Hi neighbors! In last night’s Town Board Meeting, we voted 5-2 to approve an FDP from Toll Brothers for 199 luxury townhomes and 101 2-story single-family cottages, along with associated streets and infrastructure, for Blocks 16-24 in Downtown Superior. 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!

Item 2D – Board Reports

After the Pledge of Allegiance and roll call, Monday’s meeting kicked off with our typical reports from each Board member. During reports, most of the Board issued congratulations to the CAPS Committee on Saturday’s Superior Shindig! This was a wonderful inaugural event – I’m really hopeful we’ll continue have it in the future.

For our next First Friday coffee chat, which Trustee Sandie Hammerly and I will be hosting on Friday October 4th, I brought up the possibility of hosting it at 1500 Coalton Road (the former Land Rover facility). Now that the Town has closed on the property, I’d like residents to have the opportunity to come inside and see what we’ve purchased, and I confirmed with the rest of the Board that no one had any objections to this venue change. I hope you will join us to check it out!

Item 3 – Consent Agenda

Next, our Board went into discussion for item 3C, an agreement with Superior Maintenance for snow removal – which then passed unanimously. We also unanimously passed the rest of the consent agenda, which consisted of meeting minutes from the Board of Trustees, the Advisory Committee for Environmental Sustainability, and the Superior Historical Commission.

Item 4 – FDP for Blocks 16-24, Superior Town Center

After the consent agenda, our only item on the main agenda was the continuation of a public hearing for a final development plan (FDP) from Toll Brothers and RC Superior for blocks 16-24 in the Superior Town Center. Toll Brothers presented a plan to build 199 luxury townhomes and 101 2-story single-family cottages, along with associated streets and infrastructure for each block. Blocks 16-24 are in planning area 3 – the southernmost portion of downtown Superior. Here is a map of pending / approved development in the Town Center:

Since the last meeting, our Board packet had been updated with density counts of dwelling units per acre for each block and estimated traffic impacts, cost estimates, and more detailed designs for three potential connectivity options (via Coal Creek Drive directly to Rock Creek, via an extension of Promenade Drive to 88th Street, or both) – you can find a summary of this information in the staff memo addendum here.

During the first round of Monday night’s Board questions for the applicant and Town Staff, we asked about roadways and traffic guidelines, connectivity between the proposed blocks and Coal Creek Drive and/or 88th Street, building heights related to the View Sensitive Area (VSA), density, orientation of doors to the streets, and location / proximity of parks.

In initial public comment, we heard from about half a dozen residents, primarily around the connectivity options.

Next, we had an opportunity for continued Board Q&A, where in addition to following up on a few resident inquiries, we also asked further questions about the VSA and electric vehicle hookups.

We then moved on to Board discussion, primarily around the road design of Promenade Drive (balancing space for bike lanes and parking) and also the connectivity options. After some back-and-forth deliberations between connecting only to 88th Street via Promenade (option #2) or connecting that and also to Rock Creek via Coal Creek Drive (option #3 – full map shown below), we reopened the comment portion of the hearing for additional questions from the Board to Town Staff and the developer.

With the reopening of the interactive portion of the hearing, after our Board questions, we took additional public comment at 1am, then closed the public comment portion of the hearing and returned to Board discussion.

The Board ultimately wrote a set of conditions for the application that included the developer not building a vehicular connection to Coal Creek Drive, but extending Promenade Drive to their property line (option #2); the Town will be responsible for designing / funding / building a potential future extension of Promenade to 88th Street to complete the connection. The estimated cost of this future extension is $1.5M, to be funded by the Town (more details on the cost estimate here). The meeting concluded with a vote – Mayor Clint Folsom, Mayor Pro Tem Mark Lacis, and Trustees Sandie Hammerly, Ken Lish, and Neal Shah voted to approve the application; Trustee Kevin Ryan and I voted against the application’s approval.

I realize this is a briefer recap than usual, which doesn’t cover the nuances of the 7.5 hour meeting; however, I’ve been advised that my comments must be limited for a public hearing / development application. You can click here to read the Colorado Hometown Weekly’s coverage of the meeting.

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.