there be than a church, but only
3 to find out that it' s not just a church; it 's all the other
4 things that they're planning. And I guess that's mainly what
5 we have a problem with.
6 And I 'm asking you to put yourselves in our shoes.
7 If it were your neighborhood, if they were your children, if
8 it was your home, how would you feel if this came behind you?
9 I would hope you would fight for it and you would fight for
10 your family and your neighborhood because we're all going to
11 be deeply affected by this.
12 I want to also say that I understand LifeBridge' s
13 goal, to reach people and bring them to God. And we belong
14 to a church, and we're very involved, and I think that' s
15 great. I 'm very happy that you guys are growing. But I find
16 that it' s incompatible with just locate it in the middle of
17 three existing developments, and I feel that it 's totally
18 going to alienate many of the people that you're hoping to
19 bring in in those neighborhoods, that you're hoping to reach,
20 and you're doing it all in the name of God.
21 There are many other locations in Weld County that
22 are available. For example, there' s 310 acres off of Weld
23 County Road 7 , complete with water rights, where the impact
24 would minimize -- it would minimize the impact to the
25 community and the families in the area.
155
1 I just would ask for your help to help us fulfill
2 our dreams and our families ' dreams and say no to the
3 rezoning.
4 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you. Frank Pierce. Next up
5 is Robert Brown.
6 MR. PIERCE: My name is Frank Pierce. I live at
7 1998 Blue Mountain Road. I 'm here representing myself, my
8 wife, Jan, and her son, Jacob. I also spoke with Hugh and
9 Linda Hess, they're residents of the Elms, at lunchtime.
10 They said I could speak for them as well .
11 I moved to Meadow Vale in 1998. I find it to be
12 just as attractive now as it was when I moved in. I feel
13 it' s going to be even more attractive with the addition of
14 this church in our community. I, too, worked hard. I think
15 everyone works hard for all the money that they make, but my
16 position is that it wasn't wasted, and it won't be wasted
17 when this church comes into this community. I feel like my
18 family and others will benefit from it. My house is
19 currently for sale. I recently got married approximately a
20 year ago. It' s too small. So I 'm going to have to move from
21 Meadow Vale. But I have a lot reserved in the Elms. It' s on
22 the western side. It's right next to the church's property.
23 I 've seen the drawings. I see the difficulties
24 that other people see. I don't see it as being a problem for
25 me. I think I ' ll welcome them as neighbors. I ' ll enjoy
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1 having them close.
2 As far as what we're talking about, compatibility,
3 I don't know if compatibility is limited to size and mass,
4 but it seems like the compatibility in this case with the
5 church and the multi uses that this church will represent and
6 help provide for the surrounding areas, communities and
7 municipalities might also be a consideration. Now, maybe it
8 won't be. I 'm unfamiliar with this process. Maybe this
9 process is limited to simply height and mass, but it seems to
10 me it has a lot of things to offer, and there is no perfect
11 world and no perfect scenario. But for me and my family and
12 for the family of the Hess 's, we're glad they're coming into
13 the community. I support this development, and I hope you
14 look favorably upon it. Thank you.
15 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you. Robert Brahm (phonetic) ?
16 Next up is David Zeiffel (phonetic) . David? How about Bill
17 Golliner -- Golliner (pronouncing) . Let' s try that one. And
18 after Bill is Lori Miller.
19 MR. GOLLINER: Good afternoon. My name is Bill
20 Golliner. I live at 11700 Montgomery Circle, and I 'm
21 speaking on behalf of my wife, Isrel (phonetic) , and our cat,
22 June, and maybe a dog yet to be named.
23 I 'm a native of Colorado and a graduate of Colorado
24 State College for the old timers up in Greeley. We spent --
25 I spent most of my life in Boulder County. I was born in
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1 Boulder. When we purchased our home in the Elms, we looked
2 at the map. We assumed it was going to be residential to the
3 west of us, and we would welcome a church. We would welcome
4 two or three neighborhood churches. But my experience in
5 Colorado, I think the standard has been set for churches in
6 our neighborhoods and counties. I think the standard has
7 been set for campuses. Most campuses are built in areas that
8 are open, and then people can develop around them as needed
9 and voluntarily move in their businesses or their homes. So
10 there's a lot of issues that have been covered there.
11 I think another issue is that 5 1/2 and County Road
12 7 have not been addressed, and those are very important
13 issues to the traffic pattern.
14 So that's about it. I think everything else has
15 been covered, and I appreciate your time. Thank you.
16 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you. Lori Miller? Next up is
17 Jack Hay.
18 MS. MILLER: Good afternoon. My name is Lori
19 Miller. I 'm here representing my family, my husband, my
20 three kids, my pets, myself. We live at 1896 Blue Mountain
21 Road.
22 We bought five years ago. We got a great deal. We
23 moved into this beautiful brick ranch. We're a single-story
24 level. The neighbors on both sides of us are single-story
_ 25 levels. This is what we moved out there for, so we could
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1 have a single-story brick ranch. We didn't specifically buy
2 for a view. You can't buy a view. We understand that.
3 We're not there because of the view. We're there because it
4 was a rural setting. It was not urbanized. We moved from
5 four blocks away from the church where it sits now, and I
6 don't miss the traffic of that church. My daughter could not
7 ride her bicycle because the traffic in the area was
8 horrendous. We had renters moving in and out, and so we
9 decided to move to a quiet neighborhood where my daughter
10 could ride her bicycle in the street, and my sons could
11 hopefully drive their car without somebody backing into the
12 side of them.
13 We're talking about connectivity. You've all heard
14 it. We don't need to hear any more about it. But I live
15 right where you're talking about moving in, and they're
16 talking about a senior citizen center right on the other side
17 of Blue Mountain. Well, I have an 18-year old son who would
18 love to see that opened up. He would love to flip his car
19 through there and wake up all of those senior citizens
20 because he's 18. I mean, you know, hello, but I think it
21 would not benefit them. It would not benefit us. I think it
22 would be a detriment to both societies to open up Blue
23 Mountain. Blue Mountain dead ends at Meadow Vale, and then
24 it has a short section which only goes by the mail center
25 where our children also catch the bus and are dropped off
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1 from the bus. We have three separate bus runs every day, one
2 for the elementary, one for the middle and one for the high
3 school. They pick up right on the corner where all of the
4 traffic has to flow. It is a sharp three-corner turn, and
5 then it goes down a steep hill and gains access to 5 1/2 .
6 The people who live in that area a lot of times
7 can't even come up that road into our own neighborhood
8 because of the weather. They end up going up to the other
9 end of Meadow Vale Farms and gaining access up past Homestead
10 Place because it' s a smoother, more transitional slope.
11 So we 're looking at not only are you going to be
12 doing Blue Mountain, you're going to be doing Meadow Vale
13 Road. You're going to be doing every road in our entire
14 subdivision, which right now has, as you know, 20 feet wide
15 streets; no sewer, no gutter, no curb and sidewalk. If you
16 add the width of the street, and then you add parking, and
17 then you add sewer and gutter and you add sidewalk, you are
18 in my living room. We have put stakes out where that would
19 bring it to. You are within three feet of the flower garden
20 in the front yard of my next neighbor. Within three feet is
21 where this street would go.
22 When we bought out there, we knew that there would
23 be residential. We investigated it. We checked into it. We
24 have no problem with the residential. We have no problem
25 with LifeBridge. We don't want to see the height. That
—
160
1 really is our major thing, is the height restrictions. I
2 don't see how a church having a dinner theater constitutes a
3 church. To me, that' s a business, and if you want to have a
4 business, then say, this is a business, and I want to have a
— 5 business, and I want to put my church over here, and I want
6 to put my business over here. And then you're being
7 realistic, and you're being honest.
8 But I went to their open house, and they told me
9 that they do not plan on developing themselves the area that
— 10 is south, and I got this directly from LifeBridge. They do
11 not plan on developing the area south of their church campus
—
12 site. They plan on selling it off to a developer, at which
13 point they're all going to come back to you and want you to
14 rezone and do whatever they want you to do, and they're going
— 15 to dump -- everything that they've promised us is not going
16 to be a promise anymore.
17 They are telling you there is going to be
18 commercial, and I 'm asking them, what kind of commercial?
19 They're saying, well, we don't know, we can't guarantee that.
— 20 And I 'm asking them, are we going to have another mile high
21 emporium three blocks from my house? And they say, we don't
22 know, we can't tell you.
23 THE CHAIRMAN: You' ll need to wrap it up here
24 pretty quick.
25 MS. MILLER: We're out there on a house per acre.
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1 We have called the Sheriff. They cannot respond. They
2 recommend that we call Firestone Police Department.
3 We have schools that are currently overcrowded.
4 St. Vrain, obviously, you know the history there. What they
5 are proposing, and they told me again, is that the senior
6 area would not be taxable to the school. The church is not
7 taxable to the school. The residential only is taxable to
8 the school.
9 So we are looking at a lot of reasons why this will
10 not help the community, it will not help St. Vrain Valley
11 School District, it will not help Weld County. The only
12 people that I see it will help is LifeBridge Corporation; not
13 the church. I have nothing against the church. But the
14 corporation that is running the church is what I am seeing
15 that they are out to help. And it is not the people, it is
16 not the area. It is strictly what is good for LifeBridge.
17 They have the money. I was told not to come and
18 waste my time today, but I wanted my three minutes because I
19 wanted you to know that personally, on a personal level we
20 are very involved in this. This is not a business to us.
21 This is not a corporation making a decision that this is a
22 good place to decide to build my dinner theater. This is our
23 lives. This is our life savings, and this is our
24 investments, and these are our children.
25 My daughter can ride a bicycle. She doesn't have
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1 to worry about the traffic. My dogs run loose in the yard.
2 They never leave the yard. They're on an invisible fence.
3 But if you start bringing people by and traffic by, then it' s
4 a different lifestyle, and we don't want our lifestyle to
5 change. And that ' s all we're asking. All I 'm asking is I
6 don't have a problem with the church. I support the church
7 in the neighborhood. I do have a problem with the height,
8 and that 's really where my -- about the height and the
9 connectivity are my big issues, and that we can control the
10 commercial.
11 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you. Jack Hay. Next up is
12 Betty Ann Newby.
13 MR. HAY: Good afternoon. My name is Jack Hay. I
14 recently retired. I retired last spring from the St. Vrain
15 Valley School District and would like to talk today about
16 LifeBridge as a community partner and as an entity that gives
17 back to the community as a contributor.
18 It was my experience as a school administrator that
19 LifeBridge provided many services and opportunities for the
20 children and parents of the district. First, they provided
21 some space. They provided space for children, and I think
22 Rick alluded to some of those things, but they have Scout
23 meetings there, they have athletic programs there for youth
24 and other youngsters and those kinds of programs.
25 They also right now are hosting what 's called a
—
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1 Kids Care Program. That's an optive for kids to do their own
2 volunteer work and give back to their community.
3 They also provided space for meetings for the
4 school district. We would have opportunities where we wanted
— 5 to get all the elementary teachers together to work on
6 curricular issues, and they readily donated space for us to
7 be able to hold those meetings, either with teachers or at
8 night. Sometimes we held them with parents to go over a new
9 curriculum being planned and developed.
— 10 They at one point partnered with the school
11 district and other community leaders to try to mitigate or to
—
12 reduce the amount of underage drinking going on in our
13 community and contributed time, effort, money and space for
14 that to occur.
— 15 The last example I would give you is they have
16 joined over the years a number of times with our counseling
17 staff and other grief support personnel when we 've had deaths
18 either of teachers or students. And they would volunteer
19 counselors to go out and to work with kids and staff to work
20 through the issues related to those kind of losses.
21 And all of those -- the absent focus of all of
22 those was to do service in the community. And I would
23 testify to that from the standpoint that as an assistant
24 superintendent, I wasn't readily aware of the kind of
25 volunteer work that their counselors were doing with our
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1 counselors, ministry of grief work. They were just doing --
2 it was about doing the work and supporting children and
3 families.
4 And it' s that kind of focus on doing good works in
5 the community that brought my wife and I to LifeBridge a
6 couple of years ago as we were looking for a church. We
7 wanted one that gave back to the community, and we have found
8 St. Vrain -- we had found LifeBridge Church to be that kind
9 of place.
10 These are good people. They are well-intentioned.
11 They certainly are well-meaning. And this is an awesome
12 opportunity, and I can assure you that approval of this will
13 contribute to that community in a number of ways and we would
14 be a positive influence. Thank you.
15 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you. Betty Ann Newby?
16 MS. NEWBY: I 'm Betty Ann Newby. (inaudible) .
17 THE CHAIRMAN: Ma'am? Okay, thank you.
18 Michael Stember. And then Mr. Fowler will follow
19 Michael.
20 MR. STEMBER: Hello. I 'm Mike Stember, and I live
21 at 2232 Meadow Vale Road. You asked us not to repeat, so
22 what I haven't heard discussed was the things referred to as
23 architectural features. I heard the buildings (inaudible) .
24 The buildings are 90 feet.
25 We went to LifeBridge and asked Mr. Grinnell about
—
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1 this thing we heard about 200 feet, and he said, well, it' s
2 something like I can't answer every crazy rumor you hear.
3 And then later I hear it is 150 feet, you know, some
4 architectural feature -- you know, if someone puts an antenna
— 5 on top of the roof, it' s, you know, five feet, a skinny
6 little thing. I 'm wondering if the staff can answer that.
7 Does 90 feet mean that' s it, anything after that you take
8 off, or you can just keep on going? That 's a legitimate
9 question. Is that --
- 10 THE CHAIRMAN: We' ll answer that for you.
11 MR. STEMBER: Okay.
12 THE CHAIRMAN: Right now. Kim, there you go.
13 MR. STEMBER: Well, I mean, that ' s the stuff -- is,
14 you know, the connectivity you heard of.
— 15 THE CHAIRMAN: Okay.
16 MR. STEMBER: Like I said, you know, the horse is
17 dead. So I 'm curious, what does 90 feet mean?
18 MR. OGLE: In the area of the center part of the
19 church campus --
- 20 MR. STEMBER: Yes.
21 MR. OGLE: -- they can have buildings that may go
—
22 up to a total of 90 feet.
23 MR. STEMBER: Yes.
24 MR. OGLE: Twenty percent of that total area. If
25 there 's something that is a stand-alone object, yes.
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1 MR. STEMBER: I 'm not sure what you mean by stand-
2 alone object.
3 MR. OGLE: An architectural feature.
4 MR. STEMBER: A flagpole or --
- 5 MR. OGLE: A flagpole, sure.
6 MR. STEMBER: How big could an architectural
7 feature be? You know, 100 feet square or --
8 MR. OGLE: They have the ability to utilize 20
9 percent of a square, a rectangular box, for a total of 150
10 square feet.
11 MR. STEMBER: So a 150 square foot thing could be
12 how tall?
13 MR. OGLE: Up to 90 feet.
14 MR. STEMBER: Okay. So nothing -- anything above
15 90 feet gets cut off?
16 MR. OGLE: Correct.
17 MR. STEMBER: Okay.
18 MR. OGLE: It won't be permitted through the
19 Building Department.
20 MR. STEMBER: Okay. Thank you.
21 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you.
22 MR. STEMBER: Everything else is just rehash.
23 THE CHAIRMAN: Mr. Fowler? Following him will be
24 Peter -- oh, boy, Peter Koclanes (pronouncing) . Sorry about
25 that.
167
1 MR. FOWLER: I 'm Jack Fowler, 5501 Jay Road, and I
2 own a parcel of land that's kind of surrounded by LifeBridge.
3 THE CHAIRMAN: Can you get real close to the mike?
4 MR. FOWLER: Yeah. I own a parcel of land that is
— 5 pretty much surrounded by LifeBridge on the north and on the
6 east. It's 44 acres. And I 'm not real involved with the
7 subdivision people, nor am I involved with LifeBridge. Some
8 of you may know me. I 've been in the real estate business
9 longer than anybody else in Colorado I think, something like
— 10 50 years, and follow real estate. And in that capacity, I
11 have been involved in developing various subdivisions, and
12 I 'm familiar with these kind of hearings that go on and the
13 concerns, many of them very legitimate by the people and
14 working with them and getting it solved. I developed the
— 15 Remedy (inaudible) Post project in Boulder, 278 units; Gold
16 Run, 263 units; other complexes in and around Boulder and in
—
17 the Longmont area.
18 And I think that this is very important to both
19 sides of the subject here, both LifeBridge and the neighbors.
20 And I think it 's important to LifeBridge because they have a
21 very good intent with what they plan on doing, and hopefully,
—
22 and it sounds like a real nice design of their campus and
23 their mission. I think it ' s important to the people
24 surrounding them because I think in my professional opinion,
25 the area is a little shaky. And I 've seen signs out here
— 168
1 saying, you know, protect our children and our values and
2 that kind of thing. And I think that is important.
3 But the area is a little shaky. If you picture in
4 your mind, to the south you have quite a bit of industrial,
— 5 and you have commercial and business to the east without any
6 residential in between. And to the west of County Road 3
7 1/2 , you have quite a bit of commercial buildings, office
8 buildings there, and a large industrial and commercial
—
9 project to the south with a spot of residential in between.
— 10 And I think a very nice campus close to the
11 LifeBridge project could enhance the values of the homes. I
12 think it could be beneficial for the children to be involved
13 in the activities that are going on that it sounds like
14 they're willing to offer. And as to protecting their
— 15 children and the values, I have seen around the University of
16 Colorado campus values that are astronomical, and I thought
—
17 they were astronomical in 1950 when I opened my real estate
18 office. And they're nothing like they are today. It is the
19 highest price area in Boulder. And if it' s done right, I
20 think it can help put their children through school when the
21 time comes, and they can borrow on their equities or they can
22 sell their homes or do whatever, if they don't have other
23 means to support their children in college. And college
24 expenses are really going up.
25 So I think it's important that these people are
169
1 able to work this out, and it's important to you that you try
2 to help them work it out, and I think it will be beneficial
3 for everyone. I 'm definitely not against their project. I
4 may not be familiar with all the details of their project and
— 5 some housing that is close to the large buildings that you're
6 talking about, but everybody needs to give and take a little
7 bit here maybe to get this done. Maybe the buildings could
8 be situated a little differently. Maybe they're only talking
9 about six or eight houses that are affected. But the
— 10 benefits -- the other benefits may be offsetting. So I just
11 hope that it can all get worked out. Thank you.
12 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you. Peter, I hope I didn't
13 butcher your name too bad.
14 MR. KOCLANES: I 've heard worse.
— 15 THE CHAIRMAN: Well, I don't know if that' s a
16 recommendation or not either. After Peter will be Mariann
—
17 DeStefano. I probably killed that one, too.
18 MR. KOCLANES: All right. Good afternoon. My name
19 is Peter Koclanes. I reside at 21311 Weld County Road 3 in
— 20 Berthoud. I 'm representing my family.
21 We drive by, oh, at least 30 to 40 churches on our
22 way to LifeBridge, and we do that for a reason. Not only is
23 it a wonderful place to worship, but the programs that they
24 offer. I wish we could quantify the number of youth, middle-
- 25 age, high school youths that have been helped by this church,
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1 that have beautiful lives today because of the programs they
2 offer. You know, there are a lot of churches out there in
3 declining attendance, and not this church.
4 But if we take a minute and we step outside of that
5 and look at what's going on today in the state and the cities
6 and the counties, we're facing tremendous tax deficits, which
7 means that we're looking at some drastic cutbacks and
8 services, not only in protection, Police and Fire, but
9 recreation. And we're also going to look at probably some
10 substantial property tax increases unless we can overcome
11 that.
12 And LifeBridge can play and does play an indirect
13 role in the economic development because as the County
14 hopefully pursues new employers and jobs and tax bases and so
15 forth, just as we look for quality schools and the quality of
16 lifestyle, selecting a place of worship that offers more than
17 just Sunday worship, but programs for our children, is an
18 integral part of the decision-making process.
19 So I respectfully urge you to consider that and
20 approve this project. Thank you.
21 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you. Mariann? Next up is
22 Donna Schroeder.
23 MS. DESTEFANO: Hi, my name is Mariann DeStefano.
24 I live at 11171 Bluff Lodge in Longview. And I ' ll make this
25 short and sweet.
171
1 I 'm thrilled that the church is coming to our
2 neighborhood, and I especially like the idea of the
3 retirement village. Thank you.
4 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you. Donna Schroeder.
5 Following Donna will be Daniel Rice.
6 MS. SCHROEDER: Hello, my name is Donna Schroeder.
7 Yes, and I represent my husband and I, Larry. We are
8 homeowners in the Elms, live at 11717 Beasly Road. We are
9 one house away from Pearl Howlett.
— 10 One year ago I was -- I began employment at
11 LifeBridge, so this has been an interesting situation. I
12 just wanted to let you know that I have great respect for the
13 leaders, those I work for, but also respect their hearts.
14 And though we are very definitely opposed to the
— 15 connectivity, as is LifeBridge Christian Church, we are also
16 very much in support of LifeBridge, and you might ask why,
17 being so close to Pearl Howlett. The reason is we have faith
18 that not only you, as Planning Commissioners, will do what' s
19 right, but also that the leaders of our church will do what 's
— 20 right and what's best for all. Thank you very much.
21 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you. Daniel Rice will be
22 followed by Eileen -- I can't even read the next name --
23 Hyler-Galaher (phonetic) .
24 MR. RICE: My name is Daniel Rice. I live in the
25 Elms at Meadow Vale on Bryant Avenue.
172
1 UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Could you speak up?
2 MR. RICE: Speak up?
3 THE CHAIRMAN: Yes, please.
4 MR. RICE: Okay. And I don't really question the
5 intentions of the church. I 'm a christian myself, believe in
6 the Lord and for a lot of what your goals are, as far as
7 reaching into the community.
8 THE CHAIRMAN: Speak into the microphone, please.
9 MR. RICE: But I do have a concern about the scale,
— 10 as a homeowner in the area, and just wanted to register that,
11 register that here, and throw in my definition, along with
12 Darla's, on defining compatibility.
13 In Webster's and American Heritage, it says
14 "capable of living or performing in harmonious, agreeable and
— 15 congenial combination with another or others. " And it seems
16 to me that it would be in the long-term interest of the
17 church if they seek hard to establish good neighbor policy
18 with the people they are building around of. It would be in
19 the long-term interest of your ministry and who you reach and
— 20 how successful you are in reaching people down the road.
21 And I wanted to throw in another comment, just my
—
22 trade is as a physicist. I am a physics engineer, and the
23 testimony that came from the Public Works Department. A
24 subset of physics is fluid dynamics, and that means traffic
— 25 by extension. You guys need to get some new people running
—
173
1 over those numbers because I don't even need a calculator to
2 know that you're a couple orders of magnitude off base, I
3 think. If you run it through Pearl Howlett, the traffic is
4 going to be bad.
— 5 That's it.
6 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you. Ellen?
7 UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: She had to leave.
8 THE CHAIRMAN: She had to leave. Okay, Michael
9 Donohoo will be followed by Cecilia Schultz.
— 10 MR. DONOH00: My name is Michael Donohoo. I live
11 at 11669 Montgomery Circle in the Elms, and I 'm speaking on
12 behalf of my wife as well.
13 And I just want to first bring up a point, is that
14 this meeting is on a weekday, and most people here have to
.- 15 take vacations, vacation time, and there ' s a lot of people
16 that couldn 't make it today. And it would probably have been
—
17 helpful if there was some sort of hearing because I think
18 this is the only place where my neighbors can speak their
19 mind, even if we're rehashing the same points. If they can't
— 20 be here, you can't hear them, and you can't keep track of how
21 many people have an issue with, you know, whether it' s the
—
22 building height, scale, density, whatever.
23 My first problem is with Pearl Howlett connecting.
24 You've heard enough about that, so I won't say any more,
25 except for that a few months ago I talked to Kim Ogle in a
174
1 telephone call, and he mentioned that there' s a light in
2 which there is at -- it' s at County Road 3 and 119, and that
3 most people leaving the complex to the east would be sitting
4 at that light and would use the left turn arrows of that
5 light when they're installed. And my point to him was,
6 there' s a lot of people that will be coming from the tri-city
7 areas, from the I-25 corridor, from the urban expansion
8 that's going to happen near I-25, that if Pearl Howlett goes
9 through, a little shortcut through the neighborhood. I mean,
10 it' s because you won't have to drive up 3 . You could take a
11 right on 5 1/2 to the complex. You may still leave -- they
12 may still leave on the light on 3 , but -- excuse me -- but
13 half of the traffic would likely drive through -- you know,
14 take the shortcut through Pearl Howlett and probably Blue
15 Mountain as well.
16 My other issue is with the building height. It' s
17 been rehashed enough. But I live right on the western -- or
18 on the eastern border of the complex. When I bought my
19 house, you know, I looked out the big window I have, and I
20 was like, wow, it' s a great view. But I wasn't so naive to
21 think that view is going to be there forever, and I don't
22 think that most of my neighbors were probably that naive
23 either. I knew something was going to get built, and I knew
24 it was a church. I had actually called the church and talked
_ 25 to them a little bit, but I never imagined a church that
—
175
1 would be so tall and so basically massive. And I just feel
2 that 's not compatible with the existing surroundings.
3 The last point is that I think that the development
4 as they're asking, especially the campus, will hurt the home
— 5 values, which then hurts the whole tax base of the whole
6 county. This isn't just like our neighborhood. This hurts
7 everybody then because if my home is only worth 80 percent of
8 what it could be some years down the road, that means other
9 homes, property taxes will have to go up or other people will
— 10 have to foot the bill because my home isn't worth as much.
11 Thank you.
—
12 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you. Cecilia?
13 UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: I just talked to her, and
14 she (inaudible) .
— 15 THE CHAIRMAN: Okay. Kristin M-A-J-L-I-A. I 'm not
16 even going to try that one. Majlia (pronouncing) . Is
—
17 Kristin here?
18 (No response. )
19 THE CHAIRMAN: Scott Pratt will be followed by
— 20 Edwina Salazar.
21 MR. PRATT: Hi, my name is Scott Pratt. I live at
22 11713 Victor Drive. I 'm one house away from Pearl Howlett.
23 I represent my wife, Gretchen, who couldn't be here today.
24 I just have a couple of brief things. I 'm not
25 going to try and rehash anything. I do want to put a couple
176
1 of new spins on stuff.
2 There 's been a lot of discussion of punching Pearl
3 Howlett through. For traffic issues, that' s gone over. For
4 emergency vehicle access, it, to my knowledge, hasn't been
5 discussed of putting temporary barriers there to allow fire,
6 police, ambulance vehicles to go through.
7 I 've talked to a lot of my neighbors that live
8 right there near where that would go through. I don't think
9 anybody would have issues with that. What we don't want is
— 10 the thousands of cars every day, and based on the traffic
11 study, those were only weekdays. Take into a Sunday, we're
12 not going to have four services or five services. You're
13 having that many more times the traffic running out that
14 road. We don't want that transient traffic running through
— 15 our neighborhood. For the emergency vehicles, I don't think
16 anybody would have trouble with that, and we want people to
—
17 be safe and to have access to those services.
18 Another concern is the noise and light pollution
19 coming from that loop road that runs right there along that
— 20 property line for, I don't know the dimensions of it, but
21 most of that property. That road runs right along there.
22 There' s going to be a lot of traffic flow. That' s the main
23 corridor in and out and around that campus.
24 I know that there's been concessions discussed
—
25 about having a landscape berm, which I think will hurt, but
177
1 as far as the street lights and the traffic noise from these
2 tens of thousands of cars eventually that will run through
3 there is another big concern of mine.
4 There's been a lot of talk about this is going to
5 be done in phases and built out over 20 or 30 or 50 years.
6 I 'm at an age, my wife and I just built our -- what I would
7 consider our dream house. We love this neighborhood. We
8 plan on being there 30, 40, 50 years, hopefully, if we 're
9 still around.
10 Everybody has been focusing on the long-term
11 aspects. The long-term affects me, or hopefully it will
12 affect me, and the short-term is going to affect me with this
13 large campus going in. I know people are talking about
14 comparing the 60 to 90 foot height versus houses. But one
15 thing, if you look at residential areas, they have 30 or even
16 40-foot high houses, but they're only maybe 60 -- 50, 60 feet
17 wide. If you put in a huge building that that' s high, you've
18 got a wall. And it' s not a small wall where you've got short
19 breaks in it to get through or to look through. You 've got a
20 continuous wall that' s 60 to 90 feet high. That ' s something
21 I haven't heard discussed about where if you have a
22 residential area -- we've got two rows of houses behind our
23 house right now. You know, when we built there, there wasn't
24 a house. We had a great view, but we knew there was going to
25 be houses there. We knew that land over there was going to
178
1 be built on. We knew it was going to be residential. We
2 assumed it would be reasonable residential. My big concern
3 is this does not sound residential.
4 A lot of people that have been talking in support
5 of the development have been defending LifeBridge. I don't
6 know anybody that's attacking LifeBridge and the good that
7 churches do. It sounds like they're a wonderful place to go.
8 They have a lot of nice programs. Any community would love
9 to have that kind of influence around them. It 's all of the
10 extra stuff that we're, as residents, very concerned about.
11 And, to me, it sounds like there needs to be a lot
12 more studies based on the traffic patterns of 5 1/2 , Pearl
13 Howlett, before anything can really be, you know, finalized
14 on this. It doesn't look like it' s been done completely to
_ 15 me. But that' s all I really wanted to say.
16 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you.
17 MS. SALAZAR: Good afternoon. I 'm Edwina Salazar,
18 and I 'm the Executive Director of Outreach United Resource
19 Center in Longmont at 303 Atwood.
20 I 'm here to testify regarding the contributions
21 that LifeBridge Church has made to the health and well-being
22 of the St. Vrain community through the Hour Center and other
23 non-profits which we're associated with. Then they have
24 helped us form the safety net for those most in need in the
25 St. Vrain Valley.
— 179
1 LifeBridge has contributed significantly with cash
2 donations to emergency services that the non-profits provide
3 in the St. Vrain Valley. And in this regard, the Hour Center
4 has used the contributions to make emergency shelter services
— 5 available to families with children.
6 In addition to that, LifeBridge has contributed in
—
7 kind goods. Just recently LifeBridge collected two tons of
8 food for our emergency food pantry in a time, economic times
9 where that is much needed.
— 10 LifeBridge congregation groups have contributed
11 labor and materials to our child care center. They recently
—
12 helped us expand our child care center and double our
13 capacity by building an additional classroom inside our
14 toddler center.
15 They have also served families working on self-
16 deficiency. They serve our hot meal program to homeless
17 individuals on Sundays on a regular basis, and I guess have
18 served a couple thousand people in that program.
19 In my opinion, LifeBridge has been a very good
20 neighbor and has honored all of their commitments to the
21 community, and I feel that they are to be trusted in what
— 22 they have promised and the contributions that they have
23 promised to make to this new starling community. Thank you.
24 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you. Okay. We had a request
25 for a five-minute break, so we ' ll back here at about 10 after
-
180
1 3 : 00.
2 (Whereupon, a break was taken. )
3 THE CHAIRMAN: Okay. We' ll call this meeting back
4 to order. The next speaker will be Rich Salm. Rich? After
— 5 Rich will be Duane Leise.
6 MR. SALM: Mr. Chairman, members of the Board --
7 THE CHAIRMAN: You might have to turn that on.
8 MR. SALM: Is that better?
—
9 THE CHAIRMAN: That's lots better.
— 10 MR. SALM: Mr. Chairman, members of the Board, my
11 name is Richard Salm. I live at 11713 Montgomery Circle in
—
12 the Elms at Meadow Vale. I 'm speaking for myself and Janet
13 Russell.
14 If it please the Board, I have some handouts I 'd
— 15 like to distribute.
16 THE CHAIRMAN: Okay. Give one to the attorney
17 first.
18 MR. SALM: For the record, we don't oppose
19 LifeBridge Christian Church and their mission, but we do have
20 concerns about the size and scope of the development that
21 they're asking the entitlements to build.
—
22 I acknowledge LifeBridge for meeting with the
23 community members to discuss these issues. We have come
24 together on some issues. I 'm happy about that. There' s some
25 issues that we've not been able to get together on, and it
181
1 will be up to you and the County Commissioners to resolve
2 those issues, I feel.
3 What I came to discuss today was to provide a
4 little historical information that's all part of the public
— 5 record. I wanted to talk about some instances of complaints
6 of existing neighbors and some zoning Code violations in
—
7 Boulder County. I feel like these comments will be relevant
8 to the proceedings in that number one, I feel that it will
9 demonstrate lack of respect for County zoning procedures.
— 10 And number two, the applicant says they wish to be good
11 neighbors, and we would welcome that. I think the following
12 examples speaks to that issue directly. And I 'm not here to
13 say that LifeBridge is bad because I know that in the real
14 world, you know, there's going to be good aspects and there' s
—
15 going to be some not-so-good aspects to it. And I feel like
16 many people have spoken to the positive aspects, and I just
—
17 wanted to bring up some matters of public record that might
18 just expand the dialogue a little bit and the perspective.
19 Some of the records of Code violations, and I got
20 these from the Boulder County Land Use Department, were --
21 one issue was of noxious weeds being on their property, which
22 was addressed in 1998 originally, and it was addressed again
23 on April 30th in 2001. And it appears in the record that
24 that issue was never really addressed. Maybe it ' s been
25 addressed since then. I can't speak to that.
182
1 Other zoning violations include August 14 , 1997,
2 over 50 cubic yards of material removed on the property
3 without any grading permit. Daycare center operated on the
4 property without completed special review with the Land Use
— 5 Department, is required under Article 4-506C. The miniature
6 golf course being operated on the property without having
7 completed a special review with the Land Use Department as
8 required under Article 4-510D, outdoor recreation.
9 Furthermore, let's see, August 18, 1995, it goes
— 10 back a little ways, grading of volleyball courts in excess of
11 50 cubic yards without a grading permit or limited impact,
12 special review.
13 THE CHAIRMAN: Sir, do you have anything to address
14 the permit that is being applied for today?
15 MR. SALM: Well, I feel these comments are relevant
16 because what I hope to accomplish is demonstrate that, you
17 know, through these examples, you know, I ' ll read a portion
18 of a letter that was written by the neighbors, the current
19 neighbors, and submitted as part of their annexation
20 application with the City of Longmont, that shows another
21 side of LifeBridge. Number one, that I think that there is a
22 pattern of behavior of lack of respect for zoning codes. And
23 in all due respect for Mr. Russaw, they have admitted there
24 have been problems with Boulder County Land Use Department,
25 and I would just submit that it takes two to tango. And I
183
1 don't know that it' s fair to point the blame squarely at
2 Boulder County for all of the problems that LifeBridge has
3 had there.
4 So what I would hope to accomplish is just to
5 compel you if you are going to err in this case, that you
6 would err on the side of being conservative and please take
7 these comments into consideration.
8 THE CHAIRMAN: Okay.
9 MR. SALM: And I ' ll read some excerpts from this
10 letter here.
11 "Increased activity at the FCC, " which is First
12 Christian Church, was the name before LifeBridge Christian
13 Church, "has resulted in increased incidents of trespass.
14 While attracting churchgoers during the day, it seems to
15 attract troublemakers at night. Expansion of the use of the
16 church facilities will increase these incidents, as well as
17 the construction of a greenway long, rough and ready ditch. "
18 THE CHAIRMAN: I believe those letters are in our
19 package, and we've probably read them already.
20 MR. SALM: Have you?
21 THE CHAIRMAN: Yes.
22 MR. SALM: Okay. May I finish?
23 THE CHAIRMAN: Briefly, yes.
24 MR. SALM: Thank you. "While the FCC may make its
25 facilities available to the city and others on whatever basis
184
1 it chooses, the facilities are not public to remain under the
2 control and responsibility of First Christian Church, as they
3 can hardly be counted as a benefit to the city or community,
4 since access can be denied or constrained at any time for any
5 reason. The FCC is clearly a facility that wants to expand.
6 Some residents have raised the question of whether the FCC is
7 a church or a dinner theater. The existing structure is
8 overbearing, oversized, blocks views of the mountains, and
9 contributes only an unsightly wall in an H-back unit to its
10 neighbors. It detracts from the peace and quiet of rural
11 Boulder County with unauthorized construction and special use
12 activities and clogs our roads with traffic jams. There are
13 reasonable limits placed on facility usage, and these limits
14 were exceeded long ago. While annexation of the FCC property
15 into the City of Longmont clearly benefits the FCC, it also
16 clearly benefits no one else. "
17 This is a matter of historical record, not of
18 future record, and I would ask you to please take that into
19 consideration.
20 THE CHAIRMAN: Okay. Thank you.
21 MR. SALM: Thank you. And are there any questions?
22 THE CHAIRMAN: Fred?
23 COMMISSIONER WALKER: Yes, I 'd like to respond to
24 your first comments about the Code violations and the noxious
25 weeds.
'- 185
1 MR. SALM: Yes.
2 COMMISSIONER WALKER: I 'm an irrigative farmer
3 located near Windsor.
4 MR. SALM: Okay.
5 COMMISSIONER WALKER: And I have Canadian Thistle
6 on my property.
7 MR. SALM: Okay.
8 COMMISSIONER WALKER: And I think you should know
9 that this is not a black and white issue.
10 MR. SALM: Okay.
11 COMMISSIONER WALKER: You know, you can 't just send
12 a letter out and expect that the landowner is going to
13 eradicate those in one year' s time. You said there were
14 several letters there about that issue, and you should
_ 15 understand that as I 've just said, it can't be eradicated in
16 one year. It takes a number of years to address that issue.
17 And so to -- I 'm hearing you -- what I 'm hearing you imply is
18 that because they didn't take care of it the first time,
19 you've sent them another letter. I would say to you that
20 this is a problem that takes a number of years to resolve and
21 cannot be resolved by a piece of black and white paper saying
22 that you're in violation.
23 MR. SALM: I see.
24 COMMISSIONER WALKER: And I kind of resent the
25 implication of that.
186
1 MR. SALM: Well, first of all, I did not send the
2 letter. It was sent by Boulder County Land Use, and I 'm not
3 here to stand in judgement on that. I merely, you know,
4 wanted to present that information and leave it to you to
5 make a judgment on.
6 THE CHAIRMAN: Okay. Are there any other
7 questions?
8 (No response. )
9 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you.
10 MR. SALM: Thank you.
11 THE CHAIRMAN: The next speaker is Duane Leise, to
12 be followed by Pat McDowell.
13 MR. LEISE: Is it Michael Miller?
14 THE CHAIRMAN: That ' s it.
15 MR. LEISE: Yeah, my name is Duane Leise.
16 THE CHAIRMAN: Can't hear you.
17 MR. LEISE: My name is Duane Leise, and I live at
18 2686 Pearl Howlett in the Elms, Longmont, Colorado.
19 But just for your information, Mike, from Kim
20 Ogle' s document, April 15th, Boulder County Department of
21 Planning & Engineering did not respond to the referral
22 letter. So I doubt if you would have the information that
23 Mr. Salm brought forward. Not that that ' s anything, just
24 that I would like to enter into the record at this time 300
25 signatures on two different petitions. And I 'd also like to
187
1 say that that was before the change in the heights and all of
2 that. And all that I can say is that it' s been extremely
3 difficult to figure out where exactly what' s being said about
4 what, when, where and how.
5 I 've been up to Kim Ogle' s and taking pictures of
6 the documents as they change, as they're going along. In
7 fact, I was the one who happened to notice that both
8 Frederick and Firestone had not been -- nowhere in the
9 documentation that I could see anywhere -- Exhibit 6, which
10 was over at the County Commissioner' s Office, which was a
11 referral list, did not have either Mead, Milikin -- or not
12 Milikin -- Mead, Firestone or Frederick on their list. It
13 was not on here. I did see it on Kim Ogle ' s here, on his
14 document, because Ursala Morgan from the Township of Mead had
15 gone up and said, hey, where's our referral.
16 The people in the area need to be notified as to
17 what' s going on in their area. This is just a matter of
18 functioning for the County. I mean, you talk about land
19 rights. Well, there's responsibilities, and the government
20 has certain responsibilities, and one of those
21 responsibilities is performing the letter of the law, such
22 things as being informing people as to what's going on so
23 that they can respond.
24 Now, Mr. Gries, Pete Gries, who did the first
25 presentation, called both Frederick and Firestone yesterday
— 188
1 and asked the Town Clerk there, the Town Administrators, if
2 they had seen the referral, and they hadn't. And so that 's
3 just one thing.
4 Now, I also went around and looked at all of the
— 5 various zoning codes that are in Mead, Frederick, Firestone.
6 The highest one is 50 feet for a commercial, full-blown
—
7 commercial, and that is Frederick. Everybody else is lower.
8 Everything else is lower than that.
9 I also called Longmont and said, what ' s the highest
— 10 variance that you've given over the last 10 years? And I
11 called a Mr. Phil -- I don't have his name right here -- yes,
12 I do -- Phil Greenwald (phonetic) . And he conferred with a
13 Mr. Brian Shumacher (phonetic) . And the highest building
14 that they had a variance for was 75 feet, and that was Amgen
15 (phonetic) . And the reason that they allowed it was because
16 they had an industrial process, that it was extremely
17 important that they have a volumetric space where they can
18 move materials from one part of the process to another part
19 of the process.
20 Other than that, the other 12 variances over the
21 last 10 years were between 40 and 50 feet, and this is all of
— 22 Longmont.
23 And I also wanted to pass this on from Myrna
24 Sullivan. She drove all around the county and was looking
25 for things that were tall, just to see if she could find
189
1 them. She couldn't find them.
2 Now, the one building that does impress me as being
3 quite tall, and that's the Promontory. That' s up in Greeley,
4 and I 'm sure most of you probably have seen it. Are you
5 familiar with it? Now, that particular building stands about
6 75, maybe 80 feet tall. Now, that building was built when
7 there were no houses around it. Now houses are finally
8 starting to get built up a little bit, but their marketing
9 slogan is, live, play and work right here. Now, how close
10 did they put these particular houses that they're building
11 after the fact that also has huge parks to it and little
12 lakes and whatnot, that are all on the east side of the
13 building itself? They're three-fourths of a mile away.
14 These are people of choice. These are people who are
15 choosing to be there.
16 The people of the Elms are going to have, if this
17 goes through, a 90-foot building that ' s going to be within a
18 quarter of a mile of their house.
19 Now, I don't have anything -- I 'm not saying
20 anything about view corridors or views or anything else. But
21 it' s imposing. It' s imposing physically. You get around a
22 big building like that when there' s nothing else around, and
23 it 's like, oh my gosh. You go out to the Promontory, and
24 that 's a big building. If you drive past it, it ' s huge, and
25 it wasn't stuck right next to somebody else. Not only was it
- 190
1 not stuck next to anybody else, it was put into a
2 municipality.
3 Just like Mead -- the Mead referral letter
4 comments, "This should be inside a municipality where
— 5 somebody can track this pretty closely. "
6 Well, I have a fear, is I don't know if you know
—
7 what you're actually going to be passing on here. It ' s been
8 a meeting target. I don't know where it' s at. But that 's
—
9 neither here nor there. That' s my fault.
10 One thing that I do find interesting is that
11 there's been no topology, no topology maps that have been
—
12 presented with this application.
13 On the building position where they are putting
14 their main building, their first Phase 1 building, it's
— 15 approximately a 40-foot change in grade down to Highway 119,
16 and it 's about a 100-foot grade down into the St. Vrain
17 Valley, which is only about a mile down the road, if you're
18 familiar with it.
19 If you would like to have these entered into the
20 record, I 'd be happy to present them and to have them. I 'm
21 sure you can get a hold of them.
— 22 All of these petitions that are here, these were
23 signed almost exclusively by people who were in the area, not
24 by people who are living someplace else. These are people
25 who have vested interest, probably have anywhere from 50 to
— 191
1 80 percent of the net worth that ' s involved with this. They
2 made decisions, and what did they make their decisions on?
3 Information. What kind of information? Well, the MUD plan
4 was one of those pieces of information.
— 5 I know, myself personally, when I came to move in,
6 I asked the sales clerk, what' s the zoning around here?
7 Well, it' s all agricultural. And I said, well, what' s the
8 plan for stuff around here? It' s to be residential over
9 here.
— 10 I also looked and saw the MUD plan. Now, this is a
11 public document. This is something that was passed by a
—
12 public group of people acting on behalf of the citizenry in
13 this area. They passed it, and then they went ahead and they
14 published it. They made it be known throughout the county
— 15 this is what the plan is. So here these people, they made
16 their choices and decisions upon information that was
— 17 generated by the government, and you, right now, are the
18 government. You're the ones who have to stand behind this
19 document.
20 What does residential mean? Does residential mean
—
21 90-foot high buildings, buildings without precedent in the
— 22 area?
23 I agree that LifeBridge is a good organization. I
24 believe they do a lot of good. Do they need a 90-story -- or
25 a 90-foot building to do that with? Is that what they need?
192
1 Is that what they require?
2 Well, if you allow a development that ultimately is
3 going to develop and is going to retire 5, 000 to 6, 000 cars,
4 I ask you once again, what does residential mean? Can I have
5 a residential district that has a 5, 000 car parking lot in
6 it? That' s twice as large as Twin Peaks parking lot, the
7 regional shopping center -- a regional shopping center. And
8 also on the MUD it has a neighborhood center -- neighborhood.
9 Not a local regional draw. This is what people' s language --
- 10 how many times have people come up and said, what' s the
11 definition of compatible? What's the definition of this?
12 What' s the definition of that? Language is extremely
13 important. You cannot have law unless you have language.
14 Law is built on language. If you destroy the meaning of
15 residential, you do something that is agreed to, something
16 that' s bad.
17 You, my fellow citizens, you are the line of
18 defense here. You are the ones who have to say, we live in a
19 land of laws. When we say something, it means it, and we
20 mean it right. We're not going to try and mislead people.
21 We're not going to try and take them -- try and fool them.
22 You have a responsibility. When people give their
23 very strongest and their very best, when they uphold their
24 highest principles, we are in the sacred space; right here,
25 right now, today. This is a holy time. You, each and every
— 193
1 one of you have a holy responsibility to uphold one, the law,
2 and two, take into consideration your fellow people.
3 And I want to, once again -- I asked my seven-year
4 old grandson.
— 5 THE CHAIRMAN: Could you go back to the microphone,
6 please?
7 MR. LEISE: I asked my seven-year old grandson just
8 yesterday, because I had just gotten these done. I had it on
9 the floor. I was pasting it up. And I pointed to the little
_ 10 house, and I pointed to the other one, and I pointed to the
11 big building, and I asked him, and I said, "Are these kind of
12 the same?" And I was trying to kind of push him, you know,
13 kind of like, you know, how can you think about this
14 differently so that it will be the same? Is this compatible
15 -- I didn't use the word compatible, because I felt that that
16 was pretty -- he goes, "No, they're not the same. They're
17 not. You know, they're different. They're very different. "
18 And so all that I ask is that you live to your
19 highest selves. I charge you to live with dignity. I also
20 want to thank you all personally. I know it ' s not fun to
21 have to sit through a lot of this stuff. It takes a lot of
— 22 time. So I personally thank you for the time commitment that
23 you have made. Thank you so very much. However, I do charge
24 you to do -- act to your highest self, preserve the language,
25 preserve the law.
194
1 THE CHAIRMAN: Pat McDowell, followed by Pat Hains.
2 MS. MCDOWELL: Good afternoon. My name is Pat
3 McDowell, and I 'm here representing myself and my husband,
4 Mark. We live at 2390 Homestead Place in Meadow Vale
5 subdivision. We've lived there since August of 2000.
6 We are real excited. By the way, we are active
7 members at LifeBridge Christian Church, and I 've been there
8 for 20 years. We're real excited about this move, not
9 because it' s going to bring us within just a few minutes of
10 drive time to get there on Sunday mornings as well as other
11 times during the week that we may choose to go to meetings
12 and such, but because of the idea -- because believe me, when
13 we moved out there east of Longmont, it takes us quite a bit
14 longer to get into town to get to church on Sunday mornings.
15 We would drive 30, 35, 40 minutes if we needed to. If we
16 lived out that far, we certainly would find it beneficial to
17 drive that far. So we're real excited about it.
18 I am not excited about the idea that Blue Mountain
19 and Pearl Howlett would be opened up. I don't think that
20 that' s good for the neighborhood and the children. I agree
21 with that 100 percent.
22 But I 'm going to talk to you a little bit about
23 what the church has meant to us. I became a single parent
24 about 19 years ago, and my ex-husband left the state, and I
25 was left to raise these children virtually by myself, except
195
1 that there were many, many people at this church that stepped
2 forward to help me. And I was one scared person because I
3 didn't know exactly how to be a father. I knew how to be a
4 mother. Interestingly enough, there were so many people that
— 5 came forward to help us. There were people that offered to
6 take my kids to camp. There were people that offered to pay
7 for my children to go to camp.
8 As time wore on and financial situations grew very
9 grave in our household, there were people from this
— 10 congregation that stepped forward to do things like make my
11 house payment. This is a body of people who are very
12 dedicated to the betterment of the community. You've heard
13 Edwina Salazar talk about all of the wonderful things that
14 have happened because of LifeBridge at the Hour Center, and I
— 15 can attest having worked on other committees inside the City
16 of Longmont, but it 's typically LifeBridge that steps up to
17 the plate with the most amount of money, the most amount of
18 material and the most amount of willing hearts to help out
19 with different projects. And they always do it with smiles
— 20 on their face, with a joke, with kind, encouraging words.
21 And so I have very -- I have everything positive to say about
22 LifeBridge.
23 I do want to address one other thing, and that was
24 the issue of crime. I am concerned about something other
25 than LifeBridge going in back there. When Kathy Oliver
— 196
1 mentioned that Pulty I think was going to put in 800 homes,
2 or that was proposed, the idea of crime is going to rise
3 significantly if we've got homes back there. I 'm the
4 neighborhood watch chairman for the Meadow Vale side of that
— 5 whole section of land, and I know what the crime is like. I
6 don't know what the Elms deal with, but I do know what we
—
7 deal with. And so that concerns me. But 800 homes would
8 certainly drive a whole lot more crime into our neighborhood.
9 A church building being there is not going to drive the crime
— 10 like a residential.
11 The other thing that concerns me is that there
—
12 could be many other things sitting on that piece of property,
13 and I just honestly believe that LifeBridge Christian Church
14 is going to do that dirt the best benefit for this county.
15 And I thank you for listening to me.
—
16 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you. Pat Hains will be
— 17 followed by Matt Ellison.
18 MR. HAINS: Good day. I thank all you guys for
19 coming out today. I know this is not easy for anyone, and
_ 20 it' s not easy for me to take a day off of work myself.
21 I had really no intentions to come up here today,
— 22 but I 've been listening for the last four hours to you guys
23 talking and hearing arguments back and forth and --
24 THE CHAIRMAN: We need to get your name on the
25 record.
- 197
1 MR. HAINS: Oh, sorry. My name is Pat Hains.
2 THE CHAIRMAN: Okay.
3 MR. HAINS: I live on 11721 Pleasant Hill Road in
4 Meadow Vale.
— 5 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you.
6 MR. HAINS: A couple things I 've noticed is it' s
7 kind of funny how the room is definitely divided. It seems
8 odd to me because almost everyone in this room is in
—
9 agreement that there is no issue with having a church in our
— 10 neighborhood. I think everyone is happy. Everyone thinks
11 that' s a wonderful thing.
12 The lady right before me was talking about the good
13 that the church can do for our neighborhood, and I am in 100
14 percent agreement with having a church in our neighborhood.
— 15 The problem with her statement is that they are planning to
16 do commercial zoning there. I mean, they want to be able to
17 have buildings that are selling items. They want a large
18 thing that they're going to sell off, so they have no control
19 of what's going to be put in there in the future.
20 There's going to be an issue with crime, which she
21 says it's going to be better because of the church. I agree
22 100 percent, the church will be great. The neighborhood
23 around it doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the
24 church; the commercial buildings, the movie theaters, if they
25 do it. Crime will come with that. It is not a good thing.
198
1 Another issue that I have is with the traffic, and
2 we've stated it over and over again. One thing that has not
3 been stated is that there will be a high school put in behind
4 our houses, and it is going to happen, and it will affect
5 traffic. I don't think I 've heard one article about it
6 included in today's topics. and it 's going to be worse than
7 just having a church and the traffic. I have seen no plans
8 for Highway -- or County Road 7 being opened up. So that
9 tells me the only access going to 119 from the high school is
10 going to be on County Road 5 1/2 . And I may be mistaken on
11 it, but I haven't heard anything about it. So that' s another
12 area I think, you know -- and that's not even including Pearl
13 Howlett, which is obviously a lot of people don't want to do
14 -- include in the church.
15 So just I 'm really concerned about that, what ' s
16 going to happen with that area. So that' s really all I have
17 to say.
18 THE CHAIRMAN: Okay. Thank you. The last, but not
19 least, Matt Ellison.
20 MR. ELLISON: I don't know if I 'm the best speaker
21 to have anchoring this proceeding. But my name is Matt
22 Ellison. I 'm representing my wife, Julie, as well. We live
23 at 11732 Victor Drive in the Elms, which is at the corner of
24 Pearl Howlett and Victor Drive.
25 I actually loathe public speaking and didn't sign
—
199
1 up originally when I got here this morning, but after
2 listening to everybody' s comments, I just felt compelled to
3 come up and reiterate some points and make some comments
4 about where I agree or disagree with some of what was
— 5 presented.
6 And, you know, Pat stole some of my thunder, and
7 other people as well, in that I don't think this is an issue
8 with LifeBridge Church. Personally, I welcome the church to
9 the neighborhood. I think it would be a wonderful asset to
— 10 the neighborhood. And all the people that stood up and spoke
11 on behalf of LifeBridge said -- you know, commented on all
—
12 the wonderful qualities that the church affords us. My wife
13 and I are actually looking for a church, and I can say
14 honestly that we would consider LifeBridge. So that ' s, to
_ 15 me, not what this proceeding is about. It' s really about
16 working with the surrounding communities to develop a quality
17 plan, and those are the issues that I wanted to focus on.
18 The biggest concerns that I had from the
19 presentations this morning were the -- I can't think of a
20 better word to describe it, but the poor quality of the
21 traffic studies, at least the information I was presented
22 from the pastor, and tell me if I 'm paraphrasing this
23 incorrectly, that you had said that the existing facility was
24 sufficient to accommodate your weekday needs, but it was
25 grossly inadequate to meet your weekend needs. Yet the
- 200
1 traffic study that we were presented talks about weekday
2 traffic.
3 So I think we're clearly dealing with some
4 inconsistencies there in looking at the volumes that were
— 5 presented.
6 Another issue is -- and again, Pearl Howlett and
7 Blue Mountain. Obviously, Pearl Howlett affects me directly,
8 so I 'm very concerned about this. But the original estimates
9 of 380 car trips per day I think defies logic and defies
— 10 common sense. It may fit into some type of mathematical
11 model for the area, but if you truly look at a map and have
—
12 ever had the opportunity to pass by LifeBridge' s campus on a
13 Sunday morning to see what traffic is like exiting that
14 facility -- and I appreciate that you only have one exit, so
15 that does amplify the problems. But personally when I 've
16 been in traffic jams like that, I look for the quickest and
17 easiest way out. It may not be the shortest, it may not be
18 the most direct, but I look for the quickest way out, and I
19 think most of us in this room would do the same thing. And
20 especially on Sundays and Wednesday nights, that 's going to
21 present a huge problem for traffic going down Pearl Howlett.
— 22 Scott Pratt and I have actually discussed the issue
23 of the emergency access gates, and I think that ' s something
24 that should be considered. If the connectivity, at least the
25 infrastructure for the connectivity is demanded by Public
201
1 Works, then there needs to be some concessions for, or some
2 consideration for limiting that to emergency access only.
3 The issue of residual traffic, I can 't remember the
4 term that was used, was somewhere between 1 and 5 percent,
5 was the base traffic, the existing traffic that would be on
6 County Road 3 1/2 and what is it, 26? If you look at those
7 percentages, and that implies that there' s going to be a
8 twentyfold increase. Our resident physicist talked about the
9 map and the fluid dynamics and how it all didn't add up, and
10 I would have to agree. If you're looking at a twentyfold
11 increase in traffic on those thoroughfares because that 's the
12 type of traffic that justifies having LifeBridge pick up 95
13 to 100 percent of the tab, then it' s difficult not to apply
14 those same percentages to traffic studies and estimations for
15 what' s going to be going down Pearl Howlett or Blue Mountain
16 Road.
17 Let' s see, the issue of phasing. Scott also talked
18 about the issue of phasing, and I think Mike had talked about
19 it as well. We're all relatively young. We bought these
20 houses with the intent of being there for quite a long period
21 of time. So whether it' s five, ten or fifteen years, I don't
22 really care. I 'm concerned about the overall plan because I
23 think ultimately it is going to affect me. We have no
24 intention of moving. And even if we did have an intention of
25 moving, I 'm not one of those people that believes in passing
202
1 my problems on to whoever buys my house, assuming I 'm able to
2 sell it for what I want, all things considered. So the
3 phasing to me isn't an issue; it's the whole plan, and it
4 needs to be taken into consideration.
5 Another point which other people mentioned, I can't
6 think of anything in Weld County that 's on this scale, and I
7 think that' s why you're getting interest that you are.
8 That 's why 9 News is here filming the events because it is
9 such a big issue, and I have a hard time imagining that that
10 is compatible with the existing area.
11 One word that jumps out to me is NIMBY, you know,
12 the whole knot in my back yard syndrome, and I think it' s
13 easy for planners and developers to look to that as an excuse
14 for why we're all here. Again, I 'm one of many people who
15 took one of my very few vacation days to come and spend all
16 day here to listen to what was said. And I think this is
17 more than a situation of, you know, NIMBYism. We're all very
18 concerned about what' s going to happen here, and we just want
19 to be a part of the process so we can develop a quality plan.
20 It' s kind of sad like, but I think -- was it Pat
21 had spoken to the 30 or 40-minute drive over to LifeBridge
22 campus. What immediately popped into my head is how much of
23 that time is actually spent in line waiting to get into the
24 parking lot? And those are the issues that we 're concerned
25 about in this neighborhood because those lines are going to
- 203
1 be developing right out at the end of my driveway, and I
2 don't want to see those.
3 Lastly, I think this whole thing has been a very
4 interesting process. We moved into our home the day after
5 Christmas of this year, and since that very first day, this
6 proceeding has given us the opportunity to meet a lot of our
7 neighbors. This development has given us the opportunity to
8 meet a lot of our neighbors because we 've all been very
9 active in talking about it. And I think we all agree that we
10 welcome the church as neighbors. We just want to be involved
11 in the planning process.
12 Last point, and then I 'm done, I want to commend
13 Peter. I think he had just a fabulous presentation. I saw
14 that he joined us again.
15 We've actually had a lot of debates, my wife and I,
16 within our house about the size of buildings, the issues of
17 light pollution and all this stuff. My wife and I don't
18 agree on what' s reasonable and what' s not reasonable, but I
19 think his presentation really put into perspective, and then
20 the graphics that we see up here or the pictures that we see
21 up here put into perspective the scale of the project that
22 we're talking about. And I 'm one of those people that was
23 truly ignorant to the size of it. I don't think I
24 appreciated the size of the development that we're talking
25 about, and I felt like his presentation did an excellent job
204
1 of really simplifying what we're looking at and then
2 explaining some of our concerns. That is all.
3 THE CHAIRMAN: Okay. Thank you.
4 At this time we' ll close the public portion of this
— 5 hearing. Would the applicant care to come forward and
6 respond to any of the statements that have been made by the
7 public or add anything further to their presentation?
8 MR. GRINNELL: Could I have just one second?
9 THE CHAIRMAN: Sure.
— 10 MR. GRINNELL: Thanks.
11 (Pause. )
—
12 THE CHAIRMAN: Can you turn that projector off,
13 please.
14 MR. GRINNELL: We' ll need the projector in a couple
15 of minutes, if that' s okay?
16 THE CHAIRMAN: Okay.
— 17 MR. GRINNELL: Thanks.
18 I guess the issues -- a couple of issues about the
19 church itself, and then we' ll move to heights because that
20 seems to be really the problem and an issue.
21 The church isn't a corporation. The church is here
— 22 to share its facilities, not just build its own facilities
23 and use them itself. So I think from a lot of the comment
24 you've heard, hopefully you understand that, you know, our
25 intentions are pretty altruistic. We have a good track
205
1 record of sharing our facilities. We feel like it is a
2 benefit to the County. Otherwise, the County is going to end
3 up funding and building these kinds of facilities as if the
4 intent in the MUD is to truly make a, you know, a community
5 out of it with athletic centers and other facilities that the
6 County would otherwise have to fund.
7 I want to move to heights because that' s the issue,
8 and I need to set up a board quickly.
9 Building heights are something that we spent a lot
10 of time on. It' s probably the issue we spent the most amount
11 of time on. The bulk, to review a couple things about the
12 bulk. What we did is if the campus portion of the project,
13 the 160 acres were built out with homes, 160 acres, four
14 homes per acre, homes are averaged 2 , 500 square feet, that
15 comes up to 1. 6 million square feet. That ' s why we reduced
16 the size of the campus down to a million and a half, is to
17 get some sort of compatibility with the total number of
18 square feet that would be on the 160 acres if it was
19 developed residentially.
20 Two, the offsets and the setbacks with respect to
21 the heights and the building. One of the things that would
22 happen is if you were in the Elms -- and I try to do the best
23 I can with the mike. If you were in the Elms and you owned a
24 home here (indicating) , and there was a home constructed the
25 same size on the other side of the property line -- thanks,
206
1 Kim -- the same size on the other side of the property line,
2 your view angle would be here (indicating) . If, in fact,
3 these church buildings were built with the offsets of several
4 hundred feet, the impact is much less to the view corridor
5 here than any residential development would have.
6 If you look at it facing west, this is a cross
7 section of what the church campus should look like. Looking
8 from the Elms, and what you see is the houses over -- the
9 single-family houses across the way up in the area that we've
10 been talking about, I guess where the single-family homes
11 are, are relatively the same height as the top of the church
12 buildings. So as far as a line across the horizon is
13 concerned, all of this stuff should end up the same height
14 because of the topography. And I believe the topography is a
15 part of the packet.
16 I 'm not sure where some of the pictures were taken,
17 but this is a rendering that was put together by a
18 combination of architects and planners with actual
19 photographs that were taken out on the site. And we placed
20 in here, in the photographs, Phase 1, church campus
21 facilities, and I believe it' s the same picture that up on
22 the screen -- Phase 1 of the church campus facilities. And
23 we also placed in the photograph, in the lower part,
24 residential homes if they were placed on the same side -- on
25 the same distance from the property line as the homes are
207
1 currently in the Elms. So we used the same height, same size
2 of homes in the Elms, and we placed them right on the
3 property line.
4 I don't think you can say that the impact of view
5 is the same. The impact of view based on this picture is
6 much different than that picture.
7 If you were to have several rows of homes across
8 here, it is, as in most of the subdivisions, if you are three
9 to four houses into a subdivision, you have no view east or
10 west, north or south. Your view is blocked.
11 So if the argument is that we're taking away a view
12 to the west, my comment is that there' s much less impact to
13 view to the west with a church campus than there is with a
14 residential development.
15 A similar picture of the impact at Meadow Vale with
16 the senior community based on the offsets that are projected
17 there, first is putting homes in a similar density to what's
18 in the Elms on the other side of the property line.
19 Barb Brunk has some photos. So there' s some
20 perspective of what would happen, I guess, if a residential
21 development were placed and how that would have impact.
22 We've gone around Weld County and taken pictures of
23 large buildings, and Barb Brunk will speak to that.
24 MS. BRUNK: Barb Brunk, TetraTech RMC, 1900 South
25 Sunset, Suite 1F, Longmont, Colorado.
208
1 That' s a picture of the Fort Collins High School
2 and Performing Arts Center, just so you can understand the
3 scale of it.
4 The next slide is one you've been -- it ' s a 75-foot
5 tall building, and these are pictures about distance away.
6 So the one in the upper left is 450. They get further away
7 as you go further along. So you can see that the one down on
8 the bottom that says, "View from 1, 100 feet southwest, " the
9 proposed children' s learning center, the 268 , 000 square foot
10 building is a little further away from the homes than this
11 proposed building. So the significance is that even though
12 it' s a big building, the additional setback makes the view
13 impact less to the adjacent homes.
14 If you look at the picture that Bruce showed you of
15 the houses right next door, standard single-family
16 residential would put a house 30 feet tall 30 feet from the
17 property line, which would entirely block the view. Even
18 though these buildings are bigger, they are set far enough
19 away that you see around them and through them.
20 So the intention was to consider the neighborhood
21 and use increased setbacks to make it clear that we were
22 trying to be a good neighbor and give them additional setback
23 to ensure compatibility.
24 UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: How high is that building?
25 MS. BRUNK: That building is 75 feet tall.
209
1 This is another image. These are houses, and these
2 are looking from homes toward those buildings at a comparable
3 distance from the homes at the Elms so that --
4 UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: (inaudible) .
— 5 THE CHAIRMAN: Sir?
6 UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Sorry.
—
7 THE CHAIRMAN: The public portion is closed,
8 please.
9 MS. BRUNK: I 'm not sure about the topography, but
— 10 it is a typical setback to the property.
11 Another thing that I think that there is a little
12 bit of confusion about is what's going to be 90 feet tall.
13 The way the staff recommendation is written is that within
14 that 18-acre box in the center of the campus, up to 20
15 percent of the ground, which is about 150, 000 square feet of
16 building, may extend up to 90 feet tall. So that means there
17 are places inside the campus where it could get a little
18 taller and will get a little smaller, but it 's not a 90-foot
19 wall across there. It's a portion of that space that may
20 extend up. So it' s not -- it 's not the entire thing, it' s
21 portions of it.
22 And if you go back to that Fort Collins High School
23 image -- come on -- see how the building varies in height,
24 and you can see some tall things and some short things? Any
_ 25 architecture is going to have some of that change. There is
210
1 a performing arts center in that high school, so there is an
2 auditorium. So it 's those changes that allow for variation
3 in the height that we're trying to allow for in the bulk
4 standards.
5 I think that's all I wanted to say about the
6 height, and we're definitely here to answer questions, if you
7 have any questions. We have images of other buildings around
8 Weld County, if you'd like to -- I mean, there are -- the
9 Promontory is about 75 feet tall, so we did take a picture of
10 that and have pictures from the adjacent homes, if you'd like
11 to see that because you're kind of familiar with it. But
12 it' s generally the same idea.
13 THE CHAIRMAN: Fred?
14 COMMISSIONER WALKER: Mr. Chairman, I 'd like to
15 know, there' s a large church north of the Fort Collins High
16 School. Do you know how tall that church building is there?
17 MS. BRUNK: No, I don't.
18 COMMISSIONER WALKER: Okay. Thank you.
19 THE CHAIRMAN: Is that it? Okay. Thank you.
20 MR. MORRISON: Can I ask one question?
21 THE CHAIRMAN: Go ahead, Lee.
22 MR. MORRISON: Do you have a condensed version of
23 the first of these two (inaudible) sites?
24 MS. BRUNK: The line of sight images?
25 MR. MORRISON: Yeah.
211
1 MS. BRUNK: I think were in one of the packets that
2 was submitted previously to Kim. I need to go through my
3 paperwork to make sure.
4 MR. MORRISON: Okay. If you could refer me to that
5 before the end of the hearing?
6 MS. BRUNK: No problem.
7 THE CHAIRMAN: Are there any other questions on
8 building heights specifically?
9 I have one question. Can you shut that projector
10 off now?
11 MR. MORRISON: It' s blinding Mr. Miller.
12 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you. Oh, it ' s not off yet.
13 UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: (inaudible) .
14 THE CHAIRMAN: Sorry, sir, the public portion of
15 the hearing is closed.
16 UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: (inaudible) .
17 THE CHAIRMAN: No, sir.
18 MR. HODGES: In closing, I just had a general
19 comment concerning the MUD. Todd Hodges, Todd Hodges Design.
20 Early on and throughout some of the public
21 testimony, there was some mention of a general commercial
22 uses within the campus. I want to make that clear, that the
23 commercial component of this would be located down where it 's
24 appropriate and has been planned down in the corner in the
25 neighborhood center.
212
1 The intent, again, of the mixed use development
2 area was to allow for creative design and planning in this
3 area. It was not intended to be homogeneous in a just
4 commercial, just residential district. You have the
— 5 opportunity through this plan, this master plan community, to
6 allow for mixed uses that are very compatible with the uses
7 outlined in the mixed use development goals and policies, as
8 well as the criteria for planned unit development.
9 They're very compatible with the existing use, and
— 10 through concessions made, LifeBridge Christian Church has
11 made every effort to ensure increased compatibility through
12 the setback, the buffering, and items listed in those
13 (inaudible) that have been provided to you.
14 The structural plan was created as a guideline.
— 15 That is not zoning. That was not establishing a zone
16 district. That was a guideline when that was produced and a
—
17 guideline for going through the planned unit development
18 process with some flexibility to allow for creativity and
19 mixed uses within the specific area.
20 There was also a lot of mention about this site as
21 open space or a rural area. When this was established as a
—
22 mixed use development area, that went away. I remember when
23 Meadow Vale and the Elms were fields, also.
24 And there was also a mention of precedent. I don't
25 think there was a precedent with some of these urban
— 213
1 developments. These are truly urban developments in the
— 2 mixed use development area.
3 This proposal is compatible, and through the
4 information that you have in front of you and through this
— 5 presentation, we feel that we have shown you evidence that it
6 is truly compatible with the area, and do wish that you give
7 a positive recommendation to the Board of County
8 Commissioners.
9 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you. Are there any questions
— 10 for the applicant? Fred?
11 COMMISSIONER WALKER: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
—
12 Todd, I 'd just like to say that early on when I was
13 appointed to the Planning Commission, I went with Monica to
14 the red church above the structural use map, and you're
— 15 correct. I remember the Planners asking, well, what zoning
16 would you like to have on your property? They weren't
17 insisting upon anything. They were saying to the members or
18 the people in the community, well, what kind of zoning would
19 you like to have? And then they would write it on the map.
20 So it wasn't any definite zoning. It was the sort of map
21 that has been portrayed.
—
22 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you. Any other questions for
23 Todd?
24 One clarification, Todd. You made the statement
25 that the commercial area would be down on the southwest
— 214
1 corner; is that correct?
2 MR. HODGES: Yes, the southern portion is where the
3 general commercial uses are, as in the concept to stay within
4 the neighborhood center so they'd be consistent with the
— 5 neighborhood center uses. The church campus itself is not
6 proposing any general commercial on that site.
7 THE CHAIRMAN: Okay. Bryant?
8 COMMISSIONER GIMLIN: Todd, we had a member of the
9 public indicate that LifeBridge intended to sell off that
— 10 south portion and just have commercial developers handle the
11 commercial development of that property. Is there any such
—
12 notion?
13 MR. HODGES: Actually, I ' ll defer that question to
14 Bruce.
— 15 MR. GRINNELL: Our intent all along has been to
16 sell off the single-family housing piece. It has not been
17 the intent to sell off the lower 92 acres. Currently, we're
18 looking for a partner with respect to the retirement village
19 to help develop it. We're not in the development business
20 when it comes to doing senior living villages. Our intent is
21 to continue to have ownership in that site.
—
22 Some of the things that people have mentioned that
23 might be on there, we don't want on there either. We are
24 interested in maintaining the integrity of that property.
25 The other issue is that I believe in our
— 215
1 concessions, and in the last -- the list that you got today,
2 we agreed to deed restrict that lower portion as a senior
3 community. It would then -- yeah, I guess if somebody were
—
4 to get it, if something were to happen and we were to sell it
— 5 at some point in the future, and as you can see in Phase 1,
6 what we have the intention to do is to develop that into lots
7 and sell them off. But I guess if some portion of it were
8 left, it would be deed restricted as a result of these
9 proceedings.
— 10 So to answer your question specifically, no, we
11 have no intention of selling it off at this time.
—
12 THE CHAIRMAN: Okay. Are there any more questions
13 for the applicant? Bryant, go ahead.
14 COMMISSIONER GIMLIN: I 'd like to ask one more just
— 15 on the building height just because of the consensus I got
16 from the public testimony.
—
17 Would you please elaborate on why that building
18 needs to be that high? I mean, what' s going to happen in
19 that building that it needs to be 90 feet tall?
20 MR. GRINNELL: The Phase 1 building that we 've
21 talked about -- as a matter of fact, the one that' s in the
22 picture right there, we think the maximum height of that
23 building is 75 feet. The highest piece of that is the fly
24 tower.
25 You know, the question was asked, why does a church
216
1 need a theater? We have productions that we do. We would
2 like theater for those productions. You know, all of the
3 church facilities would be constructed primarily, number one,
4 for church use. If we don't have things to do in those
— 5 facilities, we don't -- we're not going to speculate and
6 build buildings.
7 The height of the fly tower is based on a fly
8 tower. An 18-by-24 foot (inaudible) requires a fly space
—
9 that' s roughly 72 to 75 feet high, to get the screens up and
— 10 get them up out of sight. So that fly tower is in the
11 picture, I believe 75 feet, not 90 feet.
—
12 There is one balcony in that building, so there' s
13 the two spaces. One is a multi-purpose space, multi-use
14 space that we hope will hold 2, 500 seats that we would use
— 15 for worship Sunday morning and also be divisible for other
16 uses as well.
—
17 There's a 500-feet theater in that space with 350
18 seats on the floor and 150 seats in one balcony. That
19 building, other than the fly tower, is 60 feet or less, okay?
— 20 What we wanted to plan for in the future was a
21 potential for an auditorium with two balconies. And after
22 consulting a lot of architects and specifically theater
23 consultants, we found that it' s difficult to get what we call
24 an intimate theater, something where the view angles are
25 decent, without two balconies. And you bring them in to make
217
1 them very close, and it brings it pretty tall.
2 That' s what we're looking to -- the entitlement
— 3 we're looking for at this time, and that's why we've squished
4 it into that 18-acre parcel. One of the reasons that we
— 5 aligned it east and west is to have the least amount of
6 impact to people's views. It' s 1, 440 feet long, but it 's
7 only 540 feet wide. And what we're asking for is the ability
— 8 to build up to 20 percent of that space over 60 feet, but not
9 more than 90. So to infer that there will be 20 percent of
— 10 that would take an architect I think a long time to figure
11 out exactly to use it.
12 As we indicated, this is going to last a long time
13 we hope. We don't know what the future might hold. We're
14 just asking for the entitlement. But specifically on that, I
— 15 believe there are 12 , 000 square feet above 60, and I believe
16 it' s at 75 in Phase 1.
17 COMMISSIONER GIMLIN: Thanks for clearing that up.
18 I think that would help a lot because I think that ' s a
19 mitigating factor. It' s not that you're doing the total
— 20 square footage of the campus at the 90-foot building height
21 by a long shot. So --
-
22 MR. GRINNELL: Yeah, there' s -- I believe that less
23 than 1 percent of the entire campus would be at 90 feet or
24 above 60, if we were to have the whole 150, 000 square feet
— 25 above 60. We tried to isolate the impact to a fairly small
218
1 area on the campus. And as everybody has made comment here,
2 there's been a lot of conversations on both sides.
3 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you. Are there any other
4 questions for Bruce? Jim?
— 5 COMMISSIONER ROHN: I don't know whether this is
6 best for him or you, sir. Give me an idea of the size of
7 that theater. I 'm thinking of the Greeley Union Colony Civic
8 Center. Do you know how tall that is? Is that something
9 that' s similar in size?
— 10 MR. GRINNELL: I think we have an answer over here.
11 No, I don't.
12 THE CHAIRMAN: Any other questions? Fred?
13 COMMISSIONER WALKER: Yeah, in the public testimony
14 I heard a number of people talk about the Sunday service and
— 15 what kind of traffic problems that might create when church
16 was out. And at your present location, do you do any sort of
—
17 mitigation, like to try to ask people not to leave? Do you
18 have a staggered type of plan so when people exit onto the
19 highway, they're not all trying to get on at the same time,
— 20 and then they dominate the traffic in the area? I mean, is
21 that something that you would consider doing in this one
22 because we really haven't heard a number of vehicles that
23 would be on site on a Sunday or even a Wednesday evening.
24 MR. GRINNELL: The traffic on Sunday morning is in
25 three 15-minute intervals, is when there is substantial
—
219
1 traffic. That' s when as soon as the service lets out, people
2 try to get out of the parking lot.
3 We currently, and for the last year or two, have
4 used, you know, a Colorado State Patrol Officer out front to
5 direct traffic because of that. The distance between
6 services has been lengthened slightly in order to accommodate
7 the traffic flow. On the new campus, our hope is to have
8 things there to help stagger the traffic, to have things
9 there to help cause people to delay on and off.
— 10 The other thing is there' s multiple exits and much
11 wider roads, and the roads are made to handle the traffic. I
—
12 think that' s the one commitment we have made to our
13 congregation, is to ensure ourselves that we won 't have any
14 kind of the problems that we have now.
— 15 So could we additionally create ways to help
16 stagger the traffic? Sure. Do we now -- there' s no place to
—
17 put the people right now. You have to get a certain amount
18 of them off the campus in order to get the next service on.
19 THE CHAIRMAN: Do you have any demographics as far
— 20 as where -- or what percentage of your congregation lives
21 north, south, east and west of your present location or this
22 location or --
23 MR. GRINNELL: I think we do. I don't have ny
24 here.
25 THE CHAIRMAN: Do you have any -- can you -- what
220
1 do you have in your memory? Are most people coming from the
— 2 west?
3 MR. GRINNELL: Yes.
4 THE CHAIRMAN: To this location?
— 5 MR. GRINNELL: Yes.
6 THE CHAIRMAN: Okay. Are there any other questions
7 for Bruce?
8 (No response. )
9 THE CHAIRMAN: Okay. Thank you.
— 10 MR. GRINNELL: I think the last comment on traffic
11 was that -- back to the compatibility issue again. If, in
12 fact, that 160 acres were put in homes at a density of four
13 per acre, that would be 640 homes. A home generates 10 car
14 trips a day. The traffic studies that have been presented
— 15 here are all based on that. That's a standard traffic study
16 number. I could have -- actually, I ' ll just have Matt speak
—
17 to that.
18 THE CHAIRMAN: Okay. Give us your name again.
19 MR. DELICH: Yes, Matt Delich. I performed the
— 20 traffic studies on this development.
21 Bruce is right, that typically a single-family home
—
22 generates 10 trip ends -- if you remember how I described a
23 trip end -- trip ends per day, and that's five in, five out.
24 Some homes are more, some homes are less, but on average,
25 it's about 10. And that 640 dwelling units that would go
221
1 potentially on the same site as the church facility would
2 generate 10 times the 640, or 6,400 trip ends per day.
3 And if you recall from my presentation, at
4 1, 500, 000 square feet, the church facility generated 8 , 250
5 trip ends per day. And the overall development, if you
6 recall, was around 25, 000. That includes everything. And if
7 the church changes to residential, it would drop to 23 , 000
8 roughly. I 'm dealing with round numbers here.
9 So you can see while in comparing the limes,
10 lemons, grapefruit and watermelon, the increase for the
11 church would be on the order of 8 percent. So I think we're
12 going from a lime to maybe a lemon by going from residential
13 to the church.
14 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you.
15 MR. DELICH: Thank you.
16 THE CHAIRMAN: Any questions for him?
17 Okay. We're going to take about a short break.
18 (Whereupon, a break was taken. )
19 THE CHAIRMAN: Okay. We' ll call this meeting back
20 to order at this time.
21 I believe Jim has a question for Kim.
22 COMMISSIONER ROHN: Just out of curiosity, I know
23 that the Union Reservoir, it's going to be expanding. How
24 close to the property is it about to expand?
25 MR. OGLE: Kim Ogle, Department of Planning
- 222
1 Services.
2 We don't have an exact number. We know that the
3 expansions can go on all sides of the Union Reservoir.
4 Exactly how far it is, I couldn't tell you.
— 5 The County Road 26, which presently goes along the
6 dam, is going to be relocated so it 's directly adjacent to
7 the single-family residential component of the LifeBridge
8 (inaudible) . So someplace between that point and the
9 existing reservoir is where the new reservoir will end up.
— 10 THE CHAIRMAN: Okay. Thank you. Are there any
11 other questions for staff or for the applicant? Bryant?
—
12 COMMISSIONER GIMLIN: I was going for staff, Frank.
13 We heard a lot of public comment and testimony about
14 connectivity with Pearl Howlett and Blue Mountain. And just
_ 15 kind of looking at the maps and some of the ideas that came
16 up, they were talking about just an emergency access only.
—
17 What' s the opinion of Public Works on that issue? I mean, I
18 heard what you testified, that you would like to connect
19 those streets. But do you think there's some legal -- I
20 mean, what' s the real reason for connecting it, number one.
21 And number two, if it is just for emergency vehicles or
22 stuff, is that something that we could work out do you think?
23 MR. HEMPEN: Well, our position was that emergency
24 vehicles was one element. Our real position is, is that we
25 think it' s necessary for cross-connectivity, for people --
— 223
1 there are -- in ultimate development, there are going to be
2 uses that the people know there is, they're going to want to
3 take advantage of, down in the corner of 3 1/2 and 119. I
4 call it the northeast corner of the intersection. It would
— 5 be the southwest corner of the applicant' s tract.
6 We think, and this will make me real popular, but
7 we think the usages will be just as much from east to west
8 into that area, probably much more so than in the opposite
9 direction. And that was described in Mr. Delich' s report
_ 10 when we asked him where we ended up getting the numbers that
11 we thought would be the cross-connectivity, the number of
12 vehicles that we would get going back and forth.
13 COMMISSIONER GIMLIN: Well, I guess what I heard
14 anyway, and maybe my colleagues here can chime in, but what I
15 heard is that people in these adjoining subdivisions are
16 willing to give up, you know, any one in return for keeping
— 17 the traffic counts down in their neighborhood, and I guess,
18 to me, that makes kind of sense, you know, especially when
19 there's a potential to use those two streets for shortcuts
20 or, you know, trying to zip through somewhere quickly to
21 avoid a red light and that kind thing, that maybe it might be
22 safer not to connect them.
23 MR. HEMPEN: I wonder if the Commission would
24 consider letting Mr. Delich explain the supplemental report
25 that he provided for the Department of Public Works and the
— 224
1 County regarding that traffic, and really orientation of that
2 traffic?
3 MR. DELICH: I 'd be glad to, you bet.
4 Matt Delich. (inaudible) asked me to come up with
5 some information regarding what I thought the connectivity
6 would cause with regard to traffic. And when you think about
7 the uses on this site, particularly the church campus related
8 uses and where the population currently exists, both church
9 related population and just general population, it' s mostly
10 to the west.
11 A short time ago someone asked Bruce if he knew
12 where his population was. Well, the fact of the matter is
13 when I did my traffic study, I asked somebody on the team, I
14 don't remember who, that brought the home locations of every
15 one of the church members so that I could do the distribution
16 properly in doing my traffic study. So I had this plot of
— 17 home locations all over northern Colorado, actually into
18 south Denver, and that was the basis of my trip distribution.
19 And most of the people that go to this church are
20 basically Longmont, points north, southwest toward Boulder, a
21 fair amount to the east, but we're not talking big numbers.
— 22 We 're talking 15, 20 percent, compared to what it is
23 elsewhere. And we think about the road system through the
24 Elms and Meadow Vale. They're rather (inaudible) . Pearl
25 Howlett is pretty much a straight shot, but then 5 1/2 is
225
1 kind of a winding county road with no signal control at 119.
2 And going through this analysis, and part of it is
3 -- what traffic engineers do is they -- minimum distance,
4 minimum time analysis, and that's what I use. It' s an
— 5 accepted methodology for doing traffic studies. And came up
6 with a fairly small number of people who would be -- who have
7 all been to church activities that would likely cut through
8 these two residential developments to the east. Just for one
9 thing, because very few of the people who would be coming
— 10 into the church live in that direction, and the other is the
11 nature of getting through those neighborhoods.
12 And then the other part of it is, as Frank
13 mentioned, in the northeast quadrant of the 119 , 3 1/2
14 intersection, there's going to be a commercial aspect with
15 some retail and perhaps some office in that area, and these
16 are trip attracters. And they' ll probably have some
17 convenience retail in there. And the people from the two
18 neighborhoods to the east will likely use the connectors, if
19 they're available, to get to these services, to these retail
20 centers. If they did not exist, they would have to come
21 south on 5 1/2 , out on 119 and back in. And that' s the way
— 22 that I came up with the numbers that were in the supplement
23 to the traffic study. And quite frankly, the numbers are --
24 in my judgment, they're going to be fairly small. And, you
25 know, we've got some kind of "boos" when that number came out
— 226
1 earlier. But in my 38 years experience of doing traffic
2 studies and traffic engineering, I feel very comfortable with
3 the numbers I came up with.
4 COMMISSIONER GIMLIN: I would challenge the
— 5 engineering with just a little bit of common sense, if you
6 will. Me and engineers have had those kinds of conversations
7 a lot it seems like.
8 But, you know, people in cars are kind of like
9 water. They're going to take the path of least resistance.
— 10 And the idea of moving this facility to this location is to
11 allow for room for expansion. And as they move into Weld
12 County, they're likely to draw more people from Weld County
13 from the north and from the east. So that' s going to, you
14 know, skew your figures just a little bit there, I suspect.
15 But past that, you know, if the services get over
—
16 with and there' s a mad rush for one or two exits, and they,
— 17 you know, get plugged up, then people are going to tend to
18 take the path of least resistance and start zipping down some
19 of these other avenues, in my judgment. And I can tell you
20 when my church gets out on Sunday, there' s a lot of people
21 who have forgot where they've just been because they're in a
— 22 hurry to go. And I think that' s just human nature, and
23 that' s my concern in this project, is that, you know, if you
24 did connect these roads to this project, then you're going to
25 have a lot of people zipping through there, and it's going to
227
1 be at times on a weekend and even in the evening during the
2 week during the summertime when you've got kids trying to
3 access the park and people going to their mailboxes after
4 work. You know, whatever, there ' s going to be a lot of
_ 5 pedestrian traffic potentially on those two main roads that
6 we were talking about, Pearl Howlett and Blue Mountain.
7 So, you know, I 've got concerns with that to where
8 the emergency access made a little more sense to me.
9 MR. HEMPEN: If I --
10 THE CHAIRMAN: Go ahead.
11 MR. HEMPEN: Mr. Chairman, if I might add on to
—
12 what Mr. Delich said, and what you said, Commissioner Gimlin.
13 I think that traffic orientation, we just talked a
14 minute ago about people take the least, and you did too, the
15 path of least resistance. But remember, we're talking about
16 these connections being made at ultimate developments at the
17 final stage, at the ultimate development stage. And that
18 north/south road, which will tie into the two roads to the
19 east and the subdivisions also makes a connection to 26. So
20 if people are interested in getting north, getting northeast
21 and not using 119, the path of resistance will typically be
— 22 taking that road, getting up on 26 and going around the
23 subdivision, and then either radiating to the north on 5 or
24 on 7 at some future point.
25 Again, the real issue here is the cross-
228
1 connectivity for the people in the subdivision at that point
2 in time.
3 So I guess to answer your question, we feel very
4 strongly about that, about the issue of connectivity, and we
— 5 certainly think it ' s appropriate to leave that in.
6 THE CHAIRMAN: Go ahead, Fred.
7 COMMISSIONER WALKER: Bryant, I kind of agree with
8 you. And a lady spoke in public testimony about having an
9 18-year old son, and it only takes one of those that when a
— 10 young mother and her child are trying to get to the mailbox,
11 that that could be an issue. And so I think from the
12 standpoint of safety, if nothing else, that connecting the
13 community is not a good idea for motorized vehicles. I think
14 I heard some testimony about they weren't necessarily against
15 trails and bike paths and, you know, pedestrian things, non-
16 motorized things. But the motorized thing, I don't think
— 17 this is a good thing. You know, in Phase 3 , if the community
18 wants to connect, they can come back in and say, we want to
19 connect, at that point in time address it. And I think today
20 it' s not the thing to do.
21 THE CHAIRMAN: Bruce?
— 22 COMMISSIONER FITZGERALD: I agree. We have heard
23 testimony from many people on both sides of the issue, and no
24 one said that they wanted connectivity.
25 THE CHAIRMAN: Well, I don't think that the roads
— 229
1 are designed for it to be three roads, so to all of sudden
2 make them into three roads with not being (inaudible) to how
3 they were designed, to start with.
4 Okay. That I believe is -- now, Kim, I got -- I
— 5 downloaded this off of an E-mail. You call it the
6 Preliminary Draft No. 6, which is the same thing that we got
7 a while back, but they're different page wise.
8 So on page 15 where it addresses that, in E,
9 27-6-120-6.e. , it addresses -- it says, "The location of
— 10 neighborhood centers are intended to provide community
11 services to the residents within the MUD area. Pearl Howlett
— 12 Road in the Elms at Meadow Vale and Blue Mountain Road in
13 Meadow Vale Farms should be connected to the internal road
14 systems of the LifeBridge PUD. "
15 Is that the only place that makes reference to this
16 connectivity?
— 17 MR. OGLE: Mr. Miller?
18 THE CHAIRMAN: Yes.
19 MR. OGLE: Just those two places.
20 THE CHAIRMAN: Okay. So in -- I guess it would be
21 on -- I ' ll get on the same page as everybody else here.
— 22 We're looking at page 34 2C, and also that would be I believe
23 on page 16 of that -- 16E. So if someone wants to strike
—
24 that reference to connectivity, those would be the places we
25 need to do it in.
230
1 Well, I think we need to delete any reference to
—
2 connecting.
3 Kim, are you fairly confident that those are the
4 only two places that it' s mentioned?
— 5 MR. OGLE: Yes, Public Works has identified those
6 as the only two places.
—
7 THE CHAIRMAN: Okay. So what -- tornado? Page 34
8 2C, and page 16, E, the references to connectivity of Pearl
9 Howlett Road and Blue Mountain Road, correct?
10 COMMISSIONER ROHN: Mr. Chairman?
—
11 THE CHAIRMAN: Yes.
12 COMMISSIONER ROHN: I was going to move that we
13 strike those two areas.
14 THE CHAIRMAN: We need to nail it down a little
15 closer, though, because there ' s other things in that
16 paragraph that are applicable. Well, I guess -- well, we
— 17 could -- how much of that do we need to strike? Just one
18 sentence? Okay.
19 Go ahead, Jim. I think we've got --
20 COMMISSIONER ROHN: All right. On page 16 where it
21 says "Pearl Howlett Road in the Elms at Meadow Vale and Blue
— 22 Mountain Road in Meadow Vale Farms should be connected to the
23 road systems of the LifeBridge PUD, " I make a motion that
24 that sentence be struck.
25 I also move that on page 34 , 2D be struck.
- 231
1 THE CHAIRMAN: 2C.
-
2 COMMISSIONER ROHN: 2C. I 'm sorry, 2C.
3 COMMISSIONER FITZGERALD: I second it.
4 (Motion seconded. )
— 5 THE CHAIRMAN: It ' s been moved by Jim and seconded
6 by Bruce to delete the sentence.
—
7 What, Kim?
8 MR. OGLE: I would suggest that you also strike on
9 page 16 the sentence after the sentence that Commissioner
10 Rohn identified, and it says, "LifeBridge Christian Church' s
11 traffic engineer should estimate the impact on Pearl Howlett
—
12 and Blue Mountain Roads and provide the basis for which his
13 conclusions are drawn. " Strike that sentence as well.
14 COMMISSIONER ROHN: I amend my motion to add that
15 sentence.
—
16 COMMISSIONER FITZGERALD: And I second that, also.
— 17 (Motion seconded. )
18 THE CHAIRMAN: Okay. It 's been moved by Jim and
19 seconded by Bruce to delete on page 16, paragraph E, or
20 Section E, the fourth paragraph down, delete the sentence
21 that reads, "Pearl Howlett Road in the Elms at Meadow Vale
— 22 and the Blue Mountain Road in Meadow Vale Farms should be
23 connected to the internal road systems of the LifeBridge PUD.
24 LifeBridge Christian Church' s traffic engineer should
25 estimate the impact on Pearl Howlett and the Blue Mountain
232
1 Road and provide the basis for which his conclusions are
2 drawn. " Those sentences would be deleted, together with on
3 page 16E. Please poll the board. I 'm sorry, 34 2C.
4 THE SECRETARY: Fitzgerald?
5 COMMISSIONER FITZGERALD: Yes.
6 THE SECRETARY: Rohn?
7 COMMISSIONER ROHN: Yes.
8 THE SECRETARY: Hutson?
9 COMMISSIONER HUTSON: Yes.
10 THE SECRETARY: Folsom?
11 COMMISSIONER FOLSOM: Yes.
12 THE SECRETARY: Ruesgen?
13 COMMISSIONER RUESGEN: Yes.
14 THE SECRETARY: Walker?
15 COMMISSIONER WALKER: Yes.
16 THE SECRETARY: Mokray?
17 COMMISSIONER MOKRAY: Yes.
18 THE SECRETARY: Gimlin?
19 COMMISSIONER GIMLIN: Yes.
20 THE SECRETARY: Miller?
21 THE CHAIRMAN: Yes. Motion carries.
22 (Motion carries. )
23 THE CHAIRMAN: There' s been a lot of discussion
24 about height of the buildings. Does anybody want to tackle
25 any changes to the height recommendations of the buildings?
233
1 Any discussion on the matter? Jim?
2 COMMISSIONER ROHN: In looking at the view point
3 from your neighboring residences, I think that the --
4 although the buildings are tall, I think the view point, the
5 vantage point to the mountains is not as disturbed as it
6 would be if they put a house on the other side of the
7 property line.
8 I, for one, have to agree that churches are tall
9 buildings, unless you find a little -- the little white
10 church out in the meadow. Modern churches are tall. And
11 even if the tallest building is 60 feet, you're going to
12 still have another 20 feet for sure for a steeple or
13 something. I don't see a problem with it. It' s just a fact
14 that I hate to say it' s going to have to be looked at.
15 THE CHAIRMAN: Any other comment on that?
16 (No response. )
— 17 THE CHAIRMAN: Well, I have to agree with Jim. I
18 look at the sight lines, and I live adjacent, or very close
19 to Aimes Community College in Greeley that has some pretty
20 tall buildings, and then I have a friend who lives adjacent
21 to the Catholic church on 20th Street in Greeley, which is a
— 22 pretty tall church. I 'm surprised you didn't have any
23 pictures of that one in there. And while the church is
24 visible in the skyline, it certainly doesn't obliterate the
25 entire view, and I 'd be hesitant to try and change any of the
— 234
1 height recommendations. I think they're fairly conservative
—
2 as it is.
3 John? You're hiding behind Bryant there. I
4 couldn't see your hand.
— 5 COMMISSIONER FOLSOM: I just want to confirm that
6 on this layout here, Bulk Standard Summary, what we are
7 voting on is what is in red; is that correct, Kim? In other
8 words, what' s in black is what the applicant would wish?
9 MR. OGLE: I think if you look at page 36, O,
10 that' s really where it's spelled out, the heights --
-
11 COMMISSIONER FOLSOM: No, just go ahead.
— 12 MR. OGLE: Excuse me. The items in red are
13 modifications to staff comments from the date of mailing,
14 which was either the 15th of April or the 16th of April, if
15 you got it by mail, to the 18th. There was a misidentified
16 number in there. That's what's in red. That doesn't show
— 17 the change in text versus bolder text.
18 But if you refer to, I think it 's page 36 , Item
19 3 . 0, or 3 . 0, that' s where we spell out precise building
20 heights for the entire development.
21 THE CHAIRMAN: Go ahead.
— 22 COMMISSIONER MOKRAY: Well, I think I 'd like to put
23 a restriction on the height. Ninety, I think, is excessive.
24 I 'd like to see it held down at 75.
25 COMMISSIONER MOKRAY: Of course, our average is 75
235
1 to 90. I 'd like to leave it at 90 at max.
2 THE CHAIRMAN: You mean 75.
3 COMMISSIONER MOKRAY: 75, rather than at 90.
4 THE CHAIRMAN: So what you're suggesting is we have
5 20 percent of that that could go to 90 feet. You're saying
6 to limit that to 75?
7 COMMISSIONER MOKRAY: Right.
8 THE CHAIRMAN: Are you putting that in the form of
9 a motion?
10 COMMISSIONER MOKRAY: I ' ll make that as a motion.
11 THE CHAIRMAN: Do I have a second?
12 (No response. )
13 THE CHAIRMAN: Okay. We don't have a second.
14 Motion failed.
15 (Motion fails. )
16 THE CHAIRMAN: Do we have any further discussion on
17 the height issue? Okay, go ahead, Fred.
18 COMMISSIONER WALKER: The Health Department had
19 reports on hand washing.
20 THE CHAIRMAN: Right, 3E. Are you going to --
21 COMMISSIONER WALKER: Oh, no, I was just reminding
22 you.
23 THE CHAIRMAN: Okay. Well, go ahead and make a
24 motion while you've got it there.
25 COMMISSIONER WALKER: I don't remember what the
— 236
1 language was.
—
2 THE CHAIRMAN: You read the language in the record,
3 so you could just make the motion to adopt that language.
4 COMMISSIONER HUTSON: Mr. Chairman, I believe this
5 motion was to say that if they have public restrooms, they
6 must have a public hand wash within the common areas. So to
—
7 require to the Health Commission that the public restrooms be
8 installed and hand wash areas in the common area be in place.
9 THE CHAIRMAN: Okay.
10 COMMISSIONER HUTSON: I so move.
11 COMMISSIONER ROHN: My question is, is that for
—
12 inside the buildings, which is rational, or outside?
13 THE CHAIRMAN: No, it's for the common areas
— 14 outside.
15 COMMISSIONER ROHN: Outside. I ' ll second that.
16 (Motion seconded. )
— 17 THE CHAIRMAN: It' s been moved by John and seconded
18 by Jim to add the language read into the record by the Health
19 Department early in the meeting to add 3E that referred to
20 permanent restrooms and hand washing facilities at gathering
21 places. So it was read. Please poll the board.
— 22 THE SECRETARY: Fitzgerald?
23 COMMISSIONER FITZGERALD: Yes.
—
24 THE SECRETARY: Rohn?
25 COMMISSIONER ROHN: Yes.
237
1 THE SECRETARY: Hutson?
2 COMMISSIONER HUTSON: Yes.
3 THE SECRETARY: Folsom?
4 COMMISSIONER FOLSOM: Yes.
5 THE SECRETARY: Ruesgen?
6 COMMISSIONER RUESGEN: Yes.
7 THE SECRETARY: Walker?
8 COMMISSIONER WALKER: Yes.
9 THE SECRETARY: Mokray?
— 10 COMMISSIONER MOKRAY: Yes.
11 THE SECRETARY: Gimlin?
12 COMMISSIONER GIMLIN: Yes.
13 THE SECRETARY: Miller?
14 THE CHAIRMAN: Yes. Motion carries.
— 15 (Motion carries. )
16 THE CHAIRMAN: Are there any other issues that you
17 want to discuss or --
18 MR. OGLE: Mr. Miller?
19 THE CHAIRMAN: Go ahead.
— 20 MR. OGLE: Staff would like to strike under the
21 request -- it 's a request for a PUD change of zone to ag to
— 22 PUD. We 'd like to strike E, Estate, that you not have any
23 Estate zoning. That occurs on pages 1, 3 and 19 .
24 THE CHAIRMAN: So strike the reference to Estate
— 25 zoning?
238
1 MR. OGLE: Correct. And then on page 35, under
2 "The plat shall be amended to include the following, " we 'd
3 like to add -- or add Item E and then reletter. Item E will
4 state, "The right-of-way for the Great Western Railroad track
5 shall be verified and delineated on the plat. "
6 THE CHAIRMAN: Okay. That would be E and
7 renumbered, or relettered?
8 MR. OGLE: Correct.
9 COMMISSIONER GIMLIN: Mr. Chair?
10 THE CHAIRMAN: Yes.
11 COMMISSIONER GIMLIN: I 've got a question, Kim.
12 When I drove by that site Sunday, it didn't look like that
13 railroad track was in use. Do you know if they're still
14 using it?
15 MR. OGLE: Yes, it is an active railroad.
16 COMMISSIONER GIMLIN: Okay. There was rocks across
17 the road. It didn't look like a train could pass.
18 MR. OGLE: A couple times a year.
19 COMMISSIONER GIMLIN: Is that right? Thank you.
20 THE CHAIRMAN: And so the staff requests that on
21 page 1, page 3 and page 19 we strike references to the Estate
22 zoning, and on page 35 add Letter E and reletter with the
23 language read into the record about the right-of-way of Great
24 Western Railroad taking place on the plat. Does someone care
25 to move?
- 239
1 COMMISSIONER GIMLIN: So moved.
2 COMMISSIONER ROHN: I second.
3 (Motion seconded. )
4 THE CHAIRMAN: It' s been moved by Bryant and
— 5 seconded by Jim to adopt that, those changes.
6 Please poll the Board.
7 THE SECRETARY: Fitzgerald?
8 COMMISSIONER FITZGERALD: Yes.
—
9 THE SECRETARY: Rohn?
— 10 COMMISSIONER ROHN: Yes.
11 THE SECRETARY: Hutson?
12 COMMISSIONER HUTSON: Yes.
13 THE SECRETARY: Folsom?
14 COMMISSIONER FOLSOM: Yes.
— 15 THE SECRETARY: Ruesgen?
16 COMMISSIONER RUESGEN: Yes.
17 THE SECRETARY: Walker?
18 COMMISSIONER WALKER: Yes.
19 THE SECRETARY: Mokray?
20 COMMISSIONER MOKRAY: Yes.
21 THE SECRETARY: Gimlin?
22 COMMISSIONER GIMLIN: Yes.
23 THE SECRETARY: Miller?
24 THE CHAIRMAN: Yes. Motion carries.
25 (Motion carries. )
240
1 Is there any further discussion? Bryant?
2 COMMISSIONER GIMLIN: Question for Kim. We do
3 address the interest of the mineral owners, that the
4 agreement seemed to be worked out before about the final plat
— 5 being --
6 MR. OGLE: I think that --
7 COMMISSIONER GIMLIN: I think it is, too, but I
8 just want to make sure.
9 MR. OGLE: Go to page 34 . On the page I have 2A,
— 10 "The proposed location of the oil and gas drilling envelopes
11 and the existing oil and gas facilities on site, including
12 all easements, shall (inaudible) these facilities.
13 THE CHAIRMAN: Now, how are they going to determine
14 there's oil and gas drilling envelopes? That' s going to
— 15 require cooperation between them and the oil companies? I
16 don't think it' s going to be reasonable to wait on litigation
17 to be complete before that's taken care of.
18 MR. OGLE: Normally when we do gravel line
19 operations, we make that a requirement prior to scheduling
20 the Board of County Commissioners ' meeting. LifeBridge PUD
21 and the church has asked for pre-advertisement of May 7th for
22 this hearing. We could make it a condition of approval if
23 they enter in joint agreement prior to recording their plat.
24 THE CHAIRMAN: I think that would be appropriate.
25 That would also be on page 34 , prior to recording the change
241
1 of zone plat?
2 MR. OGLE: That' s correct.
3 THE CHAIRMAN: Anyone care to tackle that one?
4 COMMISSIONER RUESGEN: I have a suggestion on how
5 that should be worded.
6 THE CHAIRMAN: Kim, you have a kind of a standard
7 boiler plate language, don't you, committed to memory?
8 COMMISSIONER RUESGEN: I could take a stab at it.
9 THE CHAIRMAN: Go ahead.
— 10 COMMISSIONER RUESGEN: I make a motion that 2A be
11 amended to add the sentence that, "An adequate mineral
12 agreement on the subject property or documentation of an
13 effort to mitigate the concerns be completed prior to filing
14 of the final plat. "
15 THE CHAIRMAN: It could actually go up under "Prior
16 to recording the change of zone plat, " under Number 1, put it
17 under 1G.
18 COMMISSIONER RUESGEN: 1G. I modify my motion to
19 move it to 1G.
20 UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Yeah, we want to show
21 evidence that they made an attempt to mitigate the concerns
22 of the oil and gas companies in question.
23 MR. MORRISON: We need evidence that they have
24 accommodated the oil and gas, not just attempted. They
_ 25 either need an agreement or need to show evidence that
242
1 they've accommodated. That could be preserving drill sites.
2 It could be prevailing in the litigation, and, therefore, not
3 having to do that.
4 THE CHAIRMAN: Okay.
5 MR. MORRISON: But it ' s more than just attempt. I
6 think they need to show accommodation. It doesn't mean they
7 have to have an agreement, however. They can show that they
8 meet the current oil and gas regulations spacing requirements
9 and it reserves those drill sites.
10 THE CHAIRMAN: Okay. Well, we ' ll need to modify
11 your language a little bit, Bernie. I think Kim is racking
12 his brain right now to come up with something brilliant.
13 MR. OGLE: Okay. How about this? "Evidence of an
14 agreement or accommodations so the oil and gas concerns shall
15 be submitted to the Department of Planning Services for
16 review prior to recording the change of zone plat. "
17 THE CHAIRMAN: Does that sound all right, Lee?
18 Okay, do you move that?
19 COMMISSIONER RUESGEN: I move that we adopt the
20 language as read by staff.
21 COMMISSIONER FITZGERALD: Second.
22 (Motion seconded. )
23 THE CHAIRMAN: It' s been moved by Bernie and
24 seconded by Bruce to adopt the language that was read into
25 the record by staff regarding the oil and gas agreement.
243
1 Please poll the Board.
2 THE SECRETARY: Fitzgerald?
3 COMMISSIONER FITZGERALD: Yes.
4 THE SECRETARY: Rohn?
5 COMMISSIONER ROHN: Yes.
6 THE SECRETARY: Hutson?
7 COMMISSIONER HUTSON? Yes.
8 THE SECRETARY: Folsom?
9 COMMISSIONER FOLSOM: Yes.
10 THE SECRETARY: Ruesgen?
11 COMMISSIONER RUESGEN: Yes.
12 THE SECRETARY: Walker?
13 COMMISSIONER WALKER: Yes.
14 THE SECRETARY: Mokray?
15 COMMISSIONER MOKRAY: Yes.
16 THE SECRETARY: Gimlin?
17 COMMISSIONER GIMLIN: Yes.
18 THE SECRETARY: Miller?
19 THE CHAIRMAN: Yes. Motion carries.
20 (Motion carries. )
21 THE CHAIRMAN: Anything else we need to discuss?
22 (No response. )
23 THE CHAIRMAN: Will the applicant or its
24 representative please come to the podium. Have you had an
25 opportunity to read the development standards and conditions
244
1 of approval, and are you in agreement with them?
2 MS. BRUNK: We are in agreement with all the
3 conditions as modified herein. We request one flexibility.
4 There 's a chart in your table that has red
— 5 information and black and white information on the bulk
6 standards regarding minimum lot size in the senior community
7 and coverage in the senior community.
8 Because the senior community is unique and
—
9 sometimes has smaller lots because of patio homes and things
— 10 like that, we would ask that you defer things about those
11 specific information about lot sizes within the senior
12 community to final planned. And at that time we would have
13 to prove up with the application that what we 're proposing
14 fits on the lot and is appropriate through the process.
— 15 We don't have them designed yet, and we just don't
16 want to get painted into a corner because seniors are a
17 little different, and sometimes they are a little smaller
18 because seniors don't want to take care of the yards.
19 So if we could make that -- as long as we
— 20 understand that there 's some flexibility and we could revisit
21 it at final plan, we have no problem with those issues on the
22 chart.
23 There ' s only one other thing there. There ' s a
24 setback requested by staff at 25 feet within the neighborhood
_ 25 commercial and mixed use. The concept of this, again, in the
245
1 context of a senior community is to have a main street kind
2 of a feeling, where the buildings come up to the front, and
3 parking and things are behind them. So we would like some
4 flexibility in the setback from the street. But again, it's
^ 5 not designed, and if we could work with Public Works and
6 staff at the time of final plat to make those exact, we would
7 just like that to be considered as part of the
8 recommendation.
9 Otherwise, we're in complete agreement with staff
— 10 in the modifications that you just made.
11 THE CHAIRMAN: So you're asking to defer the
12 setback and the minimum lot size on the -- well, the setback
13 on the mixed use office?
14 MS. BRUNK: The setback on the mixed use office and
— 15 neighborhood commercial and neighborhood --
16 THE CHAIRMAN: And the lot size on which part?
17 MS. BRUNK: The lot size on the single-family
18 residential and the senior, and the lot coverage. Again,
19 that 's how big the houses are on the lot because of the
— 20 senior piece. There will be common open space to accommodate
21 it, but it' s a design issue, and we just haven't worked it
22 out yet.
23 And then the other thing that staff --
24 THE CHAIRMAN: Wait, before you go any further --
25 MS. BRUNK: Sorry.
246
1 THE CHAIRMAN: We've got to make sure we 're on the
2 same page.
3 MS. BRUNK: Okay.
—
4 THE CHAIRMAN: So you're looking for lot size and
— 5 lot coverage deferral?
6 MS. BRUNK: I have a letter.
7 THE CHAIRMAN: That would be good.
8 MS. BRUNK: Sorry, (inaudible) . This is the last
9 thing, I promise. And we don't need for you to decide about
— 10 it today. If you could just defer it until final plan. We
11 just want to make sure that we design it well at the time of
12 final PUD. I 'm sure staff could craft a condition that' s
13 appropriate to --
14 THE CHAIRMAN: That would be anyway, wouldn't it,
— 15 Kim?
16 MR. OGLE: That's correct. They're just asking for
17 us to defer limiting them to the square footage and the road
18 width at change of zone plat, and that they want revisit that
19 at final plat.
— 20 MS. BRUNK: Yeah.
21 THE CHAIRMAN: Yeah, so they're not really asking
22 for anything that isn't there, correct?
23 MS. BRUNK: It ' s not an unusual request, yeah.
24 THE CHAIRMAN: I mean, is it even something we need
25 to act on, Kim? Isn't it normally done --
247
1 MS. BRUNK: If it' s already considered in the
2 application process, then we can set it aside. I just want
3 to make sure that we didn't change something later without
4 talking to you about it now.
5 MR. MORRISON: I 'd have to ask Kim to respond to
6 this, but the concern would be that if you adopt the change
7 of zone plat that limits these things, one of the things you
8 have to look at final plan is conformance with the change of
9 zone. So it may be the safer thing to consider this now.
— 10 THE CHAIRMAN: Okay.
11 MR. MORRISON: But, Kim, do you have any further
12 comment on that?
13 MR. OGLE: No, I don't think so. I 'd like to ask
14 Ms. Brunk to perhaps elaborate a little bit more on the Main
— 15 Street comment, which is Bullet No. 4 . Does that deal with
16 width of road or setback?
17 MS. BRUNK: No, it's kind of a building relative to
18 the street. You know, when you look at a Main Street, it
19 usually goes, building, sidewalk, street, and it' s a plaza,
— 20 kind of a public place. It has street trees and benches and
21 things like that. But really the buildings form the edge of
22 a public space, like an outdoor room. And if you push them
23 way back, it's much more difficult to create that feeling and
24 ambience of a room outside that has a public space. So if we
— 25 can just move the buildings a little closer to the street, it
— 248
1 helps us create that outdoor room that is for public
2 interaction for, again, benches and --
3 THE CHAIRMAN: And where would your parking be?
4 MS. BRUNK: Behind the building.
5 THE CHAIRMAN: Behind the building.
6 MR. OGLE: And when you say closer, how much closer
7 is closer?
8 MS. BRUNK: Well, we started at zero, and your
9 recommendation was 25 feet. So we 'd like to put it somewhere
— 10 closer. If we could push it even to 15 or 20 feet. When you
11 add 25 feet, it just makes it wider and more difficult to
12 create that feeling.
13 THE CHAIRMAN: So you're asking just to defer the
14 decision on that until the final plat stage?
15 MS. BRUNK: Absolutely, if that would be possible
16 because then we' ll have a design, and we' ll have
17 architecture, and you' ll be able to understand what it' s
18 going to look like.
19 THE CHAIRMAN: Kim, do you have a problem with
— 20 deferring it until final plat?
21 MR. MORRISON: Let me ask a question because I have
22 not heard the applicant press the issue of having the plat,
23 final plat, approved administratively.
24 MS. BRUNK: Hum-um. It' s coming back.
25 MR. MORRISON: And I 'm assuming that issue is not
249
1 being contested. The staff ' s recommendation is that there be
2 a second round of hearing.
3 THE CHAIRMAN: Okay. So we're going to see the
4 final plat in front of the Planning Commission again already.
— 5 MR. MORRISON: I 'm presuming that ' s the case, yes.
6 MR. OGLE: That' s correct.
7 MS. BRUNK: That' s also our understanding. So
8 you' ll be deciding; you just won't be deciding today.
9 MR. OGLE: Planning Services will defer action on
— 10 that request. We' ll need to speak with LuAnn Penfold with
11 the Fire District to see what type of requirements and
12 recommendations the Fire District has for that request.
13 THE CHAIRMAN: Okay. So there 's not anything we
14 can do about this today, then. Okay.
— 15 All right. Any further discussion or a motion?
16 Jim?
17 COMMISSIONER ROHN: I move to send PZ-1004 , with
18 all the conditions of approval to the County Commissioners
19 with the amended conditions of approval and development
— 20 standards with the Planning Commission' s recommendation of
21 approval.
22 THE CHAIRMAN: Do we have a second?
23 COMMISSIONER WALKER: I ' ll second it.
24 (Motion seconded. )
25 THE CHAIRMAN: It' s been moved by Jim and seconded
250
1 by Fred to send PZ-1004 to the County Commissioners, together
2 with the recommendations for the development standards and
3 amended development standards and conditions of approval with
4 our recommendations for approval.
— 5 Please poll the Board.
6 THE SECRETARY: Fitzgerald?
7 COMMISSIONER FITZGERALD: Yes.
8 THE SECRETARY: Rohn?
9 COMMISSIONER ROHN: Yes.
— 10 THE SECRETARY: Hutson?
11 COMMISSIONER HUTSON: Yes.
12 THE SECRETARY: Folsom?
13 COMMISSIONER FOLSOM: No at this time. I refer to
14 23-2-3082 . The uses in my estimation are not compatible with
— 15 the surrounding land. (inaudible) At 23-2-77-C, which use
16 shall be compatible with existing development of the
17 surrounding area.
18 THE SECRETARY: (inaudible) .
19 COMMISSIONER FOLSOM: Did you get it so far?
— 20 THE SECRETARY: Not so far.
21 COMMISSIONER FOLSOM: Oh, okay, then I ' ll go back.
22 23-2-3082 , that in my estimation the uses are not compatible
23 with the surrounding land uses, as I say, with the exception
24 of this, the commercial center across 119 . 23-2-770-C, "The
25 uses shall be compatible with existing development in the
—
251
1 surrounding area, " and I 'm saying the surrounding area is
2 Longview and Elms.
3 And also going back to the map, 2 . 1, that perhaps
4 the map isn't to the use in determining zoning, but it must
— 5 be for the purpose of setting a preferred land use. And the
6 land use on the map is residential. And what is being
7 applied for is so radically different from the residential,
8 that I would say that what is being applied for doesn't
9 conform to the map.
— 10 THE SECRETARY: Ruesgen?
11 COMMISSIONER RUESGEN: Yes.
12 THE SECRETARY: Walker?
13 COMMISSIONER WALKER: Yes.
14 THE SECRETARY: Mokray?
— 15 COMMISSIONER MOKRAY: Yes.
16 THE SECRETARY: Gimlin?
17 COMMISSIONER GIMLIN: Yes, and a short comment. In
18 my judgment, this is a compatible development by definition
19 within the MUD and within the restrictions of the PUD. And
20 that with the restrictions that, you know, staff and this
21 Commission have placed on us, that we really mitigated the
22 impact on surrounding neighbors. And I do think it will be
23 compatible development.
24 THE SECRETARY: Miller?
25 THE CHAIRMAN: Yes, and I echo Bryant ' s comments.
252
1 The motion carries.
2 (Motion carries. )
3 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you. The meeting is
4 adjourned.
5 (Whereupon, at 5: 10 p.m. , the meeting before the
6 Weld County Planning Commission was adjourned. )
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1 CERTIFICATE
2
3 I, Nancy Wehrheim, do hereby certify that the
4 foregoing recorded meeting before the Weld County Planning
5 Commission on April 22 , 2003 , is a true and correct
6 transcript to the best of my ability and understanding; that
7 I am not counsel, not related to counsel or the parties
8 hereto, and not in any way interested in the outcome of this
9 matter.
10
11 l�,l�,l( 6 iii(A/Lt',(/YYU
12 Nancy Wehrheim
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14 91 �r(A.P/L741 0,1.) q, ki ea
15 Date
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