Town Board Meeting: August 12, 2019

Town Board Meeting: August 12, 20198 min read

Hi neighbors! In last night’s Town Board Work Session and Meeting, we approved a permit for alcohol at a private event in Purple Park, approved a final development plan (FDP) for Thrive to build 54 townhomes on Blocks 14 and 15 in downtown Superior, and went into Executive Session to discuss positions relative to potential negotiations regarding Rocky Mountain Fire District. Ready to find out more on what happened? As usual, you may read this post in written form, or scroll to the bottom for a video recap.

Disclaimer: While I do my best to represent an honest and accurate portrayal of meetings and events, the following should be considered an editorial that represents one person’s interpretation of the meetings. At the request of my fellow Board members, I am keeping their points anonymous rather than trying to attribute my interpretation to them personally. For the most unbiased and complete information, I would encourage residents to watch the meeting video itself and draw their own conclusions – visit the town website at SuperiorColorado.gov for the official meeting video and meeting minutes. Finally, I’d also encourage you to check out EngagedCitizens.us, which is a fantastic free tool created by one of our own residents. Engaged Citizens includes a repository of agendas, documents, and meeting videos, and allows you to search within a video to jump to critical parts. I hope you find it as helpful as I do!

2019-08-12_Word_Cloud

Item 2D – Board Reports

After some minor adjustments to our Agenda, our Board reports kicked off the meeting. One Trustee brought up the discussion at last Monday’s Transportation & Safety Committee meeting, where the decision was made to add a pedestrian cutout in the median on Coalton Road, just west of the entrance to the Safeway parking lot. Today, people (especially kids / teens) are often crossing in the middle of the street where the sidewalk from the Summit meets Coalton; this is very dangerous, especially since it requires scrambling up on the rocky median. Our hope is that a crosswalk and pedestrian refuge will make it easier and safer to cross. This work will be done as part of the current reconstruction of Coalton Road, and there will not be an additional closure.

Another Trustee brought up the Superior Challenge Coin that we discussed at our last Board Retreat. This Friday will be the last day of service for our Parks & Recreation Director Patrick Hammer, who has accepted a new position with the Town of Erie; as such, our Board unanimously decided to issue our first Challenge Coin to Patrick, with gratitude for his outstanding service to our town. He will be greatly missed!

Item 2E – Public Comment

During public comment, a resident asked about relocating the power lines in Original Town to be underground.

Another resident raised concerns about events in Purple Park. This same resident attended August’s First Friday with concerns about the Rocky Mountain Disc Golf Championship; you can read more on that here. In this case, she added that Monday night’s agenda item 3C would be for approval of a 350 person event for which only two 50-person shelters have been rented.

Item 3 – Consent Agenda

On that topic – we moved on to our consent agenda, and started by discussing item 3C – a permit to allow consumption of alcohol in Purple Park for the Boulder County Hockey Foundation for a street hockey event on August 17th from noon to 3pm. There were some concerns around the size of the event (roughly 350 guests) and how the organizers would ensure that no one is overserved. Last year, the Board approved this event with four stipulations; this year, we decided to approve the event with three slightly simpler stipulations:

a) All trash must be removed from the premises (not left in trash cans)
b) Wristbands must be used for all guests drinking alcohol, to indicate their ID has been checked
c) Applicants must make arrangements for parking so that the surrounding neighborhood is not affected by overflow

Next, item 3H – the continued discussion of a ditch crossing agreement, which we’ve tabled for several meetings. To recap: the South Boulder and Coal Creek Irrigating Ditch Company owns a 50-foot wide tract of land along the north side of Rock Creek. Boulder Creek Neighborhoods’ Lanterns Lane project would like to do utility work to install potable water and reuse water mains across the ditch; in addition, a potential road / trail connection between Rock Creek and Downtown Superior would require crossing this ditch. However, there were legal concerns around liability language in the ditch crossing agreement, which the ditch company’s attorney would not agree to modify. Unfortunately, even after weeks of delays, we’ve been unable to come to any agreement. Although we all agreed the situation is not ideal, I felt that we’ve reached an impasse and at this point don’t have much recourse; I voted with the majority of the Board to approve the ditch crossing agreement, and it passed. Trustees Ryan and Hammerly dissented and voted not to approve the agreement.

The Board unanimously passed the rest of the consent agenda – including approval of meeting minutes, approval of two alcohol permits for events in Wildflower Park and Grasso Park, adoption of an emergency ordinance amending the Superior Municipal Code to participate in the National Flood Insurance Program, and appointment of Twila Pap to the Superior Historical Commission.

Item 4 – Subdivision Plats and Final Development Plan for Thrive Home Buildings, Blocks 14 and 15 in Downtown Superior

Jay Garcia from Thrive Home Builders presented the subdivision plats and final development plans (FDPs) for two blocks of homes in Downtown Superior. Click here to see the overall plan for Downtown Superior; blocks 14 and 15 are outlined in teal dashed lines within planning area 3. I am also including a birds’ eye view of the blocks below.

Thrive_Block_14_15_Overview

Block 14 (the bottom block in the above picture) is planned to have 26 two-story townhomes of ~1450 square feet, plus 500 square foot basements. These homes would have 2-3 bedrooms each, all with two-car garages. There would be three guest parking spaces provided in this block.

Block 15 (the top block in the above picture) is planned to have 28 three-story townhomes of ~1300-1750 square feet, all above ground. These homes would have 2-3 bedrooms each, and 26 would have two-car garages while two would have 1.5-car garages. There would also be three guest parking spaces provided in this block.

There were many questions around whether there would be adequate parking for residents and guests. Mr. Garcia noted that historically for these models, only 27% of buyers opt for three bedrooms (vs leaving the extra loft space as an office). Our Town guidelines require 52 parking spaces for 26 three-bedroom units, so Thrive is exceeding the minimum parking requirements even if all of the homes were to be built with three bedrooms. One suggestion I made was to label the guest parking spots as such. Of course this isn’t easy to enforce, but it’s a negligible cost to put up “guest parking only” signs, and will at least encourage people to do the right thing and use them for their intended purpose. See below for the parking table from the FDP.

Thrive_Blocks_14_15_Parking_Minimums

There were also questions about Thrive’s variances from our guidelines around setbacks from the streets. Most of the streets in this area have a requirement for homes to be 2′ to 8′ from the street. On Village Green Way, Thrive is unable to meet this guideline due to an 8′ utility easement; therefore, they are requesting to situate the homes 10’8″ from Village Green on Block 14, and 11′ from Village Green on Block 15.

Promenade Drive has a slightly different setback requirement; homes off here should be 0′ to 15′ from the street. However, Thrive’s site plan has two interior blocks of buildings set much further back – there are four units on Block 15 that are 102′ feet from Promenade, and three units on Block 14 that are 99′ from Promenade. In my opinion, these variance requests are an upgrade from our guidelines, since the extra setbacks allow for the creation of landscaped courtyards that provide a natural extension of the Village Green park in the middle. I’ve included Thrive’s rendering of the space in Block 15 below.

Thrive_Block_15_Courtyard

After discussion, the Board voted unanimously to approve the FDP. Congratulations to Thrive!

Item 5 – Executive Session

Finally, one member of the Board recused himself, and the rest of the Board went into Executive Session to discuss positions relative to potential negotiations regarding Rocky Mountain Fire District.

Wrap Up

Thank you so much for taking the time to read / listen to this recap – I hope it is helpful! Our Board is always open to hearing your comments, questions, and concerns – you may always email your feedback to townboard@superiorcolorado.gov, or to me specifically at lauras@superiorcolorado.gov. As a reminder, any messages sent to a government email are part of the public record and will have your name attached; if you feel the need to write in anonymously, you may always comment at the bottom of my blog post recaps.

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