City Council Regular Meeting — October 21, 2025

Good evening, Fort Collins, and welcome to the proclamation portion of tonight's meeting. The time is now 5 o'clock, and we have four proclamations.

So tonight, like every night, if you're here for the proclamation that I'm reading at the time, please come on up.

And if you feel comfortable and like to, stand up here with me.

If you see any other proclamation that you also support, you may also come up and stand for that.

So it's really all comers and please feel comfortable.

So would anybody like to come up for community media day?

Or anybody who supports community media?

Great. Hi. How are you?

Okay. Ready?

Whereas the sharing of ideas and information helps to build common understanding and common values within a community. And whereas access to information in today's media environment is critical for the healthy functioning of our community.

And whereas community media organizations provide a means for diverse communities to tell their stories, hear each other's stories, and create new stories. And whereas community media organizations provide information to the community that is not covered by mainstream commercial media. And whereas community media organizations provide people with the skills necessary for the creation, sharing, and consumption of knowledge and ideas through media. And whereas community media is an important resource for participating in local democratic policy and processes, connecting local organizations, schools, and governments to constituents.

and whereas in many places people are not aware of diverse and valuable programming on public education and government access channels or community radio channels.

And whereas communities will benefit from increased general awareness of viewing audiences for and creators of media content created by and for the community. Now, therefore, I, Jenny, our mayor of the city of Fort Collins, do hereby proclaim October 22, 2025 as Community Media Day and FC Public Media. Our nonprofit community access media center plays a vital role in the building of our community by encouraging conversations about our common interests, increasing discourse around policy issues, fostering understanding of local cultures and sharing information to improve our lives.

Congratulations.

Well, I'm Jory Kramer. I'm president of the board of directors of the nonprofit FC Public Media. And as you all know, we do not have strong local community media here in Fort Collins. We don't have our own TV station, except that we do. We actually have two TV stations. We have FCTV, which is in this room right now. Hi, Carson. Carson is running this show. And that's important for government transparency, having the government meetings accessible. And then also FCTV does a great job of supporting the League of Women Voters in hosting their candidate forums. And as the League runs these forums and the city council shares their chambers with them and FCTV records the candidate forums and then makes those recordings available. All of that is very important. So if you support transparency in government, support FCTV.

If you support transparency in your community, freedom of speech, then support FC Public Media. Check us out at fcpublicmedia.org. I say it so often, you'd think I'd, yeah, fcpublicmedia.org.

And come and share freedom of speech and transparency in government. Thank you. Thank you.

This is Brian McIntyre and Brian is our Vice President of the Board of Directors and he'll be president next year.

And one of our volunteers, Noel Filio.

There you go.

So yeah, Noel and I have met a couple of times and we're just so excited to have these folks come and represent us.

Thank you.

Great. The next proclamation is imagine a day without water.

Anyone who's here to support or would like to also stand up and support is most welcome.

Hello.

Hello. How are you doing? Okay. Nice to see you.

Ready? Yeah, you are. Yeah, for sure. Here, get in here. Okay. Whereas the infrastructure that brings water to and from homes and businesses is essential to the quality of life and economic vitality of the city of Fort Collins. And whereas the City of Fort Collins Utilities serves treated water to over 135,000 customers, has over 500 miles of water mains, operates and maintains a large water treatment facility and two wastewater treatment facilities. And whereas utilities nationwide are grappling with aging infrastructure and lack reliable revenue and funding to maintain systems, let alone upgrade their systems. And whereas the City of Fort Collins is investing in our drinking water and waste water systems to secure a bright and prosperous future for generations to come. And whereas innovation and water efficiency and reuse will drive job growth, economic development, and establish 21st century paradigm of water management. And whereas managing water responsibly is critical to our nation's environmental health and to a high quality of life through economic commerce and recreation. and whereas the city of Fort Collins utilities has a water shortage action plan and a water efficiency plan which helps mitigate potential risk to our shared water supplies to avoid water service disruptions and protection of this vital resource we all depend on now therefore I Jenny are mayor of the city of Fort Collins do hereby proclaim October 16th 2025 as imagine a day

without water. Nicole. Thank you mayor and thanks for all of you to all of you for

joining us and appreciating the value of water and I also want to thank the folks

that are alongside me here fellow water nerds who worked so hard to protect

conserve and improve our water resources and our infrastructure so thank you. and then you know water is life not only for humans but for a number of species across this planet water is joy whether it is rafting down the pooter catching a trout watching a kid run through a sprinkler system sprinklers or grabbing a cold draft beer from one of our local breweries it is joy and water sustains healthy communities whether it's fire protection for our homes

wastewater treatment that protects us from things like cholera and typhoid, or it provides cooling capabilities for our power plants, which in turn powers our businesses, our hospitals,

and technology. So much to be grateful for when it comes to water and the people who support it. So with that, I would like to leave how we can all do our part to be supportive and respectful of this resource. Use only what you need. Keep it clean. Appreciate the power of water

and have fun with it. And thank you all.

okay the next thing we have oh would you like your proclamation I almost read that again just

kidding the third one we have tonight is declaring the month of October 2025 as arts and humanities month it's anyone here to support that

great welcome how are you great whereas national arts and humanities month

encourages art appreciation and cultural exploration as the largest celebration of arts and culture in the United States. And whereas Colorado creative industries believe in creativity to inspire connections, create change, and support fiscal vibrancy, and focuses on strengthening the vitality of art. Arts and humanities play a unique role in the lives of families, communities, and the country. And whereas cities and states have celebrated the value of culture in the health and lives of thriving communities during National Arts and Humanities Month for years, and whereas the humanities help communities explore history and culture with support from National Endowment for the Humanities, 55 Humanities Councils, and local institutions. And whereas the arts and cultural industry contributed 4.2% of GDP, or approximately $1.17 trillion in 2023. This includes a range of industries from performing arts, museums, design, and services and publishing. Arts and culture employment recovered to pre-pandemic levels with nearly 5.2 million people employed to produce arts and cultural goods and services for 400 for 540.9 billion dollars in total compensation strong arts presence is associated with social and civic engagement and whereas matt rovenal dda director stated storytelling through art is a powerful form of interpersonal communication particularly when communicating an authentic experience of a city. The Living Legacy Historic Public Outdoor Art Education Project, which will be highly visible to local visitors of Old Town, imparts the spontaneity of publicly displayed art and placemaking with the importance of reflecting on the stories of people that have made Fort Collins an intriguing place to visit, live, work, and play. Now, therefore, I, Jenny Art, Mayor of the City of Fort Collins, do hereby proclaim October 2025 as National Arts and Humanities Month and call upon our communities to celebrate and participate in the arts and culture of our nation thank you

Mary Arndt living her legacy is a nonprofit my name is Patti Smith and I am the executive director and founder of living her legacy we have been approved to create the first historic public outdoor art education exhibit in Fort Collins and in the state of Colorado to recognize women's accomplishments. So it was three and a half years of selection processes where we selected 48 notable women

whose impact is in Fort Collins, but they've lived all over northern Colorado. And they go back to the 1800s, which includes women from Colorado Agricultural College and current CSU. So I'd just like to share just a little bit more about public art.

The importance of public art.

It is a cultural value and community identity are fostered through public art,

capturing the eye and mind of people passing through our public spaces.

We see that when we see our art in public places all over, whether it's on a green thing, you know what I mean? A utility box, yes, thank you, or in the alleys.

Communities gain value through public art, cultural, social, and economic value. Public art is a distinguishing part of our public history and our evolving culture here in Fort Collins and in northern Colorado. It reflects and reveals our society, adds meaning to our place, and uniqueness to our community. Public art humanizes the built environment and invigorates public spaces. It provides an intersection between past, present, and future, between disciplines, and between ideas.

We'd like to invite the community from the 29th of October, Wednesday to November 2nd, to come to the Four Cons Creative Center. We will have all 48 of our notable women that we're recognizing as a public art exhibit at this time. So we invite you to come. It's open from noon until 6 o'clock, Wednesday through Sunday. So we'd like to have you bring a friend, bring a family member, come along, and learn about the stories of some of these incredible women who have impacted our community so we are recognizing women's impact to inspire girls futures through our education programs so we invite you to to visit the creative center and our website living her legacy org thank you very much I think the

Still no? Okay. We have one more proclamation scheduled for tonight and what we're going to do, because the sponsors aren't here, we will send them their proclamation and we wish them well. So with that, we will re-gather at 6 p.m. for a regular. Are you here? I think we're here. Oh, I'm sorry. That's all right. Oh, then come on up.

We had a miscommunication there.

All right.

Well, I'm glad I said something. Come on up.

Yeah. I'm glad to.

Well, me too. Great. Okay, good. This is even better.

Yeah, thank you very much.

Oh, it's our pleasure. Okay. So this is declaring the month of October 2025 as Narconon, Colorado, a life worth saving month. Okay. Whereas drug and alcohol addiction is a tragedy that has touched hundreds of thousands of Coloradans with effects that extend far beyond the addicted individual, reaching their family, friends, workplace, and society itself. and whereas the staff of narconon colorado a life worth saving dedicate themselves to freeing individuals from the trap of addiction to help recovering addicts achieve the ability to take responsibility for and recover all the sectors of their lives and whereas over forty percent of those who complete their program at Narconon, Colorado, a life worth saving, have attained their own sobriety, trained to help other addicts free themselves from addiction, and whereas Narconon, Colorado, a life worth saving, has helped hundreds and hundreds of addicts fully recover their lives, which in turn unburdened and enhanced the thousands of their personal connections, helping to make a growing island of sanity and recovery. Now, therefore, I, Jenny Arndt, Mayor of the City of Fort Collins, do hereby proclaim November 2025 as Narcanon, Colorado, a life worth saving. Would you like to say a few words? Yeah, thank you very much, Mayor Arndt.

Thank you very much. I'm very proud of what our organization has been able to accomplish over the last 18 years. but I'm very grateful to the City of Fort Collins. The services they provided and helped us help others has been really incredible. It's been very much, they say, it takes a village to raise a child.

Well, it takes a village to rescue an addict. And we're very grateful to the City of Fort Collins. and I'm especially grateful to all of our staff who have worked very hard and tirelessly to help over 2,200 addicts recover their lives. It's been a very gratifying time here and working again with such a wonderful city, I can't tell you.

The amount of help and support we've gotten has been incredible, and we're really looking forward to the next 18 years and all the people we're going to help thank you

oh not at all do you mind if we get a still real quick

you're about the right height

Thank you so much.

Yeah, thanks, ma'am.

Okay, great. We'll reconvene at 6 p.m. for our business meeting. See you then for calls.

Good evening, Fort Collins.

The time is now 6.01 p.m. and I call the regular meeting in the Fort Collins City Council to order.

Will you please join me for the Pledge of Allegiance?

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, for one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

aren't here Francis here Olsen here Pat Yandy here Canonico here Pina

Taro excused we appreciate all of joined us good tasky here sorry good tasky I got a little excited okay six of us are here and councilmember Pina Taro's excuse we appreciate all the joined us tonight either in person or virtually I want to remind everyone here that we are here for the same purpose which is the future of our community and that's something we all care about. I know that we'll be respectful while we listen to others' viewpoints during and after, and we will be thoughtful towards everyone. Everyone will have a chance to be heard. So will the city manager please provide a review of today's agenda? Yes, thank

you, Mayor. Good evening, everyone. We have a full agenda tonight. There are no changes from what was originally published. Our consent calendar includes 10 items, and then we have four discussion items this evening. The first concerns the joint operation of the Northern Colorado Regional Airport. Next, our land use code updates pertaining to the Harmony commercial corridors and centers and the Harmony Corridor Plan standards and guidelines. Our next discussion item will be on the capital expansion fees and transportation expansion fees. And then our final discussion item this evening concerns the tree policies in our land use code. After that we do have the potential to go into an executive session relating to the potential acquisition and sale of real property for potential affordable housing

projects in the downtown area thanks mayor thank you great we will let's see there are no community reports tonight so what the staff play the public

participation video there are three ways to participate in city council meetings in person in council chambers, online via Zoom, or by phone.

Anyone who wants to speak during general comment or for any particular agenda item

should sign up in advance at fcgov.com slash council comments.

You can comment on any topic including other agenda items during the public comment period.

Or you can comment on specific items when they are brought for consideration later in the meeting.

However, you may only speak on an agenda item once, either during general public comment or during that item-specific discussion.

The mayor will call by name those who have signed up to speak, in the order they signed up.

Connect to the internet on your computer or mobile device and join the Zoom meeting.

The link and instructions are on the meeting agenda and at fcgov.com.

Click the raise hand button and leave it raised until called on.

Dial the number shown on the meeting agenda and enter the meeting ID.

Press star 9 to raise your hand. Please note that public comment is not permitted about any items that could be appealed to city council.

like certain kinds of development projects. Information and resources about how to participate

in the development review process are available on the City's website. Finally, please remember

that public comment is not a question and answer session, and all comments should be addressed to

City Council, not to individuals. All speakers and audience members should treat everyone with respect and dignity, maintain a welcoming environment, and avoid actions that could be distracting.

please enter and exit council chambers quietly if the meeting is still in progress

great thank you very much just a quick reminder that if you're currently aboard a city board or Commission member please identify yourself and indicate if you are speaking on behalf of the board or Commission or just yourself at this point we have 23 people signed up before 5 30 wishing to speak if you signed up to speak remotely please raise your hand online now until you're called on so uh due to the rules of the chamber we'll go to 2.5 minutes per instead of three so that we can get everybody in and we don't have to lay anybody over until after the meeting it

will be a lengthy meeting and i'm sure you probably appreciate being able to speak during public

comment before we do that you're also always welcome to speak on an agenda item during that agenda item but not uh one topic like if you speak in public comment about an agenda item then please don't stay for the agenda item either one but you can speak on two separate things if you like okay so the staff will use a timer to track the time when the green light shows please state your name and where you're from and begin your comments the yellow light will flash when have 30 seconds left and the red light indicates that your time is over and as somebody else's time to have their voices heard so we'll now begin hearing public comment please read ahead and be ready to speak and we can alternate podiums so adam you're first up

hello mayor and council my name is adam hershorn from district 2 and i am running for mayor tonight I bring you a proclamation for the affirmation of the dignity of a Palestinian as a human being. Witnesses, we thank God for ancient Gaza and the Gaza and our medkits packed by our EMTs to bind wounds and save human lives. We thank God for the Nazarene who saved the world and will again. We thank God for Raji Cook, whose icons transcend Babel here at City Hall and on the open road across America. We thank God for Bison Aude, winner of the Emmy and Peabody Awards, a living witness and willing sacrifice on the path of freedom through truth and the hundreds of journalists displaced, martyred, or still in harm's way. And we thank God for Omar Yagi, laureate of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, for his molecular frameworks which harvest water and sequester carbon, keeping alive the dream of a livable future. Whereas Nelson Mandela declared, none of us are free until Palestine is free, and this embodies the universal truth that we are all connected called ubuntu therefore knowing this understanding this and practicing this we hereby affirm the dignity of all human beings now and for posterity as the foundation of our own earnest will to survive and as the measure of our shared humanity. Thank you. Thank you. Next up, Joe. Madam Mayor, members of council,

Joe Rowan. You know, there's been a lot of happy talk down here around breaking down silos. unfortunately the evidence doesn't support that and we'll there'll be a theme for the rest of the evening by the way but just to give you an example a prime example actually last tuesday where you had a work session that you talked about the funding for the southeast community center and apparently the money that is left over from ccip the current ccip belongs to parks and rack And so they presented to you an option listening to the pushback that you provided. They agreed to allow $5 million of that to flow to the housing fund. And what was curious is during the course, they provided you with four options that show that they could do that without having to materially impact the project. But Mayor Pro Tem very astutely asked a question, how come the numbers don't add up? and what was the response was a bunch of poppycock actually that there was no answer and the reason why there was no answer is because they didn't provide all the numbers it's a very simple solution they they did not want to provide you all the numbers because you might get the dangerous idea that in fact more money could flow to the housing fund without jeopardizing the project without taking out any lap lanes but that money belongs to the to the parks and recs department who will undoubtedly be coming back to you to say, oh, we've blown our budget again, and we need that money for that project. And maybe if this had been shopped around to other departments, other departments might have said, you know what, maybe what you ought to do is charge your entry fees based on your operating cost instead of selling them at a discount. It'd still be a bargain. And if you want to provide specialized programs that target different demographics or populations, then great. You go through the budget process to get those funded. But we don't do that. If we charge less than what it costs to run the building, then that becomes a budget priority and they can skip that process. And so there really is a concern that this talk about breaking down silos is not actually what's happening. And you'll hear more about that as we go through the evening. Thanks.

Thank you. Next up. Okay. Who's going to be a, I have a few names here. Go ahead.

Hi, my name is Juno, and this is my friend, Addie.

Good job. Could you put your mouth right on the microphone? We are Riffenburg students in third grade, and we walk to and from school every day, and we hope you don't open Stewart Access Point to Epic. First, it's already really scary and dangerous to walk across the crosswalks on Stewart. Sometimes people are driving fast, aren't completely stopping, or don't see us in the crosswalks. Adults have asked for a speed bump or crossing guard, but we haven't gotten them. Addie's brother is going into middle school next year. If we increase the traffic in our neighborhood, it will be more dangerous for kids like him to get to school. My babysitter rides her bike to high school, so it would be more dangerous for her as well. In conclusion, it's already really dangerous and nerve-wracking to walk across the crosswalks. We hope you don't open the road to Epic. Thank you for your time.

Thank you for coming. Next.

Hi, my name is Sylvie, and this is Cree.

We're students at Riffenburg Elementary, too. Thank you for letting me speak to you today.

There are multiple reasons why you should not open up access to Epic from Stewart. Here are two of them. First, in the morning when I walk to school, the blinding sun and the busy traffic both make it extremely hard to get across the street to the school. With the morning sun shining, it is close to impossible to see.

I want to see the faces of drivers, let alone make eye contact with them.

I'm, it's pretty scary just as it is to walk across the street in the morning. Next, my parents trust me to walk and bike around my neighborhood. However, we're not allowed to walk to school alone, even though it's only a four-minute walk. I would hate for the number of cars to grow larger by the day.

Lots of people would use the shortcut. The safety of kids like me should be enough to not add cars to the morning traffic jam. In conclusion, we already have a traffic problem on Stewart. Please think of me, my friends, and my entire school when you vote on this issue. Thank you for your time.

Thank you for coming.

Next up we have Ryan James. Good evening, City Leaders. My name is Ryan James. I'm a long-time resident of Parkwood East in District 1. I'm here tonight to encourage the Council to get involved and stop the Fort Collins Recreation Department from opening Epic Access via Stewart Street. I heard of this plan just last week through an email from another parent at Riffenburg, and I have already emailed my thoughts to the council. My greatest concern comes from the increased traffic flow that will be going through the Parkwood, Parkwood East, and Stonehenge neighborhoods, particularly coinciding with elementary school drop-off and pickup times and high school swim practice, skate and hockey schedules at Epic. Even though Stewart Street is a dead end, there's currently an apartment complex parking lot and bike access to the power trail filtering out onto Stewart Street. Opening the Epic gate as exit-only access will be adding a third point of traffic flow to what is a dead end street. human behavior tells us that even though the epic gate will be exit only if there is a shortcut provided folks will begin to utilize it as an entrance as well people will be coming through the neighborhoods in order to get to and from their early morning and late afternoon swim practices at the same time our elementary and middle schoolers will be biking and walking to and from school. The Epic Gate was open for several months as a two-way access out of necessity during the Riverside Bridge construction in 2018. During the short time, it was an absolute madhouse. I witnessed two concerning incidents while walking my dog, both of which involved folks leaving Epic and cutting through Parkwood East to get to Drake. The first was a fender bender. it appeared a young driver was leaving Epic, did not break, and struck a car exiting the Arbor's apartment complex. The second incident was when a driver exited Epic and slammed on their brakes just in time to not strike a child on a bike. The kid was so scared, he slid and fell anyway. He was scraped up, but otherwise all okay. According to the assistant city manager, the current plan is to continue spending money researching the gate access doing traffic surveys and then involving the neighborhoods through community engagement nights i propose you involve the community right away thank you thank you next up um i'm not sure how to pronounce your name but um remotely that vahini hi yes can you all hear me yes please go ahead excellent um thank you for having me. I don't know how to turn my video on, but I hope you can all hear me.

I appreciate the attendance of my friends and fellow community members and don't know how much I can add to the eloquent speeches by my friends, Gino and Sylvie, which I really appreciated.

You know, we live, I've heard a couple of people talking about the danger of commuting to school in the morning and in the afternoon. And I think that's a very legitimate point that my young friends are raising. I wanted to say also that one thing I love about Fort Collins as a city, and I think one thing that many of our residents really appreciate about the city is the way in which bike friendliness is prioritized and is thought of as being as important or if not more important than car friendliness. And we live in a neighborhood where a couple of really important bike routes cross, the Power Trail and the Spring Creek Trail. So there is a ton of bike traffic in our neighborhood. A lot of people, as you all know, will cross from the Power Trail to the Mason Trail using Stewart Street instead of the Spring Creek Trail. because it's faster and because it is a very, very bike friendly route. And so there already is a lot of bike traffic in our neighborhood. Students at Riffenburg at Lesher are regularly using Stewart to commute to and from school, including my fifth grader at Riffenburg. And so like Ryan, my friend Ryan, who just spoke, I would encourage you all to really bring in community participation into this into this conversation sooner rather than later I think it would be costly for the city to spend the money required to do all the research into potentially opening this access only to find that you're going to have really significant community opposition to this plan not only from those in the neighborhood but also from the broader biking community in the city from the school community and um i i think you would ultimately find it to be a waste of of funds um when you see what strong opposition there is to this plan so

thank you for your time and thank you very much terry thank you very much for the opportunity to talk I also am here regarding the epic opening on to Stuart it's currently an emergency only access and to from the city assistant manager I believe I was told that it was open 10 to 12 times this last year for epic events so to take a limited amount of issue and spread it to a neighborhood that's going to be impacted 24 hours a day seven days a week 365 days a year is going to be a big problem for our neighborhood and as we heard it's a huge problem for the children that if people have been in that neighborhood and spent 10 15 minutes sitting there on steward street that realize how much traffic there is for young people to get to and from school as well as a lot of community involvement there to open that up would create a shortcut of that would come through epics parking lot drop out onto steward and then it funnel off into if they into creekwood brookwood and rolling would and that would significantly impact those neighborhoods and there's other ways to deal with it it seems like i when we go to csu events or the event center or timberline church they all have police traffic service there to empty out those parking lots that seems to be a much more financially responsible way to attach to attack the problem and if it again is only 10 to 12 events a year it's manageable to do something like that it would seem in addition the the geography of it is the apartments that are to right to the south of that there are 278 apartments and condos right there with only three exits, which one of them comes on to Stewart, that would significantly impact that. 278 households there. And then a couple of questions that our community, Stonehenge, had was regarding the work order. And we don't profess to know all this stuff, but we had concerns about if the current proposal is to... Thank you very much. Oh, thank you very

much it goes quickly go ahead hi I'm here today as a Stonehenge resident and the vice president of Rick Riffenburg parent-teacher organization or PTO I oppose opening Stewart access to epic like so many people here have already said this is my fourth year as an active member of the PTO and one of the most frequently voiced concerns from parents are the unsafe conditions of crossing Stewart going to and from Riffenburg in the mornings and afternoons we've had countless near misses in the crosswalk. Riffenburg simply doesn't have the staff to supply crossing guards to the crosswalks at Brookwood and Stewart and at Welch and Stewart. And although many of us have reached out to the city and other avenues like safe routes to school, our concerns have

gone unaddressed. What are we waiting for? This is not a matter of an inconvenience. We know what happened to a kindergartner on the way to school a few years ago, and I'm afraid our next near miss won't be a near miss. Opening epic access from Stewart would add to an already dangerous situation. We've we already

experienced traffic bottlenecks. The crossing guard at the entrance of Riffenburg says people yell obscenities at her because the traffic gets so backed up during school pickup and there's also traffic bottleneck at Ridgeview at the end of the school day. So if this access point is opened it's only a matter of time before people coming and going from Epic identify shortcuts through residential streets. Most of the Lesher Middle School and Fort Collins High School students in Stonehenge, Parkwood, and Parkwood East live too close to school to have bus services and as people have mentioned a lot of these students ride their bikes to school and would be affected by this opening as well and they too would be navigating additional traffic. So I'd encourage you to hear our comments not just as a neighborhood that would be inconvenienced but one that would be actually put in danger so please address the existing traffic problem before threatening our children's safety and adding to to the problem thank you for your time sorry I think maybe could you

state your name for the record any Annie Elliot thank you so much okay great next up Ashley is there an Ashley here seeing none Delia

Hello, my name is Delia James, and this is my brother, J.P. James. We live in Parkwood East in District 1. I'm here to talk to you about how opening the gate at Epic is a bad idea. I don't feel like it's a good idea because J.P. and I like to walk and bike ourselves to our school, Rivenberg Elementary. It would be less safe with the gate open. We have to cross Stewart Street to get from our school to our neighborhood. Lynn's already busy doing school drop-off and pickup times.

Next year, I'll be biking with my friends to get to Lesher Middle School. I also like biking and walking to my friends' houses around the neighborhood, and I worry with the increase of traffic from Epic, it would be more dangerous.

Please make sure that the gate access to Epic remains closed. Thank you. Thank you. Next up, Kavi, remotely. Please go ahead.

Hi, I'm Kavi Auchel, and I'm here, I'm a student at Riffenburg, and I'm here to talk about why opening the gate is a bad idea.

I think it's a bad idea.

because there are a lot of kids biking to school,

and there's also a bike bus going on, and it's a great way for the kids to connect.

And sometimes it meets an epic, and if the epic gate was opened,

they would have to cancel that, and it's like a big part of the community.

And when kids are biking to school, there is also a lot, all the kids come from that area and some kids, they come really, they enter really close to the epic gate. So I think it would be a bad idea to open the gate in case of crashes. Thank you.

Thank you. Peter?

Peter Erickson, 80524. And I'll actually be talking about the land use code tonight. The city of Brighton, Colorado specifies how many parking spaces a bowling alley is required to have. The answer is four. four parking spaces per lane of bowling. The assumption is that if every lane is full, you should have enough parking for every single bowler in every lane to arrive in their own separate private vehicle. Now, the town of Greenwood Village, on the other side of Denver, requires three parking spaces per lane of bowling. The city of Fort Collins, it just so happens, requires 2.5. Any city planner will tell you that these are deeply arbitrary numbers. They're not based on data or evidence, but you might be thinking, what difference does it make if we require three or four? If you do the math, it means that the town of Brighton requires a 33% larger parking lot for a bowling alley than the town of Greenwood Village. Think of that ocean of empty parking that is unlikely to ever be used, that fourth parking spot per bowling lane. What these arbitrary numbers do, other than bankrupt small businesses, is to stretch our cities out. They make it impossible to walk anywhere. They make biking difficult and dangerous, and they necessitate driving. At the last council work session on commercial corridors a few months ago, at least four council members, a majority of council, Patjandi, Francis, Canonico, and Pignataro, voiced their support for eliminating arbitrary commercial parking minimums in the city of Fort Collins, as Longmont, Boulder, and now Denver have already done. I hope that council will offer an amendment to do so on second reading so that we can finally build the bikeable walkable city that we all want to live in. Business owners will still build parking, but they'll have to decide for themselves exactly how much they need. And I'll just mention that Longmont actually did away with commercial parking minimums in 2014 and downtown Longmont just keeps getting nicer. Let's do it too. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Matthew.

Good evening, Mayor and City Council. I'm also here to talk about parking lots. My name's Matthew Bahunin and I live in the Nelson Farm neighborhood and I bike past Riffenburg to go to work and it is a mad house. But I'm here to talk about parking lot, sorry. Land is a precious natural resource. Smart land use policy is the single best way to protect our environment, to preserve open space, reduce car dependence, and lower carbon emissions. My family of four is able to have one car because we live close enough to school and to work and to church where we can walk or bike or take the bus. The closer we bring those things together, the more walkable communities we'll have. Land is also expensive. According to the county assessor, a single acre of land in downtown Fort Collins costs $3 million. Land is also permanent. The choices we make today about land use shape our neighborhoods for generations to come. I have two requests for council tonight as you consider land use policy. First, please remove the commercial parking minimums citywide. I think in the agenda item, it has it just in the transit overlay zone. We should have a benefit of a walkable city all over the city, not just in one corridor. Peter talked about the bowling alley thing. I think it's very strange that it's called out there, but also that we require five parking spots per 1,000 square foot of bar. Are we mandating driving under the influence? It seems weird to require parking lots at bars.

Seven parking spots for 1,000 square feet of fast food restaurants. That means you get more parking asphalt than you do restaurant in terms of space.

Our land is too precious to be used up on excessive parking requirements.

Of course, removing these does not ban parking. It simply gives business owners the ability to decide exactly how much they need.

My second request relates to the leftover CCIP sales tax funds.

as we free up space, parking lots, asphalt, we're going to need affordable housing dollars to build the communities that are walkable and environmentally friendly.

Thank you.

Thank you. Carolyn?

Carolyn.

My name is Carolyn Dalbo and my comments are also about the proposal to open East Stewart

to everyday use.

I'm trying to go, I need more time, but here it goes. In the few blocks between LeMay and Epic, there are two elementary schools, a large playground, lots of small children, a large park, frisbee golf, tennis court, skate park, access to the Spring Creek Trail, plus hundreds of homes and apartments. Residents have moved here to this neighborhood over the last 40 years to be close to these amenities. They use the sidewalks constantly. I live at the four-way stop at Stewart and Welch across the street from Riffenburg Elementary School, and it's so good to see these kids here. I see near-miss accidents every day. During the Riverside Bridge rebuilding, the emergency access to Epic was open full-time, and it was a nightmare. It was terrible. At that time, 4,000 cars traveled daily on Stewart east of LeMay. Now, that was, what, five years ago. Allowing cars from Epic on that same strip could mean another 500 to 1,000 cars a day. This would totally disrupt our neighborhood. At the convergence of East Stewart, it's a cul-de-sac. It's not built as a street. There's a bike path, emergency access, which is shared with bikers and walkers already, plus the exit for the Arbors Apartments. And just a few hundred feet down the way is the intersection of Creekwood and Stewart. This is a terrible, terrible idea. And I agree that one traffic cop could do the job that we've already spent $19,000 for a plan. And none of the people in our neighborhood that I know of has known about this. It's been in the works for a year. And we knew nothing about it. I live right across the street and I walk every day. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Susan?

Good evening. I'm Susan Klibbe.

I've lived in Fort Collins since the 70s and in the Stonehenge neighborhood near Riffenburg Elementary and Adora Park since 1990.

Over the years, Stuart has grown busier, louder, and less safe for pedestrians, runners, dog walkers, bikers, skateboarders, etc. My house backs up to a green belt that shields some of the street noise, but it is impossible to ignore both from the house and during daily walks, the frequent revving, tire screeching, and speeding.

Though there are two stop signs, a dip, and a school zone speed limit, they don't seem to help. By adding a permanent egress to the Epic parking lot, it will only further risk everyone's safety, especially children's who live and attend school in the area and spend time at the park.

The intention of the egress to alleviate traffic after large events at EPIC does not outweigh the negative impact it will have on East Stewart. There will be additional traffic not only on Stewart but through Parkwood neighborhoods so they can reach Drake,

cars attempting to use the egress as an entrance despite any planned signage and more established infrastructure next to a peaceful war memorial there are other viable and more affordable options such as traffic officers that are used at large arenas and even churches or changing the stoplight timing at

Riverside and LeMay during events instead of thinking of a solution for a

few hours a week think of the consequences it will have 24 7 put yourself in our shoes and finally given the serious safety and traffic impact this change could have on East Stewart how we can how we how come we're just now hearing about it the city and the Recreation Department have taken significant steps including a formal work order this past April shouldn't the

community have been notified sooner thank you very much Tatiana I'm Tatiana

I'm also a resident of Stonehenge I first became aware of the potential change to the emergency access egress at epic during the Riverside bridge renovation in 2018 where the city communicated that Stewart access would be a temporary detour faq pages still posted on the city website confirm that this would be temporary returning to emergency access only once the bridge project was complete last week more than six years later we learned that there have been meetings and even city funded work orders investigating a potential change to what had been publicly and legally assured otherwise ordinance 98 from 1985 was established to prevent what is happening now. Keeping everyone in and around the neighborhoods and schools safe from speeding cars and reckless drivers and preserving the area as pedestrian and recreation friendly is imperative. Allowing for traffic to exit Epic would further clutter the four-way convergence of vehicle, bike, and foot traffic and treat this neighborhood as a permanent through street. the rec department should safely connect children and adults with existing recreation at edora park and epic protecting and respecting everyone in the surrounding neighborhoods apartment complexes two schools and all users of the power trail and spring creek trail simply providing a convenience to those attending large multi-state events at epic that have no real connection to the city much less the neighborhood is completely antithetical to what city-funded recreation means there is little to no information on the city website about how many of these events are being held at epic though it is clear that the proposed solution to this traffic inconvenience is being taken more seriously than the permanent impact it could have on the well-being of our community the city should explore alternatives for the riverside exit such as traffic officers and alternative stoplight timings to maintain the 37-year precedent of respecting this neighborhood

safety thank you thank you russell brown mayor arndt city council members and staff thank you very much for this opportunity to speak my name is russell brown i live in district 2. my wife joan and I moved here to Fort Collins about six years ago. Yes, we're part of the traffic congestion issue, but we love it. We moved from the Overland Park area of the Kansas City metro, and there's so many things that we just absolutely love about living in Fort Collins, from the nature areas, the bike trails, just the openness, access to Rocky Mountain National Park. There is, however, one glaring omission in what City of Fort Collins offers and that is a softball league for folks over 50 and I I'm significantly over 50 but I still like to play softball. Where we moved from in Overland Park there was not only a 50 plus but a 60 plus and a 70 plus league and Overland Park's about the same size as the city of Fort Collins, give or take. And it's, I think, based on the 2023 census figures that I saw, there are approximately 29,000 people over the age of 60 that live in the city of Fort Collins. And if 0.3% of those people signed up to play softball, you would have six teams of 15 people each and still probably more. And this is an active city. This is a city that caters to people who love to be active, who love to be out, who love to engage in recreation. And I think the lack of a 50 plus adult. And I have been in conversation with Zach Delisio and Tyler Robertson at City Parks and Rec about this. And I think they're working But I thought, you know, I'd come to city council, too, just to speak my piece. And it's not kind of just a matter of personal preference. My finger is healing really well. But about two months ago, while we play now in the city league against 20 and 30-year-olds, I was pitching, and I got a line drive that shattered this finger in four places. and so it's kind of a safety issue as well as just you know people over 50 want to have fun thanks very much thank you mark

i'm the popular guy here but i'm actually here to speak in support of epic access to stewart street i visit epic nearly every day it's a major hub of community activity and safe access is necessary

for the facility to serve its purpose. Traffic congestion on the Riverside entrance to Epic is currently a problem. One egress for a large community facility is a safety issue. Stewart Street, in my opinion, fits the description of a minor arterial or collector road. It already serves schools, parks, and businesses in the area. Creating a secondary opening or egress to Epic will relieve congestion on Riverside and provide a necessary exit to Epic.

While traffic may increase on Stewart, that road is designed with that purpose in mind. It's not a local neighborhood street. I counted today in six blocks. There's four driveways to homes between LeMay and the end of Stewart.

So the other thing I wanted to state there, I visit Epic every day. There's a significant number of people who leave Epic onto Riverside, and they head south and cut through the condos and then already drive through that neighborhood. I feel like a designated exit would be actually a safer alternative than that.

The second thing I wanted to speak about was funding for the Southeast Community Center and trying to start that project as quickly as possible.

Before the cost continues to increase. Fort Collins residents have shown support for this three times. In 2015, 2023, and in 2024 as part of PSD's funding request. And specifically I'd like to encourage that facility to have 10 lanes of pools or 10 lap lanes as originally proposed. There is a demand for lap lanes in Fort Collins that was supported by the city funded study in Aquatics Master Plan. that was done a few years ago. I feel like we have one chance to build this facility and to build it right and to last us for a long time. And I would hate to see us limit it in sort of a short sighted vision for what that could be. Thank you.

Thank you. Ren?

Do you wanna pull the microphone way down? Great. Go ahead, please.

Hello, my name is Ren Ryder. I live in District 1. I'm a student at Ruffinburg Elementary.

I'm here to talk about the proposal to open the back gate to Epic on Stewart Avenue.

Please consider the kids like me that walk and bike past that intersection every day.

One of my friends almost got hit by a car on the way to school with the gate closed.

Please do not support this. Thank you. Excuse me. Thank you very much. Next.

Good evening. My name is Israia Schneier, District 3. I'm here tonight to give a huge thank you to the Fort Collins Police Department for their handling of the protests last weekend. I know that they weren't thrilled when they heard we wanted to have a 15,000 person rally in Old Town on homecoming weekend, no less. But they were very accommodating and they did their part to make sure it was a peaceful, secure event and allowed our community to make its voice heard. I want to thank the individual officers who are stationed along the route for acting with professionalism and courtesy towards the marchers. I want to thank the police leadership for creating an institutional culture to encourage such behavior. And I also want to thank my fellow protesters for treating the officers with courtesy and respect. In a time when in many parts of the nation we're seeing law enforcement viewing their silencing peaceful protests as part of their job, it's very heartening to see that here at least law enforcement views its role as enabling the community to make its voice heard. On a less positive note, I want to express my deep disappointment for the recent sentencing of a different protester for posting a cardboard sign to a light pole. Apparently, posting handbills is now grounds for arrest in Fort Collins. And if anyone's going to point to some obscure section of city code to claim that this is just neutral code enforcement, I'd like them to take a walk around Old Town or around the campus, look at any crosswalk or light pole there, and tell me with a straight face that this was not a political prosecution or arrest.

the contrast between these two events is quite startling we seem to be very open to free speech

for some people but for others maybe those whose views make us more uncomfortable we don't seem to be and free speech only for people whose views do not make you uncomfortable is not truly free

speech. Thank you. Thank you very much. Victoria, do you want to speak during the item? Yes, please. Okay, great. Item 13, you'll be up. Megan?

Hi, thank you. My name is Megan Reeser. I live in Parkwood East, and I'm here to talk about the Stewart the proposed Stewart Street extension proposed extension would increase traffic through a residential community and add congestion to an already busy intersection the intersection intersection affected by this service multiple high use access points including the Arbor's apartment complex Creekwood Drive and the power trail bike path currently there is no signaled crossing at this intersection which creates a dangerous environments for cyclists and pedestrians particularly as traffic volumes rise I I can personally speak to this very real danger of motor vehicle bike collisions.

As a nurse practitioner, I used to bike to Poudre Valley Hospital every day. In April of 2023, while biking home from work, I was struck by a young driver while in the crosswalk at Welch and Prospect that did have a signal.

Despite the safety infrastructure, the high traffic volume at this time led to a severe accident, which I suffered several life-changing injuries. If a collision like this can happen at a signaled crossing, it's deeply troubling to consider what could occur at an intersection with no such protections, especially with increased vehicle traffic from this proposal. Given these risks, I respectfully request that at a minimum, a comprehensive traffic study be conducted to assess current conditions and evaluate the potential impacts of this extension. the city must carefully weigh the safety of residents especially children and cyclists before moving forward with this project thank you for your time thank you very much uh andrew hello my name is andrew elliott i live in district one close to the epic arena in stonehenge thank you to the mayor and council members for letting me speak

I am very happy about the discussion that's gone on so far regarding the safety along Stewart Street in regards to Epic exit being opened potentially for increasing danger in the area. But I also want to address one other aspect that is important to me and maybe hasn't been covered quite as much. Fort Collins was recently named by a travel leisure magazine and another periodical of being one of the most peaceful places in the United States. And that designation comes from measurable qualities in Fort Collins, like low noise levels, access to nature, and thoughtful urban design. So opening quiet neighborhoods like our neighborhood next to Adora Park and Stewart to more vehicle traffic undercuts the very qualities that earned our city that distinction. A fairly well advertised national distinction. So Fort Collins has long balanced growth with livability, and I'm asking that the city honor that legacy. by reaffirming the 1985 emergency-only restriction for the EPIC access and being open to that issue for more discussion. If the operational concerns at EPIC need addressing, then let's find solutions that don't compromise our peaceful neighborhood's safety and character.

The community's peace, our community's peace, was earned through planning.

let's keep it by keeping stewart street protected just as the city promised in 1985

thank you thank you very much next up kelly hi my name is kelly mcgregor district one i'm in

parkwood east and i'm here to discuss the epic access as well first of all i'm lucky i'm kind

of later in the queue here because the riffenburg road runners who've spoken before me eloquently

put it, if anything, I would hope the council could hear an elementary school student tell you that it's scary to ride their bike or walk to school in their neighborhood.

That's what I'm taking home tonight, and that's why I'm here as well. My kids would be here, except my son was at Lesher trying out for the Lesher basketball team, so he couldn't be here. And my daughter was actually at Epic swimming for FAST. So, Mark, I agree with you. So EPIC's programming has outgrown the facility and the parking for sure. I was at my first fast swim meet two weeks ago when they did have the emergency access open because the parking lot was at capacity. And I saw multiple cars flying through that exit when they saw it. It's really scary. Terry mentioned the geography, the location. This would create an intersection that I don't think a stop sign would fix. Just like Carolyn, I believe, was mentioning across from Riffenburg, seeing people drive through those stop signs that are already there at Riffenburg. I've seen near misses myself. It's just a scary street. My daughter's 10. She's great on a bike. I trust her instinct. She's very safe. But I escort her to fast at Epic, and I escort her to school when I can because she's small, and I don't think people will see her. So Stewart Street is busy. It's already dangerous. To that point, I'd mention it in 2019, we had a traffic assessment. Full disclosure, it was started by my wife about putting in some speed bumps on Eastwood. They were also installed on Creekwood. And I see cars every day driving through the gutter to avoid them. We are already a high traffic thoroughfare in Eastwood, Parkwood East, I should say. And that's why I'm against that opening. And I hope you hear the testimonies tonight about it. Thank you.

Thank you very much. That brings us to the end of public comment for the people who signed up to speak during general public comment. Again, we'll have public comment after each individual item. Does anyone on council have any follow-up to public comment? Mayor Perkin.

Yeah, thank you everyone for coming out and speaking tonight. I'm wondering if the city manager can just provide an overview of kind of the history and where we are with the plan and our examination of that moving forward

Yes, particularly related to the Stewart's right. Yes, okay. Yes. I'm happy to talk about that a little bit so we are as people have indicated doing an evaluation into Options there there are no recommendations at this time It's two periods of the year that we're wanting to do a traffic study to have good information for assessment. One of those was earlier in the year in the spring. The second assessment will start in November. At that point, once the results are back, we will be meeting with the neighbors. We want to have good, accurate information to have a more complete conversation with the neighbors before that occurs. Again what I want to emphasize is at this point are there are not any recommendations It truly is in the assessment phase. I think that's helpful and

Would this item come back before City Council if we chose to move if staff wanted to move forward with changing the

access I think that is something that we could certainly plan to bring forward to council and what I For sure will say we will do is post having the information available and the conversation with the neighbors that will provide an update to council and let you know What recommendation if any we have at that point for any change? Okay. Thank you one other thing I'd like to just add um I did make note of some conversations with our safe routes to school Because I heard some questions in there about kind of ongoing scenario and so that is a team that is certainly will be involved in any recommendations, but we'll also ask them for an update on kind of current state.

Thank you. Padyandi Dengutowski.

Yeah, thank you, Mayor. And thank you for everybody who came out, especially our Riffenburg students. Super brave, and you guys did an excellent job. I'll look forward to Council having a chance to talk about this. It sounds like we're going to collect some information and have some additional conversations with you guys in your neighborhoods and it'll come back to us. But I know that we all were paying careful attention to all the comments tonight. With regard to Russell's request for softball, our rec director is here in the room. So she heard that request. I see you're nodding. So thanks, Russell.

Kelly wants to say.

Oh, I do believe actually we have good news regarding that and that that league will be starting in 2026. So spring of 2026. So it's coming.

Awesome. Okay. Well, heard and request granted. I wonder if he heard that.

Yeah. And then I did also want to thank Fort Collins Police Services. No Kings was a really big event, and it was very well managed, very respectful, very safe. So thank you for that. And then, Chief, this could be in writing, but if we could get a little more contact, or context about the other issue that Azariah brought up about the free speech I just would be interested in that in writing if possible I know it's a legal issue I had one more thing oh going back to Stuart I just want to throw out there that you know a bigger trend in Fort Collins that we're hearing a lot about especially from families and kids is that people are driving way too fast and they're dry they're not paying attention when they're driving I was driving through a school zone it was not near riffenburg it was by done the other day and i would say about half the cars didn't slow down at all in the school zone with the flashing lights so i know we probably have a small audience but for those of you watching it it really makes our streets dangerous and people are noticing and people are getting hurt and killed on our streets so please slow the foco down um you know regardless of of where you are in town we all need to have the courtesy towards each other to keep our streets safe.

Susan?

Yeah, definitely. Thank you for coming out in force. I found from my experience on council that when large numbers of people come out to speak to a concern, it usually means that the concern is very serious and that they've managed to get people together to express that to us. So that we can react to your concerns. There were a couple of things that I did notice from the presentations. And one of them was the fact that it's just coming to your attention as a neighborhood, as three contiguous neighborhoods. That to me is worrisome. If all of this has been going on, it seems like there should have been more communication from the city with regard to what's going on in your neighborhood. rather than it be something that you find out about, which is part of why we see you here and why we've gotten a tsunami of emails. You're just becoming aware of something that's happening. The other thing is reference was made to ordinance number 98 passed in 1985, which basically promised that this would continue to be an emergency access rather than an egress for traffic. And I think we need to visit that as well. I would be recommending that rather than having a meeting to share with you what the results have been and perhaps what our recommendation is, that we have an earlier outreach to the community so that you have an opportunity to share what you shared tonight, but also that other members of the community who weren't able to be here can share as well and notes can be taken and a discussion can be taken can happen I think it's another example of our lack of community outreach and I see in your reaction that you feel that and I think that it would be productive for both the city and the community to have a conversation before the results of this come out and so I would urge our city manager to look into that and see what we can do to reach out to our community and I really would like to talk more about ordinance 98 1985 and see why that's not kind of the solution to our problem right away so thank you again for coming out I appreciate your your advocating for your neighborhood. Council Member Canogles.

I just wanted to thank everyone for coming out tonight, especially all the young voices we have. It's great to get involved in civic participation at your age, and I hope we continue to see you here. And I also wanted to assure Russell that I will not be trying out for the softball team, so his team will be safe. and I wanted to let Russell know that he can sign me up I'm in anybody else? Council members

I didn't mention an over 80 league I just would like to point out I'd like to thank everybody for coming out especially the young people it bothers me just a little bit that you're more confident and articulate than I normally am up here but you did a great job and thanks a lot yeah I like the history part. I'll be leaving council. I'll be retiring from council in January. But I was part of that city council in 1985 that created that so that there wouldn't be an egress. I was also the mayor that cut the ribbon in either 1986 or 87 for the opening of Epic and tradeoffs were made when that facility was built. And one of them was that egress would not be open all of the time. It would be an emergency egress. So that being said, I'm just disappointed because I'll be leaving council that I won't be here to once again vote for keeping that not a permanent egress from EPIC. But hopefully the future council will hear your voices and come to the same conclusion as we did in 1985. Another comment was made on the polls and people putting things on polls. My understanding of the ordinances are that we have nothing to do with what the content is on the polls. It's about the litter and the appearance and everything else. So could you please clear that up because I'm pretty much 99.9% because I kind of know, I think, what was referred to because you shared it with me when we met, that we're not content oriented on what we take off polls and who gets charged with what because of the content. I'm confident and I can be as big of a critic of what we do here as an organization or as a council as anyone, but we don't do things like what the content is. We don't enforce things for that reason. Could you please clarify that, please?

Yes, thank you for that question. So that is accurate. It is not at all a content-based decision. when we see something that is happening active and in progress we do ticket for that based on available resource when there's something that we don't see being put up and it gets attached to a poll and that is part of the routine cleanup that our parks department does is they're available but we don't actively go back and try and investigate who might have put something up on a poll I mean it really is just based on if we're catching something in progress and then we consistently ticket it has nothing to do with content

councilmember Pagni in which case I don't need chief so about it a look into

it so thank you okay anybody else all right thanks again to everybody who came out tonight both in person and virtually let's see does anyone on council wish to pull any consent calendar items for individual discussion if so please just give a brief explanation saying none do I hear a motion for consent yes I move to adopt the consent calendar items 1 through 10 second second by Gutowski further discussion saying none will the clerk please call the roll hi Yandy

yeah Monica yes get asking yes aren't yes Francis yes Olsen yes that motion

passes six to zero with one absent. Any council members have comments on consent? Councilmember Olson.

Thanks, Mayor. Yeah, I'd like to comment on item two. I forgot to mention on first reading, I want to thank Carson Hamlin, cable franchise administrator, and the other people in the city organization that worked with him, including the city attorney's office. These things are not easy. I went through them a couple other times. In fact, council had to get involved quite a bit in past times with our franchise agreement with Comcast, and that appeared, it's never easy, but we didn't have to get involved, so that's a good thing. And just wanted to thank you for all the hard work and point out that Carson was a junior high student of mine

in Loveland, Colorado. I'm sorry, you just made me laugh, Councilman. Anything else you'd like to add to that? You're good? Okay, any other comments on consent calendar? All right. Let's see. We don't have any staff reports tonight, so let's move on to Councilmember reports. Any reports from Councilmembers? Councilmember Ponyana.

Thank you, Mayor. I just wanted to shout out our Disability Advisory Board Awards, which were held last night. Mayor gave an excellent introduction, but really it was a ceremony that was completely run by members of our Disability Advisory Board and our staff liaison, And they not only did a great job with the ceremony, but they recognize some folks who have worked tirelessly for a very long time To make our city a more inclusive equitable and accessible city

And so it was it was a wonderful experience and thanks to all the folks who put in a lot of work to make that happen

Council member

Yeah, I got to attend the ribbon cutting for the trail winds park down by bacon elementary It's a beautiful little park with an accessible playground. It's also our first park that is the playground is fenced in to make it safer for there's a what's the program there?

Yeah, there's an autism program at that school and it's to help keep those children safe and not running into timberline. There's also a bouldering rock there. It's really great little park. So please come by and visit it

Anyone else councilman good house right recently attended the groundbreaking for Middle income housing first project I believe ever in Fort Collins probably in State of Colorado where the urban renewal authority was able to participate in in making middle income housing a reality It's a 302 conifer and 76 units that are 80% AMI. I'm trying to think of what the other thing would be. Oh, I know a significant thing about this project is that due to Proposition 123, it will enable the renters to have an equity fund that they can contribute to or that their rent will contribute to so that unlike most renters, they will actually be able to build equity as they're renting. and especially helpful for folks who are going to be lifelong renters. They have a chance to build equity where they otherwise wouldn't have. And so it was exciting to see this. It's a long time in coming and like most affordable, truly affordable housing. It takes partnerships. It takes time. But it is going to happen, and I am just hoping that we're going to pursue more of the middle-income housing. These are folks who make too much money, believe it or not, to be able to qualify for low-income housing, and yet they don't make enough to purchase market-rate housing. So this is our missing middle, and this is our first attempt to meet those needs, and I would hope that we continue to do that. It's very exciting what happened.

Anyone else? I'll just say that I had the privilege of doing a police ride along on Friday night and I echo the sentiments of the gentleman who spoke earlier about what a fantastic job they do protecting our freedom speech. Also keeping us safe. I got to ride along with the officer who, as I say, saved lives every day by giving tickets for driving under the influence of alcohol. so every ticket is one saved life if not more that was the same evening that two people died on 287 and i just kept thinking if only we could have caught that person before they went on to have a head-on collision and have two lives lost that night so um be safe out there don't drink and drive and thank you to our police services who are out there and as i said to the chief in reflection to the officer who took me around it wasn't just what he was doing is how he was doing it with the kindness and compassion and care of any good social worker or public servant. So I'm very grateful for our police services and how they do their work. And I just want to say thank you again. And also to caution you, don't speed and don't drink and drive.

Does Council want a 10-minute break before we go on to discussion items, or do you want to just go ahead?

Let's do one item.

Okay. Let's move on then. Is there a staff presentation for the first item?

We do have a staff presentation. Mayor, Jenny Sawyer, who is our Senior Project and Policy Manager, will give us a brief overview of the item in front of us.

Thank you, Kelly. Thank you, Mayor and Council. I think we're here. I am here tonight on a relatively short item related to our jointly owned airport. We're looking to update our IGA. So the ordinance, we're calling it a transitional IGA with City of Loveland going forward. For some background, we own an airport. We've owned it since 1963. We've been through a variety of governance models out there and a variety of IGAs and IGA amendments over time, including the creation you'll see here of both airport steering committee and an airport commission. In 2023, there was a desire to again revisit the governance of the airport. And through that process, I believe probably everyone on council was interviewed. Loveland City Council members were interviewed, and a very thorough memo was provided outlining different governance models. Out of that, we created a governance committee made up of two council members from Fort Collins and two from Loveland who spent the better part of a year reviewing and considering different governance models, ultimately landing on a recommendation to move to an airport authority. And so both communities adopted a resolution of support to move towards an authority in January this year. Out of that time, staff from both communities

have been meeting throughout 2025, and we have made progress. We're not quite ready to stand up an authority, but we're considering this, again, transitional towards that ultimate goal. And so the IGA in front of you tonight really has, we've done a lot of work on that financial sharing and

responsibilities to ensure right that we are clear in what we're spending clear in what our

commitments are and clear in our commitment to the future financial sustainability of the airport

we looked at a bunch of cleanup of insurance protocols as we were there and we're taking

a step to shift decision makings to the city managers the airport commission has done years of good work out there. And as we move forward, we're looking to sunset that and shift some of that responsibility back as an interim step. In that time period, I just put some of these key airport activities here, which include the tower, which is very important, runway widening, and starting to look at airlines out there.

just to sort of cover what happens around decision making out at the airport if you look at our

status quo today we've got five different sort of entities that are involved in decision making this iga will get us to four and then ultimately standing up that authority we're looking at a very

streamlined operation of three decision making entities going in there and i believe that is

it for my presentation so if council has any questions I'm happy to try to answer thanks first we'll go to the public is there any are there any members of the public who'd like to speak on this item

mayor council my name is Adam Hirshhorn I'm running for mayor the F&L Airport

does about a million gallons of jet fuel every year. A lot of that is actually towards the public good.

Alexander Mountain Fire, for example, used F&L as a base.

There's a lot that is not intended as public good. It's just private aircraft. depending on class and I've sent you a proposal that has three different use

classes which could have no tax a 25 cent tax or a dollar tax depending on the

use. That would not only help mitigate some of the more licentious high roller use of

aircraft, but also help expand the airport. We have an interesting remote control tower

scenario, which the last carrier to try public transport from there couldn't roll with. So we might need to change that around a bit.

But the big thing on my mind right now is that the IGA is with Loveland. Ostensibly, our priority as a city is housing, and effectively, Loveland's council has poured out their housing problems on the entire front range so if it were up to me I'd poke five different points of contact until they ask for the one quality they lack which is mercy

but igas are only one of them it might be good if not to have an intergovernmental disagreement just to have a renegotiation. Thank you.

Thank you. Ann?

Good evening, Mayor, City Council. I'm Ann Hutchison, representing the Fort Collins Area Chamber of Commerce. We've been following along with your conversation with Loveland relative to the opportunity that does present itself in the Fort Collins-Loveland Airport. And we are thrilled that you're at this decision point and making your way towards the authority model. There's a tremendous opportunity in front of us when we think about regional economic development and we have really left the northern Colorado regional airport behind It's time for us to make some positive change in order to bring that economic driver back to northern Colorado. Thank you

Thank you. Is there anyone else anyone online? No, okay. Thank you very much to council members have questions or comments

Just a comment to thank staff and the mayor and councilmember

Pignotaro who worked on this to get us this far. I know it was a lot of work and that we have more work to do

but appreciate the time and thoughtfulness spent on this.

Any more comments like just like that? Just kidding. No other comments. I'll just comment and thank the staff as well and our legal team and Loveland staff and legal team. I will let you know the two cities have been working very, very well together. And I think this is, you know, it is exceedingly complicated to work with the FAA. And the airports are special little units to themselves. So there's so many caveats of things you can do and can't do. And it's an interesting space for cities to work in. because the FAA really drives a lot of the decisions and the finances out there. So I appreciate all of you guys jumping in and working. And the authority didn't come together as quickly as we thought, but with this step I have a feeling the airport will be well cared for in the time that it takes to stand up in authority. So I very appreciate every work. And just to reassure everyone, anyone who's listening, the councils retain policy making decision authority over the airport and that we will be taking public comment from anybody who is on any airport items here at with this body because the commission won't be meeting anymore with this idea okay okay great uh do i hear a motion

yes i move to adopt resolution 2025-090 authorizing the mayor to execute an intergovernmental agreement between the cities of loveland and fort collins regarding the joint operation of the northern colorado regional airport and furtherance of a transition to an airport authority second

second by canonico further discussion seeing none will the clerk please call the roll canonico yes

getowski yes aren't yes francis yes olson yes pot yandy yes that passes six to zero with one absent

and where are would you like a break now 10 minute break till 7 30. okay so we'll be in recess for 10 minutes and come back at 7 30. welcome back for Collins thank you for the break we are ready to resume with item 12 is there a staff presentation there is and I'm going to hand

it over to Clay Fricke, our city planning senior manager, to get things started. Clay?

Excellent. Thanks, Kelly, and thanks, Mayor and members of Council. We're excited to be here tonight to talk to you about our favorite topic, the land use code. This is the culmination of a few years worth of work to modernize and update our land use code to be more consistent with some of our adopted policy plans and guiding documents. One thing I'll note is we've chatted with you about these updates a few times, and this is our fourth time in front of you all talking about the commercial corridors and centers updates. One thing that you're going to see tonight that is new from last time are some amendments to the Harmony Corridor Plan. Some of the comments that came up at our last work session indicated a desire to make sure that these particular updates were consistent with all adopted sub-area plans. And so what we're bringing forth tonight are the proposed updates to the land use code for our commercial corridors and centers, but also to some amendments to the Harmony Corridor Plan to make sure that both of those documents are aligned. And so without further ado, I'm going to pass it off to Sylvia Tappman Burris to get us started. Thank you. Awesome. Thank you, Clay.

As mentioned, I'm Sylvia Tappman Burris, Policy and Project Manager in the City Manager's Office. I'm joined also by Megan Keith, Senior Planner in the Planning Department. So we're going to walk you through some of the changes. You've already seen these tonight, but we'll go over those. And so we're just going to go through, as Clay mentioned, the ordinances this evening cover the Land East Code changes and changes to Harmony Corridor.

So these proposed updates, the team really has focused on advancing the goals within the city's adopted policy plans

and really attempted to clarify and simplify some areas of the code, certainly advancing some of the 15-minute city goals

and trying to balance desired outcomes while adding clarity to the development review process.

The map here is the structure plan from city plan, and these are place types,

or the different colors on the map, which is sort of what we've tried to get at within the new city plan policies. And so where we focused our land use code changes are within the place types within that orange box that you see here. That's really where we focus our efforts and really have not moved into those more single-family residential areas in this update. As mentioned before, we've really tried to align with the council-adopted plans and policies.

There are many of those, including our Affordable Housing Strategic Plan and several others that have been adopted throughout the years.

and we have tried to make those changes in the land use code for those commercial areas.

We've also tried to align some of these policies certainly with council priorities

and then the corresponding guiding principles for this project specifically.

And these include really trying to enable more housing and mixed use,

creating more resilient commercial areas, updating our building and site design standards, and then improving predictability in the land use code.

So I'll begin by talking through some of the areas that we focused on and then some of those corresponding changes. Within the transit-oriented development overlay district, that zone has really been put in place as an area that is focused on transit and on higher density. It also has several permitted land uses that we took a look at with our consultant, and we have some corresponding

recommended changes with those as well. So tonight we're recommending allowing

especially five-story standalone residential within the general commercial district. We also received public comment to request there to be a five-story standalone within the community commercial zone district.

And so we could see that fitting within these policies as well, especially since a lot of the community commercial fits within the TOD. We're also looking at limiting, proposed limiting some uses such as gas stations with certain conditions, prohibiting new enclosed mini storage and boat sales, and then eliminating parking minimums within the TOD.

Now, I'll move on to the Harmony Corridor and Employment Zone changes. So, as you know, the Harmony Corridor District is intended to implement the design concepts of the Harmony Corridor Plan. And there is currently a primary and secondary use split that is 75% primary use and 25% secondary use.

And so several of the changes respond to some of those things within Harmony Corridor and employment. So what we're proposing is to adjust that primary-secondary use ratio to a 50-50 split instead of 75-25, allowing standalone residential to replace existing parking lots, codifying that primary-secondary use split calculation methodology. Right now, that isn't codified and can sometimes be up to staff interpretation. And then allowing primary use exceptions for mixed use buildings in certain cases.

And then allowing residential buildings to be a maximum of six stories in the Harmony Corridor zone up from three stories. And then finally, allowing affordable housing projects to be exempt from that primary secondary use split requirement.

Alright, so with that, I'll turn it over to Megan Keith.

Thank you, Sylvia. So another area of focus for this work was to consolidate, clarify, and update building standards.

Certain building standards from Article 5 were moved into Article 3, which is the article of the code that focuses on building types. This code update also focused on adding new building types for non-residential buildings. These new building types are the general and shopfront building types, which is the first

recommendation pertaining to this topic. Residential building types were added to the code during phase one updates, so now we are adding these two additional building types to the code. There are also edits throughout Articles 3 and 5 that consolidate and clarify standards

that are currently spread across multiple sections of the code.

And lastly, this code update has made progress towards converting text standards into illustrations,

tables, or other more digestible ways to depict this information.

Another large portion of work focused on the change of use process.

So our guiding principle related to this body of work was to improve predictability of the land use code, especially to support small business owners.

This is oftentimes the process that an applicant may go through when opening a new business. And when going through this process, the site upgrade requirements of the land use code we've heard have felt like an all or nothing approach for applicants and very few standards can be waived. So code section 6.3.10 was entirely rewritten and now contains a series of new tables. These tables outline the types of interior and exterior changes that someone might be proposing to their site or building. And these tables of interior and exterior changes correspond to an amendment type, which includes what changes. Changes someone might be making that may not require an amendment process at all. What would fall into the micro and parkway landscape amendment category? What's a minor amendment and a major amendment? This section of the code also now has a table that clearly identifies what site improvements are applicable based on the amendment type. These changes help increase transparency into our development review process and add clarity to what might be asked of an applicant earlier in the process, something we heard from the community was challenging about our current process. And these changes also make site improvements required of applicants commensurate with the scale of the proposed project.

In addition to the changes that Sylvia and I walked through in those four broader categories, edits have been made in every article of the land use code during this update. So within Article 1, the purpose statement section and the applicability section have been revised with the intent to clarify the role of adopted policy and sub area plans relative to the land use code. Article 2 includes the changes to the TOD overlay and Harmony and Employment Zone district changes that Sylvia went through already and then the purpose statements for most zone districts in Article 2 were also updated. Article 3 has added the new building types, shopfront in general. Article 4 has not received substantive updates but instead updates to make the information in Article 4 accurate to the other changes that are proposed. Article 5 has had a lot of cleanup of standards, including removing some that were overly subjective and adding new standards for drive-throughs. Article 6 is where the change of use edits were made as well as some minor edits to certain procedures. Article 7 is the article of the code for rules of measurement and definitions. We performed some cleanup to terminology related to drive-throughs and removed definitions for terms that did not appear anywhere in the code, including some other cleanup items there. And then as mentioned, you'll also have seen in your packets

that we are performing some streamlined updates to the Harmony Corridor Plan and the Harmony Corridor standards and guidelines documents to ensure that those are consistent with the updated code.

So these updates include the changes related to the primary and secondary use split. Some of the updates that Sylvia mentioned related to mixed use buildings and inclusion of some changes to the gateway area that were approved by City Council in 2020.

And so just to review the engagement timeline for this project, it's kind of hard to believe, but we kicked this project off just over a year ago in early October with six neighborhood visits, a business kickoff event, and a community forum event in November.

And then we held our first focus groups in the winter of 2025 and held a virtual and in-person open house in the spring of this year to get feedback on the direction of the code updates.

We then reconvened our focus groups in the summer and initiated our community engagement around the release of the draft code in late summer.

And then in addition to these events, we consistently distributed monthly newsletter updates to our subscribers and maintained content on our project website.

So the draft was released at the beginning of September and was available for public review through the first week of October. And then during this time that the code was available, we offered office hours at 281 North College and held sessions with internal development review staff, as well as frequent code users in the community. And we've been meeting with many boards, commissions, and community groups that you can see listed on this slide. And then just in the broader timeline of this project, we are of course here with you at first reading this evening and plan to return for second reading on December 2nd. And then just to kind of conclude here, in some of our more recent work sessions with council, council members have asked us what to do not get to this time or what are the next steps following

this work. So this slide lists some of the work that we think could be logical next steps to continue the work that was done on the land use code and that our team could begin analyzing in

the short term and continue working with council on as new priorities are set so this includes looking at consolidating some of our commercial zone districts and then examination of areas designated as employment zoning we've heard comments throughout this process about examining outdoor storage in these employment areas. So we would like to kind of examine a citywide approach to how to address outdoor storage, extending the TOD overlay to North College and West Elizabeth, and then continued cleanup and reorganization of Article 5. And so with that, we're happy to answer any questions or return to any topics that you'd

like more information on. Thank you very much. First, we'll go to the public. Does anyone here?

Joe, come on up. And then you can go next. Sure.

Madam Mayor, members of council. First of all, I think there's a great deal of congratulations that are due to staff because they did do a really good job of reaching out and trying to

assemble a lot of very complex issues and putting it into a much more streamlined, easier to read format certainly makes it much easier to find and interpret what's in there. The only concern, I think, and they did reach out, no doubt about it, but I think there was evidence that there wasn't a lot of internal discussion on some of these items that I think really deserve some further discussion from you as the final decision makers. So the first one I would say is within the code itself, it does continue to define textures, materials, and colors that are allowed. And I'm curious if there's anyone in the Social Sustainability Office that might have raised the question as to whether or not what we say is visually appealing for our community is something that's universally embraced. And I would say that that's probably not the case. If we're looking for innovation, maybe the idea is that we allow a potential developer to come in and show us what they are wanting to propose, regardless of what we think ought to happen in terms of the facade, in terms of the colors, in terms of the textures and materials and so forth. I think that's where we start to see some cultural expressions that could really add some character to the community. The other thing with the TOD, it doesn't appear anyways that a lot of discussion was had with economic health from the standpoint that specifically calling out boats, boat sales, is a little concerning because, first of all, how are we defining boats? And second of all, and I know the staff is chuckling because there was a lot of discussion about what boats are. But it's not defined. And I think that that is really a problem that we're trying to solve that doesn't exist, frankly. The other one is keep in mind not everybody can afford an EV. You can put a charging station anywhere. But a lot of folks really depend on their vehicle. And our transport is not there. So people can't necessarily get around without their vehicle. And so gas stations can be redeveloped. They're not there forever. We've seen examples of that. So there's no reason to ban them. Thank you. Thank you very much next

I'm a little taller than him. Jamie Thorpe vice president of entitlements with hartford homes and a resident of district five I wasn't particularly involved in this effort, but I do want to give credit to staff and consultants I think they did a really good job and in particular just as somebody in the urban design field

I am really supportive of the 50% primary and secondary use change as well as the six-story

multifamily on the harmony corridor i think that's a really wise choice to make so thank you great

thank you for coming anybody else in the audience on this item anyone online

no okay then we'll go to council member questions and comments and we are on item 166.

go ahead madame protein sure i just have a couple questions um i remember in the work session with the TOD we were talking about having mixed use and then the bonus for affordable housing so did we just get rid of that now it's just five stories or because that wasn't in the materials can we

just summarize where we landed on that yeah I'll begin so the the recommendation that's included is to increase kind of the baseline height to the five stories without needing to deploy any of the incentives but the incentives still exist that you can add additional stories above the five now

currently it's at four and what are the incentives that we landed on the ones that

exist now in the code and that we've retained are providing a mixed use component if affordable housing is provided or if a structured parking is provided okay so i remember during the discussion

that maybe if it was affordable housing you had to have a mix of affordable and mixed use did we get rid of that and you can do a bonus just for affordable i believe they're just that was nodding behind yes thank you and then during the tod um presentation did i may have misheard but we have it in up to five was there another district we could add it to or we added it to the district

Oh, so we had originally proposed it as being within the general commercial zone district up to the five-story standalone residential. And then we heard public comment to say, hey, can you also include the community commercial? And when we looked at it, a lot of the community commercial that would be affected is within the TOD. There's a very small space that's outside of the TOD but still adjacent to it and so that's something that you could add we haven't added it within the code now we could add it before a second reading if that's something that makes sense it from staff's perspective it makes sense because it does fit within the TOD is there a

reason that it wasn't brought as a modification for first reading I think

it was go ahead yeah we've got the comment after the packet had already been published oh okay

that's helpful thank you and then do we have a response to the comment about the textures materials

and colors yes so if you go into your packet we are removing a lot of the references to colors and textures and materials within the tod so packet page 502 has a lot of that language stricken from the land use code as part of the proposal some of that language still exists in article 5 that would apply to other projects outside the tod so this could be something that staff could take a look at as part of the continued consolidation and refinement of the general building standards whenever yeah next year or whenever we receive direction to do that work so okay that's

helpful thank you and then I do remember at the work session there was

significant support for eliminating the commercial parking minimums citywide is there a reason that that wasn't part of the first reading thank you for that so

we we really did outreach on eliminating those minimums within the tod because that is really fitting with the the tod with the overlay district we did hear public comments certainly about eliminating those citywide but that's not something that we necessarily recommend because it doesn't necessarily fit as squarely as it does within the TOD.

I guess, are there certain, is this another part of 2.5 land use code updates? How big of an update is it to go to remove it citywide? I guess I don't understand that, like, is it more outreach? Is it more studies? What is it?

Yeah, I mean, I think that because this phase was just focused on commercial areas and if we were to look at something that would apply to every part of the city, I think in our mind, we'd want to do more specific outreach around that. And especially since we heard a mixture of opinion on council, a mixture of opinion in the community when we did outreach related to commercial corridors and centers updates, that would feel most appropriate to us. And also that's I think council's call if you want us to take a look at that over the next month I think from staff's perspective, we'd feel more comfortable having a more intentional conversation community-wide about it

I think that helps. I'm not trying to put you on the spot. I'm trying to understand How big of an impact it is just to do it during this update or to wait? Why? Why wasn't it on the list of next phase approaches then?

It wasn't because it wasn't something that we were going to get to as part of this update So what Megan shared with you were things that we wanted to get to as part of the commercial quarters and centers updates that we weren't able to just because of the time. And so that's certainly something that we could do at council's direction if that's the direction council wants us to go. I think the risk is that there are, yeah, you'll get some dissenting views on parking. And some of those folks are in the room tonight. So I think, again, that's why. From staff's perspective, we feel more comfortable doing more intentional community engagement around it. And yeah, just leave it at that. Okay, that's helpful. Thank you. Thanks for answering those.

Thank you, Mayor. I am fine with, I think it probably is prudent to get some more community outreach and things, but I definitely think that that should be one of our next steps sooner than later. We have peer communities where they've been very successful with citywide elimination of parking minimums So I just want to voice my support for that as a next step my other two questions are Do we have a map that? points out if we were to add the community commercial To this to this zoning for the parking That it's on there because I'm not seeing on the structure plan community commercial pointed out. Is there a map elsewhere? That I could see what we would be adding

So I think what we could do is we can work on maybe pulling up a zoning map real quick. I can tell you where it is in the community. It's basically on Elizabeth just west of Shields over to City Park Avenue. And then there's also a little pocket of community commercial at Prospect in College. And I think those are the two areas of community commercial in the city.

Okay. Thank you so much. And then before I give you a compliment, my second question was about the boats. So I do hear we got a pretty clear communication about like, do we have our language fine-tuned enough that we're not going to keep people from selling any sort of watercraft anywhere in the TOD, which I don't think is our goal. So I don't know, is our language where we said boats with storage, does that make it specific enough that we wouldn't be limiting the products folks could sell?

yeah so we um specifically i think with you know describing that boat sales we're thinking of you know larger boats on a larger lot stored outdoors um it yeah we don't anticipate that it would would impact sort of you know smaller water craft sales for example like a kayak at rei you. So it was the intent of including that recommendation was for that sort of larger

lot configuration. Okay. I just don't know. I mean, there's a good chance that that would never be challenged. And I think specificity of language can be helpful. So I don't know. if there's a way we can make it clearer the kind of business that we maybe are not wanting on this prime real estate and make sure that we're clear that there are acceptable water crafts in the tod that would be great um and then my last thing is just like a huge compliment similar to other folks i know you guys have been working on this hard for a year you've made some significant adjustments I am especially excited about the change of use adjustments that you made. I think that's a huge need for our small businesses and really super creative thinking to make that work more smoothly and be more doable for our business owners. So just thank you for your hard work. Great. Anybody else? Councilman Gutowski. Okay. Yeah. Good study. A lot of work. We've been at this forever.

I do have a question though about the parking minimums and maybe you can help me understand.

When you're talking about getting rid of parking minimums, is that based on the assumption that

we're not going to need a whole lot of cars in the future? Are we looking toward that?

Sorry, we're playing hot potato up here. So I think for parking, it's not the assumption that we aren't going to see cars. We're really operating under the assumption that if somebody's looking to open a business, they're going to provide enough parking to serve their customers, or they're likely going to be getting a loan from a financial institution that will also require them to provide a certain number of parking. So we see that with apartment buildings. We see that with a lot of commercial buildings as well, where lenders have pretty strict criteria for lending, And a lot of it is based off of providing enough parking because the bank would be nervous that if the business doesn't provide enough parking, they're not going to be able to recoup their investment. So really, it's letting the market dictate the amount of parking rather than our code, because a lot of the parking ratios have existed in the code for a very long time. And you heard a person at Public Common explain some of the issues with parking standards in general. And so this is an effort to try and get our parking aligned more with what the market will provide in that one portion of town in our transit area. And also, too, with the assumption that if you're living in a more transit-rich environment, you're more likely to ride the bus. And so I think it's that culmination of factors.

Okay. So it seems like it's based on several assumptions, like you were saying about the lenders continuing to have their basic requirements for parking if they're going to be doing their lending. If that were to change and we experienced a shortage of parking, I just am wondering about that.

I seem to recall just a little tiny piece of the parking feasibility study that said that there actually was an increase in the demand for parking, an increase in the number of cars, and something to that effect. And so it seems to work counter to what I'm hearing here.

I'm just trying to think in the future. We're planning for something that may change, and then what?

Yeah, I think to respond to that specific question, I mean, once upon a time, going back to about 2013, we eliminated parking minimums in the TOD for residential, and then we add them back in. And we've adjusted our parking ratios a few times since then. So our parking ratios are subject to change based off of what we observe out in our community. And so, yeah, from time to time, we'll go out and count parked cars at five o'clock in the morning, which I've done personally. It was one of my first jobs at the city was going out and counting cars. So I can attest to the fact that we go out and study this ourselves and adjust our parking ratios accordingly. And so, yeah, I mean, it is something that if we saw issues, we could come back to city council and adjust those things to avoid negative impacts to our neighborhoods and community.

Thank you so much. I just wanted to know that it was subject to change should situations change. Thanks very much for that.

Anybody else? I mean, I'll lend my voice to the parking issue. I think it bears more input and sort of almost a standalone item. And I do think it is kind of a concerning precedent if we take a study area and then we say, hey, we love this piece so much, let's just take it citywide. that could be the case and it could be the case in the future and if it's a standalone item i think i think that makes a lot more sense than um sort of setting a precedent where we just

pull out one thing that we like in in a regional plan and then say oh that's that's so great i think we could just do one size fits all for the city so i i i am uh sympathetic to the parking issue. I just think it's not appropriate right now in this ordinance, but certainly could be taken up at a later date, which is, I think, what you're talking about. So I also want to show my appreciation for the hard work on this. I always find these things exceedingly complicated, and I

wish I could wave my wand and make them more simple, simplified, but I understand that I'm not a city planner, so I don't pretend to know how people work their way through this process

or how you guys do it but i i'm assured that it's a careful modernization to bring a core part of our city up to date and so i'm appreciative of your work councilman rilson thanks mayor yeah

um i'm sympathetic to the um the parking issue as well i certainly don't support the old standard things of the bowling alley examples and also when um people not city regulations but uh designed mall parking lots for the busiest two weeks of the year and those kinds of things so I'm very sympathetic to those kinds of changes the reason I think it needs careful consideration there have been examples in my district where it's in residential neighborhoods which is different than bowling alleys and huge malls where massive corporations build major developments and then have not even close to the same amount of parking or it's a hundred or $150 a month a lot and then they bleed over in overwhelmed neighborhoods. One parking structure was added later actually in the college prospect area because that turned out to be such a big deal. If anybody can nod, remember that issue, that parking structure was actually added after the fact because it created such problems. So I'm not sure, although probably surprised some folks that I'm really open to the parking thing if I was around, but I'm not sure 100% of the area of the city the city of Fort Collins, sometimes we can take some steps like mall examples, bowling alley examples, commercial corridors, TODs or whatever the current terminology is we use, but I think you have to tread carefully when you're talking about areas right next to residential neighborhoods and massive developments go in with 1500 units and little or no parking. I think that gets problematic but 90% of the time I think it's time to move in that direction

further questions comes comes I just wanted to lend my voice to also support for examining the parking throughout the city later on I also want to thank you for all the amazing work that went into this I look around this room and it is such a different situation from phase one and it's so great to see that you brought the community along and that everyone it's just like another decision by council it's not a big deal and this is a major undertaking and I just really appreciate everything that went into bringing us to this point so thank you all

I feel differently I think it's fine to adopt the parking minimums because it's only for commercial it's not residential eliminating parking minimums and i think that either through lenders or through the market parking is usually determined and we've overbuilt parking but i can count and it won't so i will uh add it to my list of what to talk about after january 13th um however i do want to see if there is support to expand the five-story standalone residential into the community commercial zone district so I can add that into a motion. I'm in support of expanding that to the community corridor district, community commercial zone district.

Again, I'd like to see a map between first and second reading just to make it an informed decision, but I am generally supportive of that amendment. Okay.

Okay. So do I hear a motion?

Sure. I move to adopt on first reading of ordinance number 166, 2025 amending the line use code of the city of fort collins regarding commercial corridors and centers including expanding allowing five stories standalone residential in the community commercial zone

district second second by patty andy for the questions discussion no uh do i hear uh will

the clerk please call the roll gettowski yes orange yes francis yes olsen yes pat yandy yes

Canonico yes measure passes six to zero with one absent we're on to 167 do council members have any questions or comments about 167 oh let me just go to the public since they are separate issues or they are separate ordinances anyone in the public no anyone online no okay council member comments questions seeing none do they hear a motion I move to adopt on first reading of ordinance

number 167 2025 updating the harmony quarter plan and harmony quarter standards and guidelines

second seconded by patty andy for the discussion saying now will the clerk please call the roll

aren't yes francis yes olsen yes pat yandy yes canonico yes katowski yes that measure passes

is six to zero with one absent. Congratulations. See you on second reading. Okay. We are at item 13, ordinance 168. Is there a staff presentation? Or do you guys need a minute? We'll give you a minute.

Okay. My bad. Okay. It's just if it's a commercial. Got it. I don't care about the commercial.

Okay.

Yeah.

I like being school.

Thank you for your patient. presentation this evening, Mayor, Council, so thank you for giving us a brief moment to switch out our staff team up here. I am going to turn it over to Josh Birx, who is our Deputy Director for Sustainability Services, to kick this off, and he is again joined by Jennifer Posnanovic

from Finance to lead this conversation. Yes, thank you. Thank you for your patience as we got situated up here. Yes, we're here to discuss capital expansion fees and the transportation capital expansion fee with you this evening. So what you have before you is to consider on first reading an ordinance to revise impact fees effective on January 1 of 2026. Based on our conversation we had at the September 9th work session on this topic, we are bringing a number of options before you this evening. The first would be what we're calling status quo, which is to keep the same current five categories and simply apply inflation to bring them up to 2026 numbers. The second option is the one that we discussed in detail on the evening of the 9th. The third option is what we're calling a phased implementation. There's actually an option A and an option B. In essence, what this would do is either take two or three years to achieve the full proposed impact fee and would phase it in over time. And we'll talk more about some of the details of that one later. And then the fourth would be what we're calling fractional implementation. and that would be to adopt something less than 100% of the fee as described in the fee study.

I want to note that you'll need to indicate which option you want to choose tonight

so that those values could then be later inserted before second reading.

So a little bit of context for all of us to reground as well as for our friends in the public to just remember why do we have impact fees. This is really based on the

concept that growth needs to pay its own way and that it because it has an impact on the city's infrastructure and so as new growth develops we want it to pay its fair share. They're charged and imposed on new development. They support our cost of providing public services and the revenue

for each fee can only be used for the services it's defined for. Capital expansion fees are

primarily for parks both neighborhood and community parks as well as for many of our public safety activities fire police and then there is also capital expansion fees for general government and one of the changes that is in the proposed fee updates is to split general government into two pieces again we use what's called the buy-in colloquially it's used called the buy-in method. It's really looking at the replacement value and dividing that by current population to figure out what the factor is. We've been using that method since we first adopted the fees in 1996. The transportation capital expansion fee has been around for a little bit longer, dates back to the late 70s, and it is used to fund infrastructure associated with transportation, primarily roads, but the current transportation capital expansion fee also includes a component for multimodal infrastructure development as well to support our transition towards supporting a

variety of transportation options. Since our conversation on the 9th, we did decide as staff to do a little bit of looking into what are some of the best practices that are recommended to have an impact fee system that is designed for a sort of housing forward approach or housing friendly

approach i'm not going to dwell on this much you received a memo if you want to look into

that in greater detail but the takeaway is of the 17 or so kind of common or best practices that we

identified 10 of them are already being fully used in our community five partially and only two not at all. I want to remind everybody where we are at. So in January of this year we had capital expansion fees go into place that are on the five categories that we've had since the original adoption in 1996 and we only applied inflation. We're working on a nexus study that dates to 2017 and therefore is getting a little stale in terms of providing, you know, the best and most accurate understanding of what replacement cost is. The utilities electric capacity fee and plant investment fees have both been recently updated. As we previously talked about, there were sort of three main changes that we are included in the proposed package. The first is really moving from the current five categories of square foot bands to a much broader range of categories. These categories are consistent with the county's categories. Adding to that with our second major change is including a differentiation for the type of housing. Our current capital expansion fee program treats all residential housing regardless of whether it's detached attached or multi-family exactly the same the proposal that we discussed on the 9th would add differentiation for those different types as well as increasing the square foot bands and the third and final adjustment just to remind everyone would be to split that general government current capital expansion fee into two pieces of facilities and capital equipment. With that, I'm going to hand it over to Jen, and she will talk us through the different options, as well as some of the revenue impacts

coming out of those. Well, thank you, Josh, and good evening, Council. And as Josh mentioned,

I'll walk through the four different options for Council this evening for the residential

fee schedules. The first option is the status quo option. That's inflation only. So the top table here shows the current 2025 fees. The bottom shows the current fees plus inflation,

and we'll refer to this as the status quo. The inflation for capital expansion fees in 2025 is 2.3%, and then negative 3.7% or deflation for the transportation capital expansion fees.

the next slide here shows a revenue comparison for option one there's a lot to look at on this chart but only going to focus on that second column there the status quo the five tier the first chart shows the revenue estimates without inflation and the bottom chart shows the revenue estimates with inflation for all of the options this evening we're using the 2024 unit counts that we used in September when we were at September 9th at council as well. And this just gives more of an apples to apples comparison using 2024 as kind of the unit count and then applying those fees to it. The second, and so the revenue for the status quo is relatively flat, and that's due to deflation from the transportation capital expansion fees. The third column on here is labeled baseline that's when we take the status quo or the five tier and then move it to the 17 square foot category tiers and you can see that there is a little bit of a change there moving from the five tiers to the 17 tiers and also wanted to highlight with this option that it does

option one does require the least amount of adjustments as it keeps that five tier square

foot category and also generates relatively similar revenue as I just mentioned option two is the proposed option that was proposed to Council Finance on September 9th this is the option that is from the revised fee studies and on the far right you can see the proposed total this option moves from the five square foot tier categories to the 17 square foot categories and it also moves from

one land use type to three land use types. The light blue line on here is helpful particularly

for the baseline on the right hand side just to show that we're moving from five tiers in our

current fees to seven in each of these single family categories so that you can see there below that blue line that those totals are the same and that's because we're

adding more more tiers in this in the proposed options so in the baseline

option there were not these there wasn't as much granularity so just wanted to highlight that so that to point that out for council the revenue comparison for

this option compared to the baseline so compared to the current fees plus inflation is about a 3% increase in revenue or in that light purple line at the bottom it's about three hundred and thirty thousand dollars compared to the baseline it's about 22 a 22 percent increase for a single-family detached a

three percent increase for single-family attached and a 16 percent decrease for

multifamily or a du the third option for council this evening is a phased option recommending only a phased option for fees with an increase. So those are going to be the fees in the orange boxes. Those fees that are not in the orange boxes with the proposed fees,

those fees actually went down and so not recommending a phased implementation for those

fees. So if we look at the fees in the orange charts for the two-year, we have a two-year

phased option and then also a three-year phased option. For the two-year phased option in 2026,

what that is is it's the baseline total plus the difference between the proposed fees or 50% of the difference between the proposed fees and the baseline fees in 2026. And then in 2027,

it would be the remaining 50% to get to the full fee levels for 2027. For the three-year option in

2026, that would be the baseline total plus 40% of the difference between the proposed fees and

the baseline fees in 2026. Then in 2027, it would be an additional 30% in 2027. And then in 2028, it would be that remaining 30% so that we could get to that full implementation or the full fee

levels. Would also recommend, I think Josh mentioned this earlier, inflation in 2027 and in 2028 if a phased option is selected. The revenue comparison for option three, if you go to the bottom on the light blue and the light purple for the two-year phased option,

In 2026, what we can see is that it would be a decrease in revenue of about 7% compared to the baseline in 2026, or about $830,000. For the three-year option in 2026, it would be about a 10% decrease in revenue compared to the baseline, or about $1.1 million.

And then in 2027, for the three-year option, it would be about a 3% decrease in revenue, or about $360,000. This option does delay the full alignment with the land use code and would generate less revenue in those initial years.

The final option this evening is option four.

This is the fractional implementation option. We have three options for council this evening as part of option four.

Option A is 70% of the proposed fees. Option B is 80% of the proposed fees.

and option C is 90% of the proposed fees.

That percent change column there, that is compared to the baseline.

And then the revenue comparison for option four. For the 70% option, if you come down to the bottom, again, that light blue and the light purple,

for 70%, it would be a 28% decrease in revenue compared to the baseline, or about $3.1 million. The 80% option would be a decrease in revenue of 18% or about $2 million. And then the 90% option would be a decrease in revenue compared to the baseline of 7% or about $810,000.

This option does provide some alignment with the land use code, but it doesn't fully address the mix of residential land use types. It also generates less revenue permanently. And the negative fiscal impacts would grow over time compared to the other options.

And then other revenue sources and reduced expenditures would need to be identified to lessen the impact of this option.

Also for council this evening, we have the same four options for the non-residential fees. On this chart, we have option one and option two. Option one is the status quo, which is inflation-only adjustments for commercial, office, and other services, and industrial warehouses. warehouse. The proposed fees are those fees from the revised fee studies that were brought to Council on September 9th. This slide has options three and options four. The top chart there is option three, which is phased implementation. Again, the same methodology as with the residential fees with the phased implementation. So only fees with an increase, so that would be commercial and industrial warehouse the same two options here for council a two-year phased option or a three-year phased option and then the last option is a fractional implementation same three options as with the residential fee categories option a at 70% of the proposed fees option B at 80% of the proposed fees or option C at 90% of the proposed fees the last slide here shows

the future cadence so we're here this evening for capital expansion fees and transportation

capital expansion fees with proposed fee updates effective january 1st of 2026. the next fee study would be fee study in detailed update would be planned for implementation in 2030. oh excuse me i didn't show that last one there we go and that brings us back to the action for city council this evening which is consideration of an ordinance to revise impact fees effective January 1st of 2026. We have the four options the status quo, the proposed, the phased option, and the fractional And each one of those options does have the detailed fee schedules as an attachment in the packet material. Thank you very much. We'll go to public comment.

Good evening, Mayor and members of City Council. My name is Victoria Hall. I'm the Executive Director of the Home Builders Association of Northern Colorado. we represent builders, suppliers, engineers, contractors that build the homes here in Fort Collins. On behalf of these home building professions in Fort Collins, we respectfully request that you delay the decision on the proposed impact fees before you tonight. We have serious concerns about the proposed fee increases and how they can have a detrimental impact on housing attainability here in Fort Collins. Like any Fort Collins business, homebuilders must absorb increased costs and fees. These proposed fees could dramatically increase the home prices at a time when we need more housing options. For example, according to the National Association of Home Builders, for every $1,000 increase in the median price of a new home, 104 Fort Collins households are priced out of the market. In a time of market volatility, rising material tariffs and labor costs, the last thing that we should be doing is raising home costs for the Fort Collins families. We appreciate council and staff for considering a phased or even a tiered approach, but with even these changes, these fees will significantly raise housing costs for Fort Collins families. We understand the need to fund city services, but we need to continue this dialogue to find thoughtful and effective ways to do so. These fees place the burden on future Fort Collins residents. We ask that the council and staff work more closely with stakeholders and the local home building community to find a more workable and long-term solution. Local home builders will bear most of these fees up front, yet there's been little outreach to our members, and we just simply ask for a more meaningful dialogue before the action is taken on such a significant cost to builders and future residents. Home building professionals can offer thoughtful ideas to balance the city's revenue needs with the demand for more housing. importantly this revenue will not be realized if home builders cannot afford to build here in Fort Collins but until that conversation happens we are eager to collaborate on solutions are victory thank you thank you very much you can

submit the rest of your comments via email okay next good evening madam mayor

and City Council members my name is Pat McMeekin I'm the president of land for Hartford Homes. Tonight on your agenda, we're talking about increased residential CEF fees for single-family homes. Included in the discussion you heard was a wide variety of options for you to consider, some of which we're very supportive of. However, the discussion surrounding any increase in fees for single-family housing should be tempered. First, I'd like to start with what we are supportive of. We are supportive of the expansion of categories classifying how these fees are applied to all different types of housing a broad brush approach to fee application is antiquated and we appreciate the city taking a finer look at this and support these changes when looking at the proposed increases for single-family homes however we disagree that these increases are small and negligible in fact as outlined in the staff memo you received on 1016 it was identified that the future growth areas of the city are amongst the highest total fee levies in the region yes these are driven by outside jurisdiction costs but those factors cannot be ignored when total costs is brought into the discussion that mindset exacerbates the problem when we discuss ces fees we like to keep the discussion to how they impact the single

family home and what we fail to identify is the magnitude of those fees when they are aggregated

across the entirety of a project let's take bloom our project in northeast fort colin as an example bloom when completed will contain roughly 1700 residential units of various types in addition to those units bloom will have roughly 30 acres of commercial when we put our fee estimates together for the residential portion of the project alone the city of Fort Collins will collect over 40 million dollars of which 27 million is allocated specifically to cef fees this is at today's rates Our question to council is, how is this not enough? How is housing not paying its fair share? Tonight, I ask you to put your money where your mouth is, as has been on the official vote for housing. As we have articulated in the past, housing is an industry that is death by $100,000 increases. You have a chance tonight to begin to end that cycle and change that culture. If you choose to take action, we would support option one with the allocation of lot types the staff is presenting. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Next.

Madam Mayor, members of council, Joe Rowan. I would echo the last request that there be another option where you just postpone further consideration of these adjustments on the basis that it still uses a methodology that is inappropriate for Fort Collins. It's not just a numerator. It's adding up the assets that we own as a community and dividing it by the population as if we can replicate everything that we own. And a lot of what we own was paid for well before there was any impact fees. In 1980, as an example, that single-family home on the west side of town, I know the gentleman that lives there, paid $232 in fees. city manager paid over $40,000 for a similar house, similar size home. And when you look at

what happens when we just keep adding these fees, it drives up the cost of housing. And we want to

act like we can provide a safety valve for quote unquote affordable housing. Well, what it's doing is it's making all housing unaffordable in the process, all other housing. And I think what really deserves a lot more scrutiny is the fact that you all have had a recent executive session where you discussed what the state actually allows you to do with those fees. And what we're doing with those fees isn't consistent with the state, at least according to the plans that are sitting out there. So we have a parks plan, we have utility plan, we have a transportation plan that all describe using those fees in ways that aren't permitted under state statute. And yet we don't do a, it's not required under code to do an audit of how those fees are calculated, how they're applied, how they are held, and how they are expended.

We don't do that. We have no idea if we're actually in compliance. And so why would we raise the fees if we don't know how we're using them, if we're using them correctly?

And again, another example is 22%, 24% of the housing units have been built within a mile of CSU. Parks aren't being built within a mile of CSU. They're being built on the edge of town. So who's paying the fee and who's collecting the benefit? And so I think this is where, again, it really required a lot more dialogue internally before they brought it to you and had you take a consideration of the four options that they're presenting. I would say there's a fifth.

Thank you very much.

Next. Hi, Jamie Thorpe with Hartford Homes again. I'm also in District 5 and I'd like to piggyback on what was just stated a moment ago. In Bloom, we have a metropolitan district that is providing a neighborhood park to our residents within Bloom, but we're still being required to pay CEFs for neighborhood parks. so when you look at the impact of that over the course of the residential portion of bloom we are projecting to pay five point six million dollars to the city of Fort Collins for neighborhood parks fees for another neighborhood park that is not in bloom because we are building our own neighborhood park in bloom so our residents are being charged twice we had asked is that there would be more nuance to this and special considerations for situations of that kind thank you thank you anyone else in the audience

Adam?

Adam Hirshhorn, District 2.

The future is a quarter million people in Fort Collins.

We need to grow quickly, and perhaps the traditional wisdom, in theory, that growth pays might not be the way we want to go.

We might want to look in some other directions entirely. I know in theory I prefer degrowth as a global concept, but that doesn't work here.

We're a refuge.

So in order to stimulate the housing that is our priority, we might want to give some wiggle room to that. I would like to challenge the home builders to innovate modes of building, innovate materials, because materials is your cost.

That really makes it out of hand. But if we can somehow give them leeway to skip those and try something new that's less material intensive, that would be great.

Thank you. Thank you. Anyone else? Seeing none. Anyone online? No. Okay. Takes us to Council questions or comments. I assume there's some.

Thank you Mayor and thank you for the presentation.

With regard to the couple of public comments we just had asking for a postponement of this

decision, could you speak to what the impacts might be of that practically?

I mean practically a postponement one I don't we I would want to understand when we would be postponing to and what else council would like us to take up as work right associated with that if if the decision is simply to not adopt updated fees for next year in 2026 then I think what will happen is the fees that we have today would stand practically. Compared to what we've described as status quo, those fees would remain relative. I mean, the revenue that we would anticipate getting from those fees would remain relatively flat. And so that's probably the practical implication from a revenue perspective. I think that I would call back to some of the conversation that we've had previously about legal considerations as well as it certainly wouldn't be consistent with what we found to be one of the best practices that is considered important to having a housing forward set of impact fees. and that is to regularly update the nexus study to ensure that you have the most accurate you know understanding of what the value of the assets that you're using to to derive those fees are so i think there could be some other practical implications about continuing to be further away from a useful nexus study right and the longer the longer that nexus fee is not addressed under the current methodology. I think that it would, it seems very logical that that just means the longer before we end up having to make the change that's implied in the current Nexus study, which is a significant increase in order to keep pace with the cost of, you know, what it basically costs to replicate infrastructure that is consistent with what we've historically replicated.

Again, I want to make sure that we're very clear on what the math does. The math uses our historic construction to generate a per-person factor. That is then applied to current household sizes, as we see in our community, by unit type and square foot.

So the only thing that the replacement value is doing is giving us a factor for what we believe to be a reasonably proportionate, you know, contribution for new development to pay in order for us to keep delivering, you know, the level of service that we've delivered. Those fees are collected and used based on the master plans that you all have adopted. Right. So where we build the next park, what size of park, what kind of park is all determined by those master planning. In order for us to generate a fee, we can only do that in a couple of legal ways. And what we've been doing is looking backwards to see what the cost of that infrastructure is to generate a factor. Once we have that factor, it's a matter of applying it to household size.

Thank you. And I did want to mention that I'm really appreciative of the further stratification of the housing types and the square footage I think that's a huge step forward and I think where I struggle is And I and this is not you guys, you know We did a study based on the way we've always done studies based on the assumptions of level of service that we've always used And I think what council is Some people in council are pushing for is for us to do the study in a different way with different assumptions and we can't get in our time machine and do that. I do recognize we're working within the confines of the previous study. I guess for me, worst case scenario, I really think it's important that we do some pretty,

that we dive really deep into how is the study going to look different next time so that we are looking at things like.

Infill so that we are looking at level of service. I mean, if we're in a tough budgetary situation and we need to adjust level of service to assist with our housing stock, I think we need to do that.

And so I think that's where I'm running into the wall is we have a study. I do understand that there are legal implications of not bringing our fees up to speed with that study. And I think the assumptions are flawed or maybe not where we're heading.

So that's just me talking. But yeah, I guess I'm just saying we really need to take a good look at a study. I'm hearing that from my colleagues as well.

Fort Collins has changed so much, and it's time for our process to change as well. And I don't know that we can do that at this point, unfortunately.

I mean, I'll just chip in and say, you know, thank you. Thanks for the options.

you know i can see the creative thinking that you when we asked you go back and that's been popular and we're very appreciative of that i can also understand why people are concerned with sort of business as usual not the status quo but the business as usual because but i would like to comment that the business as usual got us where we are today but where we are today is pretty nice

city also so we can recognize that with a lot of amenities and high quality of life

I think the concern is, is that what we're going to keep doing in the future? Given, you know, I was told today that lumber is going up 30%, right? So our future isn't the same. So probably our business processes are going to need to be altered.

I don't know if that's now, but certainly they will.

Because the other thing is when we have the increased rates, we're assuming the same amount of building.

Is that true in the calculation? Or did our actuary accounting say, oh, if it goes up 28%, we're going to see a drop-off in building?

So the reality is we have no idea exactly how much revenue the fees will create, right? Because we don't know what's going to be built.

Built, correct.

Right?

But did we take into account that at a certain price point, we're going to have a drop off in building?

What we did is we looked at the most recent full year of construction activity that we had, which was 2024. And we basically assumed what would happen if the same exact construction that occurred in 2024 occurs now. And so, no, we didn't we didn't look at sensitivity to say, OK, what happens if, you know, we hit a certain price point and that, you know, that impacts the rate of change. You know, I think that we have certainly heard from, and I think you heard it tonight in public comment, right, that there are some changes in the proposed approach that will likely make some individuals look more closely to different kinds of housing type because there will be cost savings with multifamily and single family attached at smaller size. um again what we've tried to do is bring forward a system that aligns with the land use code that's

looking for greater variability as well no i appreciate that and i appreciate the changes you made and and i don't think it's bad even to incentivize you know sort of smaller houses you know those sorts of things um i think that's why just for what it's worth i'd be interested in the third option to phase it in because there's a lot of things that are out of our control as well I mean, I'm thinking mostly tariffs. And I'm also thinking some regional impacts and some differentiator in their fees and those sorts of things. That gives us a little more time to possibly adjust if we need to. I mean, we have a highly uncertain future.

So those are my comments. I'm appreciative of your work.

I'm sensitive to the concerns.

I do think that business as usual is going to change all over the place.

And to be as flexible, as nimble as possible, I think we should adopt number three, the two or three year phase.

Those are my opinions.

Emily. Yeah, I just have a question. And I think during the presentation and in the materials, it says that if we adopt the phase approach, we delay alignment with the land use code updates. Can you walk? I didn't understand that part.

Yeah, I mean, the rationale behind that statement is that adopting the full fees, right, creates the full alignment with the impacts that we see based on different unit sizes. And so if we believe that is what constitutes full alignment with land use code, that's sort of what we're saying. So we're basically saying by adopting the proposed fees, that's the closest form of alignment with the land use code because it reflects the actual full cost of impact of each kind of unit. So that's what that statement is based upon. I suppose that's a statement we could have differing opinions on.

Okay. I think that's helpful. And then if it was the phased approach, what happens? I'm just looking at the future cadence side. What happens if we chose a three-year and we get to 28? Then we do inflation, then we stick to the schedule?

I mean, historically, that's what we've done. In 2017, we did a phased approach. And I think we tried to fund and move forward with an impact fee study. as quickly basically on the same cadence. That's what brought us to 23. So it certainly would be, unless we received direction otherwise from council, I think that's what staff would anticipate doing is moving forward with that operational cadence. Use three years to phase in, do a year of straight inflation, and then update to a new study. If a council wants to direct looking at a different approach, sooner right that is also something that staff would We obviously would respond to any kind of council priorities that may come our way or council direction Regarding that cadence but absent any instruction. Otherwise we bring the next update in 2030

That was my next question So thank you about and how long do you say we wanted to take a different approach to this study? How long do those studies usually take?

That's a complicated question that I don't know that I have the ability to completely answer right now, but let me explain why. I think the study itself wouldn't take more time to complete than our current buy-in study. What would take the time is making sure that we have adequate capital improvement planning and cost estimating to be a solid basis for then moving to, if the preference is to say, shift to a plan-based approach, to be able to have the standard that would meet kind of the requirement for us to have sort of a strong rough proportionality sort of you know fee basis and that I think is the thing that I'm not certain exactly how much time that might take for us to get all of our capital planning that we currently you know have at maybe conceptual level or slightly above up to the right level I'm not even sure what exactly that right level would need to be so there's kind of an unknown piece of work that has to be completed there to if you will get the inputs right because now we're moving to having you know cost estimates for future projects instead of looking at replacement value and that's that's just a different basis that we don't have

at our disposal today okay i think it would be helpful between first and second reading just to get a time estimate of how long that would be helpful um yeah do you yeah josh if i may because

I think that's a valid point, but plans could be, if one anticipated that that might be direction, we can't predict who's on council and all that, to move to a more plan-based or something, because I think there's some validity to looking at a different way of doing things. I don't have that exactly figured out. Some of the way we do parks, and I'm not talking about minimizing the funding or anything, but the way that all shakes out, I think there's some room for that.

But those things could be worked on in 2028 and 2029. the plans, that wouldn't have to be all done in 2030 so that we could be ready to rock in 2030. So I'm saying it could be shorter.

I'm saying that I think it could be shorter than might have been implied because that work could be being done in 28 and 29 when we redo it in 30.

Yes. Thank you for the opportunity to clarify. If we were to stay on the same cadence of bringing our next study in 2030, as long as the departments that needed to enhance their capital planning and capital budgeting had the right resources and were given the priority to do that, that could probably happen before the 2030 timeframe. I guess I was interpreting the question as, if we wanted to move faster than waiting until 2030, what would be the minimum amount of time that we might need to be able to get the right data as a basis that we could then do a study and we will bring as good an estimate as we can of what that time frame will be back before second reading.

Okay, I probably misunderstood both of you, so thanks for that clarification, because I don't think if it is 20, 30 people, we could have a lot of the work done way before then. Thanks. Absolutely. Thank you.

Yeah, of course. Yeah, my question was more thinking about the timing of the phased in or fractional and updating a study and how those two things would align. So I think just having a general estimate of a new study approach would be helpful I don't think it's been a secret about how I don't agree with the current approach to our Impact fees and I and it's not a reflection of your work I think that you all did exactly what we asked for in the in the boundaries that we could I just Similar to councilmember pot Yandy just don't I have a hard time supporting increasing the impact fees when I don't feel like they are reflective of of what we should be charging because of the the service and um the examples of when we're double charging for parks i don't know if that's how that works um or the these different things that we're talking about housing is one of the biggest impacts to people's lives and these things make a difference i know that in the funding stack it usually says three percent but you add up all the city fees water storm everything that's more than three percent and really looking at you know our city priority was operationalizing affordable housing and to me this is one of the levers that we have control over along with our full funding stack and so while it may be a small part it is a larger piece that when it comes together and the more we keep impacting these little pieces piece by piece the larger impact it has so I have a hard time increasing impact fees at this moment but it's not because of your your work

Thank you. So I never want us to charge a penny more than we can or should on impact fees, but we're here tonight on changing the way we do things

with the 17 categories and all of that, which I think has been a long time coming. Thank you to those that suggested that.

So I actually support the staff recommendation, but also perhaps moving, accelerating if future councils want that.

It'd probably be only by a year, but a year is a year. Maybe it's a year and a half of looking at different options of way to do it, if that's the sticking point. So we've lied on the right option. And then every few years, council members don't have to go through this. I won't miss this part of it, although it's important.

So what I support tonight is the staff recommendation.

If there was council support, because I don't want to lose the other elements of this change of the 17 categories, et cetera, I'd support a phased in approach. I don't like it, but I'd support it. My preference and probably the only one I would vote for would be the would be the two year option. I think that's fair. But I think the phased in approach then kind of tries to listen to what we're hearing. I'm still not convinced. that fees have, they have little, if anything, to do, they have something to do with the cost of housing. I have little faith in that they have little to do with the price of housing.

I think they're mostly market-driven issues. I don't want us charging any more than we can or should, and the important one's the second part, or should,

and if we have a refined process in the future, I won't be here, but I would be for that if we did, if we had a better outcome that everybody could think, wow, that's a better way of looking at it. I'd be all for that. But that's just my thing that I don't think, I think we always want to be fair and have good processes, not because I believe it's going to have any impact on affordable housing whatsoever, because I do not.

Anybody else?

Councilman.

Thank you. Thanks for all the great work and really listening to what you heard from us. I think I was really struck by the year 1996 that it's been in place that long.

You know, we're talking about budgeting for outcomes that it's outworn its welcome, I would say. And I think using this same way of determining fees for over 30 years, a lot has shifted in 30 years. And so I'd like to see us change that up. and also, you know, looking at these best practices, like really looking at geographic targeting, I think would be great to include as well. So I kind of echo what Council Member Olson said, like it would be great if our incoming council really maybe speed up this whole process and move us forward to a different way of determining these fees as well. With that said, I would also be in favor of the,

the phased-in approach and the two-year Approach as well, but hopefully with a more sped out process from a council that comes forward next year.

Thank you. Anyone else? Councilman Wilson. If you would like to make a motion, you can make a motion anytime you'd like.

Let's just see if there's any further discussion. Just real quick. I know. It's fine. Anybody else? Try to get along. No. No comment. Okay. Go ahead. Okay.

I'd move on first reading of ordinance number 168-2025, amending chapter 7.5 of the code of the city of Fort Collins to update the capital expansion fees and the transportation expansion fees 3A. I believe. Is that the two-year phase-in option? Yes, that is correct.

Do I hear a second?

Second. Seconded by Canonical. Is there further discussion?

I mean, I'll say something. You know, I mean, I sort of fed the three-year, but I think it's not a bad compromise. It gives a little more flexibility.

It's a tough vote because no one wants to see us raising.

No one wants to increase on top of all the other increases that everybody's saying. We just raise utility rates.

You know, we know that costs are going up for the builders and for us,

and it's just a tough thing to do. And they also kind of think it's a fair thing to do for the rest of the residents in the city and our future residents. It's just that we just wish it weren't like this. I'll just say that. So with that, I plan to support this motion.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

Francis no Olsen yes but Yandy yes Canonico yes

Gatowski yes aren't yes the motion passes five to one with one absolutely okay thank you very much

we will go on to item 14 now

is there a staff presentation

there is and again mayor if we can have just a moment to switch at our staff teams here let's just do it we have a request for a bathroom bag so let's just take them

five perfect thank you

Hello, Fort Collins. We're ready to go on item 14. Is there a staff presentation? There is, Mayor. We are ready for our fourth and final discussion item of the evening regarding our tree policies. And I'm going to turn it over to Dean Klinger, our Community Services Director.

Thank you, Kelly. And good evening, Mayor and Council. Just some really quick context for me, and I'll get this presentation right to Sylvia and Kendra here.

But just a reminder for you all and anyone listening, we're here with tree policies tonight. These policies originated in the Urban Forest Strategic Plan with that clear direction to improve tree policies with very careful consideration of other council priorities, including, of course, housing.

The recommendations are based on a broad community outreach process and best practices in the industry. And then it's just always great to start these presentations with a reminder about all the benefits that trees provide in our community, including shade, stormwater improvements, benefits to residents and businesses, and of course, wildlife and habitat.

I'll just remind folks that these are the same policies we presented at the work session just a few weeks ago. Since that time, they have been to PNZ, and we have tried to clarify how we've communicated the intent of some of those policies.

So just in a nutshell, there's five different policies. These folks will go through some of the details, but they're really intended to simplify, make these policies more predictable, and to shift our emphasis to larger, more valuable trees for mitigation. So with that, I'll hand this right over to Sylvia.

Great. Thanks so much, Dean. And good evening, Sylvia Tatman-Burras, Policy and Project Manager, City Manager's Office. We're going to go through these sides. You've seen these before, and then we've made some tables for clarification of the recommendations this evening.

So I'll start here with a little bit of context. As Dean mentioned, we've really tried to balance the mitigation requirements while supporting the mixed-use and affordable housing development, and then trying to increase simplicity and predictability of these policy requirements. This map here really depicts where we're seeing some of the loss of canopy across the community. Certainly the existing policies that we have right now, we have seen an increase in trees, of course, across the community. We have good tree canopy coverage. And where we're seeing loss is actually where we want to incentivize infill development within our transit-oriented development overlay district that we talked about this evening. And so these policies sort of aim to, again, as Dean mentioned, try to save a lot of those larger trees that have those larger canopies that take a lot more time to have smaller trees grow into. And so that's what we focused on this evening, and we'll go through those tonight.

We did try to align these policies with the council priorities, and the goals that we outlined

for this project, we're trying to balance those requirements with certainly new development,

especially in those higher intensity areas,

and then increasing the simplicity and predictability of those requirements, and then prioritizing the protection of larger trees. And with that, I'll hand it over to Kendra.

Great. Thanks, Sylvia. Good evening, Council. Again, I'm Kendra Boot, the City Forester. And I'm going to go over the five different policies that Dean alluded to earlier.

So the first policy that we have this evening is establishing a commercial tree removal permit for trees 15 inches and larger.

The idea behind this is really to have additional conversation around where we may be able to save some of our more valuable trees in our community.

One thing I do want to note around this policy is that this is post-development.

So think about our commercial developments that are established and thriving with mature trees.

One thing that I'd also like to note is that we are not expecting any increase in staffing or resources needed to support this policy change.

The next policy that we have for you this evening is enhancing measures for tree protection during construction. This is really just an update around best management practices. some of our fencing practices and so forth as well as tree protection signage the idea behind this policy really is if if as a development if we're going to commit to preserving some trees on site we want to make sure that we set those trees up for success as best as we can with these best management practice improvements the next policy is creating a three-year establishment period for street trees think about when a development is ready to landscape and plant their street trees current practices there is no timeline for when the city takes over care for the maintenance of these trees so the idea of creating a three-year three-year timeline creates a more predictable

approach of when the development can kind of see that light at the end of the tunnel when they're done replacing trees and the city assumes or takes over

responsibility of those trees. The fourth policy that we have for you this evening really relates to tree mitigation. However, it is a simplification of the code and an opportunity to reduce some of the monocultures that we have for undesired species in our community. So in the existing code

today, we have these exemptions in place for Russian olive ash and Siberian elm, but they all

have their own separate diameter thresholds. What we are proposing to you this evening is to

set that diameter threshold at 11 inches and under, so we wouldn't mitigate these species at 11 inches and under. And we'd like to also add in Tree of Heaven as a species that's a

noxious weed in our community. Some of the ideas behind this really is to help us improve the overall diversity of our urban forests.

Then also I'd like to mention that this aligns our code with the city's emerald ash borer management strategy. We do not recommend treating ash trees less than or 11 inches and under, and we do not treat or chemically treat ash trees less than 11.

so the final policy that we have for you this evening is strictly relates to tree mitigation and how we mitigate canopy loss in our community the tree mitigation policies again are unique to each community and what is just like sylvia had mentioned earlier we are starting to see less greenfield development and more infill development and infill development is where we have our most mature existing canopy for example we do understand that there can be tensions in relation to this tree mitigation policy change and we did we really did try to balance these proposed requirements with councils and the community's priorities around supporting mixed use and affordable housing. So just real quickly, we do currently mitigate trees one to six value. It's fairly subjective from staff member to staff member. So what we're proposing is to set a tree mitigation value per size class. And so for trees that are six inches on up to 29 inches. We have a very small number for tree mitigation per size class. Once we reach that 30-inch diameter range, it significantly increases,

really trying to incentivize and prioritize those larger trees in those areas. One thing that does not exist in our code today is the reductions that you see in the bottom right part of this slide so we have worked in a reduction a 50 reduction for trees saved on a development site and a 75 reduction for trees saved on affordable housing sites in addition to that is a payment in lieu fee reduction for tree planting measures or extra tree planting measures that are done on site so for example if a development decides to utilize silver cells under sidewalks to add to the health and longevity of trees on that site. We would take that equal value or cost of that silver cell and reduce the mitigation fee by that same amount. So that's just one example.

So here are some of the benefits of what we're proposing this evening, of course, as Dean mentioned. into just really trying to modernize,

simplify, and create additional predictability in our existing code.

We're really trying to prioritize and also incentivize the protection of those larger trees while trying to balance the councils and communities priorities.

So here are the five policies again in front of you, just listed more simply. We do have the tree mitigation scenarios in the packets. We don't plan to go through those tonight, but if you have questions, feel free to ask questions.

And yeah, with that, does Council wish to adopt the proposed tree policy changes this evening? And with that, that concludes our presentation. We'd be happy to answer any questions you may have. Thanks a lot. Let's go to the public. Come on down.

There's linoleum there.

Good evening, Jamie Thorpe with Hartford Homes in District 5. There's a few great things in here, like stratification of tree types gives us more predictability, and I don't think that we are particularly concerned with some of the replacement values. But we do have a bunch of other concerns. So one, I think this data is misleading. We've planted hundreds of trees in bloom,

but the map shows we've lost about 25% of our cover, it was a cornfield. There are hundreds and hundreds of trees now that were not there before. The information is not clear about the type of commercial tree loss. I don't think the city's proved that it actually has a problem. Redevelopment money is going where the trees are being lost, which means the concept of the 15-minute city is actually working. We think that the council is getting what the council asked for.

Additionally, the development community does not agree with the statement that we're supporting a three-year warranty if that's come up in context and conversation. Agreed three is better than five, but standard commercial warranties on landscape providers are about a year. The core problem is that the city does not permit the responsibility for trees to move with land ownership. So we have instances of trees being transferred day in and day out to an HOA, to a homeowner, they'll back their car across it. The city comes to us and makes us plant the tree again. HOA pays somebody to do landscape maintenance and kills the tree. The city comes to us and we do a new tree. So that's the problem. The person doing the damage is not the one held responsible. We're really concerned about the planted in phases requirements. Because if you have a three-year build out of a phase of a development like we do in Bloom, and then you have a three-year warranty, you could be looking at up to six years. While we currently have an escrow system set up with this city, I don't see that codified in this language. And our development team in-house says that they have a lot of challenges with the current system. The supporting code ordinances, such as double tree lawns, I think understate the issues associated with these. The double tree lawn has major problems with fire apparatus access to three-story buildings, which is a known problem. The city's land use code, PFA's code, and Lucas standards prevent you from getting fire apparatus access from a connector street. this has the potential to push those buildings further away exacerbating that problem and I don't think that this creates a meaningful way to transfer density that is lost if the council wants to do more infill development particularly in these areas need to find a way

to thank you sorry thank you very much Joe hearing me mad mayor members of council I guess This is the last time I get to talk to you tonight. I'm going to focus on 174 and pushing back a little bit on the notion that we're taking affordability into account. You've made it clear that compact 15-minute city is your desire. Infill development is ideal. And yet that's the development that's going to run into a buzzsaw here, literally. because typically on an infill, it's very difficult to try to keep a big old tree and still use the rest of the lot. And what this policy is considering is how do we replace the aesthetic and environmental value of a 100-year-old tree today? And you can't. You simply can't. So what you're doing is you're having infill development now pay for trees that are going to have to be planted somewhere else. So this really is another impact fee. So it's another development impact fee and just another name. And the legalities are different because you're calling this a tree policy and not an impact fee. But it truly is. When you're doing infill development and you've got to replace a tree that's been there for 100 years and you've got to act like it's still there by planting 20 more trees, it ain't going on that lot. It's going somewhere else in the city. And so you're having a private, either a homeowner or renter, actually paying to put trees in somebody else's neighborhood just like they're paying for parks to go into somebody else's neighborhood. And we're calling that being sensitive to affordability. And that just doesn't wash. I'd really like to see where they ran this through the affordable housing folks and got some actual input from people that develop housing. And how can you do that in fill economically in accordance with your 15 minute city concept and still have to pay more money than you would to go out into a cornfield? So thank you.

Thank you. Anyone else? go ahead Adam

Adam Hirschhorn District 2 I think this policy is really necessary going forward when we think about what it's going to require to be ecologically feasible the infill is important but we have to think three-dimensionally now if there is a concern with the fire access that's something that needs to be resolved because the canopy can't turn into fuel later thanks thank you next

Thank You mayor and council Fred Hombrecht district 4 I'm here to advocate for the adoption of the plan and speaking from personal experience the first item about trees removed on commercial property is an active thing that is happening in the community. We have a situation where Fort Collins grew a tremendous amount in Kelly's time as mayor, and those trees, as 40 years old, have great value, but there is no way to maintain that value unless there's greater accountability for the owners of those properties to maintain those trees. So I've had a career of working with developers, and as an arborist and landscape architect, trees are the answer. Our development community is always going to say we need less so we can provide more to our clients. trees are not the item to remove from that equation so thank you thank you

anyone else anyone online okay that goes to council questions and comments

sir uh councilman I want to get in here first because I know councilmember Olson has a lot of a lot of thoughts um I guess this is a practical question just to help me to visualize the size of trees. So there was recently what I consider a pretty egregious removal of trees from a private property. That really made me upset.

Kendra, did you have a chance to go out to that site and do you have an estimate of how big of a diameter those trees were that were removed?

Yeah, absolutely. So the seven trees that were removed on site were between 15 inches and 22 inches in diameter. Okay.

So those would have fallen under the second tier of the replacement value, the two for one. I don't have my, or is it bigger than that?

So, yeah, so there's two things here. The policy number one around the commercial tree removal permit would actually help support something like this from happening in the future. May not, you know, may not solve the issue. But you would have consulted before the work. The idea was that we would have consulted, yes. And I think what you're alluding to is the tree mitigation, which was the fifth policy that we talked about. So this would be in the, it would actually be, there's, let's see, 14 trees. Four or five trees, depending on the size class. Yeah. Okay. Per tree.

Would you say if, let's say that those seven trees had to each be replaced with two young trees, would you be approaching at all the amount of canopy that was lost from the seven trees that were taken down? No. Not even close.

Okay. It's just helpful for me to, unfortunately, I have a tangible example that I'm considering this through the lens of,

So I appreciate that.

I have a question. I mean, there's a massive tree taken down by City Park Lake. So how does the city respond to our own mitigation policies? Do we charge ourselves or like when I assume it was dead or what happens there?

Yeah, so that's a great question. We operate, I mean, that is a city maintained tree. and with the reason for removal was that it was starting to fail. We've been monitoring it for several years and there was a lot of pockets of decay down at the base. So while the canopy actually looked very healthy, it was starting to heave on the west side and became an impact or could be potentially unsafe for the path.

So to answer your question, we try and plant several trees for every tree that we remove.

That's been tricky with funding in the past as we are continuing to play catch up.

But it's something we require of the private sector.

So we do on our capital projects,

but for when we remove trees, we try and replace those trees or try and replace the tree with a couple trees.

Okay, so I suppose what I'm getting at is the burden. So do we not follow our own tree policy because it's too expensive?

We don't have the resources to follow that policy currently.

So are we sympathetic to the private sector who says the same thing? Yes. So have we mitigated for that in these policies?

I mean... No, because the policy currently in our land use code is one to six trees. So are you talking... Oh, sorry.

I mean, are we taking into account that we can't even afford to follow? I just...

Yeah, I understand your point.

But do we or do we not?

Do we require something in the private sector? we do not require of ourselves?

I mean, if the answer is yes, that's fine. I'm just curious.

We do on commercial projects, but for internally, we are a general funded department, and so we do the best with the resources that we have.

I understand, but I'm just, my point is we're setting up really expensive policies, right? Yeah, I think.

I'll just add one piece if I could, and Kendra can help fill in, but I would say for the vast majority of city projects, so maybe the equivalent of a developer, so if a stormwater is doing a project or a street project, all of those internal projects are subject to the same mitigation requirements that we would require, and they'd be updated here. What Kendra's referring to is the work of the forestry department, and really the only reason they would be taking down a tree is for the safety reasons that she was mentioning. So a little bit of a different use case where we're not developing, adding, or a project doing that. But yes, in those cases, we wouldn't always be able to follow those mitigation

requirements. I hope that helps. All right. That's hard for me to hear. Okay. Anyway, Council Member Pagliari. I just have a clarifying question, though.

I would assume with this policy, it falls under a different umbrella, I'm hearing, because it's not a development project. But also, that would be considered poor condition if it was on a private property and they had to remove it, correct? So they would not have to mitigate it yeah that is correct okay thank you for the where per Tim can

someone address Jamie's questions I only captured I think three of them which was tree replacement responsibility and then phased approach and development and the double tree planting conflicting with PFA code yeah so I think the first one she

had mentioned too is around transfer with land ownership. And I understand the sentiment there. We too, managing trees in the public right of way, have trees adjacent to many, many homes and businesses. And those trees are subject to trees getting hit by cars, people turning off their irrigation and so forth. So we do not currently do that. We don't transfer with ownership for trees in the public right-of-way when we're within the development review process.

So for that one, as to the mayor's point, do we replant every time?

Yes, we do.

Sorry, I don't have all the questions.

I think the next one is the phased approach and development. So how does the three-year work if it's phased in over three years?

Yeah. So at the beginning of each phase, we do start the timeline for the three-year establishment period. The developer would be responsible for replacing trees within that three-year timeline. We do two inspections per year. When we get to the end of the three-year establishment period, we would do our last inspection, and then the developer would be done with replacing trees in that phase, and the city would take over care and responsibility of those trees.

Okay, and is that clear in the code? Because I know that Jamie is an expert in reading the code, and if that's not clear, is there some way that we need to clarify that it's not for the whole development, it's for the phase of the development?

I believe it's clear, but I can double.

Maybe just a follow-up with them would be? Okay, and then the double tree planting conflicting with PFA code.

So we can follow up by second rating on that and just double check and make sure with PFA that that is indeed an issue.

Okay, that would be helpful. And just so I know, so that it doesn't come back on consent, what the double tree planting is with 174?

Yeah, so it's not a requirement in the code. It's just an additional opportunity if we have, for example, a mixed-use building that takes up a lot of space, green space, if you will, that we could add a double row of street trees to allow for a larger right-of-way and more green space adjacent to that building.

So it's not again. It's not a minimum requirement. It's just another opportunity for a development to reduce their payment in lieu

Fee I think that's helpful. I just don't think we should have conflicting codes at all Thank you

Possibly we could address that between first and second reading I won't be able to support that if it conflicts of council member

Dr. Kutowsky.

Just a couple of things maybe for clarification for me too. It seems like when we were talking about trees and replacing them,

I remember, Kendra, I think it was you saying that you assessed how long a tree might live

when considering whether it was worth keeping. Am I interpreting that right?

I just wondered, that's my first question, and the second one is easier.

How do you determine where trees will be planted if they're not going to be planted at the development site? Yes, so through our inspections of reviewing if the trees are healthy or not, And if they need replacement, of course, we're looking for multiple things. There's a lot of improvement that we've made on those inspections from tagging the trees at the nurseries to marking all the locations in the field. And then also making sure that we're collaborating with the landscape contractors to ensure that the trees are planted properly from the get-go. So all of those kind of small improvements over the years have really helped with improving the tree's conditions in these situations. So, and let's see, what was the, sorry, what was the second question?

How do you determine where, if trees, if due to the loss of a tree, other trees need to be planted in lieu? how do you determine where those would go?

Yeah, so we try and focus on, well, one, I'll pause. We do have our newly adopted urban forest strategic plan that really shows us the areas where we need canopy most in our community. With the payment and loop fee for mitigation, we try and focus on areas where trees have been vacant or tree sites have been vacant for the longest amount of time and trying to fill those voids, especially along arterials where there's a lot of urban heat with those kind of corridors.

When we, like when I'm driving down the street and I see some dead trees along the parkway, would that be an opportunity to replace those with other trees that are going to be planted somewhere?

so they could be replacement?

Yes. Yeah. Along with the other Riken sites that we have in our inventory.

Cool. All right. Thank you.

Further questions? Come on.

Yeah. I just had one other question that Jamie brought up was regarding codifying the escrow account.

Yeah. So nothing is changing with the landscape escrow that exists in the land use code today that will still exist.

That does work well.

For example, we use that a lot with, say, they need the CO for or the certificate of occupancy for the home and it's the middle of summer or the middle of winter.

It's not a great time to plant a tree.

And so the developer is able to get a temporary certificate of occupancy, and that's where the escrow kind of plays into that on a case-by-case basis, but also goes out to the greater landscape escrow needs of the development.

Okay, thank you. That's helpful.

Further questions? Councilman Browson.

Sure. I feel like I have to talk now because you said I had a bunch of things.

I have a mine's very confused tonight because I'm for good tree policies these don't go far enough for me but I want them to pass so I'll have a few questions but I also the rational mind takes over when I hear things about we turn it over to an HOA and then we're still responsible and so I need to flesh that out a little because I'm for the three-year thing which is better than it could go seven years back and forth. So I think it's better for developers and more consistent and predictable. On the other hand, if it's formally turned over to an HOA, why is the

developer responsible for that? I'll take a crack at that one. Kendra, you can chime in too. But I think, you know, the idea is that the tree is established over a certain amount of time. the causes for why a tree might be replaced might predate the turnover to the HOA. So if the tree is not viable from the nursery, that may not manifest until after that turnover day. So it's really hard to get that policy both ways. So obviously from the city, we would have to track through multiple owners if we did that way. So I think it's just one where there's no perfect policy. We've chosen this side of it.

Okay. It's a fair question and a fair answer, and a fair question of the people that raised it as well. But, yeah, because I think it's actually more in their favor now, which is fine with me and for the trees to get them to take. I don't have all that much until we get to the individual things, probably.

I did have under one of the goals, prioritize and incentivize protection of larger trees while maintaining the current level of the tree canopy coverage.

That's not very aspirational. I don't mean we codify increasing the level of canopy coverage. I'm not for that. But it just says while maintaining. Do we not have any goals without increasing any requirements to increase tree canopy over time?

So, of course, we have goals around increasing canopy. However, and with today's code, we have seen an increase in canopy, at least, especially over the last 10 years, like we found in the Urban Forest Strategic Plan canopy study. um we have other things that impact tree health thinking about um climate more um frequent or extreme temperature fluctuations uh early or late freezes we have um heavy wet snows that happen here we also have emerald ash borb and so there are a lot of variables that could impact um our canopy cover going forward and so we know that for example development is always going to help add canopy in with our existing landscape standards but there's other factors that kind of play into it so maintaining is kind of the goal we're going for here with trying to preserve some of our larger trees even though we know we're going to have to lose some

along the way okay and then between first and second reading and i hope we get there because

councils raise some good and fair questions and i hope we get to second reading in that i think I think you eventually got to the answer, but it took a while that the mayor asked, and I believe the mayor Pro Tem followed up on, that on all of the development projects, we play by the same rules, our development projects. Please correct me when I'm wrong, as always. And then if this was a health and safety issue, I believe I heard you say, but please get it in writing between first and second reading, so if this moves forward, people can be comfortable on second reading, that if it's a health and safety issue, although we'll replace it, other people might not be required to do so if the tree had had reached its useful life once you do that if we do the new inspection thing and go yeah the tree nut comes needs to come down and

if they don't want to replace they don't have to that's not entirely true so they would actually need to replace the tree because it's required as a part of the approved landscape right but

they'd have to replace a tree yeah a tree which could be the two inch caliper tree correct right and then the other thing that I agree with them on is that I think we need to find ways then to implement that same thing for us because I just have a trouble believing that we're tearing down 500 trees that are of a certain size that we need to replace them and if we could two inch caliber trees, that's not too high of a bar for us. So I'd recommend that you come forward with something on second reading that says we're going to follow the policies we set for everyone else, because I've always been consistent on that, that I don't want policies for other people that we don't have to follow. And if I'm completely up-based or we're completely up-based, then prove that between first and second reading. But otherwise, I think we should follow the same policies that we set for other people.

It won't take too long.

I brought my little measuring tape today because I was out measuring trees.

Almost all trees have value. I disagree. Sorry about that. You've thrown ash in of 11 inches or smaller have no value. I don't think you can compare

ash to Siberian elm or Russian olive, although they both have wildlife qualities as well, because we kind of go at this from a human-centric view, and that's the home and the food source and the shelter and the resting places for a number of other animals, birds and mammals. So

that gets somehow lost in all of this discussion why I'm into trees, other than the shade and climate and heat islands and those kinds of things. But I guess I take objection, but I'll have to live with it as part of the team play. It's another example. I think we go too far in some of this that we're throwing ash in with Siberian elm and Russian olive. And Siberian elm and Russian olive of a certain size, and I was unaware until you schooled me that we already have that in the ordinances for ash at 8, Russian olive at 9. Siberia and Elmant 11 and this just gives more predictability and consistency.

I still don't like the numbers of the size because they do provide

wildlife habitat and other visual things to the community. And then just a couple other things that 40 years ago from this chair I was promoting density and infill because of the

benefits although we never really got a handle on sprawl at the city or county level but it was related to sprawl and use of resources and those kinds of

kinds of things but I don't think it's personally to me it's not the only value density is not the only value we're after in town as much there's other densities the other values that I put as as equal to as density so I just have to say that, that it's not, we're not just chasing density, in my opinion. There's other values that

come into play. And I guess I already kind of said it, these all, I appreciate your work, and I hope council trusts you because you don't give off the impression that you're looking at having the strictest, most rigorous tree policies in the country, because we don't. I pointed out Seattle and many of the other places where things grow a lot easier than they do here. So I guess you've probably done exactly as council asked you to do. So I don't want to be seen as picking on you or criticizing because I think you did exactly what we asked you to do. I just wish it was a little different.

But you did great work, and I appreciate it, and I hope it passes.

I'll have to swallow kind of hard, but I hope these things pass tonight.

thank you anybody else i suppose that um in summary um i cannot support anything that creates a conflict in code because the resident gets stuck in the middle and they i have seen examples of this and it is um it breaks my core value in government which is trust and if the people don't trust the government, then they won't know which policies to follow. So that's one. And then so in between, I mean, I'm going to vote yes on all these because we have two weeks. But in the second point I'd like to make, and then I'd like to make a request, I also cannot support any policy that asks more of our residents than we ask of ourselves. Again, trust in government is a core value of mine. And could you imagine how it breaks trust in the community for someone who sees that and then like, well, we're not doing that. I just, I can't abide by that. So I'm not sure where this lives within these suggested policies, but between now and seconds, I'd like a list of where that exists and how it can be rectified. And the same with the first point in terms of conflict in code. And then I'll evaluate the policies based on those two criteria, and I hope we can get there because I can't imagine that we actually believe in setting a higher bar for residents than we do ourselves or that we believe in conflicting code. So if we could rectify those between now and then, I mean, most, well, then I could get to yes. I'll vote yes tonight to advance it for two weeks.

And I'll look forward to those memos where it calls it out and then what the changes were to rectify it. Anyone else?

Emily yeah, I'll support most of these I'm gonna not support 172 or 174 to give us that that's what the PFA and the Three-year phased approach ones because I don't want them coming back on consent I want them back on Discussion so that we can make sure that we follow up with those so is there another one that the mayor is referring to where we Have concerns that we're not following our own city code because of budget constraints outside of 172 on 74 Okay, thank you

Yeah, I think we would pull those anyway, but yeah sure whatever that's that sounds good anybody else

Come somewhere else. I was just wondering if we should have some humor and irony and all I'll make the motions if people want

I just knew it. I'm the one that really is not wild about them because I wanted more but if we're ready I'll move a adoption of ordinance 169-2025 amending article 5 section 10 of the land use code of the city of

fort collins for the purpose of requiring a commercial tree removal permit second

sorry for discussion saying no please call the roll

olsen yes patyandi yes canonico yes katowski yes aren't yes francis yes

Motion passes 6-0 with 1-absent.

Mayor, I move adoption of Ordinance No. 170-2025, amending Chapter 27, Article 32 of the Code of the City of Fort Collins for the purpose of requiring a commercial tree removal permit.

Second.

Moved and seconded by Gutowski. Further discussion? Seeing none, will the clerk please call the roll?

Pat Yandy? Yes. Canonico? Yes. Gutowski? Yes. Arndt? Yes. Francis? Yes. Olsen? Yes. Motion passes 601 absent. Next up?

Mayor, I move adoption of ordinance number 171-2025, amending article 5, section 10 of the Land Use Code of the City of Fort Collins for the purpose of requiring additional enhanced street protection measures during construction.

Second. Second by Canonico. Over discussion. Sitting down with clerk, please call the roll. Canonico?

Yes. Gatowski? Yes. Arndt? Yes. Francis? Yes. Olsen? Yes.

Pat Yandy? Yes. Measure passes 6-0 with one absent. Next up.

Mayor, I move adoption of Warrens No. 172-2025, amending Article 5, Section 10 of the Land Use Code of the City of Fort Collins for the purpose of establishing a three-year establishment period for street trees.

second

so moved and seconded by Conoco oh sorry Gutowski I was

is there further discussion I have a little I am also going to vote no but just because of what I said earlier but that won't change the outcome and we'll see it on seconds

will the clerk please call the roll Gutowski yes Arndt

No. Francis? No. Olsen? Yes. Pat Yandy? Yes. Canonico?

Yes.

Motion passes four to two with one absent.

173.

Mayor, I move it. Adoption of ordinance number 173-2025, amending Article 5, Section 10 of the Land Use Code of the City of Fort Collins for the purpose of updating tree mitigation exemptions.

Second. Seconded by Canonico. Further discussion? Saying none, the clerk please call the roll.

Yes.

Frances? Yes. Olsen?

Yes.

Patyandi?

Yes. We are voting a 174, correct? 173. We're still on 173. Okay. Well, yes.

Did I say the wrong number?

I did 173.

We already did 173. Are we on 173? I thought we were on 173.

Okay. Yes. Okay.

That's okay. I was a yes. on 173 both times. Okay. Canonico? Yes. Gutowski? Yeah. Okay. The motion passes 6-0. Next.

Mayor, I move adoption wardens number 174-2025 amending article 5 section 10 of Landy's Code of the City of Fort Collins for the purpose of enhancing tree mitigation. Second. Seconded

by Gutowski. Further discussion, same logic as before for me. Will the clerk please call the roll?

Francis? No. Olson? Yes. Pat Yandy? Yes. Canonico? Yes. Gutowski? Yes.

Arndt? No. Motion passes 4-2 with one absent. And the next one. May I remove adoption

of warrants number 175-2025 amending article 5 section 10 The land use code of the city for counts amending tree planting spacing requirements and tree maintenance

second

seconded by I do need For the discussion saying none will the clerk please call the roll. Olsen. Yes, but Yandy. Yes, Canonico. Yes

Katowski. Yes aren't

Yes, Francis. Yes, that passes six to zero with one absent um do council members have any items of other business to come before council

i move that council go into executive session to discuss with appropriate city staff potential acquisition and sale of real property for potential affordable housing projects in the downtown area as permitted under city charter article roman numeral 2 section 11 3 city code section 23183 and carter by statute section 24640248 second seconded by

party on D members of the public saying none online nope okay council members for discussions saying none will the clerk please call the roll party on D

yes Canonico yes good tasking yes aren't yes Francis yes Olsen yeah that measure

passes 601 absent there will be no further business after the executive session has concluded we'll now go into executive session