May 23, 2023 Town of Berthoud - Town Board Meeting
5:03PM Jun 7, 2023
Speakers:
Keywords:
tree
trustee
work
fire station
guidelines
town
landscape
landscaping
building
areas
plant
document
rock
pud
great
applicant
board
talking
question
project
Welcome, everyone. I'd like to welcome you to the regular Board of Trustees meeting for May 23 2023. When you please stand and join me in the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you, clerk we call the roll please.
Trustee Hardy? Yes. Trustee. Sorry, Sally here. Steve Murphy. Here.
Trustee Ayers your trusty Butler here.
Mayor Pro Tem Grace will be absent.
All right. Thank you very much. Next on our agenda is citizen participation. This is a chance for anyone in the audience tonight to speak to anything that is not on tonight's agenda. We have Linda Wilson signed up. Linda, if you could state your address, please. Yes.
1461 Merlot street here. And I do have two questions. The second part of it has to do with the design landscape. guidelines that are new, do you want me to hold those questions? Okay. So the one question I have is when I was reviewing our electric bill, there is a birth ID city tax on that. And I was wondering why that is and what that money used used for.
I know very little about that. I knew I know that we collect sales tax on phone bills and stuff. Is that also with electric bills?
There are some taxes on utility bills that get remitted to the town. Is it an Excel or a Poudre Valley or a bill Poudre Valley? I don't believe we have a franchise agreement with PDR EA and so wouldn't be a franchise tax, which could be an additional tax on top of that as those taxes get collected and in the general fund. And they're just spent on general fund services, which is you know, as administration, community development, parks, streets, all the general fund activities that we have,
I could talk to Cindy Leach. And I know we collect I think it makes sense we're doing utility bills. Does it tell you a percentage on that?
No, it just gave an amount. And I didn't notice that before. And since. You know, we're all watching our utility these days, then. And I always learn a lot when I come to these meetings, whether they're in person or in zoom, and I really appreciate
why need to know to so I'll follow up with our finance director. I have your email and I'll just copy the board. Thank you. Thank you. Is there anyone else that wishes to speak under public comment? All right. Next on our agenda is consent with trustees like anything removed from consent? Otherwise, is there a motion to approve consent?
A move to combine and approve the items in the consent
agenda? Second. All right, trusty Murphy has moved on consent. Trustee Hardy a second clerk call the roll call vote please.
Yes. Thank you. Okay, first of all, our regular agenda is the mental health work well, health awareness proclamation. May is Mental Health Month. We're I'm on the Behavioral Health Policy Council for Larimer County where we passed a new tax I think two years ago. So we're pretty fortunate to have a mental health facility going in. I think it'll be done by August. I'm not positive by that yet. Okay. But it'll be a real good aspect for the county to be able to send people with going through a mental health crisis to respective government facility, it will be ran by Simon stone and some other mental health professionals. And obviously, we have mental health and suicide issues across the nation in birth that is not immune to that. And so I just wanted to make a proclamation for mental health awareness. And I'll start out, whereas the area that someone lives in plays a significant role in their overall health and well being. And whereas surroundings can impact if how and when a person's needs are met, which in turn affects mental health. And whereas having safe stable and healthy home conditions set the foundation for achieving and maintaining good mental health. And whereas with early and effective interventions, those individuals with mental health conditions can recover and lead full productive lives. And whereas each business school government agency, health care provider, organization and citizens share the burden of mental health problems and has a responsibility to promote mental wellness and support prevention efforts. Now, therefore, on behalf of the Board of Trustees, I, Mayor karstic do hereby proclaim May 2023 is mental health month in the town of birth. As the mayor of the town of birth, I also call upon the citizens, government agencies, public and private institutions, businesses and schools and birth it to recommit our community to increasing awareness and understanding of mental health, the steps our citizens can take to protect their mental health and the need for appropriate and accessible services for all people with mental health conditions given under my hand and these free United States and the town of birth on this 23rd day of May 2023, and to which I have caused the seal of the town of birth to be affixed, and have made this proclamation public here. Right, thank you word for being supportive of that. And we had two mental health, suicide prevention trainings and I want to say thank you freedom, for opening up their facility recently for that and having Larimer County, they also LCSO there and a co responder. So it's really great to hear from them too. So thank you, everyone. And I hope to continue on having more of those trainings. Okay, next is HT LAN partners, findings of fact concerning an annexation and will be introduced by our town planner, Ian Johnson.
Evening, Mayor perspec, and members of the town board of trustees. So tonight, what we are hearing is a finding of facts for the completeness and adequacy of the annexation application that's pending with us. So again, right now, this is a traditional slide that you all see during public hearings, just so that we can let the audience know where we are. We are at the application submittal phase and annexation agreement is in the works of being discussed and agreed to there's also a border, little gap that needs to be annexed as well. So we're working through some of that the applicant is really taking a proactive role at working through these issues. But tonight, we are just going to be discussing the fact that that does meet Colorado Revised Statutes Section 3112 104 and 105. We are working through all those issues. We are not going to hear the annexation or the zoning request or the neighborhood master plan tonight. It's just asking you to adopt a resolution indicating that you know we are working through these processes, you still are in agreement that you would like to consider the annexation. It's not saying you will annex tonight or will agree to the zoning, but that we've just there's a finding of fact that these two statutes have been met. And with that, that concludes the staff presentation.
Right. Now if you're half joking, but that's pretty it's pretty.
Alright, completely serious. Do you have any questions? Just for
the audience? The three mile boundary that that'd be we call that a GMA right?
Yep. That's the town of birth is kind of their future like the future land use map.
Trustees question questions. Applicant won't be up here tonight.
Is here if you have any questions? Do you have anything prepared? You'd
like to say? Okay. So I don't know if this is the time but I guess I'll ask about the the trail connection that was on the last one it would be to work with the town on the trail connection across the county road. 17 is tonight tonight to talk about that.
No. Tonight, all we're talking about is just agreeing. Those two sections of Colorado Revised Statute have been met the details of the annexation, the changes zone request and then that neighborhood master plan or a concept plan will be presented at a future hearing and that's where some of those details will be discussed.
Okay. Any other questions?
Okay. Well, I have it's not a public hearing.
Correct? Correct. It is on I'll open it up to the audience. If there's anyone in the audience tonight that wishes to speak to this. All right, I'll close it. Bring it back to the board. Trustees any comments? are pretty comfortable. Anyone would like to move on this? Move
to approve resolution 2023 Dash 12. A resolution regarding findings of fact for the annexation filed by HT land partners LLC.
All right, Trustee Harris has moved on this trustee Murphy a second. Is there any final discussion? Quickly roll call vote please.
Trustee All right. Yes, Trustee Murphy. Yes. Trustee Ayers. Yes. Trustee about left. Yes, Trustee Hardy? Yes.
Yes. All right, thank you. Next is the bitter farm PUD amendment and conditional use permit. This is a public hearing. Administrator Kirk, would you like to introduce this or we'll go right. Okay, I'll
turn it over to our commute home directory in general, right? That's okay.
All right, Mayor curse Beck and members of the town board of trustees. So tonight what we're going to hear and I am not adept enough to talk and navigate the computer at the same time, so thank you.
Thank you. Um, there are going to be two requests. And both requests are on this parcel that you can see here. This is a snip from the Larimer County Assessor's website. And we know that the blue boundary the official on the website isn't exactly aligned here with the actual parcel, it's close, you get an idea of where it is, um, it is just south of 287. And then it's west of south or north and Parkway. So tonight, what you're going to hear is a request to amend a PUD. And the PUD isn't anything that the town has anymore in our land use process. And the only reason why they're asking to amend that PUD is to allow public facilities such as a Fire Protection District to be located on this property. And so that's the only reason and the fire protection. If you approve that the Fire Protection District would still need to go through a site plan process. It's not just a blanket saying common build whatever, they would still need to go through that site plan process. But it's just an allowance to contemplate that type of use on the property. So that's the only thing that will be amended and Lauren, from baseline, we'll go through the details of that. And then the second request, then the property was subdivided. A minor subdivision only goes to the planning commission. And so the property once that is recorded will be now into two parcels. And on the western most purple parcel, the applicant is requesting a land use permit on that. So this overall presentation will be the only overall presentation you'll get and then baseline will make one presentation. But there are two requests. One is to amend the PUD and the other is to allow a land use on the western most personal. So in addition, tonight, there are some conditions of approval that we have been working with the applicant on. And it's not specific. It's not specifically called out very explicitly in the staff comments or reports or planning commission minutes. So I thought if you do vote to approve this evening, that these conditions might be nice to include in your motion. And I'll hand this out to the applicant has a copy of this as well. So it's not a surprise.
So this is a standard slide. And it's really meant for those that are unfamiliar with the town of Bertha's land use process. But we do start with that pre application phase lots of meetings, many opportunities to ensure that the applicant understands what the expectations are for development. Once they are through that process, and there's the application submittal process and application review lots of referral agency comments opportunities to revise the application, make sure it's pretty squeaky clean before we bring it to Planning Commission and to you all. And then step three is where we are this evening at the public hearing. And then, after this evening, depending on the outcome, there will be post approval actions such as the conditions of approval, signing, documents recording, and then record management. So again, on this slide, this is where we are tonight. It was heard by the Planning Commission, and they did vote to send it to you with an approval on both the PUD Amendment and the special use permit that you'll hear this evening. So this slide goes through kind of the outline of this evening. Staff presentation. That's what's happening now and Lauren Richardson will come up and she'll give a few more days. details that are site specific. And then the applicant has an opportunity to make a presentation. And then the hearing is opened for the public to comment. And then the public comment period then is officially closed. And then you all have an opportunity to ask questions of the applicant of staff, and then also to deliberate. And then with that, that closes the presentation on the process that will be this evening. And I do know Lauren Richardson from baseline does have comments and a presentation on the details for both requests. But at this moment time, do you have any questions regarding process? Okay, thank you.
Thanks, and good evening Board of Trustees and Mayor coursepack. As Anne mentioned, tonight, we are going to be talking about the two applications for this property. I'd like to start with a an aerial an overall aerial of this property from Google Earth, just kind of to show you the surrounding property and sort of the existing conditions. As Ann mentioned, the property is bounded by the highway 287 on the northwest side, that big curve. And then we've got Bertha Parkway coming down the east side and the south we've got the Hammond neighborhood and the Poudre Valley rd station right there.
Oops, wow,
that was an excellent okay. Here we've got the surrounding zoning. So as you can see, we've got the site outlined in purple, and it is surrounded by the pod to the east and C to to the north, we've got ag and our three to the west and north and r1 Puny to the south. And this photo is just showing a vacant property looking west from birth at Parkway and kind of show a little bit and this is the site is not exactly flat as you would think from this image. Alright, and this is also looking west and just shows the existing access road along with the Hammond neighborhood on the left side and cooter Valley raa. site as well. So just a little info about the site. The applicant is a BCM management partners LLC. There is a representative here tonight for if you have any questions later. The site is currently part of a planned unit development, approved in 2007 called bater farm. The site is 7.44 acres in size. And the first application I'll discuss is the PUD amendment. The request by the applicant is an ODP amendment. And an FTP amendment to modify allowed land uses, along with the PUD amendment is a conditional use permit for a proposed storage facility on that one. This is just sort of this was helpful for me since the PD processes and mentioned is a little bit confusing and you know not all together, the review criteria are no longer there. So here are the three parts of the plan unit development or PUD as we will continue saying sieving so the overall ODP overall development plan was required because there's an existing OTP approved in 2007. So therefore, we had the applicant, modify that or amend it, the applicant was also required to submit an FTP amendment and that requires more detail than in ODP. So that's the reason we had two very similar documents. So at the top we've got the original ODP in 2007 and as you can see it's parcel seven that the site is called. And the intended use is commercial uses allowed by right include office and retail uses and as permitted within the C two zoning uses allowed by right include household and commercial mini storage facilities. The bottom outlined in red we have the amended amendment to the ODP, proposing adding government facilities as permitted under location and extent process or similar ie fire station. Included in the PUD amendment, both the FTP and ODP our proposed zoning district standards. So for parcel one parcel two and suburban commercial So parcel one and two have front setbacks of 20 feet, side setbacks of 20 feet, rear setbacks of 20 feet and a building height maximum 40 feet. In comparison, the suburban commercial district which the site is identified as in the comp plan has setbacks that are 1010 10. The applicant, as I mentioned, submitted both the amended OTP and FTP to ensure that both steps of the PUD are followed. Since this was an amended PUD, not creating a new PUD, a PDP was not required. The FTP shows more detail. So it requires a drainage report and a final subdivision plat, both which were submitted by the applicant and reviewed by all town of birth and staff and Planning Commission. As mentioned in the staff report, the town of Bertha code does not include criteria for peds anymore. Therefore we use the final plat criteria to review since both final Platts and PUDs require similar submittal items are the review criteria listed here. Were used to review the PUD amendment, which includes the OTP Amendment and the FDP amendment. A staff found that this application did fulfill the first review criteria. It did not drastically change the proposed plan or allowed density is in conformance with this code. It doesn't have significant changes to street alignment, or access points or public improvements. A proposed PUD amendment is in conformance with the previous beta ODP. Second criteria are fulfilled because it did not propose any change that would contradict the Parks, Recreation open space and trails plan or the birth of trails master plan. Third criteria has been met the town's public works department and engineers have reviewed this application and they they did not find any conflicts. As you had mentioned, the plan Commission has sent their recommendation of approval to the town board of trustees for beta farm amendment number one PUD amendment for consideration. And the proposed motions are on the slide. Thank you so much. Thank you.
Good, we have one.
Well, that was the end of the first. And should they do the motions now? Or is that at the end?
Probably at the end? It's a public hearing.
Yeah, my apologies. Because the words differently.
Yep. So I would suggest that you hear the amendment to the PUD. And then once you finish that discussion, and Lauren can give just a very brief presentation, then on this special use permit, and then vote on both. And then you can I would vote on the amendment to the PUD first and then the and then this special use permit second. It really is also up to you all if you would just rather see the whole presentation now because it gives a good idea of
your project.
That's all right. Absolutely, I will continue. The next application is the conditional use permit slash use by special review application. Before I start, I want to make sure everybody knows that the code uses both terms to describe this process. So we're going to be interchanging some of those for this particular presentation of the conditional use permit is for lot one, which is 5.73 acres in size. And the request is for the approval of a conditional use permit for commercial indoor mini storage facility. This is an overall site plan where the property for the best box storage facility so you can see there's a lot to the fire station in the subdivision that was approved and we can come back to this slide. The Comprehensive Plan and the future land use map identify this area a suburban business place type character district. The preferred land uses for this character district include retail stores, lodging services, restaurants and offices. Low to Moderate intensity is preferred. The general scale recommended is up to three stories. One area that conditional use permit looks at is parking. Due to the nature of the use. The majority of the parking is located inside the building. The intent of use is to drive into The building there are two, the striped access aisles right there that provide a minimum of 10 parking spaces. There are eight exterior parking spaces one of which is Ada van accessible. Here's a rendering that shows some parking on the building. It also shows a little bit of architecture and the landscape buffer which we'll talk about.
The facility is to be a three storey climate controlled facility leasable storage space of approximately 83,000 square feet. The site plan places the building at its closest dimension 65 feet from the southern property line. So that just shows how far it is from that Southern property line there. The recommended setback for a standard C two zone district is 35 feet from a residential zone zoning district we have the whole landscape plan per section 30 dash two dash one one for the applicant has included an evergreen berm slosh buffer, identified in green just call that out along the southern boundary with the Hammond neighborhood. Due to an existing utility easement containing a water line, a landscape buffer against 25 feet inside the property line identified in yellow just further showing the distance between the hearing neighborhood and in this facility. Here's a rendering that shows the southern boundary landscaping which I mentioned earlier. So my evergreen buffer right there. Be conditional use permit has seven criteria that the applicant must satisfy. The first has been satisfied as it conforms to the code. commercial zone districts permit Mini Storage only with the approval of conditional use permit. No variance has been requested. Engineering and infrastructure standards were used during the design and were reviewed by staff. The second requires the applicant to conform to the Comprehensive Plan. The proposed structure fits the recommended three storey building scale consistent with this character district applicant follow the architectural guidelines as much as possible. They have added a six foot sidewalk frontage of lot one to conform to the Bertha trails master plan. The third has been satisfied as the the use will be adequately served by public utilities on the majority of the landscape and open space areas are considered low hydro zone areas, meaning that they require little amounts of water. The fourth is consistent with the comp plan in the future land use map they have included a landscape buffer as I mentioned, the fifth criterion has been satisfied since traffic will not have a significant adverse impact on adjacent uses or result in hazardous conditions. The paved drive aisle is large enough for to to a traffic and emergency vehicles. vehicle access is limited to internal loading areas and will be secured by an access path and limited to customers only. The sixth criterion has been satisfied with the necessary landscape buffer, the location of the building and its proposed setbacks. The facilities daily operations will not produce substantial noise. operating hours are from 6am to 10pm. Daily, there will be 24 hour video monitoring of 25 security cameras and an on site facility manager and district manager. The applicant has chosen light fixtures that meet the International Dark Sky standards and submitted a photometric plan that showed no light trespass onto neighboring properties. The seven final seven criterion has been satisfied, the applicant is aware that all applicable permits will need to be submitted to the town of burthen. prior to construction. Commission has sent their recommendation of approval to the town board of trustees for the Earth itself storage use by special review for consideration and exclusions are on slide as well. Apologies for that mix up earlier. That is it. Thank you so much. Thank
you very much. Just if you have any questions.
I have a couple. This pod was approved in 2007. And that was the special use was approved at the same time Correct?
I'm actually the PUD. The original PUD is a separate entity. So it's a separate application. And that was approved in 2007. Like you mentioned Yes, but the use My special review is what they are here tonight asking for for the many storage.
Okay, I won. So it wasn't that because it's changing from a PUD to is a different district type that they're trying to get the special use rolled over this is a new
request. It's a new request. Currently the site is vacant. And all many storage within the town of birth as per the town code is required to go through a conditional use process.
And I guess I don't know, this might be for administrator Kirk. And I don't know if you know this, if you know the answer to this question, but some of some of the comments that I got were concerned about the height How tall is the fire station that we have? 20 feet 30 feet? Right. I
do not know that question.
I don't I don't know the answer to that question. I don't have an exact height, but we're probably under 2025 feet
25 feet from the firefighter.
Okay, that's all I had for now. Thank you. Okay.
That answer for you. Exactly. I don't need it. Exactly. I was just trying to figure out you know, sightlines if the fire station proposed fire station is in front of it. What's that going to do for the sight line to the to the top of buildings. Thank you.
Trustees other questions for baseline staff?
What one in regards to the height I was wondering so I mentioned that this land use wood or this special permanent allow under three storeys? What is the height for three stories?
I believe it is. Three feet. Yeah, it's 40 feet is the building. Yeah, three stories.
So the mini stories would be approximately up to 40 feet. Yes. Fire might be 25. Sorry, to be a little shorter. Okay. Okay, so one question I have
are we getting you gave great presentation are we is the applicant present?
Point of View, you could state your company name and address that be appreciated.
My name is David check Dover. I am the member manager of the landowner of this property. And we've owned it since 2006. And I'm here to just introduce the project and give a little bit past history. So hopefully a lot of questions can be answered that's going around. So I am not the developer, but I'm here to introduce how this fire station and storage project developed an energy to you guys today.
Do you by chance know the address of your firm?
Yes, my address is 8687 Morton road nyuad
Making and
so my name is David check Novus Cha K and ova. I have been a developer in Colorado, especially Longmont and did a lot of commercial in Longmont. In 2006. I was approached to look at this beautiful land of my birthday, but you have long speaks and these lakes. And I just couldn't believe what I saw. And the people that brought me to this property owned 700 of the other acres, the grant family who I've known for a long time, and they were selling the 700 acres to John Turner and Jim Birdsall to do the development. They didn't know they were going to have a golf course. So we went ahead and basically did an exchange and I purchased the property we formed a partnership to own this property. We didn't expect it to own it for 17 years. But we sold off 124 acres to the fairgrounds business. Can't read any more. LLC, which I think was Birdsell and John Turner, and we sold that to them in 2016 or 15. So that comprised about 700 acres they purchased before for my partners and 124 which they needed because we had those beautiful views of the where the clubhouse is and we own the property up on top there and it was just fabulous. To answer a question that came up earlier about the PUD. I believe that was done in 2007. And I believe that when we did this PUD, that Birdsell, assisted us with the PUD at that time. And that was a long time ago, I may be not correct, but I'm pretty sure he assisted us or reused his skills. And knowing birth ID. And at that time, we kept 25 acres of commercial, where you see the Starbucks, and soon the McDonald's will break ground and come and go. We sold that land to another developer, to do the commercial project. We had interests from Starbucks and all those folks. But we decided not to put a shovel in the ground and sell it to pretty good developers who finalize the deals with these retailers. And I was in the Starbucks two weeks ago, and it was very busy. And so I hope, I hope that's good project for you guys. I talked to Chris the other day, about some landscaping that has either died or hasn't been up to what we would call a finished product. And I have now made eye contact to the people in charge of that project to pick it up. So you guys don't have to enforce any of your codes. And they said they'll do that. So Chris, that's hopefully it gets done. So when we had this, the land that's being considered today was a problematic parcel. It had an easement with the aerial overhead electrical lines, and the access. And when we sat down with the town several times on this property and some of the other stuff, we knew that we could not put a Burger King there or a commercial use that was going to need a lot of traffic and the traffic for that intersection had to be low impact. We could have never done enough development, I get the gray hair, I know we would have never passed a traffic traffic study for that intersection, especially with the future uses as Bertha Parkway and stuff grows. So we knew we had to bring in low traffic generators. The storage development project we had several storage people we had car businesses car lot us, we had lots of people wanting to go on that site. But we had to be very picky on who he went there because I have 100% approval rate and every project I've ever done in my life, and that's a lot of them. And I hope we get that here today. But it's it's from being picky, getting the right developer, knowing the town, knowing the codes, knowing the traffic, knowing that concerns of neighbors, all that stuff. And we'll I'll address a little of that here too, today. So the developer doesn't have to. So we found we had several commercial storage users that were interested, we picked this group, because our broker had a relationship with them and doing other deals. And he said that they do it right. And that meant a lot to the grants. We live in the Longmont area. So we are very concerned on every community that I every community I've ever done development and I'm concerned. This developer was working on his plans had submitted some plans to the town. And then we got a call from the fire district. And the fire district was interested in looking for a parcel near the Heron Lakes commercial. And I said, Wait a second, we have a parcel that I think you could go next door to in the storage. So I called up the storage developer. And this is again working with a good developer. I said, Hey, you have an extra 2.3 acres there. Can we use that for a fire station? And he said, Wow, what a great use. And that's been the attitude he's had all along. So we had to amend our contract with them to give them another six, eight months because the fire station needed to catch up with their plans and their design and they had to co design this together and he had to go spend more money with engineers. And we gave them more time and so it was really a collaboration and the town they were working with the town officials was really a collaboration with the town planners with fire station. Representatives that were really once they got on board, they really were on board and the developer who supported the time and the extra expense to do all this. On top of that, I asked the favor of the storage developer who I've never met before, except one time, I mean, I said, Can you give the land to the fire district? And he said, Can we have them pay for the pro rata share, we'll develop the site no pay their pro rata share of bringing on the water and sewer and the grading? I said, Absolutely, they'll do that. But can we not charge them for the land, because Absolutely, it'll be a good community effort. That's what we have here. So from that going forward, the fire district has done their job in getting caught up to get with Beau, who you're gonna meet in a second. And it's been a benefit for the town having a fire district near a golf course. I don't golf a lot, but my friends do. And I remember all the time they hear about an ambulance, or somebody either has breathing problems or heart attack or something happens on a golf course, having a fire station, not only in the immediate residences all around the area, having a fire station that close to residences, but also the public golf course, with a constant, so it's a win win. Also, there were concerns there were three or four letters that were written last year, there was one person that showed up at the neighborhood meeting. And their concern is the usual stuff, traffic, crime. Okay, let's address those.
This is a storage unit that is self contained. It is highly electronic state of the art, and has the most modern security. And it's not the type of storage facility from what we think of 10 years ago, or 15 years ago, where you drive up, roll up your little door, and people are making meth labs in there and doing all that stuff. These are not those type of these are high end, sophisticated storage, they're going to cater to the market. That is happening in wealthier areas. And there is a lot of wealth coming to, to birth in with around the lake and other homes that are being built, where people want climate controlled storage for their stuff. So that being said, the crime aspect also goes out the picture, the concerns are real, but it's not going to happen. Because number one, these type of facilities you can't get into. It's not like busting down a door or breaking a lock, where you can't get in without the code. So too, you have to drive by the fire station to go to get to the storage. So only a police station would be better to have next door to the storage for any potential crime. So. So this type of facility is not the type of thing where kids are drinking or smoking dope in the back of us storage. They can't get in, and they have to go by a fire station, the fire stations going to have cameras, they're going to see the cars, this this this storage facility will have cameras everywhere. Anybody that's thinking of doing bad stuff is not going to touch, they'll go somewhere else, but they're not going to go to this place. The next concern is traffic. And I touched on it. And I know I've had conversations with the planner and Chris, about the traffic for the site. And the number one commercial use for leased traffic. According to all the codes and everything is storage generates the less traffic least traffic imaginable for commercial zoning. A residential house will do 10 to 12 trips per day. If you have a kid or two with some high school, and the mother and father they're making it's about 10 to 12 trips a day. So it's even less use than residential use. But this type of use of all commercial uses between the fire station and the storage doesn't generate traffic and that's why the town is supportive of it. I think the planning commission did a really good job. They did ask the developer to beef up his landscaping and he's agreed to do that and he'll he'll talk about that. So with all that being said the rest sentence of birth that are traveling to Johnstown storage and storage 85% occupancy is really 100% Because the turnover is so rampant. So 85% is a very successful storage unit. The units that according to the studies are showing in the 90s. That night up to 95%, occupancy level in Johnstown and birth. And so, if that's true, then there's a desperate need for storage. And according to friends, I have like four friends out on the Aaron have houses that are built on the golf course project. They all are renting in Johnstown, because in a climate controlled, and they would rather be close to their house. So there's a need for it. It's a higher end storage, it's not cheap storage. So I think the concerns of the crime, I think self are self explanatory to most people that it really won't be a problem. And your neighborhood a and w may have a bigger problem than than this project with the fire station next door. Traffic generators, you can talk to your planners, if we if you if you have any other questions, and both can address it a little more than I than I am. I'm not here to present the project. I just wanted to present the history. And all it's a win for the town. It's a win for the residential neighbors. It's a win for the fire department. And it's a win for the storage developer to have a fire department next to him. It's a win win, win win. And so that being said, if anybody has any questions, if not, I'll sit back and enjoy the show. One last thing is.
When it's the first time I've seen the rendering, and I'm sitting next to the gentleman here with the fire department, I said, an office building first class office building. So I was really impressed when I saw this rendering. And that's my only last thing that doesn't look like storage to me. And I've only seen a couple of these. Since they started making these because I never know their storage facility unless I see the sign out front. I would never know that's a storage. So that being said, Does anybody have any questions? Okay, thank you.
Thank you. Welcome, Sam, if you could please state your name and address.
Oh, Reinberg 7018, Maryland Avenue, St. Louis, Missouri. I have to say that having a developer open up for another developer, I really feel very positive by normally we don't get such accolades. I want to say first, that the staff through the entire process has been incredibly professional. And I really appreciate the detail that they go into. Certainly for the folks that haven't had as much experience with it, understanding where everything is in the process. I do a lot of these meetings we develop in a different states. And I will say that that is it's really beneficial for residents and the public as they watch the meetings. So I commend you for that. Appreciate your time tonight. As David said, we're we're very excited about the opportunity to develop a facility a Class A facility in Burford, we feel strongly that there's an unmet need for this type of self storage facility, not the Self Storage Facility of 20 years ago, that's oftentimes chain link and barbed wire. This is a Class A facility 100% of the units are climate controlled, and 100% of the units are access from an interior drive. Those two elements alone make this less than 2% of the facilities in the United States are built to these standards. I mean, this is really a Class A product that we feel like the immediate residents as well as residents from other communities will benefit from and we talked a lot about the residential customers, which are obviously really key in quarter our business. But I will say that over the past five years and really, even more so post COVID The small business customer has now is now almost 30% of our customer base. It's a lot of businesses that are running either through the internet or you know, they've downsized their office space so that they can you know, they don't have as many trips to the office but they still have a need for inventory paperwork. backup etc it is especially in the world of inventory control. Having the ability to kind of right size, your inventory based upon supply chain constraints is really important for small and mid sized businesses of all types. So as Bertha and the county grow, our US we feel is a real attribute to that. To touch on a few of the points that came up, obviously, landscaping is very important to us, we're not going to spend the money that we do on a facility of this nature and not make the first impression completely first class. And that goes from as soon as they see us to when they're pulling in to when they're pulling out. And that starts with landscaping and ends with landscaping. So it's really a priority for our business. On a security side, I just want to echo David's comments about you know, security is really kind of wanting to with with safety and security for our customers is the most important thing. We really every customer that goes in there, whether it's at 730, in the morning, or 830 in the evening have to feel safe and secure. Because that's when the will keep them as a customer. That's the differentiating factor between other storage facilities that are of an older generation, the entire family doesn't feel safe there. And we want the entire family to feel safe, because we want that customer to stay for as long as possible. So those are those are just two things. And, you know, finally, to be able to have the fire district collaborate with us on this parcel. And on this development, we really feel like is a is a great match with two uses that don't generate a lot of traffic but need access to the roadways need visibility. It really, you really couldn't put two uses at a commercial intersection together that are any better than it used like the fire district and a self storage use. The other nice thing for the residential next to us is that we've done this and other developments where a use like ours that's very low impact, low to no noise acts as a great buffer between the higher intensity traffic and intersection uses and commercial uses to the residential. So you've got residential behind us, that now will have a nice landscape buffer as well as the property buffer to the intersection at birth in 287. So we feel like a lot of the aspects of the goals for this development are being met with what we're proposing. And, you know, we look forward to any questions that that that you all might have. Thank you very much questions.
I'm curious to know if you've ever built these as a two storey building, because I have to be three.
For the square footage that we need for the feasibility of the project. This one has to be three storeys
so that three storey buildings going to be at least 40 feet tall.
I think the top the top of the pyramid won't exceed 40 feet because it can't so the top of the parapet will be probably in that 39 to 40. Yeah.
It's going to be at least I mean, how tall is it to sorry? 3035 feet.
At the top of a gable. Yeah, I think you know, two storey houses. The floors are usually 1122 C with a pitched roof you're probably in the 30 to 32.
Just thinking these can be like the mothership. Yes,
I. I'm sure I was supposed to probably go through the presentation. I'm pretty freestyling
My name is Michael Cleary, we I'm a strategic site design for the civil consultant and I've been helping on this project in
Sir, what's your business address? Oh,
we operate on Ada, Inverness circle East in the woods. Much of this has already been covered by my predecessor. So in by Lauren has been great. in it. We have added to here some additional detail that came out of the discussions and questions at the planning commission that I think are worth pointing out that toward your question about the building height. This site is difficult to see understand from the photographs that you've seen, but has a significant grade change from the east to the west and high point there. Have some 2025 feet of elevation change in this building as big as it is on a relatively flat slab is cut into that slope in the benefit of that is that there is natural raid hiding the lower portion of this of this building so, especially from north and west, where 287 sits beneath this site. And
my next question was like, could you somehow since there's not really a floodplain in that area could you deserve possibility lower and so it doesn't seem to be total
Yeah, we haven't as low as feasible in order for the stormwater features to function. There is at the east end of the property, a stormwater management
it's a unique property because of the shape of it. So you've got a five acre permit normally, normally, a building of this size, and our use would be on a two acre parcel, so it'd be a much smaller parcel, this B, which there's pluses and minuses, but when you have that much green space stormwater and how we manage that becomes really critical to the project especially when you have a drive in facility that's on different grades, it really becomes a challenge that we got to get the water in the right places, right and so the other the teardrop feet, you know, the the way that the lot kind of comes into a point becomes less and less usable for for because of the setbacks and because of the grade, but that space, which is probably almost two acres, you know that that all has to kind of work itself into the right stormwater design. So that kind of its you hear a seven acre site or a five acre site, and you think there's a lot of room to spread out. But when you when you have these sites that are that are up against a major roadway like this, and have the setbacks and the topography that they do, it really shrinks it down quite a bit.
Just thinking about all the other buildings in the area, nothing compares to this size building. And it's just gonna stand up it's gonna look like a baseball stadium in the middle of the neighborhood. So no question. But but the other question I had is also about security, is there a gate into this property that prevents them from getting in around the building or back into the green area that kind of looks like a park? And does not is there going to be security monitoring back in those open spaces to make sure that they may not be able to get into the building but what's going to prevent them from hanging out in the green space in the park area that's back in there. Yeah,
so what we have cameras on the exterior of the building that that look for all of that the control the access is controlled through a keypad so that the door opens you enter into the building with your vehicle or closes behind you exit
out but the driver on his apron is going to be open public that's
open that I mean that's for the fire I mean, that's a that's a life safety requirements. So you can drive all the way around the building
right now, on the birth Parkway side is that sidewalk done all the way to the likes,
the sidewalk the sidewalk is required for the portion that being presented today is for the portion is going to be to put property on which the storage facility is and then when we when the site plan is presented for the fire station. That would be extended.
Okay, so I guess where is it? Right that's the one I'm asking to get done but they're saying proposed today. Where's the one proposed today
this portion along the the southeast corner there adjacent to the green air landscape area.
The white square third white square from the bottom on the right hand side is a proposed sidewalk so the fire station lot they'll be doing there so they'll have to do their spot of their site.
So along this area, sidewalk and landscape buffer behind it. Okay.
Any thoughts of like a sidewalk or a crest you're fine trail on the north? And by the landscaping between 287.
That would be either a requirement of the fire station if they purchased the law or requirement of the town, but not this developer. Under the way our standards are written, we have had conversations about trying to work to connect the south piece adjacent to the power substation. That is,
actually it's kind of
an odd deal, but I don't believe that section of road in front of the power station was ever annexed into the town. So weird gap. So Keith Knoll, our Public Works operations manager has been working with the county on correcting, we've got four or five of those spots in town, there's these weird little orphaned street sections in town. But we, with our road impact fees can widen the road and putting curb gutter and sidewalk along that stretch adjacent to the substation.
Back to the common question. Justin Murphy,
yeah, I'm just taking a brief look at the plans. I didn't see dimensions of the actual structure. For those on there. I guess there's one.
Nas but it is 200? I think two I'm 50 feet long. And 130? I think why.
And then the other question I had, there was some discussion with the planning commission about, you know, doing something along the lines of public art, you know, to kind of mitigate the size and impact. No, berming and landscaping is our usual go to, if you entertain any kind of like, graphic art or mural on the north facade as like an alternative to that, or not really.
I mean, I would say we're, we're, we're all ears for collaborating to make it look nice. And make it something that represents the town well on this is, it's always a fine line with art, because some people like it. So you get a lot of opinions about art. Right? I think there's a lot of artists around here. So Well, all I would say is that we are completely on board with figuring out how that could work. And as far as in that grass area, we would have no issue with with, you know, allowing some sort of easement for for for art to be placed there or anything of that nature. And I wouldn't, I would say that we're somewhat limited, just economically by what we can do with the facade and, and, you know, contributing to the art ourselves. I'm not much of an artist, but my, my eight year old might be, but so I guess my answer is, if there's a way that that that it can work, we're on board. I do want to say, though, we, you know, we, we again, walk a fine line between not looking like a storage facility, but people knowing that it's a storage facility, right. And so that's important for our business we have, we have to be thoughtful and conscious about that. Because the reality is that most people identify storage, because of those garage doors. That's, that's what they identify orange, green, yellow, that's, that's their go to. And so by not having any of those visible, it's really important for us to make a structure that's that, that people notice that we can easily direct people to through, if we're chatting with them online, if we're on the phone with them. So we like to stand out and be noticeable in a good, appropriate way. And if we can incorporate some things with the town with that were completely on board.
I don't know if you've been around town. Some of the examples are like on the elevator, you know, or the size of some of the buildings, it's more kind of agriculture or natural kind of honoring themes, teams. Is that something? Absolutely.
I think to that point, it's worth pointing out that the area that was discussed for that application actually lies on lot to in would probably need to be a discussion. Correct me if I'm wrong and as part of that site plan review in response to the that to discussion we did in increased the buffer density or plant density of the portion that is on property up for you today. And this is these highlighting the the additional 17 trees that were added to kind of fill in some of the gaps that were there.
So it's one of those situations where if we if we want to use that open area for for some sort of canvass for some attention, we don't want to plant trees can't be noted. Right. And so it's I think our take is we're, we're, as we've been, I think, the entire time trying to be collaborative and say, you know, we'd love to make it work so that it's pleasing to, you know, the folks driving by for sure.
And in this discussion about the art was sort of centered around the corner here, which given the shape of this flop, it should present a space that would otherwise be unusable for the fire station. So whether it be an easement that needs to be granted. They have always been open to having that discussion and setting aside that what's needed in I think, as a condition for approval that can be considered to continue to work on solving
design.
Questions? Yeah.
I was just curious to hear from the fire department as to their intense
desire for this product as part of this presentation.
Part of the presentation, I don't know, but they could probably speak under public comment.
Mission. I don't know if they're planning to speak as part of the presentation. They certainly could, or if they want to just ask them questions. I, I'm sure that's probably fine, too.
Anything else? For the developer applicants? Well, we have them up here
have questions? Just at first, with as being a special? What we're looking at a couple things here? How specific I'm just curious, how specific should we be thinking through the finer details of the site plan landscaping, parking traffic, for just more for just the use of the storage facilities?
I think my suggestion to you would be that the ideal place for the board to focus would not be on like, you know, tree species and parking lot layout, some of those technical issues that we just worked through during the site plan approval process. Instead, it would be you know, if you're concerned about specific impacts with the project, trying to identify those and be specific so that we can mitigate those through that approval or condition and to mitigate a certain impact that the board might see that they might need special attention to me, that would be a better use of your time and energy, rather than like the architecture or site planning, kind of technical details.
So I was thinking, I've got a whole slew of, you know, detailed questions that we could spend all night and I don't want to do. Well, I do have is, I guess parking, it appears to be very minimal parking, at least outside the building. Can you just elaborate a little more on that?
Yeah, I mean, I generally our facilities have three parking spaces, because most 98% of the people that are coming to a facility or are parking, to load and unload and all of that occurs in the interior of the building. So it's a big drive thru in the building and there's areas off to the side where they park to load and unload. So it's a kind of an active loading area. As far as customers, I mean, a busy busy storage facility, get six new customers on a Saturday spread out over eight hours. So you know, storage facilities just don't require kind of office parking, you know, it's usually a parking spot for the manager and then two or three spaces for customers and then nada space. Okay.
Many jurisdictions are few jurisdictions have applicable parking standards specific towards storage in applying any warehouse or commercial parking standard would far exceed what's warranted. There are some that have begun to establish new specific parking standards. And we referenced those in setting parking standards in the FDP and ODP process and so, as part of that submittal there is parking standards set there and are consistent with the city of Denver. I think counting where we referenced those use specific standards in creating a minimum for this location. And in Denver's is one space for a 10th of a space for every 1000 square feet. gross leasable area, which worked out to be I think, in this case, 14 spaces. And so we have a lot at the six spaces outdoors. And then we counted for there's some 400 linear feet along in the loading areas along the side of the interior. And so conservatively, you know, we will be coming in for 10 spaces inside without remotely being congested or blocking, and uses indoors to exceed that number based on that. 1/10 1000.
Okay, then my final question is,
I think you touched on a minute ago, did I understand you correctly that there is no fencing or gates around this property site? That's right. Okay. Okay, that's all I have.
I mean, if if there were, if there were units accessible from the exterior, that's when we would incorporate a fence or gate of some sort. But the entrance is your is your gate, because you're you have to keep code in. And so it really is. My senses to me don't don't look great all the time, especially when you can accomplish it through landscaping and berms. And when you have an all interior building, even even a nice fence, it just opens itself up to weather and the elements and with the structure of the facility, it
would it would be redundant. The question.
One more just kind of saw on the slide. So the proposal on the south I saw was gravel on the north. So you guys are proposing gravel underneath the trees. On the landscaping to the north of the facility. If you go back one more slide. There was just up with the site, it looked like you guys had gravel on the north end up to the road. Is that correct? Or did I see that wrong? Okay.
All right. Well, that's it. All right. Anything else?
Okay, thank you, gentlemen. Thank you. Thank you very much. With the fire. Sorry, sir. I don't know your rank. Would you have anything to add? If you'd like trustee source? Sally was asking.
I can't Yeah, I was just gonna wait for public comment. Okay, that works. Great. Yeah, that'll be next.
I do have some specific questions for the fire department. Okay. Yeah,
please. You guys. Gonna bring any digital, but I got a couple of renderings. All right.
If you say your name and address
Lau Fenderson 275 Mountain Avenue with the fire district. So I'm cheap. Charles was unable to be here tonight. So I'm here representing the fire district and of course in support of the project. Really just to provide you guys with some information and hopefully answer any questions you have. And if I can't, then I will try to find avenues to get those for you guys. So as you all know, with the amount of development and growth that's going on, up north, we've done a station deployment study. And so this is a great property for that, to keep this within national standards for fire departments, and companies and support companies.
So, and working with the applicant and the developer, this piece of land has become very attainable for the fire district. So this is really an ideal location for us.
And so we see here, a couple of national standards, you know, you all know but with the amount of commercial growth that's going into there's the insurance service office that this will provide better insurance rates for
properties up at that end of town. So, a couple of renderings I'll show you. We don't have a set site plan but this is just a job
I don't know if it helps put it north or so North would be Parkway 27 and drive thru bays, which we've used, you know, modern WaterFire station development. So this is ideal. Neither one of our stations now have this but fire and EMS so we're looking at working cooperatively with Thompson Valley EMS as well write them up location, so, but it's gonna be one building, though, it will be divided as far as fire and EMS. And then a whole picture here to bring a thumb drive next time. So, anyways, that's just kind of a rendering that's got down. So Charles is very well versed in everything that's happening. And so you know, he probably would have a lot more answers than I've got but open the questions
and I will say the fire district to they were at the neighborhood meeting that we hosted and sent out invitations for their present at that with with the renderings and to answer any questions. Obviously, planning and zoning. Were also in attendance, ask any questions. So a lot of support both ways.
Yeah, my specific questions that rendering is like, y'all really though, that's so cool, that fire station, but my question is about ISO. And if I recall, it was like a seven mile radius, that the ISO would affect if we have a station out there. And it's been a hot minute since I've been at the fire station. But I remember that, as whatever call, we needed a fire station up north to kind of close some gaps for the ISO rating. So with that effectively helped lower, lower that class rating to
the two, we're just on the border there of the wall used to ISOs kind of dynamic, but five to seven mile driving radius from station one. But we're kind of exceeding now that five mile I haven't driven it myself, but this is what I understand this is ideal location four or five mile radius. So with McDonald's and Starbucks and all the other commercial that may go in in that area, this north of 287 there, this will definitely put them that's outside of station ones, parameters right now, but the station will put them inside the parameters to lower those insurance rates.
And how many engine bays or units can be housed there.
Looks like here we've got four bass bases.
So
Well, ideally, this would be the primary response apparatus. And we'd leave this bay open so that it can drive through.
That's just ideal. So
we're not backing into small base bases like we currently do with some of the fire houses we have. So and then of course you can see the ambulance there's four in the ambulance base.
How many calls do you guys project from that station? Nor do you know?
Well, or as a district,
I'm thinking about the traffic just to tie this in. Yeah, how many trucks would be going in and out in a day,
some quick math, we're probably averaging seven eight calls a day in the district and that's to fire houses already. So third house, you know, you've divided that up, it's not going to be very busy initially, but as things grow just continues to work. So we're right at that Brink for national standards for fire deployment.
In the fire department and a storage unit we'll be sharing the same exit instruments on to further Parkway. Yes.
Questions for fire?
This is the architecture firm you guys are working with? You know, I'd be on the board. They're just curious. I don't see it on the board.
I don't have an expert here. Nor it's I've heard it I just get to not remember sees you
texting me right now. Yeah, no, no service.
All right. Let's see. We don't have any more questions. Thank you very much. Thanks for bringing those two. Okay, and nothing else at this time. I'll open it up to public comment. The public hearing portion if anyone in the audience here wishes to speak to this no have any signed up. Is there anyone that didn't have a chance to sign up that wishes to speak all right, I'll close public hearing and bring it back to the board for deliberations and possibly vote. How's everyone feel?
My biggest concern is just the massive size of the building. I'm trying to think of how many other buildings that we have in town that would compare to this and there's not one not one at all. To me this I picture this size is like the jacks outdoor Home Depot open leveling from depot's significantly larger square footage bases. That wouldn't be anywhere near that size. Anything about height
maybe height but certainly not building footprint. TPC Colorado clubhouse probably larger square footage, similar in height, overall height. That's not right. That's one of the biggest buildings we have. Yeah, I mean, this will look like Got three story office building from the highway? It won't look like a single family house. I'm
sure that it's probably Grace place is that similar height?
Could be? Yeah, I would I would guess Grace place is probably pretty similar through
it to me. I mean, I definitely see that point. I just to me with this location,
there's not a whole lot of uses for this location. So it's kind of like it's like you had like the massive size and gateway of the building of the town. But
I just don't know what the President says,
make a good sale for the site. Because I remember being back on planning commission when the housing developer was going in, there was some debate about how to access this property. But you know, could you put a gas station there, and the only access was through like the neighborhood to the bottom there was like a little roadway that they planned in so that they can access to the neighborhood, but then that's been on the traffic in the neighborhood. So it's kind of nice to be able to actually utilize the existing entryway under birth and Parkway. And like they said, three, four, maybe less than 10 Fire Station things for sure. Unless we get really busy and storage units probably going to be probably as busy as the fire station on a Saturday or Sunday for the most part. Yeah, I did have one more question just kind of popped up the thinking back to the renderings.
Attorney Smith, is that alright, or that was the prerogative of the chair. Back, Trustee hardiest one more question. So
this is the logo sign being neon and really bright does that. Well, that'd be changed based on our dark sky.
Yeah, to confirm our second question that came to mind.
I do like one of those dancing guys.
Well, no, it's just the neon just really bright. Oh, no. It's something downward, like as
well as backlit signage and things are obviously certainly regulated within ordinance. And it's not something that ever gets in the way. So
I'm just trying to think of other ways to maybe break up the building to make it I think I mean, I less massive blog box, it doesn't really block a view
to me, unless you're from the street like stoplight there unless the neighboring residents, I think they have higher fences. But yeah, they might see a little bit. I think, to me, at least the landscaping kind of mitigates that. I think it's a good or decent look and building kind of like administrative Kirk's and kind of like an office space. And yeah, any other way we could dress it up is a huge benefit. But I'm not so worried about just this is just me as trustee about the looks of it. Yeah.
I definitely was concerned when I saw a large storage unit place going into a different area of town. But when I saw the the elevation views, and the way that it looks like an office building, I think it looks that looks fabulous. And it is a low impact use. And anytime I've been to a storage unit on a busy weekend, I've run into maybe two other cars at a storage facility. So it's, it's not high traffic. So it's not going to be a frequent use place other than the occasional people coming in and going, which is nice, because like you stated, We need a low traffic impact area there. But I think the elevation views look fabulous. If we have to have something there, the height is, is challenging, but if it doesn't look like a storage unit, I think it's it's gonna be great, especially if the landscaping is is there and it's making it look beautified. And it's the partnership with the fire station is critical. Because we know that the the issues in that corridor are significant and they're growing. And it's only going to continue to grow. So having emergency services there is going to increase safety, public safety and health and wellness if we have that resource in that area. So that partnership is really important. So of whatever we can do, in my opinion to make that work and make it look good for the community and provide great service to the community to have storage as the town continues to grow. And also provide that fire service with EMS which is was great to find out that EMS are partnering so that we can increase their services to because they have a small building on Second Street so it'd be nice to know that they're increasing their footprint in town as well. And I like the look of the fire station if that has to be the gateway to the to that quarter. I think the fire station will look wonderful and inviting and safe safe community standard so
that's kind of similar when they showed the picture of the big box building. I was like so. Oh
the west side or the one with our commercial. I think it's my side over by quick Warner
the one at the northeast corporate tear at 287 Mountain Yeah, yeah. Western crossing,
did we require a sidewalk or some kind of pedestrian on the three, seven side?
I thought we might have. But they own that entire stretch. So yes, there's a trail being constructed on the west side of 287. Or on the west side of the property east side of 287. That they own that entire stretch.
How far is this? I wish we can zoom out to see how far this is from County Road 20. How far it wraps around? Is there a way we could do that? Or is that too? does not move far. It
wraps around?
Yeah. So from the end of this storage site?
Oh, how far down to 20?
If you want if you were to walk all along to 87? How, how far would you need to go to get to 20?
Pretty, pretty decent ways. It's a good distance. No, yeah, it's a long way. I need to walk around the entire Hammond farm subdivision. Right. And think about it that way. Honestly, thinking
for something for them. I think they might want to enjoy Walker.
Yeah. Okay. Just Murphy. Um, yeah, I mean, I really liked the harmonious uses here on this site. And it really makes sense. Splitting the lot. And using, the way it's being used, what I really struggle with is the facade, and it is a good looking story building on that, that. But you've got a 40 foot high wall, running through 250 feet on Brooklyn Parkway along one of our most prominent parts of town. And, you know, I would be interested in exploring, you know, whenever I see a big wall like this, you know, without any windows or ornamentation. To me, it seems like the ideal place for maybe a mural or public art, I think that might be a worthwhile amendment to explore that idea, rather than just, you know, throwing up trees and burning, as we've kind of done everywhere else.
Are you saying in exchange for that, or on top of that,
we're gonna possibly a blend of, you know, I think it's worthwhile to explore that idea, or at least have the opportunity to have that as an open opportunity for like,
Baja, or while for one of our local art organizations to do another big metal liquid on the grain elevator. Because I know, they talked about when I was on Valhalla years ago, but didn't sit down with the water tank out there. Because back then, that was such a standalone big structure out there. And now it's like, you don't even notice it as much anymore. With all the condos and stuff being built up around a year,
I would just echo the concerns of everyone else, you know, 40 foot building a big cross section, going towards the mountains, especially, I was rather concerned as to what this is gonna look like. I think some of my concerns have gone away because of the a the fact that it's kind of leveled off and cut into the hills. So it's not as tall from ground level as the 40 feet, it seems less.
I just, you know, I'm,
I hope that judicious that the judicious
landscaping would do much to cover, there was the one picture where there were the mature trees. And I understand that's a long time away, but it seems like with with good and tree selection, those those trees themselves are maybe 2030 feet tall, which is going to break up that
wall. I also
agree with trustee Murphy that maybe we can do some sort of artwork, or some something once again, to break up that solid wall. But I think I would argue that that wouldn't be for me a reason to replace any of them. Any of the landscaping as well, I would think that would be for me. That's an am not an add on. But I also agree that you know, the owner working with the fire district, that's wonderful. So I don't I don't have any bad things to say about that. Obviously. I just I would I would really want to focus if this were to go through I'd really want to focus on covering as much as possible in unique ways the that facade. architectural standards will require some facade articulation and other enhancements. It won't mean you can't just build a 40 foot tall blank wall. Yeah.
Jersey Butler think the project as
a whole makes a lot of sense. I think to just repeat some of the comments. You make say, you know poses some challenges like the low traffic
works quite well, I think the partnership with a fire is amazing. I agree the only concern is, I guess the height of the walls.
Otherwise, I'm in favor. I do want to clarify some of these conditions, I guess, question of staff. As our planning, we got these extra notes here given to us, would this be conditions added to the use permit? Or the amendment?
Thank you, Trustee Butler, that would they would be most appropriate to go with a special use permit.
Okay. Thanks for clarifying. So we have a carryover from Planning Commission, and then three new conditions, which I'm in favor of all four essentially. And then I also agree that if we are going to add some neural art type requirement that that's an addition to any current landscaping requirements.
That question for town staff. Is there anything that prevents the storage unit from ever doing any outside storage on any of the open space left?
I think the answer to that is yes. indoor and outdoor storage are treated a little differently under the code, they all slam into the room.
So the application before you tonight is for the indoor storage facility. If there would be any changes to include outdoor storage it the application request, wouldn't even come back before planning commission and your samples.
So they could just like bulldoze up the ground over here to the west and start showing armies or whatever over there. No, I
guess I haven't spoke. I agree with all the trustees. I think artwork would be very helpful. The landscaping will go a long ways. I appreciate you guys showing the berm and I think that will cover a lot in an odd way. This is kind of a harmonious relationship of a fire station next to a storage unit on this corner. Kind of a best fit for the amount of traffic so I'm in support. There's not anything else trustees. We got two different motions in front of us. And the second one will have the conditions on it. If I heard correctly. Would anyone like to move on this first one here? ordinance 3019.
I will move to approve ordinance 1318. an ordinance of the town of Virginia amending the battery farm planned unit development or parcel seven to add a provision in permitted uses to allow government facilities the opportunity to apply for administrative land use process for consideration by the town of birth and Larimer and weld counties.
Just yellowbrick has moved. Is there a second? Study? Trustee Murphy a second. Is there any final discussion on this one? Or amendments?
Yes. All right. Our second one will have the conditions that are listed on this page plus, sounds like we're okay with exploring artwork.
I wouldn't mind right facade treatments in other treatments. Yeah. Let me get more.
I'll see if I move to approve resolution 2023 Dash 13 are approving a special use permit for the birth itself. Storage in the town of birth is Larimer and weld counties Colorado with the following stipulations. One that the applicant shall continue to work with town staff to finalize the landscaping plan to ensure adequate screening along SBP and state highway 287. To applicants shall include the reception number of the recorded access to green on Sep plat. This is the access from Southworth Parkway into the project site providing access to both lots created through minor subdivision three, the applicant shall work with town staff regarding landscaping enhancements at the southwest corner of state highway 287 and Southworth Parkway, as this is an entrance to burthen for the app Looking shall provide an irrigation plan for town staff approval, inclusive of the area's proposed proceeding. This would be the additional point I would be proposing. Five, the applicant shall explore the possible installation of a mural or graphic art on the north facade of the structure, separate and apart from branding or signage that honors the natural or agricultural heritage of birds. This would supplement landscaping, this art shall occupy a minimum of 1/8 of the square footage of the total northern facade of the structure. This art shall be reviewed by an accepted by town staff prior to an art installation.
Okay, everyone feel about that second one. It sounded like there was some trustees wanting to add this on top of landscaping. Interesting review. Did you say sub Oh, you're saying something? Yeah. That's an additional landscaping.
This would supplement landscaping and you want to have town staff make a decision or town board approve that decision? I'm okay with town staff. Okay, but I'm just wanted to clarify. I'd like to look.
Good question on the art.
We're getting a little close here. I think we're gonna just gonna go ahead and make this
Can we make a mess so specific to art, but just facade enhancements? That would include art? You just said explore artwork? Explore? Okay. All right. Currently they have it's not like mandatory just exploring as
part of the process.
Would you be okay with having town board review that if the if it is explorable instead of trustee Murphy. Okay with amending that?
Yeah, I wasn't as
cool. All right. Any any problems issues, other exemptions or additions?
Good. Thank you, for our clarity of staff is the expectation that they I'm not sure if I know when we should bring this back to you or not?
I guess once you know if it's feasible, and I know you don't want to invest too much into what a mural would look like. Maybe some options are.
How do we do it with the roundabouts? It was two guys proposing and they came up with the
artwork RFPs for the roundabouts was a significant undertaking, probably a different kind of process that we've been talking about here. I think the idea of exploring artwork and other facade enhancements is a good idea. With town staff, if if, if artwork or mural is identified as the appropriate facade enhancement, I suppose we could bring that back to you to look at.
But you're worried about us and getting picky about art and saying no. And
well, admittedly, yes. I mean, it's our artwork is in it, you know, the beauty of artwork is in the eye of the beholder. And so our work in a public process, as you guys found with the sculptures is kind of an interesting and challenging looks, we're just the tough stuff would work.
And that aspect? Yeah.
Well, the complication would be it had would have to persist the business in acquiring new business to, so they would have to be a big part of that process and saying this will not hinder. And it will properly represent our business, right. So
in a lot of cases, like public murals are done under agreement, or right here, I'm looking forward. You know, we're a public, or we're a nonprofit, like Baja, or wildfire. gets permission under under agreement with the property owner to paint a mural, they're responsible for maintenance and installation, all that, you know, there's kind of a, there's a process involved there. And technically, we could do that all over town, underground with a property owner. And so the question is, you know, if we have that process in place, the question is, is this should this be a condition of approval? Or should we just explore that in the context of other facade enhancements as an option? I mean, I think the idea is cool, and you know, there's there's a large blank space on a wall and we're able to enter into some kind of neural agreement, then that's an easy thing to accomplish, if the facades already set up that way, but we may not want to give that up. We may not want to give up other facade enhancements like facade articulation or additional
he's a good point so what a
facade has been better than an art project it could in the long run and you know, again, I think some of that's in the eye of the beholder right and
no challenging dia artwork.
So the property between this property and state highway 287 Is that owned by the town that strip of land
No, it's see that right away so outs you know outs north of the boundary line. This property is all highway right away on a controlled by cedar.
So we couldn't construct anything artistic there to kind of break up,
not without their permission.
What if we just left it up? I trusted you maybe kind of like your original idea. It's hard to think on the spot up here in a meeting. But Mr. Kirk, you could kind of be your call about bringing it back to the board. And I was making me nervous.
But you know, I think that's fine. If you guys are comfortable with that. I will say to the north, the north facade, if you think about the direction that traffic is flowing, that north facade may be visible to traffic coming southbound on berth, and Parkway, but it won't really be visible to traffic heading north and southbound on 27. Because they'll be going past it, not looking at it. And so I you know, I think some of that is exploring, like, where's the right place? To put it? How big makes sense? What would it look like? What's the, you know, legal arrangement for who's gonna maintain it? And, you know, under one license slot enhancements, because I didn't want it to, you know, the facade enhancement could be hard. Or it could be something more
structural, like you were saying, Yeah, and I think you know, some of that will just be driven by our code requirements for architecture. And I just want to give to you obviously, what else do so if the opportunity arises, I want to say, hey, well, you agreed to this, that, you know, we could maybe explore a mural on there,
when I think the public art ideas is a really great one. In the context of like, overall development, it's a little hard in one off scenario, because we don't really have that structure in place yet. And it might be something we really want to explore. How do we incorporate public art into into future commercial projects? And maybe as we explored this with the developer, maybe there's a great opportunity, maybe there's not but but it's tough to do on a one off scenario without some kind of clear.
Hey, yeah, maybe just worth exploring and raise keeping us appraised if it goes south? And just let us know. It's gonna keep that door
open. Yeah. Does that work? And I think that was the motion that trustee Murphy made. We would explore that it's not a condition. It's not a, you shall. But if you do under that condition, it would be an eighth of the facade or square footage of the show.
So I knew Y'all said supplement, which would be lengthy. So I think motion, is there. Is there a second?
Yeah. So we can work with the developer to explore that idea. I'll second
okay. Trusty Murphy has moved on. On the motion. Trustee of records seconded. Quick Roll call, please.
All right. Thank you for your time tonight. Okay, let's take a five minutes. I'll call the meeting back to order. And we'll move into our final regular agenda item of the night. And that is the landscape design guidelines. And this will be opened up by planner and Johnson.
I might just jump in if that's okay. Mr. Creighton, and then I'll just be brief. And then we'll turn it over to Aaron back now from sobers foreign architects who has been working on this project with us for a while. As you know, we've presented the landscape guidelines to you previous meetings and taking your feedback and made some adjustments to the the guidelines that were included in your packet. The goal of the guidelines is to work in tandem with the comprehensive plan and our development code to provide clarity to the public, to the board to developers about the intent of what landscapes should look like and function like in the town of birth. And And tonight, what we're asking for you is excuse me, that you would approve the draft birth and landscape guidelines and we will bring likely a separate action back to you at a future meeting to appropriately incorporate them into the code. likely be an ordinance that says you know, the project applicants shall conform to the or should demonstrate conformance with landscape guidelines as to maybe even by resolution in the future, something of that nature. But we wanted to present this to you tonight. We believe this is in final draft form. Love your feedback and comments. And with that, I'll just turn it over to Aaron back off. That's okay. Thank you.
Good evening. Can you guys hear me? Thanks, Aaron diagonal from southeast foreign architects to 505 Walnut Street in Boulder. As Chris mentioned, we've been working with the town of Bertha and staff on the landscape guidelines previously worked on the architecture guidelines as well. So I'm just going to briefly do an overview. I know that most of you in fact all of you have seen this already. So I'm going to quickly go through just a review of how we've organized the documents and and with how, what we've arrived since we talked to
you guys last year.
So, as we mentioned last time that I presented this in front of the board, this document is intended to lead with sustainability. We have a lot of waterways focused on plant choice stormwater, management and water conservation choices throughout the document. It's also an addition, a document that is organized around the maintenance and of landscape. As you guys well know, that's an important part to the continual upkeep and beautification of the town. It's also meant to establish responsibilities of who was supposed to do the upkeep and response and maintenance of these landscapes. So there's reinforcement for owner and HOA Metro district responsibilities throughout this document. Just briefly, we've chosen the critical place types that are in need of this oversight. And those place types are the natural areas, suburban areas, general urban areas and urban center. The document is organized with a individual marking for each character district and the beginning is mostly text content heavy, meant to introduce the components how it's going to be, how we've helped. One is to use these guidelines, and the application of these guidelines and the objectives. Further on in the document, you'll see the general sections that provide overall guidance on the landscape, the plant selection and maintenance. And
each
character district is itemized with the the visual presentation and tabs and specifics to those character districts in regards to landscape design. And finally, the master plant list is at the end. And one thing we've added is, and I'll go into what we've added before so what we this is kind of what I want to focus on is what we changed since we last spoke to you, since that's the important things to note. One thing that we heard from the board was how to insert language that would allow somebody reading it to understand who this applies to. So you'll see throughout the document if you've had a chance to read it that we're specifically applying to new development in large applications only. So that's really what the stuff that's under the town. I'm sorry, the planning staff purview. Things that come through the planning staff review will be this landscape document will be applied to. Another thing that we changed is including a lot of plant selection language to prioritize seasonal colors and different types of varieties so that we have winter color and winter interest as well. We've also kind of speckled about fun facts in in throughout the document about owl versus the garden spot. Pollinator supporter Tree City. We've introduced fire wise landscaping tips, and also water saving landscaping tips. The plant list was a topic of discussion last time and with the understanding that plant lists are a moving target and pretty much always the change a lot. We have kept our plant list but we also added a hot link or a website link to the plant select website. So that that can that is continually updated and also can be used as a resource for a plant select guide. We also in the Plant List, we added informational plant facts and imagery throughout. And finally at the end, we included the prohibited treat list. So small things tweaks like Chris said, I think this is a document that's pretty much in final form and we're welcome welcoming any comments or thoughts that you've had as you've had a chance to review it?
Are we gonna go through the additions you said you're gonna wait till the end?
That was that was my updates to do at the end? Okay, last slide. Sorry, I wouldn't stay on that. Okay, thanks
very much.
Maybe we can go back to that slide. If you don't mind. You can
see it's on our ship. In front of me.
Yeah, we can go then as a bullet list if you want maybe ice That would be great. Excellent. So I'll start with the first one. We a lot of the conversation last time was about specifying who this applies to. And so the language in the document has been changed and clarified, clarified, to include new development only.
70 questions about that? No, it says, In the Old Town, one that it doesn't apply to redevelopment on single family residential. Right. Right. But other ones downtown probably would apply to
in areas where there's, you know, if you're going to do a significant redevelopment of commercial structure, and not just like a facade treatment, but like, you know, you're completely changing the site layout, who would expect you to follow these guidelines? in a commercial setting? But yeah, if you're a single family residence in downtown or an existing suburban neighborhood, no, these would not apply to you. If you were and I actually think there's some specific language, I'll find it at the beginning.
Yeah, so the
suburban and Old Town residential landscape design lines apply to all new projects, not existing. And I think the note is at the top, Aaron, right, where there's I gotta find it. I just read it this afternoon, because I knew this question would come up again. Now I can't find it. Okay. Here we go. To the this is on page, three of the document at the top how the guidelines are applied. Halfway through that first paragraph, it says to achieve the stated purpose, the guidelines will apply to all new construction and substantial building alterations that require approval by the town of birth community development staff, in the planning department building department, incorporating these guidelines into a project design will result in aesthetic pleasing. So the intent is, you know, anything, you know, a major renovation or new project that would require Community Development Review in the planning and building department. something substantial.
Yeah. This is limiting turf grass is kind of a requirement, less of a guideline. Right. It's not a requirement.
The question about turf grass. There's a number of places throughout the document where turf grass is, is mentioned in in like the urban residential, just wish would be a higher density style of development, more likely, townhomes for multifamily. There's notes in there that say minimize turf area. The same is true with like suburban and Old Town residential. The idea is that turf grass is discouraged, except in active areas adjacent to outdoor living areas and patios, places like that, but that, but it's not prohibited, and it is not restricted. It's discouraged.
So how would a developer on it? If I'm hearing this a developer, I'm sorry, a builder would probably look at this like nothing up front, and maybe a little turf in the back.
It could be either or, you know, they can add areas of turf adjacent to outdoor spaces, you know, like, a lot of our newer residential projects have large porches and things like that. So I mean, if they wanted to replace turf, adjacent Susana spaces, I think those would be perfectly appropriate. The same would be true in backyards. You know, some of it too, is, it depends on the type of project, you know, some, like the mission home cottages, for instance, where they have backyards, they're pretty small, and having, you know, 500 square feet of turf, that is their entire backyard. I don't know that we'd have issue with in areas where you have a 10 or 11,000, square foot lot on the end of the cul de sac. You know, the idea would be to have nice turf, landscaping adjacent to their patios and outdoor living areas and have some play space, but that the entire, you know, quarter acre wouldn't be all sod. And so there would be there's some flexibility here, built into the guidelines intentionally and that's why they're guidelines, not regulations, to give us the ability to make some reasonable, you know, decisions about are you meeting the intent, you know, if you if it's a 10,000 square foot lot and landscape plan is is all bluegrass. I don't know that that meets the intent of the guidelines. But if as a nice blue grass yard and some attractive, you know, trees and shrubs and other things surrounding that to take up some of that unnecessary space.
Yeah, okay. Yeah. And then I'll point you to the first on page two, how to use the guidelines. It's Each applicant for development must demonstrate to what extent it incorporates these guidelines and that they don't meet specific ones. They can provide rationale for the design. So like Chris said, it gives you a flexibility and town staff and planning and planning commission, the flexibility to kind of weigh what they're doing in response and respond to that.
Okay, so trustees, I realize I just started asking questions. But if I finish up with this doesn't have any effect on treelines treon spacing requirements on tree lines, okay.
It actually doesn't change any of our current landscape code requirements. So this is in addition to
Yeah, this is just some some color and some guideline, I guess, to make things look better
talking color here, tree lines typically have sod and I know that's no, no here, are we allowing gravel then
we would require so in guidelines, the expectation is especially like in a commercial project, and in, you know, our subdivisions that licensed landscape architects are preparing these landscape plans. And so we would expect to see something. Frankly, all rock and a tree lawn with no plantings wouldn't be acceptable on an under guidelines. Standard of how much would have to be like living material or something.
Yeah, ground cover of some sort other than gravel. I just saw it in here. And I thought it was suburban that said, cobbles and rocks are something local quarries are encouraged. She's, I gotta find this.
See if I can find this here.
And then finally, did this reduce anything from the tree list? Because not from our approved town approved tree list? We're keeping the same trees. Yep. Oh, yeah.
I'm worked with with Paul, almost a Joshua with Paul are down for sure. To make sure we have the right entry list included, same one.
Yeah. And there'll be irrigated, we're gonna require irrigation for those still. Trees should be
irrigated? Yes. We require irrigation and all of our landscape areas, especially for common area, landscaping, even even native turf grass areas, we require now, installation of irrigation because otherwise, again, it doesn't establish long so they need irrigation to establish even native areas now. And then, you know, that way, if there's if there's an issue and there's there's various the die off, they can recede, and we irrigate and reestablish so on irrigated areas are no longer considered landscaping in the town. Okay.
A question where are they at last time? Is it? The answer was it's hard to find these plants for the average consumer, but you can get them at Home Depot, or maybe get them at a garden center. But did anything changed since then? We know we can go to plant select, but can you buy those other plants electrical,
Plant, plant select, I believe keeps their up to their plans, like was given to me by a landscape architect as a suggestion to include because they keep their lists localized list updated to what's available in the Colorado market?
In the Colorado market, yeah. Okay. So if a plant died, I'd be able to find it. Without without having to hire a landscaper with a wholesale account, I could find this on my own.
Um, if you knew what the plant was, and you're trying to replace it, then yes, ideally, you'd be able to find it. And if you can't, then it would probably give you another selection that is comparable. Okay, I think that I have for now, the question is justice
for the IRS administrator, I can't remember where how far we are in the process. But with these guidelines apply to the any sort of upgrades to the Massachusetts your Second Street project. As they move forward, like third Massachusetts, yeah, we would have we would abide by our own. Yeah, that's okay. Yeah, along with third Massachusetts project, we would abide by our own guidelines. Now, I think some of that is already kind of being dealt with in the context of how we might relay out. Railroad Park, for instance, is the idea of creating more Plaza space, more active outdoor areas would naturally limit some of the enhanced plantings, but, you know, in terms of like, permeable permeable paving and those kinds of things that we want to incorporate Yes. And I think the other question I had, speaking of permeable material, etc. And I don't really know how to ask this question. So I apologize. But um, in in this kind of research and in this kind of application, is there anything that can be done or is there any, I guess, issue that can be overcome with large flat rooftop areas, or does that just get drained into this kind of system? Is there anything that can be done on those rooftops to stop them from being I guess, 5000 square feet of tar, living, living, living roofs,
we didn't get into living rooms in this document. And we've done
we did. We did though, there are notes in here about roof drains, commercial buildings draining into rain gardens, or permeable surfaces. So they're not just in commercial spaces, you can't just discharge the parking line in the street, right? At the idea kind of the guidelines they discharged in the landscape areas. Let that water move through natural material to soak back in then also eventually discharged were passed to after it's gone through appropriate landscaping.
That's all I have for now. I got a few questions. And I guess we should refresh my memory. We've already zero Scaper pap guidelines. Do we have those in current code? Or is this I don't really see anything in this document, really, Pertaining to or speaking about zero escapes. So if you have new construction, development, or even an existing, you know Old Town mods, if they wanted to tear up all their turf and play rock, do we have any guidelines currently in our town or listen, dressed that there is
nothing prohibiting you from tearing out your front yard and replacing it with all rock unless you have an HOA or metro district that has other covenants prohibiting you from doing that, like an old town where there's no HOA or venture district, there's no covenants. Our current codes don't prohibit you from doing that. We wouldn't encourage it.
But it does. It's not supported in this document support
in this document either. And so the idea of of, you know,
unsupported as a not a lot not supported is that we don't support a zero scape front yard. Yeah, actually,
it's only rock. Yeah.
Zero, skip with a Z with an X is one document and there's zero skip with the name.
Yes. Term Zero Escape doesn't show up in this document anywhere. Instead, what we're focused on is waterwise, landscaping. waterwise. Landscaping is still intended to be lush, it's still intended to be attractive, seasonal. You know, rock and cactus would not qualify in our landscape guidelines.
So well, that's okay.
Let's Let's dress to this document. And when we don't have anything codified, there's nothing prohibiting you from doing that in your front yard. If you don't, you don't have some other
two binomials. Most of HOAs don't really have that documentation either.
Most? Well, that's a good question. I honestly have no idea. But it is not uncommon in the handful of covenant situations that I'm aware of, for the Metro district, easy way to require approval of your landscape before you get to modify it. And so
there's one that farmstead that almost went to kind of like a lawsuit. But the lady that tore out a turf, one, because of some state law saying that he cannot prevent that,
I think what they can't do is say you cannot do it, I think they can have some control over how it gets done. But what I what I don't think they can do is prohibitive. At least that's the way I understand it. But this kind of legal opinion, but I think that's typically that's my understanding as well, if the plants die,
and people can't find them that easily might just turn into a rock.
But the, you know, the installation of plant material like we aren't, even today, in any landscape, even even the ones that are like a commercial landscape, for instance, plants die, they can replace it with other plant material, they don't have to replace it with what was put there originally. And in some cases, it's it's not a good idea to put back what was put there originally because it died for a reason. Sometimes that is that's especially true with trees, it seems like oftentimes, you know, when you when you remove a tree that die and you plant the same species, it just dies again, there's something about the soil condition or the the environmental condition where it's at that particular species doesn't do well enough. And maybe you need a different variety or a different part of your tree or something that tolerates a different level of acidity in the soil or whatever. Right. So I mean, but we don't we don't force you to replace it with the exact same plant that was there before our code doesn't require that
require a CI permit. So something that is reviewed. There's not necessarily a review I'm just talking about here is not really a review for turning out your sod putting in our present Rockman No, no plan.
No, we don't require you to get a permit from the town to really escape your current yard.
So how do we address that? How's the variable except
you would have to adopt a new ordinance that says Prior to really escaping your yard, you have to get a permit from the town. I'm not sure that's yeah, I'm not sure that's a bridge, we want to try to cross. But that will be a policy decision by the town board. I think
that without having to require a permit, can we still have landscape guidelines? Well, soon it says that don't allow just pure rock represent rock. on existing yards,
I don't know. I mean, we we certainly can within the context of new development, right? A part of the problem with us is similar to paint color, if I'm being honest, right, like, you know, new single family house, we don't have any code that prohibits you from painting and paint today, after you buy it for, you know, bright green, or whatever, we don't have those codes in place to prohibit you from aesthetic changes to your
law or to your home that aren't building code related.
So, yeah, that's a good question. I don't know, we'd have to, we'd have to consider that I'd probably rely on Aaron for some guidance on that as well. Yeah. I mean, this this area?
Yeah. I mean, the question becomes, as a statutory town, you've got the authority under the state law to do what you can do, I'd have to look at and see what sort of specific authority there would be for that kind of a
police power
exercise, exercising your police power.
I mean, we could just call it a junker abandoned vehicle, or that ordinance, right. Yeah, a little bit different. Yeah, kind of same thing that we're already having that control and in a degree over junk.
In most cases, that's a public health and safety kind of issue. And there's already a state statute that actually no
public health argument on how it affects trees. And
I think I think that's the kind of thing you would have to do, actually, and we've had this conversation about a similar issue in the past. And that is requiring replacement of street trees that die, where we feel like the the board would likely have to make some kind of public health and safety finding in order to mandate those. And so that might be, we'd be breaking new ground, though, I think there's probably gonna be the oxygen, that's a health issue
that we don't want, like all the
rocks, zero escaping that type is a risky thing. But I think when it comes to enforcement, the goal is always to educate, and have a plan like this that's really well informed, to give to our community so that they can make these decisions and put plans in their yards that are low water, low maintenance. And I mean, like as being a single mom, last three years, this is like gold, because like, How can I take care of my 2000 square feet of grass and trees and all of this when I don't have finances or time, this is like gold, so but there are people who can't, they're elderly and can't do any yard work, and they put rock out and it's not the most beautiful thing, but everyone's not doing it. So as long as we're, I think setting a precedent of this is what we want our community to look like lush and, and green, but water savvy. I think that's a better, more friendly approach and enforcement. That's just my
Yeah, I think it might be a little bit easier for this to go south if it's hard to find a replacement for a plant versus us in downtown with big shade trees that I mean, my my yards green for months, without having irrigate just because I blocky really old trees. But in these new areas, worried about a tie in off can't find a replacement. Let's just that rock.
Is there a way that we could? I found that thing again about quarry gravel? PAGE 1515. Maybe it is, I'm sorry, page 12 of the document. So can we
just somewhat here. I am sincerely concerned that we're going to see we don't have a lot of rocky hours currently. But I think it's a trend that we will likely see become more commonplace. And as that happens, I think it would be prudent of the town to kind of give our residents some direction on that. In my experience with HOA and just in my profession that I look at these documents more than I want to most HOAs don't have a lot of landscape guidelines if you have a requirement to get some, you know, Google approval, but that says so that's
a little bit outside the purview
of this document. But it has me thinking about that because I would like to discuss that. And I'm not wanting to require anything excessive, but I do think we require trees in certain places. So I think it'd be appropriate to impart some plants some places as well. In addition to the document, it does state that artificial turf will be reserved to only backyards Is that something that has been discussed to open into other spaces like front yards?
We we talked about it internally after that was a part of the discussion that we had last time we presented this with the board and we came to the understanding that it was best to keep it to backyards and I believe it sports fields. So
athletic turf and backyards if the board wants to allow artificial turf and front yards, but technically this doesn't prohibit it anyway, right. Again, these are guidelines. They're not hard and fast rules. But the intent is the artificial turf would generally be for backyard spaces. I've seen really nice artificial turf and I've seen really bad artificial turf and and so that's always the that's always the worry with a gun in the front yard. There's a bad example from a different jurisdiction different state but somebody tore out their whole front yard one time and put down used artificial turf that they just rolled out without any
restock counter.
Yeah, and it had like, like stripes on it still and from like old athletic field. And our neighbors went ballistic and there was nothing we could do about it. Because our codes didn't. So you know, I don't know. professionally installed high quality turf can look great. Even our front yard
if it's permeable. Great all are all all artificial
turf. Okay, yeah, it actually takes water pretty pretty fast.
And you still require irrigation Yeah, that's
the interesting about artificial turf in a lot of cases certainly on sports fields. It requires irrigation system not to water the not to water the turf but to use us to clean it and yeah, all that kind of stuff so and actually cool it because it can get hot in the summertime
even Yeah, because I've heard they're hot and I'm worried about the trees underneath but I actually trust the butler's point to sound
like there was something done with the tree lungs years ago because I remember standing up there as a citizen debate with the town board at the time about the guidelines for the tree lawn area because everybody's pulling out the tree lot but in in rock and then the trees are dying because the trees are heating up too much because while the rock in the area and you know, I remember debating against a few people about well, you know, lawn mowers are polluting and grass clippings take up our landfills and all this other stuff and I was like well then you're doing it wrong. But I thought we had some sort of policy and eventually put in place about what percentage of the treeline could be gravel versus a living thing like plants or grass. And it was just tree lawn specific it wasn't front yard specific because the town basically still controls the tree lawn area that's why they were able to create some policy based on the tree laminate the rest of the front yard. I don't think that we have maybe it's been so long that it's been rewritten multiple
This was back when I first bought my house like 20 Some years ago.
So do you think it was mayor at
the time? I need to go back through Oh, I've heard about that. I don't think
there was one way back in the day. Yeah, yeah,
he's people Yeah. Yeah, I don't think we have a code requirement though. Speaks to plant material on the tree line other than trees themselves because I saw that I mean that was back then a lot of people will rip it out to front tree lawns and just put it into gravel and even wood chips and because they didn't want to buy this it was too narrow too hard and it's like well sound property I'm not I don't want maintain I'm just gonna put this out there. Turn off the irrigation. Yeah, that was kind of the attitude back then.
did go back to this for these there is a diversity requirement or guideline for a tree line. I really I just totally so what what the
what the code or not the code sorry what the guidelines say and Aaron can correct me if she disagrees but I'm trying to find it. In general, there are some there's notes in here about the intent is the landscapes are designed with a diverse plant palette, like five different kinds of plants and species monoculture is not wouldn't be intended the guy who So the idea is that, oh, yeah, here we go. monoculture and our plant palates, including fiberglass species are discouraged then the suburban Old Town residential guidelines. And so again, new land development applications for common areas and public spaces within a subdivision will require licensed landscape architects, which they all do anyway.
But we don't have any written guideline requirements of I'm talking about the ground cover about can't do all gravel.
No, it just says landscaping should include a variety of plant tree and ground cover species.
Have you guys thought about the problems with gravel versus an organic kind of ground cover for keeping moisture in and on the
on page 13 of the labeled 13 urban downtown specifically addresses street trees. And one of the one of the lower bullet points it says use native grasses, paved areas and ground covers within the design of a tree lawn.
So paved areas would be some
paved areas is more in the urban the downtown grid, brown covers and native grasses are the other applications of it.
There's some really beautiful tree lawn examples not here that I can point to but with hedges with a bunch grasses. But that, that we've installed, I've been a part of installing other places that look great.
Yeah, I immediately having such a tough time with this have seen good jobs and just you don't see him often you don't like the idea just to I mean, this can go south real quick. If a builder just wants to get out of your quick, you know, it doesn't really care. The
part of the there is no in our code now, to find it really quick. I can. In the new zoning districts, there are landscape there are more intensive landscape requirements for builders to provide. More like a model landscape plan for each house. So in addition to model floor plans, so like in a in a large subdivision, let's use vantages as an example where Dr. Horton is building the majority of homes, they will put together five to six model floor plans, each one of those will have three different elevations. So you get kind of it's it's really technically only five or six different houses, but you get visually it looks like you know, 15 to 20 different houses. Our new code requirements aren't new zoning districts actually require subdivision developers to provide once you hit a certain threshold, developing in a in an area to provide model landscape plans. That would serve as a guideline more than you know, each each lot is unique, right. But that would serve as a guideline for the builders. So that would give us the opportunity in those new zone districts to review and approve the plans. And, you know, even for the front yards, which the guidelines don't technically require for single family, you know, building permits. But in new zone districts, that code already has some expectation that there would be model front yards because because typically the builder installs the front yard, right. And if you drive through any new subdivision here to dredge Vantage, they all look the same. It's a it's a patch of grass, some three quarter, you know, one inch river rock, and you know, three shrubs and a tree. And then the tree is lucky if you get a tree outside of the tree lawn. So the intent is that we would get away from those what I'll call the standard front yard, suburban,
I think it's great to add some of this stuff. You know, I go through periods. It already is one of the areas farmstead to quarter the front rock. Yep. And it just seems to me we're doing enough already. So to keep pushing on that wears me and it also worries me if we're kind of getting away from turf, at least on the tree lawns, because not necessarily the turf, but the water helps the roots underneath. So for trying to discourage water use. That's just I mean, a tree can make it but it's going to be more sick and stunted. And,
actually, I would argue that in a lot of cases, they'd be healthier, because they would still be required to be irrigated. Like you wouldn't be able to plant a tree lawn. You wouldn't be able to put in plunk down you know, two trees and a whole bunch of rock and zero ation. So the actually the expectation would be that you'd have a drip irrigation system. If you're putting and rock and, you know, some bunch grasses and a couple of shrubs and trees that there would be dedicated drip irrigation. In most cases, that's actually better for the tree than then overhead irrigation. In the grass,
I'd have to disagree. I think having the overhead is better as it grows and the turf helps keep it down versus rock that it just Fabrice hurt more quickly.
But that tree in a tree ring doesn't irrigation is underneath the rock. It has an opportunity to soak in. Okay. And typically overhead irrigation doesn't get down more than about six inches. Unless you're just super over watering.
Yeah, which will need to be done initially. But I've seen it with a town that we're not expanding our rings as the as the canopy as the crown grows, that's true, which is off of AMI lens from our tree board says that's a no no, right. Like you have to have irrigation all day long. It has to be the size of the crown.
Well in I think what Paul would tell you and I shouldn't speak for ball, after a couple of years, those trees should be established and shouldn't need supplemental water. If they're if they're appropriate tree varieties. And they're and they've been well established and developed decent root system. In most cases, they shouldn't need a lot of supplemental water. So, you know, like when a tree is got a 15 foot canopy, you don't need a 15 foot irrigation ring at the edge of the canopy.
Now I would just put a sprinkler. Yeah, I
actually, in those cases,
got an arborist neighbor, you know, and Amy said the same thing. But it's it's a misnomer that the 123. And it's a misnomer that it's only in the summer two.
They definitely need winter watering. And we we we talked about, you know, we post information with folks about that, but it's not.
So this only last year doesn't allow overhead upfront. More obviously more concerned with the trees, anything.
Okay. So that's not that's not prohibited in the guidelines not not addressed that way. And if the trees
were happened to die because of lower water usage than what we have right now with overhead, they're not required to replace them. Right. They're not required to replace them now even with overhead. I know. But I'm worried about this getting worse.
Yeah, I mean, I guess it could, but I don't think what we're talking about we're not suggesting I think it's I think it's important to say well, we're not suggesting is that everybody replaced the front yards with rock and no irrigation. So, you know, I think intelligently designed landscapes might include mulch or, you know, solid mulch space around the trees and rock in strategic areas between trees and the tree on you, there's a lot of creative ways to design landscape. For healthy that doesn't have any turf. Yeah. And our expectation would be that's what it would be, to me,
it's just water and keeping water underneath. So the rock really is bad for that it doesn't it's the heat according the neighbor, but it's really just, it's the heat is making it go out. And generally you want to have something on the surface to kind of retain as much as that moisture keeping our needs as long as you can
rock mulch retains moisture. Pretty pretty well actually,
what's rock mulch is just rock go. Like, you know, if
you if you play rock over. And actually I bet if you go to any of the new subdivisions, you peel back some of that rock and there's probably some weed fabric or weed barrier between the dirt rock gets wet
underneath, very wet. In most cases,
it holds moisture Well, on the surface, you know, water sitting on the surface of the rocks will evaporate. But any water that gets through which you know it's a super permeable surface will soak in and what that rock does is provide a heat and shade barrier to you know, keep all that water from evaporating out of soil. Rock can work well as a as a mulch to retain moisture.
Yeah, I think it's important to understand that we're giving people a template palette to work with that is gonna provide waterwise and good plant selection ideas and good ideas for creating variety and creating different types of tree lungs that are acceptable. So like Chris said, you don't we're not saying that you everybody has to do this, we have we're giving them options. And so I strongly doubt that everyone is going to go out and put gravel in there or rock in their tree lawn. There might be some people that do that. And and if it's appropriate, and the trees are surviving, and there's drip irrigation, and then that is useful for the life of the tree and the use of the water. So I don't think we should maybe hinder ourselves or get stuck on that route conversation necessarily. Yeah, more so.
So why we require some type of diversity. I just from my experience on the board, you give a builder there's builders that don't care, and they're gonna do whatever and get it out the quickest and rocks available. They can leave and it's probably the most enduring versus some kind of Gorilla grass that you have to replace. That's I'm worried And a lot of folks at home this is gonna be like gravel route. A lot
of folks don't want mulch like a traditional like cedar mulch or, you know shredded wood mulch, because it doesn't last and blows away. It thins it starts to look shabby after a couple years and needs to be replaced. And so rock is more durable in that sense. That's why it gets us the landscapes a lot and it does, it does create, you know, from a heat standpoint, you're 100% Right. Like it, it will help suppress weeds actually, in some cases better than mulch. If it's installed the right way it'll it'll retain moisture, but it also generate heat and so the plant selections have to be appropriate to withstand heat in a way that maybe wouldn't need to be if it was in a mulch bed.
Yeah, there's trade offs like like rock mulch is not the best material on the planet or anything there's there's trade offs with all of them.
Again, I think what we're trying to do is create a guideline a palette, and then with an expectation that landscape architects use that creatively to design really attractive waterwise landscapes. And in most cases landscape architects are pretty good at that there's some bad landscape architects but like the front yards of homes currently are not landscape architect designed right efficient homes is all rocket Prairie Star. Yeah, and but they're but again, they're not even designed by architects or landscape architects. They just hire landscape firm that they just go hey, here's your spot. Do your thing right and improve dude shows up and, and women don't need to be.
But disposing of men, that's cruel, but the girls show up, things get done.
That's true. But a crew of people shows up, you know, they just kind of mark off a spot. They've plunked down some metal edging and rock and grass and they move on to the next house. Right? There's no There's no design involved. And I'm sure No, trust the IRS can try to interject just their FICO. Just because these are guidelines. I wonder if it wouldn't be to give more clarity on page 11. The Suburban and Old Town residential point number three. What if language were included to say landscaping should include a variety of plant? What if it would just said landscaping in the front yard and tree lawn should include a variety of plant tree and ground cover species that way it gives those guidelines, it shows that we don't want tree lawns to be just rock or just turf. And then that sort of adds the front yard to keep the same design features as the front yard. It gives those guidelines without necessarily limiting the choices of people so they a don't get fed up and to say okay, so I'm just going to replace it all. And it also gives guidelines as well a treadle
that works for me. Yeah, no, I think that's a better solution than not addressing anything. I was just even at we just discouraged not putting discouraging
vegetation, gravel,
I think vegetation is a good thing. I guess I haven't I haven't done the research administrative Kirk has that these are actually fine for trees, counter to what I've learned. But same with the drip. So I am concerned about the tree lawns and how this affects that.
Right. I mean, I think the argument is that these are guidelines. And if we wanted to actually discourage it, we would have to create policy to stop it from happening. But if it's just guidelines, I think focusing people on the intent focusing people on the goal of the landscaping in these new areas, I think, would hopefully get people to think in the way that this document, yes, trying to get them.
Yeah, I can say bad, or we could say gravel should be used sparingly or something like that.
I think we can even be brought more broad than that, with just a note that says something like you know, ground cover and landscape materials should be appropriately
placed to
retain moisture to produce heat stress on on the plants. You know, I think we could provide some of that context. And if I don't know if this information is out there, but I wonder if you you could include one of the little tip blurbs that maybe rock increases the air temperature by X percent per square yard of rock or something like that to kind of once again show sort of look into that data to show Hey, when you put rock in your yard Yeah, you don't have to water the grass however, it increases the temperature in your yard by X percent or it increases the temperature to the plants by experts, I don't know if that information exists, right. But to kind of keep with the character of the document, it's sort of a this is what this is what we're suggesting. And this is why and here's some data to kind of back that up. One Note that I think does help. And we would expect to kind of see within landscape plans for things like there's a note in here on page 12 in the in the picture, but also in language, that incorporating landscape features that soften the transition from the residence to the street. If you if you propose to just install it onto a rock, I would certainly not soften the transition from the residence to the street and like we would expect, you know, softening occurs with organic materials. It doesn't mean it couldn't creatively incorporate rock into into the landscape, right. Which is all a mess, a rock out the front yard wouldn't work. Again, we've talked about a lot, but it would not be supported with these guidelines.
Right. And I think, to Chris's point, this is really just as a whole, something that holds development accountable for their landscape plans and allows town staff and and the board's Planning Commission to to reference these documents and say, How are you meeting these shows how and if they're not, if they're not putting something in front of you that's appropriate, then you can reference as many things in this document and and share with them how to make their landscape plans better.
Hardly anyone does this, but is that like roses and stuff like that? Clearly just not allowed? Any kind of plants that aren't on this list? could not be used correctly. I mean, you can go back and plan them yourself. But yeah,
no, no, that's not fun. No, these are just suggestions. These are just these are just suggestions for waterways, plants. Yeah. And the the notes on the plant lists, as some of these are Colorado natives, some are pollinator species. These are suggested plants, but this is not a required planting list.
Yeah, not at all. And that's why we referenced the plant select because that gives an even broader selection of waterwise Colorado native pollinator friendly plants that anyone can choose from.
And then the artificial grass in the backyard is okay. turf grass in the backyard is also okay, which would be big for trees to use cottonwoods or open space.
This is actually sorry, I'm thinking out loud here. I'm also reading Denver's tree lawn street two requirements from the streetscape design manual. And maybe there is a note in here and as I'm thinking, one of the reasons why we don't want rock entry lawns is because rock ends up on the sidewalk and in the street. And so they're you know, there's good reason to say you can't do that Denver actually prohibits it does not allow for gravel, tree bark, woodchips, loose stones or other non organic materials to be used as permanent ground cover and tree lawns. Also says you can't put bluegrass in. So your alternatives are preferred ground covers like Himalayan border jewel money Ward, Willie time, Perry Linkle. Other Other kinds of organic ground covers. I'm not sure if we want to go that far and prohibit turf grass, but maybe we want to be I don't know why it just dawned on me. But you know,
well, I think if we're around rock and if Denver's doing that, I'm sure
it's not as interesting since the person was bluegrass, and that's for new streetscapes. So that's, that's different, but you know, mulches are recommended as initial plant material to establish some of those things, but it's nice not to have loose material entry lines because it ends up in on the sidewalk industry. So, irrespective of aesthetics or heat or water, you know, maybe maybe we just, we, I think we can add a couple of notes in there about the goals of attractive waterwise intelligently designed treatments. And some of that could be as simple as you know, one of the things that really bugs me is six foot tree lawns which They're really hard to irrigate efficiently, right with pop up sprinklers, because the water just goes everywhere. And so that's part of the struggle with
you know, typical six
foot wide grass tree lawns is they water the sidewalk in the street a lot more than they water, the
grass just gets my head.
In most cases that was it for my trainer. Yeah, in most cases, that's a tough thing to do. So maybe we say look, you know, in, in tree lawns that are, that are 10 feet or more. Blue Grass is an appropriate ground cover that can be irrigated efficiently. In areas where they're narrower, we would expect different kinds of ground covers, that would actually be nice, because I've created large tree lawns, and in some, in some situations that might be required as kind of the basic requirements of the code. I'm just thinking out loud. But you know, we could we can add two or three notes in this section, I think it will clarify and strengthen the intent of attractive organic material yards, not
rockin cactus.
Those are all my questions. Right, take 30 minutes do you want to take these are irrelevant?
No other questions? Okay.
All right. I'll open it up to the public. To the audience here. Miss Wilson. I know you've been waiting. Thank you.
Was that obvious? 1461 merlet Street is where I still reside. I did look over your packet and I'm very interested in the guidelines and how they affect the residents in particular. Just for clarification, these new guidelines are just for new developments.
Correct. So
what do the older developments have as a fallback for things like the statement number 10. And the overall says property owners HOAs Metro districts to replace dead dying damaged or deceased plant materials during the same growing season as removal was fallback do we have to enforce having our plants look healthy? And lawns look great. Chris, thank you. I'm
gonna answer that, please. Yeah. The there's there's really the only avenue that we have today is HOA covenant requirements for maintenance of landscapes. The town's code does not require trees to be replaced within
the private homeowners tree line. Or the streets
street trees. That's the tree line. The tree line is the street trees. Yeah. Okay.
The HOA has direction from the state that that is a right away and they have no right to tell the homeowners what they can and cannot do in that area. That's what our HOA manager said to us recently.
I don't I don't you know that I think that's a decision that the HOA will have to make with their legal counsel. Their responsibility for maintaining the treeline within the right of way is the adjacent homeowners.
So that's what our code says. Okay.
When you were talking about zero escaping, we looked into it with the resource center and possibly getting that $1,000 reback ri payback for it to remove our 20 by 20 foot grass lawn in front and a little strip of grass was $1,500. To do that Zero Escape from two different companies was $11,000. So I don't know that people are going to be rushing out to do a really good job zero skip zero escaping with the axe to do a lot of their lawns. I mean it was prohibitive for us
to do that.
When it comes to the rock mulch, the best size rock is going to be half an inch and this was told to me when I was looking at the possibility of doing the Zero Escape, because half inch will let the water go in but it's not going to let the evaporation go out. So just to do rock mulch and say it's great for retaining water It doesn't really work in the opinions that I've received. I have a question about the caliber of trees. This is on the plant selection and design guidelines, in you're talking about street trees in the species along the same street should be the same size and shape and meet the following size criteria at the time of planting. And you're talking major roads to be four inch calibers. And is that a new tree being put in?
Miss Wilson, if you could ask all your questions, and we can have staff or applicant or our consultant answer the end, I'm writing them down for you. Okay,
and this, this is my last question.
And that is
this. This only applies to new development
and new developments. But from what I learned at CSU is you are better off to plan a two inch tree than you are a four inch tree, because in four years, they're going to be the same size. But that four inch tree is going to be stressed. Because when they put that in there cutting all of those smaller roots, the provide the nourishment and the water for that tree.
So this is just
research based information. And I'm sure you have professionals and they know what they're doing. But just keep that in mind.
Thank you, Miss Wilson. Those are great. Thank you. Hope we answered them all. Is there anyone else? Tell me please. COVID Public comment here, bring it back to the board. Any thoughts deliberation?
I will say in in general, the document is awesome. It provides really good guidance to, to me to developers, I think as well. It shows the intent that the town has to keep it green. And I think moving forward with water wise with permeable materials to keep water in the ground instead of into the stormwater system I think is great moving forward. And besides some of the specific comments that were made in our discussion, I like the I like to document. Okay,
thanks for starting this off. Thank you. Christy Butler. I agree, I think this document
is great. And just get some really good clarity and visuals. And yeah, just addition to my comments about you know, zero scape tree lawns, think, Mr. curves, suggestions of what we can add to clarify those would be great. Yeah. Those are easy. To see it,
nothing more. Trusty awkward.
I agree with the other comments
are interesting Murphy.
Yeah, I agree. I think it's an excellent document. I really hope we spread the news of this far and wide once we're done with it. Beyond that, some of the things I brought up last time regarding Firewise, landscaping, tips and stuff. I think the blurb really kind of captures probably that middle ground because obviously some things like you know home the mission zone and defensible spaces is ultimately in conflict with a lot of the things we're trying to achieve here. So I think just educational aspect of it is really helpful to inform people.
Okay, so with the defensible space, it might be appropriate to have more specific Firewise material for what's called the wildland urban interface. So that's that like area where it's like more of the mountainy mountainous areas of Bertha that are more different from a different plant material that's more fire. It's more susceptible to wildland fires, it might be appropriate to have documentation for those developments that are building in those areas. Even near the golf course would be considered the wildland urban interface of birth it where there there's more high risk of wildland fires instead of the in town. That
thought there was a fire landscaping section here there's a blurb
on page 10 And it also has the Colorado State link, which goes in in depth on it. I thought it was maybe a worthwhile discussion if we wanted more than that. I feel like that kind of captures what we need for our town I guess it's very As you know, if we're, you know, 1020 miles to the west, but I'd be open to any additional information. If you guys feel this is enough on the fire aspects, maybe it is. I feel like it's important to get the educational aspect in here to inform people, but has for codified, I don't know if that's necessarily appropriate. I think it reflects too much with what we're trying to achieve with landscape design here, like an urban landscape. So I'd appreciate
maybe more conversation with staff on the wildland urban interface areas and development that goes into those specifically and how we can work with the fire district to implement different guidelines and standards for those developments. Because there is a designated zones of more hazardous areas in our in birth that it's not as way in town limits, but within our growth management areas,
which is one of the goals of the comp plan to create a wildfire plan at some point.
Yeah. And I do think, you know, one of the things that we do, every new subdivision gets referred to the fire district for planning review. And so and like James Charles joined us just on Thursday for a trc meeting and technical review committee, so we'd get on each project we interact with Fire Department on the fire district on that specific project, we don't talk about kind of the broader wildland wildfire, wildland urban interface. So I think those are those are good suggestions.
So I feel like that we're kind of captures maybe that middle ground maybe we could have more information on that maybe not. I'm pretty happy with the only other thing I wanted to bring up is Overall I'm very happy with the draft i i think I'm almost ready to approve it tonight from my perspective, but I honestly would really appreciate to see this in front of the tree committee because we've got a lot of expertise there. I think is could be tapped to add additional detail if they see any movie on several master gardeners that you know I'm sure would have more input on this so I would like to table pending the tree Advisory Committee taking a look at this wouldn't be my only okay
well I think that would really helped me out I'm I'd have a tough time calling this environmental just because I don't see the town taking any of the savings and we would over traditional development. And putting that back into the river. I see the benefits of having more the the anything that encourages more wildlife more more biodiversity, and I can see that in this so it's not all just turf. It's a little heavy handed for me. I think trustee Murphy your final comment would make me feel a lot better. I'm worried when we're saying drip is going to be alright for trees. I think for me the final I guess pressing point on that would be the tree committee if they say that's that's fine. And I'm so I would really feel a lot better about tailoring it go into that. I would agree with you on that.
We did we did have our town forester either document if you guys want us to run it through the tree committee also.
It's yeah.
conference would be helpful.
I think it's you know if even if they agree with our Forster which Yeah, I think he's great. I'm not saying he's doing the wrong. also did other factors they feel included in this too. I guess Yeah, the rest of my points. I love the idea of giving guidelines. I love the idea of encouraging color. I've just seen this go south pretty hard. And I'm kind of worried where this goes. I do consider swales like that's very environmental, it slows it down from just all hit the river wants from stormwater, but it makes it kind of slow down. recharges the groundwater. So I'd feel better if this were able to go into the tree committee, but that's my final points too. So I guess last that is anyone else supportive of trustee Murphy's suggestion of tabling it until just the tree committee or just voting on it now?
There's no wrong answer.
Tree committee look at it. Yeah, support that.
Okay. Do anything you want to add about the fire conditions? I'm so happy with the
wording. I'm very satisfied with the document overall and to get hits the right notes on virtually everything.
All right on. Sorry, you have to wonder do we have to move to Table. Yep. So I don't think there's anything else. There's no like conditions placed on this before it goes to treat committee. So yeah, it would move to table until a treat, I guess the upcoming good.
Yeah, I'll move to table, the draft landscape design guidelines pending review by the tree advisory committee in the near future. Alright, is there a second? Second.
All right, Trustee Murphy has moved on this. Trustee airs a second. Is there any final discussion? Let me roll call. Vote, please.
Thank you very much for coming out again. That's like overall document looks great. All right. So we can do reports now, then go into that afterwards? Where do you want to
potentially take action. Now, if you didn't take any action after tonight? Let's
roll right into reports. And we can see how this is laid out? Well, we'll just start with trusty here.
The only thing I have is an invitation by the port committee for May 31. To do a tour of the town. I guess the committee is going to get a bad boss and drive around and some of the older arcs and some of the newer ones just kind of get a feel for how things are coming together and how things are looking around town. So when did the 25th 31st
When is this deadline? Was that the 25th? Okay. 31st the actual tour? Okay, cool. And it's from it's at five o'clock. Oh. All right. Christy Butler. I have nothing. Okay. Trusty Hardy. Trusty. All right.
I just wanted to ask staff, if we have any updates on the redevelopment of town park?
Yes, the
the the bids came in over budget. Just like all the projects who bid the last six months project is approximately a million dollars over budget. So we had a meeting with the apparent low bidder last week to talk about some value engineering opportunities, you know, the town depart was designed intensively if I can put it that way. And we think we can save quite a bit of money just by, you know, instead of 46 benches and picnic tables, installing 23 benches and picnic tables, I don't think it affects the overall usability of the park. You know, some some things like that, obviously, the splash pad is a big, very expensive component. It's about 40% of the overall cost of the project. So we're looking at some ways to kind of bring that down in working with their, their pool installation team and their pool designers to to reevaluate that, as well. So our hope, and the target that we're working for us to bring that to you on June 13, with some suggested revisions to the plan. And with with some agreed upon cost reductions, with with the expectation that we'd be able to do it within our approved budget, or maybe with a very small increase rather than a 20% increase.
I appreciate that. I look forward to seeing the new concepts, even if there's reductions, I think.
Yeah, I mean, I think, from my perspective, we would have we went through and did a value engineering exercise before we went to bid. Because our cost estimate went from 4 million to 8 million. Based on, you know, the basically doubling construction costs that we've seen over the last 12 to 18 months or so we went through with the design team and made some, you know, what I would call value engineering decisions prior to is still a very nice park. But you know, there's some really high dollar items in there that are even more than we expected. You know, it's a good example, there's some laser cut metal screens that that would be installed with some of the pergolas that are just really aesthetic. Those are like $120,000. So those come off the top right, things like that. There's some real easy value engineering decisions. The others you know, we sat down with a just unroll the plans and said hey, look, we are planning on adding 126 trees to the park. I think we can live with 70 new trees. It's already really heavily treed Park any way. So, you know, like going through and trying to find intelligent places where we can take those out that don't impact, you know, don't require a change in the your ESU design and things like that, but still provide shade and in appropriate locations. You know, the firepit concept was cool. That's I think those are things that are unnecessary expenses. You know, so, so trying to go through and say, what are the things we think we can live without, can we bring that down the cost sufficiently to, to do the project within budget or with a minor increase in budget, and then we'll come bring that to the first meeting in June. That's our goal. So but some of that will be dependent on, the contractor will likely have to go back to their subs and try to, you know, they're going to have to adjust their bid prices based on some of the reductions that we'd like to see.
And then we'll propose, we'll propose both,
if you want to build the full thing, we could.
But I think we'll still have an incredible
park we don't want to do is take away from the major features, the playground, the splash pad, the gathering spaces, but you know, further landscaping, if there's four trees instead of eight, I don't know that that will practically make any difference. I don't know that anybody would ever know the difference when they went through the park, it'd be, it'd be significantly heavier landscapes than it is today. Even even with half the amount of landscaping that was on the budget. So you know, those kinds of details.
Yeah, and I appreciate that warning that it will look different than maybe how we've seen it in the past. But
I'll be honest, if I showed you the plan that we modified, versus the plan that I've shown you in the past, I don't think you would know the difference.
So when I think just speaking on behalf of like a lot of the community especially the parents that missed the pool, and their kids played that park, they just want to clean up place they can be proud of to hang out and really not as much about the the flare, the the fanciness as much as we want. Some of our kids can be safe to play, and we can mingle and gather with our neighbors in a central location that's just clean and updated and not so rundown someplace we can be proud of to our real estate agents that are showing off the town like here's, you know, town town park. So I appreciate the same quality and attractiveness as whacker. Kids it does. That's what we're shooting for.
Chris, what was that? Did that drove grass
this year does a whole bunch of it.
I was looking forward to that. Whatever, I'm the neighbor anyways, I gotta say, I'm looking forward to the fire pit. How do you guys figure about doing that to the public?
I think the fire pit is super cool. It's just one of those that you know, is it worth the expense and the context and the arts and cool until you
have a growing homeless population. And then it becomes
I also worry about, you know, the idea of a button activated gas firepit works really well in a controlled environment, like in a hotel, in a public environment. I had concerns about it to begin with. So maybe that was why it was easy for me to be like, hey, it's probably not worth the, you know, $60,000 it cost to run gas lines and build all that.
Despite me, I think all my neighbors would agree with you. And then
I don't want Chad's out there. marshmallows into this gas fire pit and that, you know, just become a mess. So,
just one other thing I wanted to just bring up as far as just something I'm thinking about. But my from the beginning of my time as trustee, my heart was always how can we take care of what we have? And and do that? Well, first, and we talked a lot about trees and sidewalks and greenery. And I just, I want to just bring up the concept of what can we do as a town to financially and feasibly invest in some of those things as the town like how do we replace trees or create a replacement program or create programs where we can send out landscapers and help people with water wise landscaping and we invest as a town in making our community look better. So that it's it's not just on the homeowner, it's on us because we're providing that people want. Like our guests stated there's so much costs for people. But if if the town can find ways to work with certain groups that if it's more bulk driven, that we're doing more for more people, maybe the cost comes down to the town. I don't know where that funding comes from, or there's a mechanism where we could drive funds to something like that. But it's something that is on my mind a lot of how we can beautify things without such expense to homeowners and come alongside them.
We still pushing on the tree nursery at all or that stall. We already have a nursery know the new windows when we moved by Roberts Lake. Oh, yeah, that one we're not prioritizing the nursery we have now it's kind of sufficient for when
we got our last Forestry Service getting depleted. It's
back. Yeah, yeah, we were refreshing stock through there. And we do have a lot of the programs you're talking about. I think maybe the the question is, is are we investing enough? I mean, we're, you know, we're spending about a half million dollars on sidewalk replacement this year. You know, we have money for sidewalk cost share outside of the areas that we're prioritizing. So folks want to replace their sidewalks we have the ability to pay for half you know, we we've invested a lot of money in resource central programs the last couple of years for garden a box, those sell out every year, where you get like a for very low cost relative to the amount of stuff you get, you get all kind of garden in a box that you can replant in existing beds or where you take out turf. We fund a turf replacement program. So each each homeowner can qualify for $1,000 to go towards the turf replacement that doesn't cover an $11,000 front yard. But I don't know if the town should be paying $11,000 to replace somebody's front yard anyway. And we actually one of the updates I was gonna give you tonight. I think we've mentioned this previously, but we did get a grant from the Colorado Water Conservation Board to put another $25,000 into that law enforcement program, because there's a long waiting list.
Yeah, it was in your email, too. That's
great. So So you know, we do have some of those kinds of programs. I think those are things that certainly when we get to budget, I think it's important we talk about, you know, where do you Where does afford want to prioritize funding. And if we want to increase funding into those kinds of programs and projects?
You definitely, I would love to see a push of those programs and an increase at certain junctures.
I'm not sure when that when that is or how, certainly demand I mean, we have waiting lists for a lot of those programs. And so they want us to increase funding to expedite some of those waiting lists. Thank you.
Awesome. Trustee Murphy, you want to move to progress past 930?
Yeah. I'll move to extend the meeting until her before 1030. Is there a second?
Second? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? All right, Trustee Murphy.
For on me. I was just going to tack on to that. There were some discussions about a tree purchase program through a wholesaler. We've talked about the advisory committee. What that's looking like right now as a possibility and 20 floor is here. So we'll have more to talk about. I think the tree committee wants to kind of do a trial pilot with that. It's great. So something to look forward to next year. As for what I wanted to bring up. We've got a joint meeting with pork on June 26, for the tree advisory committee to kind of go over things. And then aside from that, went out to the cemetery last weekend, I want to say and then actually, it was looking pretty good. I was very impressed with most of that. One thing I was gonna bring up that was notable is we've got a lot of sunken graves in the old resection. And as we're filling those in, would that be us as a responsibility?
I don't think so. That that came up. Obviously, the one of the recent emails we received? I don't know that had the answer to that yet.
Kind of like talk to Keith. At the breakfast. It sounded like it's on the grave honor, that's considered part of the parcel.
That's my expectation as well. But I don't know, I just don't know that we've finalized that answer. But that would be that would have been our normal response. It stated that it's responsible to plot honor, unless it's a safety issue, then they'll intervene.
Because there's trees apparently are too because there are gifts but the ones that have IP so bad, we had to take them out.
And they you know, they they own the plot and we maintain you know, the ground. But yeah, there's a from our perspective, it's their responsibility to adjust or modify or or enhance those headstones.
Thanks for bringing that up. Shawn knows I've heard that much.
Well, in addition to that, we kind of discussed that the other week tree committee, but talking about stomping some of those existing ones. Yeah, just looking at where some of those are located. I don't know how you actually bring that equipment in without disturbing headstones and stuff. So yeah, but overall, I thought it was looking pretty good was last week. You know, obviously there's areas of improvement. Certainly something we should continue to talk about.
Trustee Murphy, I apologize. For the for some of the trees you said possibly needed to be stumped. Would it be from going out there to visit, would it be possible to maybe cut those trees and make our work like is like what happened with
the park? I'm more referring to the trees that have actually already been taken, oh, six inches above the ground. Okay. And I don't know how you grind those out because of the location on some of those is just
challenging a burden,
you know. But the last thing I was going to ask you about how's the sidewalk program going?
The project that we have underway, really well. Keith touched base with all the homeowners that had flagstone within our existing project boundaries. I think my understanding from him I don't want to quote him wrong, but every one of the ones he talked to the head already said they wanted their flagstone replaced, didn't want us to leave it. They all said we want it gone. or several of them said we want to keep it we're gonna use it for patios or whatever, which we told people they could have the flagstone and keep it. I think he said there was only one homeowner that said, Well, if the town's gonna pay for it, maybe I would have it pre leveled. A couple of the homeowners did say they had, they had reached out to try and get bids to get it replaced. And multiple, multiple landscape outfits they'd reached out to or concrete company said we won't touch it. It is
so hard. I have this issue. They've come out and they say oh, we'll break it and I say well, either break it or it's gotta get removed anyways. Yeah, okay, we'll call me and other guys have looked there just for some reason no one even the mage jackers. This guy literally called my jack something that level and
said I won't do those. Yep. And I think that's generally been the case is that contractors don't want to touch it because they want, you know how hard it is to move it without breaking it. And they don't want to be responsible for breaking it to they don't want to do the work and and not be level and then be on the hook for it forever. Because it's going to settle or it's not going to stay. Right. And it's not going to meet ADA guidelines. And, and so a lot, it seems to be anyway, that a lot of the feedback we got even from the residents said, Hey, we already tried to get this repaired, and nobody would touch it for like one person said, I'll do it. But it'd be $12,000, which is one of those like, sure, if I'm gonna make an enormous amount of money on it, I'll touch it, but otherwise, no, next. And so that's been kind of a struggle. But we in parallel with that will we're talking about some modifications of that sidewalk kosher program. My concern is, if it really is, you know, this is this is hearsay from homeowners. Right? We haven't gone through this exercise yet. But if it is true that, you know, the bid for for replacing or repairing, you know, fairly small section sidewalk is like $12,000, that would be significantly more expensive than replacing concrete. And so we'd have to decide, under, you know, is that something that town wants to cost share and under what condition but the way the cost share programs written, you're required to get bids that the town reviews before we agree to pay for it anyway. So that we can confirm that like the concrete is in line with what we typically pay for concrete. And it's not something these orbit number, we would expect to do the same thing with like stone replacement.
Is there any, like historic grants we can pursue? Because those those houses that have those are usually was have been there a very long time in those papers? And so they are historic in nature, which add to the character?
There might be? I don't know, it's a good question.
If we could ask Tracy, Mark, History Colorado,
be nice to know because I think it adds to the character. But if it's cost prohibitive, any but even with I know like even for myself, like thinking about replacing with concrete, if I'm if I ever plant new trees, which I'm going to have to at some point, it's going to be the concrete to I'm going to replace it again. So it's no matter what I feels like as a homeowner with tree lawns, you're, you're going to be repairing the sidewalks more than once, probably in your lifetime. If you're there long enough to there for
an extended period of time. That's probably the case. And then, you know, the reality is, that's true of all home ownership, right? You're replacing and maintaining stuff everywhere, not just the sidewalk, right, you got to paint your house, you gotta replace your roof. You know, you got to you got to replace landscaping, the dyes, we don't have to, but if you want to keep a nice place and so the same is true, you know, sidewalk is just part of the deal, right? So hopefully sidewalk gets installed properly that makes it through its warranty period that should last a long time. And even even tree root, you know, tree regrowth that might impact the sidewalk should not happen for a decade or more. You know.
I appreciate you guys exploring, asking neighbors how they feel and if there are neighbors who want to keep their flagstone in If there is some sort of historic way that we can help them preserve that, I think that adds to the character of the community. Yeah.
I agree with all those statements to the Minister to correct your point. I know that what you said is correct as far as the homework, but I think we could keep looking at least I'll keep working.
Yeah. And we're still evaluating some other alternatives to Tim, there's just not there's not a lot of good examples out there.
Yeah, it's a tough thing. You need thing. Grant, I only looked at love and a long line, I didn't like call up again or anything. Just want to say thank you, oh, Aaron's gone, but new freedom church again, that the first suicide training in the library had zero attendees, switching it over to New Freedom, six, and it was just a great hour and a half, I think there's actually two hours. So really thankful for them. And hopefully, we can keep these trainings going throughout the year, try new locations and times and in person versus zoom. But yeah, it's really, really helpful and free. I will have other updates, but for each passenger rail MPO, all those are coming up behavioral health we have next month, we started only doing those quarterly. So that will conclude my reports. Well, for staff.
I'm gonna send you guys updated email tomorrow morning. But and this will be included. But since Mayor Pro Tem grace is not here, I'm gonna mention it because I know it's important to him. And then I can tease him about the fact that he needs to hear it. We did get an answer from CDOT. About the crossing a mountain, the railroad crossing a mountain? The short answer is they did program funding to improve the crossing CDOT now has to enter into a cost sharing agreement with the railroad. And they said that's likely going to take three months or more. And then after that's done, it'll be at least a month before they start construction. Depending on timing that might push them into winter, and who knows when they will decide to replace it. But they are moving forward. They did program money to make the replacement. It is possible it can be done by the end of the year.
But great job. See, that's the best news.
Timing is when there's good news, but it's not gonna happen fast. Yeah. That was the only thing hasn't been Oh, that and scheduling. So just a reminder that we are planning to have a study session next Tuesday. I sent out an email about that. I know that everybody responded. So if you cannot be there, please let me know. Just so that we can make sure that it's that we have enough that it's worth it. But we'll be revealing the water wastewater master plans, those those drafts and kind of giving you an update about what we've seen through that process and where the future looks, looks like for water and wastewater treatment and distribution systems. And then we're still planning to do a study session on June 20, with Sirsa on some kind of quasi judicial proceeding training, and board governance, training stuff. And then we will, I spoke to Mayor coursepack about this last week and I think we will not have a meeting on June 27, which would be our normal second meeting of the month. That's the week of CML. So we'll have several staff members out and a couple of Trustees at the CML conference. So from an internal calendaring standpoint, that works for staff, we only have one item that I think we can move. That shouldn't be hard that we were planning for but just so that, you know, we're planning not to have meeting on June 27. So study sessions next Tuesday and on the 20th of June and the meeting on the 27th That's it for me. All right. Terry Smith,
I have nothing Your Honor.
I forgot one big one is congratulations to trustee formalise trustee source le now trustee Albrecht. Not a great guy and they have before you so
thank you. We had a very first wedding. Foursquare church and at brookside and then the model tees we got escorted and this was very small town. Like a Hallmark movie. Yeah.
No plans for Hawaii apparently. Yeah. gratulations. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Anything else board? Other words, does anyone want to move us into Executive Session?
Doesn't sound like it.
Session CRS section 24 Dash six s four to 41 to determine positions relative to matters that may be subject to negotiations developing history Have you for negotiations and in doing in negotiators?
All right, thank you. Kathy. Moved. Is there a second? Trustee Murphy associate and clerk we have a roll call vote please.
