Town Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening and welcome to our Tuesday, April 28th Basalt Town Council meeting. Um, prior to the meeting, we had a work session over at 555 uh ready

we had a work session over at 555 Balt Avenue. Um, and now we're here and with you all and uh I'll go ahead and call the meeting to order. Um, and just a reminder, um, if you'd like to access the meeting online, you can do so by going to basalt.net, clicking on the agendas and minutes tab, and then, uh, going to the April 28th meeting packet, and all the Zoom instructions are there. That'll enable you to actually participate in the meeting versus just watch it on, uh, grassroots on TV. So, uh, with that, I will ask Pam to please call the role. Absolutely. Let us start with Deer Schindler, pres. Angela Anderson here. Rick Stevens here. Hannah Berman

here. Thank you, Hannah. Anel Dup Prebuchart. She might be here a little later. Ryan Slack here. And David Knight, not for long. Not for long. Thank you all. What a dig, Rick. Jesus, man. All right. Next up, we have item two,

which is our consent agenda, and that consists of the minutes. Item 2 A, the minutes from March 10th, 2026. Item 2B, the minutes from April 14th, 2026. And it item 2 C, which is a letter in opposition to Proposition 175. I did have um one quick thing I noticed on there. I wanted to make sure that the minutes on March 10th um reflected my shout out for basketball coaching was for Ryan Slack, not Ryan Mahoney. Nothing against Ryan Mahoney, but uh got we got a gone. Oh, what a slap. Any credit? Come on. What a slap. What's going on here?

Yeah. Thank you, mayor. Jeez. Thank you. So, I would say I read I read the minutes and make sure Hey, listen. That was that was the one I was supposed to catch. So I uh I would entertain a motion to approve the uh consent agenda consent agenda items um as amended. Uh mayor so moved. Second. So moved and seconded. All those in favor please signify by saying I I. All right. Thank you everybody. Uh next up we have our call to the public. And just some reminders and the ground rules for that. Uh limit your comments to three minutes. And uh this is the swan Ryan Swan song of timing. Uh the uh the council or public comments over here

you had to step out. Identify yourself by name and address when making comments. And there's a signin sheet in the back of the room as well um that I'd like you to fill out. Um please be courteous, civil, and constructive, which everybody usually is. So, thank you in advance. and town council will make no decision or take action except to direct the town manager. So, with that, I'll open the floor to council comments. Just one other comment about the council comments before uh anybody comes up. We do have two public hearings. So, if you'd like your comments to be part of the record for those public hearings, I would recommend you wait until those uh public hearings to make the comments. But otherwise, uh floor is open. So, please come up. public hearings

there. We have a public hearing uh for 555 Basalt Avenue um and a public hearing um for code amendments uh related to wildfire and that's coming up. It says 720 and 820 on the 720 for 555 820 for the wildfire. So if we're not here for either of those items, so we're just here for a public by all means get up here. All right. Hi, my name is Amy Maron. I'm um I live on Homestead Drive. I have some of my neighbors with me tonight and I wanted to welcome the new count town council members, but are they not here tonight? I mean, there's one behind you, but they haven't been sworn in yet, Amy, but they will be.

Oh, I see. Yeah, I knew that was happening. Um I was trying to hit two birds with one stone. We have brought a letter. I've Pam has letters that I we're going to hand out to the new town council members. An ongoing issue that we've had on Homestead Drive is basically this letter that you'll get is spelling out our request for um permitted parking for homeowners especially and time parking possibly in some fashion or either or maybe even signs that you know maybe could suggest time parking two two hour threeh hour limit because what's happened with the new downtown so beautiful. Um there's time parking here and now everybody's parking on Homestead Drive and we don't have um a whole lot of parking for all the residences and we did did do some data collection and that's in the letter too that we'll talk to you guys about show you what we collected and what our needs are right now.

Yeah, that's all I have to say. Thank you.

I'm here. I'm Heather George. I live at 200 East Homestead and I came to back Amy up and welcome uh the new folks, too. And um we have a we have a three-day time limit on parking. So, a lot of residents are getting tickets, which is challenging. We're literally just moving our cars to not get tickets on our our street. Um while we then have other people who don't live on the street parking their car for cars there for days. So that's kind of the trick and we the letters we did we really researched a lot of other towns and what they were doing that solved this problem we think pretty easily and my big push for like pretty quickly. So it you know we have a really great community of homeowners that are happy to work with the town to figure out how to start doing pretty actionable easy steps. So, we tried to include a lot of that in the letter and I think that is that the only thing we need to do.

Did you talk? Yes. I think that's it. We have a a speeding issue too, but that's a Yeah, that's being I'm trying to get you a speeding camera, but I'm a gone. So,

yeah. So, the speeding things that I think a little bit more straightforward and simple. the the parking. I think there are some really straightforward options that we've proposed the other towns have done that are pretty inexpensive and easy to implement. And our biggest concern was just the um getting it put in a pile of paper in the town and it not getting uh acted on before the summer because I we really see a lot of issues happening for this summer. We're excited about downtown. We're all on the same page as that, but our little street's going to get really impacted. So, if we can help you guys in any way before then, that's kind of what I came here to even almost ask that question now or later or say, how can we engage with you guys to do things over the next few months so we go into the summer with a little bit of a plan?

Thank you for the comments. Thank you, Gloria. I know this is something you're looking into as far as just kind of assessing the situation. Do you want to make any comments now or Yeah, I've met with the group several times. I haven't I haven't met you too, but I I know we've emailed back and forth.

Um um so we have been talking through this. We have been take um collecting our own data um and it doesn't match with their data yet. So uh right now we are seeing that there are spaces available, but we are taking it right now, which is probably not the busy time, which is this summer. We're also looking at what it would cost us for affirmative parking just to have that information for you all in case you ever decided to uh direct me to bring that to council. Okay. Once we get through that, I think we would like to see what what you guys come up with too comparatively. And then would you like that as a future agenda item? Yeah. Thank you. Sure thing.

Thank you for raising it. Um anybody else? Uh, the floor is still open. All right. Anybody online? So, I'll go ahead and close that section of the meeting out and we'll move on to mayor and council reports and comments. What do you all have?

Well, this is my last comment. I know there's another chance for comments, but once again, a big thank you to all staff. Uh we are so lucky in this town to have a great staff and um it's just been a pleasure. I'm super grateful to have been here worked with all of you. So it's all grateful to you. Mute me. Is this our chance to get you a boy or we got a a whole section? No, we got a whole We got a whole segment for that. Rick, I hope you have good words. I've prepared to make a long speech.

All right. Anybody else? I I don't have anything for this section. I wanted to say um thank you to Bach for helping to fund the Basalt Spring musical. It was lovely. Uh those those girls up there were so talented. They did a great job. Um, I don't know if any of you know it was six, the six wives of Henry VII and they sang their hearts out. It was amazing. It was a really good use of Bach funds, I think, to support those kids. Um, and thank you to Taka also for producing a a dryrun show for them. Was it Bach or BPAC? B, sorry, BPAC.

Okay, I was they did not get any affordable housing dollars. Um, BAC, thank you to BPAC. I think that was really a good spend. And thank you to Taka. They're so supportive of the youth. I really appreciate it. Great comment. Thank you. Anyone else? All right. So, we will move on to the manager's report. Um Gloria, you have some new sections and I'll let you

I do have some new sections. Um so, uh you'll find these notice of administrative decisions um in my manager's report. This is an attempt to be more transparent um with staff determinations and something that we're exploring to codify in the new land use code. Um so no action is necessary by default. It is more of a kind of a an area in the agenda that you can review and then you know if if you think that a policy change should come out of it because you'll see our our decisions made that's something that you you all can bring up to us. Um, so curious to hear your thoughts on it and um if it's useful or not basically. And then um did you guys have any questions on that?

No, I mean I think those were those were two interesting updates and appreciate the you surfacing those and the transparency. So I think this is a good addition.

Okay. Excellent. Um yeah, we'll keep them going and something we're looking at for the new land use code which is currently 50% um drafted. Uh so They were actually out there at Earth Day um getting some comments on that. So, uh a great Earth Day. We had a a wonderful turnout for our Earth Day. Um and now we are in spring cleanup. So, that's going on right now. I wanted to highlight that for everyone. There's a little flyer up here, April 24th to May 4th. Um so, we do have the spring cleanup and then we will also have our chipping program as well and that'll be a little later.

On that, can we activate the the salt sign for that because I don't think enough people know about I remember that coming out hearing about it at the emergency meeting and it's so awesome that Eagle County is offering this up to the town. We do do the dumpsters which is amazing too but this chip program is a huge opportunity for the the residents of Basalt to do their own fire mitigation to to have the fire department come out. They have an amazing program. They will come assess their h your house, your property, give you ideas of what to do. Um, and especially the curb chipping program. You're literally, you don't have to take it to one of our dumpsters. You're just going to be able to set it on the curb and they're going to take care of it. And it's really it I do appreciate that Eagle County has launched that on our side, too.

I'll look into that. Yeah, let's get I don't know how we can get the word out there, but there's got to be some way that I think the signage is huge.

We're chat about that. Um and then we are also hosting a um an open house at Cliff's Hillside Park from 10 to 12 on Saturday, May 2nd. Um the goal of the open house is to update the neighborhood on the status of the project and seek feedback um with a couple of sketch options. So hopefully people can swing by there before I know there's a lot of events going on on Saturday. Um but hopefully they can swing by there. Um we're also hiring for a facilities maintenance technician as well as a building official. So um Mitch will be retiring uh in December and we are looking to uh get someone on board to follow him or to shadow him basically for uh several months before he leaves. So that is out there right now. Um and then uh I think last meeting it was mentioned about the underpass uh on Midland and I just kind of wanted to give you guys an update on that. So it has made it onto the 2025 inner mountain TPR project list. Um so transportation oh what is TPR? Um transportation

used to be ICE tea. Yeah. Audience. Um and so we are on the list. This is this is managed by our local sea DOT and um but we do have quite a few ahead of us. Um and that that includes the entrance to Aspen and and those other projects in the valley. So we do compete with those projects for that funding. Um so just kind of wanted to give you an update on where that Midland uh connection project straight shot. Yeah, the straight shot. what what kind of you know support would they give like what are some of the possibilities as far as the the amount of money and the um I don't you don't know what they're going to

yeah so that would be a financial support from CO and as well as approval for the project so in its entirety or a portion of it or I would have to look into I know making it on the list is is a good thing but we could be on the list for 20 years yeah I mean there's there's a lot of projects out there Yeah, we are looking at uh exploring alternate emergency eresses at this time, but um that that's kind of where we're at.

Great. Anything else on that? Maybe some of that um was related to the river master plan in the past and I don't know if any of that stuff would be valuable in going forward with trying to convince them to move move us up in line but there was a significant amount of engineering planning you know infrastructure improvements the library was has that pool area in front of it and there's a lot of data a lot of reasons why we were looking at it a long time ago so that may be able to be refreshed without a lot of effort potentially. Those guys are still around it. Did that work?

This is a random one on that, but I wonder the utilization of the boring company. Elon Musk has dug all these tunnels in Vegas and I don't think it did a lot of disruption to above and I just wonder where that technology could be used in some of these situations whether it's under mid like that Midland direct or you know we talk about all these animal crossings now I just feel that technology could be used in this like micro this micro construction that we're not currently looking at and it's too big and such, but it's something to look at. He's created crazy tunnels in Vegas, but there's like private Tesla transportation to the airport from hotels. So, like,

yeah, just a random one. Well, we'll continue to explore it. Well, thanks for thanks for that update. That's important. you know, that's been raised as far as the the egress and emergency uh element to that. So, it's good. Do you have anything else on uh No. And then we had the staff reports on this one. So, if you have any questions on that. Any questions for Lauria on the Are we going to talk about the committees before that are listed the 5B and 5C? under your manager's report.

Oh, so those are they're they're more of updates. So they already happened. The determination was already made by staff under our perview. It is just more of a heads up. This is what we this is what we decided and um kind of giving you that that context. Is there did they establish the work study thing? Sorry. Yeah. The the work study uh is a requirement for students for full-time employees of CMC, they've got the employment requirement. Awesome. Great. So, as the year progresses, there'll be more administration determination number. Yes. Under managers report.

Yeah. So, that's good. That's good. Cool. Thank you, Gloria. Next up, we have item 6A, which is Chris Clug Foundation Proclamation for organ donation month. And we have Jesse and Michelle. So, come on up. Great. Well, you guys can go up to the uh to the desk there with the microphone and

do you want us to go first? Yeah.

Great. Okay. I'm Jesse. I'm the executive director of the Chris Clue Foundation. And I just wanted to say a very big thank you to all of you guys for having us here today. April is a big month for us in the donation and transplantation world. It is National Donate Life Month. Um, and it's a time where we like to share our message as far and wide as possible. The foundation is comprised of two full-time um, staff members and so any opportunity we can get out into the public and connect with new and different audiences is just really really important to us and really great. Um, I am the daughter of a heart transplant recipient. My dad got a new heart 10 years ago and so because somebody said yes, a whole decade later he is still here. Um so as you can imagine it's deeply personal work for me. Uh Mary speaks to the other side of it as a donor mom. So you've got the full um spectrum here between the two of us. And I just like to remind people when I get the chance that there's really two important steps to it. Checking the box is huge. Um, but having that conversation with your family is the other part of it. It's really important to share that decision. Um, and so we work really hard to educate the public and hopefully inspire them to say yes. Um, and then the other thing is there's a lot of things you can still do while you're alive. Deceased donation is a really beautiful gift, but living donation exists too. You can also donate blood or join the uh blood stem cell and bone marrow registry. And then finally, we have a big year here in Colorado because the transplant games of America are coming to Denver in June, which is really special. They happen every two years. It's basically the Olympics for the donation transplantation world. Um, and it's a really beautiful celebration. Um, it's open to the public for viewing and then there's different activities that the public can do as well. Like I'm gonna do the 5K and some trivia because why not? Uh Mary, would you like to

No, I I encourage with you I encourage everybody to have the conversation, but to also ask other people to sign up. I know we still get letters because Lauren donated tissue and eye and muscle and we still get letters because that that tissue is viable for a very long period of time. So even if you can't use the organs that was in our case, you can use the other things. But uh it nice to know he lives somewhere. And what specifically you mentioned checking the box. What can people do to

Thank you for um so most people do it at the DMV. That's generally where you're asked the first time as a 15 or 16 year old and then um when you go to renew the license. The beauty with technology these days is the iPhone. Um you can do it through Apple Health. Um we have a page on our website that connects to the national registry and it's just basically your contact info. It is a binding agreement, so you do want to make sure that it's something that you actually um want to say yes to. Um but it's very very simple to sign up.

Great. Thank you for that for for all your work in this and supporting and bringing the information out because I think you it's an ongoing challenge. It's my understanding with getting organs at the right place in the right time. So the more people do you need your blood type on your in the um list in there for that as well? No. Okay. No, they'll figure it out from there. So just making sure that you're signed up is step one and then letting your family know step two.

Yeah, that's important as well. So thank you for that. We do have a proclamation. I'll go ahead and read here. So the town of Baul, Colorado National Donate Life Month Proclamation, April 2026. Whereas this April 2026 marks the 23rd National Donate Life Month, a time to raise awareness of organ, eye, and tissue donation. Encourage Americans to register as donors and honor those who have saved and healed lives through the gift of donation. And and whereas Colorado has been a leader in the nation with nearly 900,000 Coloradoatans registering to be organ eye and tissue donors at the DMV. And whereas donor alliance along with their Colorado state team community partner the Chris Klug Foundation educate residents in Colorado and Wyoming on the life-saving benefits in organ and t organ and tissue donation. Inspire them to register as donors and encourage them to share their decision with their family. And whereas one donor can save up to eight lives through organ donation, restore sight and up to two people through cornea transplants, and save and heal more than 75 lives through tissue donation. And whereas in Colorado and most of Wyoming in 2025, a record 314 heroic or organ donors provided 1,036 life-saving transplants, 1,880 heroic tissue donors saved and healed more than 140,000 lives with tissue grafts. And whereas registering gives hope to more than 1,400 people in Colorado and Wyoming waiting for a life-saving organ transplant while compassionately celebrating donors and their families for the gift of life. And whereas organ, eye, and tissue donation would not be possible without our community coming together for one purpose, one united purpose. Saying yes to be an organ, eye, and tissue donor means you are not just checking a box. You are saving and healing lives. Now therefore, I, David Knight, mayor of the town of Basalt, Colorado, do hereby proclaim the month of April 2026 as National Donate Donate Life Month. In witness thereof, I have

here unto set my hand and cause the seal of the town of Basalt, Colorado to be affixed this 28th day of April 2026. So, thank you again for all this and I'll go ahead and sign and pass this around. Also, if anyone wants to donate blood, the blood mobile will be here next month at the library. Do you know what day I should have? Where where can they go? Where can people go? The 12th or the 15th. The library. But I'll be at the library. On the library. I'll have my calendar that listed. Wonderful. Well, thank you. Go ahead. Pam, thanks for helping. You're welcome, Jesse. Thank you. Nice to meet you.

Sure. Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you.

All right. So, next up we have um presentation 6B which is Basalt community water update town of Basalt in Mid Valley Metro District. We have uh Justin up here and Bill Reynolds. Welcome. Thanks for having me. Well, you're going to do the introduction, right?

Yeah. I got a got a few talking points here. Um well, good evening, uh town council and mayor. I'm Justin Foreman, public works director, and I have with me Bill Reynolds, the executive director of the Mid Valley Metropolitan District. At council's request, we're here to provide an update on the community's portable water delivery systems. In light of the record-breaking dry winter experience across Colorado and here in our valley, we understand there's been a number of questions and concerns about water supply and reliability. As the town and Mid Valley Metropolitan District operate Basalt's two portable water systems, we'll provide an overview of current conditions and the status of each respective water system. So before we get too far into current conditions, we'd like to first review each of the water systems service territory and brief makeup for each system. For the town of Basalt, we serve the area within blue highlighted on the screen. that includes Oldtown, the Hill District, Bassbergs, the Wilds, Southside, Stzmail, the Elkrun neighborhood, Basalt Vista, a small portion of the Roaring Fork Club, and all three Basalt schools. Uh, in total, this equates to approximately 975 service connections. So from a water supply treatment and storage perspective, the town has several sources to keep up with daily demand, maintain system pressure, and provide emergency supply. Basalt's main water delivery method is from the micro filtration plant that you see at the top left of your screen that can be served by both Basalt Springs or Luxinger Springs originating up on Basalt Mountain. And you can see an example of

one of the spring spring boxes there shown on the right. This plant can produce up to half a million gallons of water a day. It's running 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Next, the town has three wells spread throughout the valley floor that add to portable water production and see the most use in the summer. Staff refer to the these wells as well number five that can produce up to 500 gallons per minute, well 13 at 400 gallons per minute, well 11 at 250 gallons per minute, and this is a combined amount of 1.6 million gallons a day uh from those wells. The town also shares a well for irrigation purposes with the school district near the elementary and middle school for the Arbony park area. And it's also important to know that the majority of properties south of Highway 82 are on raw water irrigation. And from a storage tank perspective, just after treatment and prior to entering the water system at the plant, the pinion tanks hold up to 260,000 gallons. uh one of the tanks you can see there at the bottom of your screen. And within the distribution system itself, there are two 1 milliongalon tanks located on the north and south sides of the water system. And finally, there's one 10,000galon tank for the upper pressure zone near the Bassburg town homes. So all these components work together to ensure the town's water system can meet demand all throughout the year while maintaining pressure and system resiliency. And so now I want to pass this over to Bill to speak about Mid Valley's water system.

Quick quick just clarification for Luxinger. In the winter we use it, but in the summer it's CPW's using that. Is that correct? Correct. The the the bulk majority of that is um allocated for CPW. Okay. Yep.

Thank you. So, to give you an idea about, and by the way, my name is Bill Reynolds. I'm I've been the executive director for Mid Valley Metro for about the last 20 years. Um, we serve about 6,000 residents. Um, the best way to describe our uh boundaries are from the Emma Bridge through Sice Ranch. So, we serve a good portion of half the town of Baltt, unincorporated Eagle County, and part of unincorpor unincorporated Garfield County. Um, so pretty much from Aspen Junction through Sice Ranch, that's all ours. We do both water and wastewater. We have a million gallon a day plant over by the Blue Lake just beyond the Blue Lake. It has nothing to do with Blue Lake, by the way. Um, but um, that's a million gallon a day plant. Um, we serve about 1,800 water connections and about 2,300 sewer connections. The reason the reason for the difference is because like in Soapers Village they we provide them sewer service not water. They have their own waters. Same thing holds true with the Crawford properties. So we're served by six production wells um throughout the valley floor. Uh three of them are over in Blue Lake. They give us about 650 680 gallons a day or per minute. um wells three and four by the Basalt Industrial Park. That gives us another 360. And then we have a well right next to the county building that provides us about 400 415 gallons a minute. Um combined we're about 1455 gallons of uplift per minute. So we can fill tanks pretty quick. Um we can support the fire department very well. Um, we have conditional rights for another six wells, one of which is under

development right now. Well, when I say development, it's being engineered right now, and we'll figure out where that's going to go and get more um storage. We have a couple 750,000galon tanks above Blue Lake, a 500,000galon tank above the above original road, and a 60,000galon tank. It's it's its own pressure zone above uh Hillrest Drive. Along with that, we're served by two ditches, the Robinson and the Harris Reed ditches. That provides raw water irrigation to about 70% of my district. That helps us out a lot as far as domestic use. Um approximately 70% of mid valley metro like I said have their own raw raw water irrigation. One of the unique things about mid valley is that a lot of those raw water rights are owned by the individual hohas. So they operate the systems. Let's see um so meadows and town downtown core we um operate the irrigation system for that. So pretty much from Alpine Bank through the medical buildings, all of that area is operated by us. As far as irrigation, um we have we have 275 horsepower pumps that pump 247, provide 120 PSI to every home there. So it works out pretty well. All right, now we get into what current conditions are looking like heading into the summer's irrigation season. Um, there number there are numerous factors that water providers in the west typically consider and review when trying to un understand water supply

outlook. I do not think it's any uh shock to council that Colorado or basalt is not in a great position coming out of winter. Um up on the screen you'll see some of the tools used such as the snow water equivalent or SUI that measures the amount of water in the snowpack that's setting the lowest recorded benchmarks. At the top of the screen you'll see picking and eagle counties in exceptional drought category from the Colorado Drought Monitor. And finally, the seasonal outlook from the National Weather Service in Grand Junction still predicts above average temperatures and average pre precipitation for the summer months. Um, but I did want to point out a bit of good news. You'll see the 8 to 14 day precipitation outlook in the middle of the screen there in green and it is showing above average for precipitation currently. So, we'll take whatever we can get. So with all these conditions in our mind in mind, our goal tonight is to communicate where each water system stands and education efforts to the community as we move into the peak water demand season. So for Basalt's water system, we are currently in stage one water restrictions for from April to October. This is something that the town does every year for irrigation season, but we believe now more than ever to use only what you need of this finite resource. Stage one gives us the ability to apply fines for violations of varying degrees, but our main goal is really to educate the public more than ever and reinforce voluntary compliance. To that end, we'll be ramping up outreach efforts through social media, newspaper, water bill inserts, touch points at special events, and communications to HOAs and landscaping companies. We believe you can have a healthy and beautiful

landscape and follow the outdoor watering schedule presented. And from a water water supply perspective, town staff are closely monitoring the amount of water being supplied by the springs and the wells as seasonal demand increases. In our current position, we are we are steady but cautious in meeting the town's water demands. We have not seen significant changes in water supply at this point. If for some reason we have the treatment plant or a well go offline for an extended period of time or we cannot keep up with summer demands and emergency storage, the town has the ability to go into stage 2 water restrictions that prohibits all outdoor use. To our knowledge, the town has only gone into this twice and the most recent was during the Lake Christine fire where we lost the treatment plant and a well at the same time. So with that, I'll turn that over to to Bill to discuss Mid Valley system status.

So a couple of things that we've done being that we are responsible for a couple of the ditches. We had the opportunity early on to turn these ditches on. If there was one benefit to a dry winter, it was that we were able to get into the ditches and clean them out earlier. So that's allowed us to kind of refill the groundwater table and that's really helped. um put a plainly ditches leak and it really helps to to regenerate that aquafer be below us. So that's helped along with that we've started meeting with HOAs um talking about trying different ways that we can reduce usage as much as possible but at the same time we don't want to create a bigger problem and that is to dry out the dry out the valley. So, um, we're watching it very closely. We're doing the same thing with our wells. We monitor them weekly. Uh, we test them to make sure see what kind of recovery time they have on them. So far, they've been doing very well. So, um, we are blessed with being below the confluence of two rivers, so that helps. Um, and we're watching it very closely. There's going to be a lot of moving parts throughout the throughout the summer season and we're trying to keep up with it.

Questions? Well, yeah, we can we'll let you make it.

Yeah. So, um we what we um like to tell folks is follow the guidelines that um the landscaping standards have put together. Um you know, we don't want you to overwater. We think there's a sweet spot there in the late evenings and early mornings where you can still water, you know, depending on what you need to water that's more effective than having it run all day. That's helpful. And we're happy to provide some literature um from, you know, the landscaping community to help you with some of that. So I was yeah I was going to ask a similar question along those lines I think it would be helpful um to have you know by month because I I typically I don't even water in a this is my opinion April and October I don't think you really need to water maybe trees but um having some guidance on type of sprinkler head how long to water with it so like a rotary versus a spray during which months typical months and I and even pro I would say even in normal normal conditions and stage one conditions like so so in other words I think people need like to that question people need that guidance on like how long should I water for because you don't just don't crank it because that's what's going to run have us run into troubles if people are overwatering and they really don't even need to to maintain their lawn based on the on the time of year and the sprinkler head etc. Um, and then the time of day with evaporation and you know like so typically I think from 10 o'clock until the evening it's kind of a waste um is what I've always heard but I you know that guidance and getting that education out there. So um we should use as you know frankly as little water as we can outside like I I don't I'm not going to do a vegetable garden this year um just because I don't think it's sustainable

but that's just my preference but I think people need People need people need mute yourself, Angel. Come on. A list of best practices. Yeah. Just to help easy. We can work on that. Yeah. And we're not we wouldn't like just to be clear. I I think the only one of those that would be one to enforce like put it in would be around the the time of day. I think everything else it's like, look, here's the best practices, but I really think we should not be watering after 10 a.m. or whatever you guys think, but I know you have a point of view on that. Yep.

Now, we'll work on packaging some of that out and rolling it out um as much as we can. And I think, you know, especially on the mid valley side, it's kind of a struggle for the t for the the town is one of the big users of raw water over in um mid valley, but the reason for that is because they maintain all the parks and rideways. Um along with that, there's only so many areas that you can water at any given time before you start losing pressure or volume. And so I I think that you've you've kind of struggled over the years trying to use as much of the clock as you possibly can. So there and you're absolutely right. 10 10 to 5 in the afternoon, don't water. It's not worth it. Uh but at the same time, in fact, I personally water from 2 to 5:30 in the morning, if that. Um and I try to do it very very sparingly, no more than five, six minutes per zone. And um it seems to work for me. So, and in fact, this summer I'm going to try to cut it back even further and try to get it wet, let it soak in, let it do let it do its thing during the daytime and go from there.

Yeah. Thank you. Other questions or comments do you all have?

I think it's obviously important to get the word out. You know, snow mass, for example, is midnight to 8:00 a.m. three times a week. Uh, odd even 15 minutes per zone. It's very defined. And, you know, of course, they're drawn out of Snow Mass Creek and Owl Creek. They don't have the advantage of a water table that we do down here in the valley floor. So, it's different. I'm glad to hear that you're paying attention to the recovery on these wells because that's one of the bigger problems, you know, we're going to see up high. And the spring boxes are holding good. That's good. I have the question I have is the just a quick update on the meter program we've been talking about for a while.

Yeah, sure. So, um for us I think uh Mid Valley you you have advanced uh metering you've rolled out already. Yes. So, yeah, the the plan is for us to uh get that RFP out the door uh this year. Um and we'll I I would not suspect that this will get that will get done in one year. It's probably a two-year project, especially with the winter months that we have because we can't replace meters all year long. Um, so and it's very expensive. Yeah. So, it should be um we'll have the RFP out this summer and move from there. Do you know how many pits there are versus like in house meters?

No, I don't. But we're, you know, through development, uh, meter pits are getting less and less common and we don't allow them anymore. So, um I just wondered if people that had interior, you know, inside meters, they could swap them out pretty easy anytime. I think Paul Paul had estimated when we looked at it, there was like 75 to 100 indoors made up. Yeah. Yeah. That's so there's 900 that are inside somewhere. 10% give or take. Yeah. Now, we're also I don't know if you have the benefit of senior rights down there. Some of them are junior or what on the

well both the Robinson and Harris Reed do have some senior rights. Do we expect there is a possibility for further calls as the winter as the summer progresses. Um but it's one of those things we're just going to have to wait and see. But there are some senior rights on both ditches.

It's it's it's it's a catch 22 for us actually at this point. So, um, the good news is is that when you really take a look at the window that we're faced with, you're really talking about June, July, and half of August. Then come August 15th, it starts to drop. As soon as kids go back to school, water drops off like crazy. Um, or water usage drops off. Um, and then come September, you don't see you see people turning off their irrigation systems. That's been the historical nature of irrigation on on the other side. I can't speak for over here. So that's what we've been faced with. And we peak at about 1 point 1.2 million gallons per day right around the 4th of July. And then from there it starts to work its way down.

Pretty pretty similar for town of assault, you know, without irrigation. let's call it 200 to 300,000 gallons a day uh peak irrigation we're hitting that million 1.1 um but again it's not all summer long it's and we have the capability of of pumping two million gallons a day on the schedule and this is such a semantic but you have like a Tuesday Thursday schedule a lot of the irrigation clocks are running from, let's say, 10 at night into that Wednesday,

that's still fine, right? Like you're not it's not that, you know, I don't know how we're going to be monitoring it and I have to deal with that for certain people. So, yeah, just making sure that and I, by the way, I appreciate Mid Valley. I've had calls from you guys of, hey, you know, we think there might be a leak here, which is awesome to see that technology and to have you guys come out and look and it's some people think we're looking over their shoulder, but

No, it's all I I love it as a as a property manager, I think it's it's it's awesome. And also, I've gotten a call from Rick. He manages an HOA that I work in and and he he told me there was a leak and I actually found it because his call. Um, so I think that is an amazing thing that we're doing and I think the town of Assault's going to get there with our changing of meters and but it's a really good thing you guys are doing and it's not a big brother thing for anyone that's worried about it. It's it's good. We need to this is you know this is the next gold and so I appreciate you guys making this presentation. It's very informative.

Over the last 1015 years we've really worked very hard. Every water system leaks. That's that's a given. But we've really worked very hard to understand where our water goes and we've decreased our water loss dramatically over the years. Um there was a time way back when that there was like a 40% water loss going on and there were water restrictions and we tried different things and we went into different stages of of of restriction and it it it was a struggle. Um, but since that time we're between 10 and 15% during the summer months, which is terrific in the industry. That's where we want to be. And um, and we're we're constantly looking. So, um, and by the way, just a leaking toilet in a home can run about 28,000 gallons a month. So, um, something as simple as that, a simple leaking toilet. And we try to let people know. And we're going to we're in the process of putting in a super tier that if you exceed this amount in a given month just like the town of assault presently has that'll be a big help for us also and for those heavy users I got a feeling that some of those heavy users might go ahead and use the water anyway. Thank you for your contribution to Mid Valley Metropolitan District. But um here or there we're going to continue to educate the best we can and see what we can get out of them. Our super tier at one location is $45 per thousand.

That's That's a pretty That's way up there bite. But, you know, we still have people that end up in that. Yeah. And and I want to make something pretty clear when you're dealing with with communities that that are headwaters, headwater communities, they're they're in a different world than I am. I have two beautiful rivers that serve pretty much the valley. the headarters, it's their their supply is limited. So, they have to be more more and more restrictive on their supply and I certainly do appreciate that and I think Rick's um upval has done an excellent job of putting some technology in place to put the kibash on super users. So,

yeah, and the stream flows and things like that, I don't know. We'll see. But I know they just did a big release out of the frying pan and um it was really an insignificant one, you know, from what we've been seeing a couple weeks ago. And then up the valley that all this is being driven by maroon and castle is the head waters for as city of Aspen and you know they're talking stage three by June 1st. You know things don't improve. So, well, we are fortunate we have the valley floor and not the

Let's see. Snow Mass got 14 inches of snow in the last two days. That helps. We continue to get rain. Every rainfall helps. So, um it's going to be it's going to be a long summer for for the water business, but you know, you never know. We can't lose sight of the fact that we live in the high desert. Sometimes we forget that. So, um, we've been here before. We're going to get through it. Um, we'll we'll manage it.

Any other questions or comments? I'll just real quick echo what um Mayor Knight said and and since you pointed out we're really walking a fine line between conserving water and drying out the landscape, I just think in your educational materials, the more specific you can be with your guidelines, the better. You know, I think it would also really give people peace of mind to know that they're doing it correctly, right? Y and thank you for your presentation. Thank you. Thanks. Yeah. Thanks. Appreciate it. Take care.

All right. Next up, we have uh council actions. And the first one is a thank you and council member comments. Um for our outgoing council members, it's bittersweet. Um I have this one. So, um I just wanted to start off um making some uh comments and others. Let's start with deer. Um it's like I said, it's bittersweet to see you go. You've been an excellent counselor mic so actually here. Um you've been an excellent counselor and and as far as just your ability to listen, analyze, and then interject with just the right comment with the perfect timing of a dry dead pan sense of humor, too. It's been it's been awesome. You're you're good at it. You you you've been very good at that. U and it's uh this kind of like bringing levity, but also bringing your business acumen and just like kind of your your just your knowledge about um our community to bear and your perspective. So, I I will miss you on council. I was bummed. Honestly, I was bummed you didn't run again, but I understand. And uh I I hope uh you'll keep in touch with us and uh just wanted to thank you. And I have a plaque that uh staff uh got you. So I wanted to get this to you and then let others make comments for deer.

Well, thanks for the kind words uh mayor. I appreciate it. Absolutely. Thank you.

You have any words? I do actually. I want to say uh thanks um I want to say thank you to the council to the mayors past and present um you know sitting across from Glenn next to Elise for a while when we first started and you on not in that seat. Yeah.

So I want to say uh thanks to this group um past and present for just kind of you know allowing Basalt to kind of get where it is. you know, it's a it's a ship that needs stewarding and and I think uh since I've been here, I've learned so much. I really appreciate it. I learned from, you know, I'm a listener. Um and you learn a lot when you listen with the intent to hear. And I um I just I really really thankful that for that opportunity. I'm thankful to the staff. It's unbelievable. You know, the just the passion, the professionalism, the uh you know, their can do. Um let's think about it. let's get it done. Um, and the modifications of just the plans you have to do on the daily basis is amazing. It's, you know, the police, public works, everybody. It's it's truly, you know, the heartbeat, I think, of of the town. Um, and then and then I want to thank the people, you know, the people of Basalt, you know, I I uh I uh get to be one of them in tminus 2, three minutes probably, which is pretty cool. But I would say what I've learned from this seat here is is a is is, you know, if it's if it's if it's Holy Cross, if it's committees, if it's the school board, if it's however you can try to please get involved in some some way, whatever you can afford to do, the library, what it is, it's really it's really special, I think. And one of the things that makes the community special is people answering the bell. the fact that there was four, you know, uh, options for this election. It's just great when when citizens of a community come together and try to make that community better. And I think, um, that in the long run is what benefits the town. Um, you know, because then you get the chance to get to the great staff. So, I want to say, um, it's been an

honor, uh, to serve the people of Basalt. Uh, I appreciate you and I'll see you on the other side. Now you can come and talk to me in the grocery store. I'll hang out in the cereal aisle. So So we can talk about Midland Avenue and whatever else it is that you want to talk to. You've been avoiding the cereal aisle ever since. I go there with a hoodie on. Does I've seen it many times.

Yeah. And so I I I do appreciate um the experience and and you know, a shout out to the 10-year-old man over there that's been uh kind of at it for a while. So, thank you. Thank you. Anyone else have anything for deer? All right. I I It feels good to do what you do.

I mean, you go home at night after one of these meetings and you feel like you accomplished something sometimes, but most of the time you do. You know, that's what is the brilliant part of this position is you go home, you're you're a citizen, you come here, you sit for a few hours, and you get to make decisions that impact the whole town. But appreciating that you're going to go home and be with your family and do other things is really the culture that we're trying to build in this community is service. and finding the time to squeeze in a little extra effort and motivate people to do the right thing. And uh I think you've done that very well. Thank you,

dear. I'm going to miss you so much. You are so kind and so thoughtful and I've learned a lot about being a good listener from you. Just like David said, you know, you're quiet, but you're listening and you're processing all of it. And and you do you you speak uh you don't speak extraneously like you use your words carefully and um and I've always appreciated that about you. Um and I really look forward to seeing you in the cereal aisle because I feel like you're the person I see the most at the grocery store. But it's just been so nice to work with you. Thank you.

Thanks. Thanks for the kind words. It's very nice. I'm honored to serve with you. It's been a pleasure back at you. I know we have one more pardoning council member and one more plaque. I you know, so Ryan Ryan was the reason I I didn't even really I wasn't even really aware of town council until I talked to Ryan. What was that like 2000? Eight years ago. That's right after I ran. Yeah, I was 18. Yeah. So, um it was like our sons are best friends. So, it's a very

they went to preschool together. You know, it's just like it's been serendipitous, you know, that um you know, our kids are friends and we've become great friends and you've exposed me to this and I will be forever grateful for that. Um, and but not only that, for me, like your passion for basaltt and just how fired up you get, the fire like what one thing that's been great about this council and we're going to continue I I think is having these different different characters and you've brought that um always thinking staff um caring so much about the community, having a pulse on what's happening in the community, kind of that that gut level. um has been and then the comments and the your insights that you bring based on that have been very valuable and uh been an awesome mayor prom last couple years too. So uh I I appreciate all you've done and um you know like deer yeah you couldn't run again but I'm it's gonna I'm happy and excited about the future but I'm also going to miss both you guys um because it's uh it's been a lot of fun. Um, and I appreciate what you both have done. And we have a plaque for you.

Woohoo. This is an eight-year plaque. This is a pretty pretty cool special one. Yeah. So, special. Just wait till I run again. You have to make a 12. You need to get another one. I'll take it.

Uh, first I want to know if my pool pass is good this year. I hope I hope it is because I am in this year. Uh, man. I'm a crier, so I'm sorry. Uh, but I am so honored to serve to serve this town. Uh, the staff cry. Uh, okay. We've come so far in years. Uh Doug's predecessor Christie and Doug have put the finances in this town in such an amazing place that if you haven't sat up here, you have no clue. It's amazing. And Pam, the stalwart, she's been here forever. James, you guys hold this town together. Uh like no one knows. Gosh, I hate crying. Uh, Chief Monk, we're we're so honored for you for what you've done in the last year and what you're doing now. Just just the whole staff. We are we are so lucky to have this crew of people that care so much. Um, and everyone I've served with. It's it's been it's awesome. And and I I just want to encourage anyone in the town, everyone on council that the Basalt is about to go through a huge change and and no is an okay answer. We are not up here to say yes. We are up here to listen and do what's best for the town. And and there needs to be more nos. And it's not not everything's teed up

just to build. We are paving over paradise and I I I tried to stop some of it and it's it is what it is. But but no is an okay answer. You don't have to say yes to everything. Please please listen. Please look around. Please realize what we have not online. what's already in the pipeline. Staff does a great job presenting that, but it is there is so much going on in this valley and Aspen is just trying to stomp on our neck and we need to protect ourselves. We need to protect this valley. Um it it's been an honor and I'm just grateful to be here. So, thank you to everyone and thank you to my family. So they they put up with me for eight years and it's been awesome. So thank you and we're so grateful that Gloria she is she is taking this town to a next level and I'm just I'm super happy for it for the new for the continuing council member and the new council members and the recoming back council member that I don't see here. Um, we're in good hands. But please just look around, listen, don't be afraid to say no because no is an okay answer.

Thank you guys. Thank you. I want to say to you, Ryan, that um, as a council person, I appreciate how you are so authentically yourself. I appreciate that you care more about being honest than being right. That you will say what's on your mind. Um, and I have learned a lot from you about being vocal and not being worried about the consequences of that or about saying everything correctly or being 100% right all the time. You've taught me that like it it's better to speak up and I appreciate that.

I have been 100% right by the way. of course you have and um and as a parent um I just wanted to acknowledge you and say that I have seen you sit here so many nights and be needed um and I have watched you give everything to this council and this town and this job when you also have somebody who needs you so much and um everybody in this town is so fortunate that you chose to do both at the same time and I wanted to say thank you so much and just that I've I've seen that from you for the last four years that I've sat here and that your awesome council person and your awesome dad

up. Yeah. Floor's open.

Uh my son Tyler always looks at a guy like Ryan and says, He's got big shoulders. You know, when he was little, he would walk around, oh, there's big shoulders Tony and there's big shoulders this guy and big shoulders Ryan. And he does have big shoulders and he carries a lot of people around on those shoulders and he doesn't complain. He doesn't broadcast the fact that he is doing it. He's does it. It does the job every day. Um, he's approachable. for the last couple years since I've been on here, he's been the go-to guy for me to call in and check my understanding of what we're doing these days and what direction he'd like to see the community go in. He's become a real special advisor to me as as far as getting reintroduced to a system that's changed quite a bit over the last 30 years. And uh in my experience um for a long time there's three or four maybe elected officials I've been around and I'm including Pick and Eagle the region and that stand out in my memory as being special. Ryan's right in that bunch. So really appreciate it. You still get a call 7 o'clock at night.

You'll answer the phone and talk longer than I want to talk which is really unusual for most people. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thanks for coming back.

I just wanted to say thank you so much. You are an underrated quality about Ryan Sack is he's also really funny and sometimes this can all seem quite serious and I think being able to bring that levity has just made this such a more of a pleasant experience. And I really respect that you stick with your guns and you also respect when people disagree. Like something I think this community and frankly this country needs is more respect when people aren't like perfectly aligned on every single issue and you model that in a really really impressive way. Um that should be celebrated. So thank you. And because I didn't get to chime in on deer as well, deer, thank you so much. One of the one of the best pieces of advice I've ever got was from Audin who always told me to say it in less words. And I think you really model that. Like it's clear that you're listening and you don't need to pontificate about something like you are straightforward and you say things um just exactly what needs be said. And I I think that's something that's much appreciated.

Thank you. Well, um, no one has anything else. I will ask you each. What do you guys What are you going to do with your free time? Uh, what am I going to do with my free time like immediately? Have a margarita is what I was going to do. All right. But I'm I'm hoping to get involved with the high school boys football program. That's what I'm hoping to do. I want to get uh you know maybe uh work with some of the the younger kids as they come up. Try to be a positive influence there. That's awesome. It'll be fun. And what about you, sir?

I have my hat in the day for the Holy Cross board. So, anyone out there that's a Holy Cross member, if you've appreciated my service on council, I will give you the same amount of service on the Holy Cross board. And and just once again to our staff, you guys, you guys work so hard. Um, Jeff, I didn't name everyone in the crowd, but I just I I'm just so honored to be here. Great. So, and and I think the town's in awesome hands. So, I I I look forward. You're going to see my name up there on Collins and uh yeah, I'm I'm not going away. I'm I'm just taking a break because I have to. So, it's been awesome. It's been a long eight years, but good.

Thank you both. See you. Call me. I would love it. I would be honored if you did. Oh, I did. All right. I'll probably be up at the house, but I'm coming with you. All right, we do it.

We'll see you around. Can't wait to watch. Let's do it, please. I'll probably save it. I think an 8year guy gets a full time. That's what I was hoping for. That was the only thing I wanted. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. All right. Well, next up on our agenda, we have our um welcome and oath of office for new council members. Um so I believe I know that's Greg. I think that might be you two to do get another oath,

but Pam will say and then Ely Hutddle um for those of you know she you know she was elected but she's going to be doing her oath the next meeting. Oh yeah, I'll review. You should have proclaimed the realness of assault of the bring.

Good luck everyone. Congrats. All right, Pam, do you need me anywhere different than where I am right now? No, I think we just stand here by this one. We'll maybe start with Angela. Yes. Stand up here and take

I Angela Anderson do affirm that I will support the Constitution of the United States. the Constitution of the State of Colorado. the Constitution of the State of Colorado and the laws of the state of Colorado and of the town of Balt and the laws of the state of Colorado and the laws of Basalt and will faithfully perform the duties and will faithfully perform the duties of the office of Basalt Town Counselor of the Office of Basalt Town Counselor upon which I am about to enter upon which I am about to enter. to the best of my ability. to the best of my ability. Welcome back. Thank you, Pam.

Mr.

Hi, Greg. Hi, Greg Chaffron. Do you swear that I will support Do you swear that I will support the Constitution of the United States the Constitution of the United States the Constitution of the State of Colorado the Constitution of the State of Colorado and the laws of the state of Colorado and the laws of the state of Colorado and of the town of Basalt and of the town of Basalt and will faithfully perform the duties and will faithfully perform the duties of the office of Basalt town counselor of the office of Basalt town counselor upon which I am about to enter upon which I'm about to enter to to the best of my ability. to the best of my ability. Welcome aboard. All right.

All right. Thank you.

Come on up. Thank you.

All right. Well, now we have a mostly seated our new town council. We'll finish, like I said, on May 12th with Elise Huddle. She's out of town this week. Um, next up, we'll move to council actions. So our first uh item is item 7A is a continued public hearing of 555 Basalt Avenue development application for special review PUB amendments and associated development review actions for 54 commercial storage units and 47 residential units. And James uh you're up on this one.

Yes, thank you. Let me please share my screen. It's okay. Thank you. We have the applicants here this evening as part of this continued public hearing. Uh we have Mara Blahett uh representing the applicant group and Justin Fes. Um, this is a continued public hearing on an application that was submitted by MRE LLC uh for special review, PUB amendments, site plan review, Southside flood plane and associated land use actions uh to construct 54 commercial storage spaces and 47 residential units at 555 Basalt Avenue uh which is the Meerson Company property in Southside. side. Uh the process includes uh land use requests requiring review by the Basalt Affordable Community Housing Commission uh the PNZ and the town council uh with public hearings at both the planning and zoning commission and town council levels. Uh it also requires a subsequent subdivision review uh by town council ultimately for condominiumization. Um staff has also identified that the requested development would be requiring approval of a master plan amendment to amend the future land use map as well as a an amendment to the master plan uh to change the typology designations for the property uh to permit the residential and commercial storage to be separated uh on the property. Um, as a bit of

refresher, uh, the site is, uh, 4.8 acres. Uh, it's located in Southside, uh, adjacent to FU Lane and Cody Lane. Uh, it is located in the Basalt Business Center South PUD. Uh, it's zoned industrial PUD and within the town's urban growth boundary. Uh, and is partially in the southside flood plane. Uh the proposal as was uh identified at the prior meeting uh includes 54 commercial storage spaces on the southern extent of the property adjacent to FU Lane. And then there are three residential buildings uh proposing 47 residential units uh of which 11 are proposed to be deed restricted uh for sale category units uh with price caps and uh an additional 11 are proposed to be uh primary resident units. Um at the last meeting at the end of March, uh staff and the applicant presented the application as well as discussion items and cons council considered uh public comments and provided initial feedback uh before continuing the public hearing. Uh at this meeting, staff would suggest council hear some comments from staff and the applicants on changes uh that they've made to the application since the last meeting. uh then we would recommend you hear comments from uh the applicant's traffic engineer uh and then also hear a presentation from the town's uh thirdparty consultant on traffic uh Jim Charlier of Charir and Associates who is here this evening uh and he will provide uh a presentation on analysis on FU Lane alternatives uh to improve FU

Lane which has been a significant topic uh of discussion uh and then ultimately take public comments and have council discussion. Uh this evening, staff would suggest limiting your focus on items of affordable housing, community benefit levels, uh the traffic and then the FU lane alternatives uh for this meeting uh given that we have certain time constraints. Uh but just briefly to begin uh the applicants have made uh some adjustments to their application uh since the last meeting. Specifically, they've provided a letter adding that uh 11 primary resident units uh would be included in the project. So now there are 11 for sale deedrestricted uh category units uh which equals 23% of the total residential units and then they've added the 11 primary resident units. Uh so that the total of deed restricted units in the project would be 47% of the units. Uh the council had provided concerns at the last meeting about the level of community housing and community benefit in the project. Uh so the applicants have proposed to add the primary resident units uh to get uh closer to the uh percentages that are in other projects uh approved by the town uh including the BCC and JADIN projects. Uh the applicants also amended the uh traffic report uh and their proposal to make uh 30 of the 54 storage spaces uh straight up storage and to designate 24 of the 54 storage spaces as storage units that could be used by

industrial businesses uh as kind of a secondary place of business. Um they in conjunction with that revised their traffic study accordingly. Uh it still concludes uh that the traffic generated by the development would be not greater than the existing Meyers and Company traffic. And so the applicant's traffic engineer is here this evening and we'll discuss that as part of the applicant comments. So, I wanted to be brief to give uh more opportunity tonight for the applicants and uh Jim Charier to provide discussion. Uh so, with that, I'm going to stop sharing my screen and uh turn it over to the applicants uh for comments. Let me please bring up the applicants presentation. Once again, we have Justin Freeze and Mara Bladet.

All right. Uh, good evening, council. Thank you and thank you for visiting the site uh this evening to kind of uh orient yourself a little bit more with the existing conditions uh on the site. Uh similarly to James, I'm going to try and keep it brief because we've got two traffic consultants and uh want to get uh get to their comments and then answer your questions. Um uh as a kind of a catch up to what James had said and the new council members. Um so this is a 4.84 84 acre site existing as an industrial steel yard right now. Uh the proposal is for 47 new forale units. Uh 11 deed restricted. 11 would be uh 11 additional primary residential units that we've added since we uh were previously in front of the council. Um and then 54 garage condo warehouse warehouse type units. Um the site plan that we we've kind of evolved to and are presenting right now uh is based in a bunch of factors. Looking at compra uh basalt comprehensive plan but also looking at existing uses in the southside business center. Uh looking at existing traffic patterns and uh and future traffic patterns. Uh the type of storage units we're looking at and proposing are uh really based on market feedback and market perspective. uh they are a unique type of unit that doesn't exist. Uh I think the closest units are probably in Glennwood Springs right now uh for comparison and then another development in uh gypsum and uh in rifle um and more designed for storing large recreation vehicles um and uh also can be used for small businesses within reason. Uh the site plan was reviewed by the Basalt business center south HOA uh and unan unanimously

approved. Um and so I will jump to the next slide. Uh so site plan was uh evolved to place the multifamily residential closer to the raft park and ride lot hoping to uh create some more usage uh from those users. Uh and then the lower use kind of lower intensity garage condo warehouse spaces were placed uh on the south side of the site and the buildings were oriented to try and maximize solar uh gain for snow melt and and um and site orientation. Uh two. Uh so since we previously were in front of council, uh we evolved the plan to add the 11 uh primary residential units uh as additional deed restricted housing. Uh as James mentioned, that brings the total up to 22 out of 47 units, which is 47%. Um I think as a factor in the development uh when we initially looked at offsetting the housing mitigation it was very much a minimal number of units. Uh so we feel this is a significant um upgrade and contribution to the affordable housing stock in the town. Um, so this is the site plan with uh updates based on our discussion last week with Charlie and town planning and our traffic consultant. Um, so the site we had an initial traffic count that was done on a Tuesday in May. Uh, planning and zoning asked that we get additional information. So we had another one done this recent February uh which supported our traffic count numbers. Uh and then in looking at the future uses uh we had previously had

multifamily low-rise as one use and then mini warehouse self- storage as another use. uh in discussion with council uh previously uh there was some question to business uses and so what we did is we're proposing to split the units by deed restricting them uh that the buildings in yellow which equate to 24 units uh would be deed restricted to allow those business uses and they would be categorized as light industrial use and their uh traffic trip generation was uh inserted into that calculation while the remaining uh southern buildings would be uh storage use only and that would happen through the HOA and the deed restriction on that uh and they were uh provided with that lower uh trip generation uh in our summary. Um then I will uh I'm going to note just on the bottom there was some question uh on previous facilities. Uh when we we spoke last uh we did some some comparison studies and the development in Eagle has 36 units. Currently four of those are used by businesses which is about 11%. I believe the uh industry average we quoted last time was about 20 to 30%. Uh and then there was a similar project in Dub Valley uh in Centennial near South Denver. Uh that was 64 units. Uh 12 of those are currently used by businesses uh which is 18.8% kind of supporting that industry average. Uh in comparison to this project, the 24 out of 54 units that we're showing as business use would be at 45% usage rate. Uh so we feel uh that number is is supported in the trip generation and that it wouldn't increase.

Um and Curtis uh with Kimley Horn will speak more to that in a second.

Uh the last discussion topic uh which has been a big one throughout the entire process is F Lane. Uh I've included a slide here with the entry to F Lane. Uh our proposed site plan would adjust the entry into the site and kind of clean up this uh threeway entry street. Um shifting the intersection to a line with what's considered Somerset Lane. Um and an aerial more for reference. I'll jump to one last slide. Uh so this is a zoom in of that area. Uh again, some of the considerations that we've taken into account is uh preserving the existing landscape. Uh the removal in the of the fence in that picture will create better visibility. Uh a new uh soft path along the buildings. Uh, and one thing we've added from the previous uh, material that we showed you is the path uh, that was just on the south side of the building now wraps to the east side uh, and we'll provide an additional connection for the southside over to the raft parking lot uh, and around to the underpass there. And then I'll jump to this last slide. And uh uh this is we reviewed some of the design possible design options for fuel lane, excuse me. And uh in reviewing those with uh our traffic consultant and Charlie uh and in talking with some of the neighbors uh we feel most of the support is for converting few lane into a one-way uh traffic in uh and then there's some discussion as far as uh what that circulation pattern looks like but I've uh shown some graphical error uh arrows there uh of how that circulation pattern can work uh with converting fuel lane to a oneway uh into the neighborhood.

Uh with that, I think um I will have Curtis jump up here. Do you want that? Perfect.

Good evening, Mr. Mayor and members of council. My name is Curtis Row. I'm with Kimley Horn Associates. Um I have 32 years of experience doing traffic impact studies. I'm a professional engineer uh licensed in the state of Colorado. I'm also a professional traffic operations engineer. I'm also the traffic engineering professor at the Colorado School of Mines. So, that all being said, I enjoy studying and discussing traffic. And so, as we go, no questions too small, feel free to to ask away. Um, we started this project uh several months ago. Um and then as Justin described and explained very well at the uh planning and zoning meeting um it was requested that we obtain another count of the facility um to see how much traffic the Meyers existing Meyers and Company u metal construction was generating. And so we did a second count. And so with those two counts we have a good baseline level of traffic in and out of the existing facility. And so then um taking the basalt southside traffic study which Kimley Horn and and I prepared uh working directly for the town, we know that there is a limiting threshold for the amount of traffic that can be generated by Basalt Southside. And so that became kind of our highline, our high bar um with in terms of traffic and the amount of traffic that this project could generate. And so the development was kept in mind that was kept in mind throughout the process that we knew that we had to stay under the threshold of what the existing facility generates. Um it's an 80 to 90 person um employee employer um generating traffic in and out um you know arrivals and departures for the you know common workday but then also for in and out throughout the day. So it's a heavy use. There's also uh truck traffic uh because

there's deliveries in and out of that facility and you all got to see that today at at your site visit I understand. So um and so now with this um we have 47 residential units and 54 storage units. In the last meeting um at the uh town council uh we heard the questions and the comments with regards to the storage and so we've updated that traffic study now to say okay we'll make an assumption that 24 of the 54 units are going to be a higher generating use and so because of that we changed the calculation methodology to industrial like like Justin mentioned and so uh with that we have a higher trip making uh potential for those. And that's what you see in your packet, the results of that. Uh we're showing based upon that that the um redevelopment project generates four less trips in the morning peak hour and one less trip in the afternoon peak hour than what the existing facility does when you average the two count days um from that from the existing. And then um otherwise I will be available to um answer any questions that you have as we go through tonight. Um and uh Yep. I guess that's it, right?

Thank you. Okay. Thanks. And so are there any council questions of the applicants and staff now before we bring Jim Charl up to kind of talk about uh FU Laneatives? And whenever you get questions one um Sure. Southside has is there headroom left for the future land use on Southside that could occur or is this a little confused about um statement that was they they've they're staying under the so so there is

Yeah. Right. So what's the is there a cushion or not?

Yeah. In in 2017, the town did a full traffic study for all of Southside that was actually done by SGM at the time. And there were some additional trips that were remaining that um the intersection at Basalt Avenue and Highway 82 could still operate under an acceptable level of service with those additional trips. Um and then so in the 2020 basalt master plan when the future land use map was uh created, it was created with that uh assumption in mind that kind of uh I guess uh kind of peanut buttered the trips throughout the future land use parcels and and there are some of them on the uh west side of Southside Drive there that are vacant parcels. um that were the basalt design district parcels and they've got a certain trip generation built into the future land use map and the future land uses that are associated with it. So the property was shown as existing land use on the 2020 master plan. So basically they weren't given additional trips u in that uh master plan. So they've they've come at it with the idea that they couldn't increase the trips over the current generation on the site.

So the remaining parcels are still able to be served before you hit that threshold. Right. Correct. Good question. Thank you. Any other questions? The applicant the traffic. I had a question for for you. Um, my question is I see that you have a calculation for multif family low-rise housing close to transit and I was wondering is that does that vary like is there a different calculation for a rural versus a city or is it all is it all kind of the same calculation?

There are different calculations for the type of residential. There's a lot of different types of residential and all of those pretty much have equations and then also yes where it's located. So like in this case this is multifamily adjacent to transit and so those are the equations that we use to calculate the trip generation. So this is the vehicle trip generation. Got it. So is there multi uh multif family close to mass transit in a place like basalt versus multif family close to mass transit in a place like golden is there a different set of numbers Denver

no there the those numbers would be the same um same equations so same numbers um there you know it's it's about a 15 to 20% reduction in trips so it's not a lot of change with transit or without because you know we don't have a lot of transit users. Um but the affordable housing uh component uh those residents um they do make more transit related trips than the typical multif family housing does. Okay. Thank you.

Yep. You're welcome. Any other questions including online from Angel or Hannah? Otherwise, I will turn it over back to James for uh

Yeah, if we could please have Jim Jim Charlier come up to talk about FU Lane and let me cue up. So, good evening. Um, my name is Jim Charlier and my firm, Charlier Associates, is in Denver. Um, I'm supposed to be retired, but um, I get I get phone calls from people like James and I hate to say no. So, uh, it's been a long relationship with the town of Basalt going back over 30 years. So, this is cool to be here tonight. Uh, it's fun to be up in the valley in such beautiful weather uh, this week. Um so what I was asked to do is to help uh address the question of fia lane and you know what the alternatives which should be. James asked me to identify alternatives and then to offer a recommendation to you. Should the project be approved, what should be the uh the transportation system to serve the project? And that's a multimodal question obviously um and it's a network question. the the what we try to avoid in transportation planning when we when we do it well um is we try to avoid uh looking at facilities and not at networks because we need the network to function and uh your southside network is fragmented obviously this is a large infill site in that network um and so uh rather than just look at fia lane we're going to be looking at this the context that that it sits in so uh next slide Um, so you know where the site is. I did you go over this afternoon? Did you do your sitewalk this afternoon? Okay. So, in you know this area far better than I do. Um, but what I want to do is give

you the assurance that I've looked at the context and covered the things that you would ask about, but if I miss something, please bring it up. So, next slide. Um, so I'm going to roll through some context, some things that I think are key to the context of the question. Next, um, for obviously the high school, you have a large high school that's basically on a culde-sac on a dead end street. And so it generates heavy traffic. Um, click once more and once more. Um and so the the primary route southside and you're all very familiar with this I'm sure uh southside to basalt um is becomes backs up and the uh and then you start getting some sheet flow through the neighborhood uh to to try to get around that. Next slide. Um there's also very close to the site is a um a daycare facility. Um the in a community like Basalt where you have a lot of families and a lot of children daycarees are really important and and it's important that they be safe. Um so we need to keep that in mind and that'll figure into some of the identification alter of al alternatives. Uh next slide. Uh obviously the RTD park and ride a major regional investment important investment for you. Um and we need that to work relative to our development pattern. So, so that's really important relative to this site. Uh, next slide. Um, there is a future roundabout. Um, and uh, and that doesn't really change a lot of what we'll talk about tonight. Uh, next slide. Um, obviously a gas uh, as it says gas station, actually pumps. There's not a building there. Next slide. Um, and then the obviously the the really fine bike corridors that you've been developing. I come up here often to ride the Rio Grand Corridor.

Um, and this is how I get into Basalt when I do. Um, next slide. And then finally, pedestrian connectivity, which is really, really important in your master plan and it's important in having your developments be sustainable and resilient. Uh, click once. Um, so the you you've been developing a fairly gritted network here on the southside in the residential part of the area. Uh, click again. Uh, and and people we do want people to be able to walk to the park and ride. Uh, and click again. Uh, and so you have what's a fairly large piece of land that's an infill site that's sort of in the middle of all of that. Um, and so I call it area of no no connectivity. Uh and so you'll see that coming up in the comments I have on al alternatives. Uh next slide. Um this is the site plan. You're very familiar with it. My version of this um is from a a few weeks ago when the materials were provided to me since they were provided to me. That exit to Cody Lane is actually exiting on a little bit to the right of there and then curving to the other than that it's still the same site plan. Next slide. Um, and one of my early comments on this was that with the barrier to circulation within the site, as you see the red, does that show up in red? Yes, it does. Uh, the red barrier there, um, the there's no through sight circulation. So you basically have the commercial, the um commercial component, the mini warehouse, hobby garage portion of the project coming in and out from East Fowl Lane and then the residential accessing and egressing through Cody Lane. Um next slide. Um so oh we'll click a couple more times and then we can move on. Um and then click once. So the traffic

impacts are through these two entrances. uh click again and those uh end up both on Basalt Avenue via FIA and Cody and click one more time. So we have three intersections that are impacted that we want to think about and those are all busy intersections today especially during the school year. Um and next slide. Uh and then finally you you have what I call a legacy street. It's like this used to be a commercial uh industrial area and so there were lanes that weren't really planned the way we planned streets. Um, some of those have been um, sort of, you know, taken over and changed over the years, but like this legacy roadway here is still sort of what it's been for a great many years. Nobody really designed it to be the way it is. It's just is evolved to be what it is. Um, and that intersection um, uh, will need to be tightened up. It's sort of a free-for-all right now as you as I'm sure you're very well aware. Next slide. Um and uh so the legacy roadway, a portion of it next to the gas pumps has had some money spent on it in recent years. Next slide. Um but this portion that continues on um through the through the trees there. Uh I'm sure you were out there today so you know what that looks like. Um that is pretty much the way it's been for I'm quite a few decades I'm sure. So u next slide. So in the analysis I show you this section that's where the gas pumps are over to where the current entrance to meers is uh I'm calling section A and then the section that goes through the trees and narrow section click again is section B. Um and and then the intersection itself would be the third component. Next slide. Um, oh, and then obviously, uh, the the the neighborhood character, you know, as as your your exiting councilman mentioned,

paving over paradise, and one of the things that that um we try to do in good planning is protect neighborhood character. And obviously that row of trees and that environment in through there is a part of the character of this area. And so, uh, I'm expecting there will be a fair amount of sensitivity to what might or might not happen to that to to that to those mature trees. Uh, next slide. Uh, and then so we have about a 500 foot section of roadway that's just an old informal rural/industrial lane. Next slide. Uh, one of the things that we need to keep take into account and I have met via Zoom with both fire and police. Um, is emergency access ingress and egress. Uh, click again. uh and the closest fire uh so uh in under international fire code the the u uh a street that is adequate for fire department use um we we call u fire access road and that's uh that has at least 20 ft clear and it has um uh access to water. So next slide. Um, so there are two fire hydrants out there, Anna Alexander and then next slide. And those are um, uh, and click one more time. So we're basically our problem here will not be so much that we don't have fire hydrants. There will be fire hydrants in the development. There are fire hydrants on Alexander. There there may there are a couple of others nearby. So we can get the coverage we want. Um but the other criteria we use in planning for for emergency access is that we need two points of access. Uh especially in a a project this size. Um when we have emergencies, one of those tends to get plugged somehow and so we need more than one way in and so that's another consideration in terms of

emergency access. Next slide. Um and then there is a platted coorder click again uh that was has been mentioned once already. uh Somerset uh which part of it is the driveway to the daycare today and part of it I'm sure you know has a bike lane on it and there's a part of it is fenced off much of the day. Today the parents come in from the north come through the loop and come back out. The children are dropped off and they walk across the driveway into to the right there to where the the actual daycare facility is. Next slide. Um, so in looking at these alternatives, we'll be zeroing in on three parts of FIA Lane. Next slide. Um, and so the current street network you see in in the in the green color. Um, the site that's mapped onto this. These, by the way, are not design drawings. I I uh these are informal drawings that are conceptual intended to show the choices that you have. Um the uh so the section A is two-way traffic, section B is also two-way traffic even though it's quite narrow. Um and the uh the daycare access is currently via a private lane. Um and there is no Somerset lane has not been developed through. Over here to the right on Allison is two-way coming around the corner and then obviously the streets down in your residential subdivision are all two-way two-lane streets with on street parking. Next slide. Um, so the first alternative would be to do almost nothing. It would be sort of a minimal alternative. Um, as was mentioned earlier, you do you would need to clean up that intersection there, turn it into less of kind of this sort of big asphalt area. Uh, and focus it down into an intersection just for safety reasons. Um, so that would be sort of the minimum that's I'm sure everybody is anticipating would be done. Um, and so I'm calling that alternative one. it could be sort of the no action

alternative too, but there would be some money would need to be spent there to to organize that intersection. Um, section A would would continue to be two-way, of course, and section B would continue to be two-way, and you would not address the issue of the very narrow street, uh, the very narrow lane. Uh, next slide. Uh, alternative two, by the way, I should say, and this is okay, mayor, if you if you have a question that's like something's just really not clear, please interrupt me, but look, we can do discussion and question at the end, maybe, but you have to kind of shout at me because I'm not watching. Um, so alternative two would be uh to to Are these colors? Yeah, they're showing up. So under alternative two where you see the gray um you would improve do some minimal improvements just to define the roadway a little more uh probably deal with drainage um between the entrance to the the new project and the intersection of PA and Balt and Bald Avenue. Uh and you would you would redo the intersections as I discussed a moment ago. the narrow lane part of the lane would continue to be two-way and there would be no improvements there. So, this is again a fairly minimal set of um changes. Next, alternative three. Um this is um uh this would under this alternative you would take all of East Fowl Lane and turn it into a two-way facility with two lanes um and modern design. So you would address drainage, you would address sidewalks and pedestrian circulation. Um and you would provide um minimal lane widths for two-way truck minimum for a low speed street, 10 to 12 feet for for each lane. Um this would require removal of that row of trees that you saw in the photograph earlier. A pretty significant impact, pretty significant impact of

neighborhood character. Um it would open up emergency service access and ingress and e uh e eress um capacity uh for the new project and would improve all of that for the neighborhood. It would have some improvements for pedestrian circulation and bike circulation just by virtue of the safer facility. Um next slide. Alternative four is one that um came from the community from members of the community. Um, and under this alternative, you would you would actually realize Somerset Lane. Now, you those of you who go uh are out in that neighborhood or maybe live in that neighborhood know that Somerset Lane is there today, but it it this uh corridor that has been uh preserved uh on the map on your rightway map is actually offset from that Somerset Lane a little bit to the left. So, so it's not line, it's actually lined up with where the driveway into the daycare facility is. So, that's where that it's a narrow rideway. It's about 22 ft wide. So, we'd have you'll have to I'm not doing design for you, but the the in design you will have some challenges getting all of that to fit in there. But, I believe it can be done and it could be done, especially if it were a one-way facility. Under this um alternative, the um the daycare uh family drop off would be northbound using that little pull out you see there at the school. Um and uh but that would be a one-way street. Um a very low volume street. Um I think there may be one more click here. Yes. So, one of the things the fire department asked that we think about is ensuring, and again, I'm not doing design tonight, but ensuring that if you did go with an alternative like this, you would provide adequate turn radi those those curbs in there so that they could get their longer engines in from the south here in case they needed to do

that. So, that's I I've showed that there just to say yes, that needs to be addressed in final design. Um the Fial East Fowl lane, the narrow part would t would convert to one way and it would be one way south eastbound. Uh and that little section of Allison between there and Alexander would become one way southbound. um that would prevent school traffic um the the afternoon traffic uh coming out of the school at peak times from trying to use FIA lane um which I hear anecdotally occurs to some degree today. Uh that would prevent that from occurring but there we would still need to address the issue of that traffic trying to find its way through the new Somerset connection past the school. And I think those are m those those are issues can be addressed in design and can be addressed in through enforcement over the time. So that's alternative four. Um the pedestrian circulation, there would be pedestrian circulation along um the Somerset extension, Somerset Lane extension, and there would be pedestrian improvements on the improved parts of East Fowl Lane and and bike accommodation as well. Next slide. Um, alternative five is a is a little more um uh is a little bigger step uh and that would provide a new entrance to the the proposed development at the very southeast corner there. Um a two-way entrance and would provide traffic circulation straight through and out to Cody Lane. So you would be gridding out you would be making this project uh a part of the grid. You're making the extending the grid through the project. That would be two-way traffic. Lots of questions there. You would have to move the gate to protect the uh mini warehouse uh portion of the project. You'd have to rotate that. Uh and whether this is a public street or or a private lane operated used as a public street um would would be questions you'd have to deal with. And as if you did

decide you wanted to do this alternative, Somerset Lane would remain unchanged. Uh East Fio Lane would become one way southeastbound again. Um, and you would probably with this alternative see some some at least desire for use by that heavy traffic exiting the school in the afternoon to try to come through here and come right through this new site to get get to Cody Lane. So, there would be some issues with all of that with this alternative. And then uh one of the residents had spoken with James and and suggested another idea and that's I'm showing is alternative six. Oh yeah. And that would require signing on alter. So we would need so on this this idea that a citizen brought forward was could we just have a bike lane through that area where those trees are that's that's most of the time just a bike lane, but when the fire department needed to get in there, they could use that that fl that lane as access. Um and so I wanted to to um reflect that a citizen had that comment. Next slide. But as you s uh as you saw earlier and this is a little hard to see on here, but there is a brown corridor there along the south side of the mini warehouses and then it extends over to the right and up to um to get eventually to Cody Lane and across into the parking right. So um that has been a modification to the applicant's proposal. So to some degree you could argue that that addresses the idea that that is was uh that I showed with alternative six with the exception that as as it's currently proposed it would not it could function as fire access um but it would be mainly access to the rear of the buildings not the sort of access where you're coming through at speed. Okay, next slide. Um so I did a quick project evaluation.

This is very crude um but it's designed just to give a sense of uh how these stack up against each other. So green is a is a positive change. Red is something negative about the what would happen with each alternative. Yellow is pretty much no change or at least not much change. Um and the key factors that I I suggesting would matter most to you in this context obviously safety and emergency access. the capital cost. Somebody has to pay for this. Um the town doesn't have a big uh public works budget. You're looking for ways to spend. Uh developers got some kind of a performer budget. So it's it's it's a you know, so it's a overly expensive um ideas are probably negative to the the potential for the project. Pedestrian connectivity should always be a criterion especially in an infill site like this and in given your master plan's aspirations for this being a walkable community um and in the tree canopy which I think in terms of public perception and neighborhood perception is going to end up being an important issue. So these are the three four criteria. Next slide. Um so alternative one you see the evaluation box down the lower left there um is is basically not much change except at the intersection some change not much a little bit of improvement in pedestrian connectivity a little bit less dangerous but not much uh improvement uh alternative two then next slide oh and I should say that you know on my phone call my zoom with the uh fire department um they I mean they're not um I try not to go against, you know, a strong opinion on the part of fire departments because they deal they deal with a day-to-day reality and um so they really feel alternative one is not worth further consideration. They wanted me to

fatal flaw it out of the analysis. So next I'll next slide. and and alternative two um again is not much change. A little bit of improvement, some safety improvement at the intersection, a little bit of improvement to the section at FIA Lane at section 80 there. Otherwise, not much change. Alternative three, next slide. Oh, and again uh sorry, James, the uh again the fire department really feels this doesn't measure up. I think their point of view on this is that what we do if this project gets approved and these whatever alternative you decide you want to do gets built that's probably the last major work that'll happen out here for many many many years. So from the fire department's point of view what happens here um now becomes sort of the permanent situation and the only opportunity you know that that very narrow two-lane lane through there is is an existing reality. The only opportunity the community has to change that and make it safer over time is wind as partial develop. So I don't think they're willing to let go of having some improvement in access through there as part of approving the project. So that's kind of their their position. Uh and then so next slide alternative three. Um this you know becomes a two-way just a regular suburban street. um hopefully a little better than some suburban streets, but you know, a low-speed street, reasonably tight and efficient design. Nothing happens at Somerset. You do and nothing happens with that new entrance to the project. Um this takes out the row of trees. So, so the the uh the the evaluation of impact shows high capital cost is red and loss of the tree canopy is red. Improvements to pedestrian connectivity would be f great and the improvements to safety emergency access would be great. Uh next slide. So

alternative four again which was the extension of Somerset Lane realizing the the mapped corridor of Somerset Lane. Um uh is shown as good for emergency uh safety and emergency service access. Um it's it's a little more it's obviously quite a bit more expensive. Not as expensive maybe as alternative three, but still pretty expensive. Um and it preserves the tree canopy. Uh and it would improve pedestrian connectivity significantly, especially for that neighborhood to the south. Um and then next slide, alternative five. Um this is uh again the capital costs are high, the tree canopy is preserved um and pedestrian and safety emergency access are improved. And then um I'll turn it next slide. And then alternative six really doesn't do much. Um and probably, you know, the way I think it was conceived as being a relatively wide lane that firet trucks could use would probably end up having pretty significant impacts to that tree canopy. uh at the same time. So I've rated that a red for tree canopy and uh it probably ends up being more expensive than some of the other alternatives we've looked at. So I've shown red for that. Next slide. Um so um this is and then click one more time. This is a kind of a quick summary of of those colors and those so you're really looking at alternatives three, four, five. Um and next slide. uh the the ideal, you know, I'm a transportation planner and I spent my whole career trying to improve connectivity, provide multimodal connect connectivity and networks to neighborhoods. And so I would like to see everything happen, but I realize that's probably not feasible. So the question comes, what's most critical? Um having those pedestrian and bike connections up to the park and ride and through this corridor seem pretty

critical to me. you need uh it would be nice to be able to take east lane back to oneway circulation southeastbound so that it doesn't get the the the outflow from the school um and improving the safety of that school the preschool access for the the daycare there seem those seem important to me. So one more slide. So, um, if I had to make, um, a recommendation at this stage, I would say something pretty close to alternative 4, using, uh, Somerset Lane, um, converting, uh, East Pia to one lane, getting that bike and pedestrian corridor in there and doing the improvements to the PA lane in section A would be a reasonable course of action. It is still um, definitely some capital cost associated with that. Uh, next slide. And so, uh, and then just one final note, um, when you get into design, there are a whole bunch of realities will come out on the table. Um, you were in a flood plane here. Drainage is going to have to be thought through carefully and there may be things that that are have to be solved in and designed with drainage. uh I did not do any survey work to determine where the rightways and where the utilities are and where the actual rightaway lines are and what what issues there may be with adjacent property owners with respect to rightway. Uh and then you the community hasn't really had opportunity to react to this yet and I'm sure there will be strong opinions there. So those are all contingencies that I really haven't taken into account. And with that uh last slide, I can answer questions or uh listen to commentary.

Well, thank you. That was that was a thorough and and very informative presentation on that. So, I appreciate that. Um what questions we have? I'd like to kind I'd like to wait on commentary until after the public hearing. Okay. But what questions do we have for Jim at this point?

Um thank you. Um what I'm coming away with is any potential redevelopment is going to require a reconstruction of the road system out there and what you know converting legacy roadways to a connectivity that's a system and right now that doesn't exist in a manner of speaking. So, what you've told us is pretty interesting because anything that changes on that site that would increase um the availability of the fire department to get in there, the pedestrian movements, bicycles, daycare, this that that would all come with improvements regardless if it's this project, the next project, the next project after that. Um, it seems to me what you've done for us is lay out a vision for that area that would come with any growth that happens to get approved there.

And what tell me what your question is. My question is does this this would these alternates if you were looking at a redevelopment of the area that had nothing to do with this piece of ground right now and what's being proposed, you would still recommend these changes? Sure. Sure. I mean, your last change, your last opportunity to address the the connectivity of that network in that area with that fairly large infill site is going to be when that site develops, right? Because you're not you don't have a big capital budget. You're not out there widening streets. So my second question is for James is the fees that were established for the southside improvements

were probably do they would they apply to this infrastructure improvement or would would they not apply to this infrastructure improvement? So what I'm asking is the networks of streets that were developed already in the water tank and all the other stuff up there. Sure. This seems outside the boundaries of that fee structure. Well, the the improvements in the water tank requirements would would be subject to this because right expanding the utilities but the road network

the the road network the the they would be required to, you know, contribute to the mini roundabout requirement fee that that all of Southside has been required to to pay into. they would be required to pay into the southside transportation improvement impact fee uh which has been required throughout Southside as well. Would any of these would any of those fees you're speaking to be put back into this? They they could be they could be. Okay.

Yeah, they could be. Um, also, you know, some of those fees that we have in in the hopper that that we have in the current funds, um, are also kind of earmarked to look at that mini roundabout improvement and lanage changes that could get rid of the split phase at the Basalt Avenue signal um, to improve the level of service, too. So, that's that's what some of those funds are are going to go to as well. But, you know, they they could potentially some of those fees go to these improvements. Thanks. Can we get copies of those slides? Yes.

And just one quick clarifying question. Um, in the the uh roadway that would be on private property, but you know, questionably open to the public and our alternative five. If we didn't redevelop, we we wouldn't be able to really do that if if they didn't redevelop the site. Right. That goes right to their operation. I just wanted to make sure I'm correcting that correctly. Okay. Yes. Okay. Any other questions or comments? Um, did you have anything else prepared before I do public hearing? The the applicant would like to Yeah. I just have a question for Jim. What? Come up to the uh to a mic. Yeah. I just have a question for Jim just to get back to the traffic study.

Sure. Since we've been working with you on this for now probably four months and I just wanted to know to what extent you feel we've addressed all your concerns. Initially you wanted us to do another traffic hunt which we did last time you said can we come up with a scenario if there was more industrial use. Right. We've presented that. Did you have any other concerns with our traffic study at this point?

Good question. Yeah. So, so for council's information, I also reviewed the traffic impact study that that um was done for this and I had I did have comments and criticisms. My my concerns were that the the um circulation plan shown in the traffic study should match what was shown in the development project. And so the the initial traffic study said that there would be cross-ite circulation, but the development plan when I I watched on uh YouTube, I guess I watched your count previous council meeting where you discussed this project and I learned things about the project I didn't know. I did learned that there would not be cross- sight circulation. I learned that the mini warehouse were actually hobby garages or or man man garages, whatever you call those. um and man caves I guess. Yeah. Um and um which was a different use in my opinion. Um so yes, we did collaborate um with the applicant and their traffic consultant um and um the uh with respect to the mini warehouse uh portion of the project. If the uh con project is conditioned and then those conditions are enforced through whatever covenants they write when they u subdivide and and sell the property that limiting the number of those units that can be used as principal um that that it can be used as places of business essentially. um uh and the number of units that they shifted from uh mini warehouse to light industrial matches that number then that solves that problem in my opinion. Then now your traffic study matches your land use the proposed land use. Um on the issue of fire department and police emergency

service and and emergency evacuation have more than one way out always from the project. They have addressed that by um uh proposing that the gate uh across that drive that you were referring to a moment ago. That gate would be interconnected with the fire alarm system and the fire alert system, emergency alert system and would it wouldn't be one of those old gates that goes like this. It would be like a draw bridge. It would go up and that would be open opening up access for people to make emergency exits or fire engines to get through which which addressed that. um um that concern that as you know I had. So yes, the at the conclusion of our last phone call uh I felt they had addressed all of my criticisms of the traffic study and had resolved them, which is just to say that the traffic study now represents a reasonable estimate of what the traffic generation from the project would be. including the circulation piece. including the circulation piece you mentioned initially. Um there was something right that circulation didn't I I'm going to butcher it but the circulation didn't match what they were presenting. Um

well yeah and you know I I don't own a big site of many warehouses. I don't know what the security and market requirements are for that. I felt that it would be good to to not have that protected by closed gates. Um, I felt that it, you know, it would be with between lighting and motion detection and um, and good uh, well-built buildings, the the the concerns about theft could be mitigated. I'm informed that the market doesn't agree with that assessment and so the the idea of gating off the many warehouses is still an important idea to the viability of the project. So my concerns were alleviated when I learned that the in an emergency there would be an emergency interconnect and those gates would rise and you would have free flowing but you would not on as an ordinary matter have traffic flowing through the site using it as a way to get to Cody Lane.

Okay, that's okay. Thank you for clarifying that. Any other uh questions otherwise I will go to public. Yeah, go ahead. It might be just Go ahead. might just be conducive for the discussion that's going to follow that we are in favor of the alternative four that's being proposed. I know we said in the end in the remarks early on, but I think now it makes more sense now that you've seen it to know what we would support for what it's worth.

All right. Um I'm going to go ahead and open the public hearing at whatever time 8:21. Um, you're good sitting there and if somebody else needs to actually No, you're fine to stay in there. We'll use this microphone. Good evening.

It's me again. Um, I just want to thank you. Hi everybody. Um, we are really grateful and of your time, your due diligence done by the town and Meer Steel in regards to the proposal. The safety concerns I've shared are not only tied to this proposal of new development, but the vast growth in Southside with only one funnel egress, as I've spoke about a lot, um the traffic engineers exploration and recommendation is paramount in addressing these safety concerns. And I want to thank you for enlisting their expertise. It's warranted and much appreciated. And I want to thank Myer Steel also for their hard work, their patience, their flexibility in making the project the best and safest it can be. And I just wanted to share my humble vision of best practice and moving forward with the project while addressing the safety concerns I've shared. Um, in order for me to continue providing safe, high-quality care while keeping the safety of our children, our neighbors, the high schoolers, the visitors, the bicyclists, pedestrians in mind, alternative four is clearly the best option. Thank you for consideration.

Thank you. Thanks, Mayor.

I'm doing timing here. Uh, who else would like to come up and speak? Any other any other public comments from the room? I do see a hand up online, so let's go to that. John's iPhone. Don't forget to uh give your name and address. John, if you'd like to speak, please unmute and you can talk to council.

Yes, my name is John Fitzpatrick. I am the president of the Balt business center homeowners association which is the the the commercial end of Cody Lane. Um my concern is we haven't really addressed a a a large impact that's going to be onto Cody Lane adding all this traffic right onto it. That end of Cody Lane is uh is short of what it should be. It has no sidewalks. It's very narrow. It's got ditches on both sides. And nothing's being addressed about improving Cody Lane if you're going to add all these uh vehicles onto it on a daily basis. Uh a little history of this. Um that section of road that comes out there was track A and that was dedicated from the original developer to the town Balt and somehow when they uh added the parking ride that got conveyed over to Seed DOT and the whole idea that was when Meyers property uh was taken away uh to develop the uh park and that that was an exit for the trucks with a five vehicle per day allowance onto it. Now, we're going to uh have a steady traffic of vehicles uh exiting the residential part of that onto on onto a um un looking for the right word, substantial uh roadway. I think if we're going to do this, we have to add sidewalks there and

we're going to have to at least widen it to that to any kind of code. what would normally be to a road and that's not being addressed on this. Um, you know, the it's just going to be wide enough for more snow removal. Um, you know, it's just nothing on our end what we're going to be impacted on is being really addressed with this. Um, that's that's really our our problem with it. Um, the other part is, you know, what I see with the pedestrian walkway, nothing is that's all showing just going into the into the parking ride and going to the bus. It's not showing the pedestrians having to walk down more than likely coming out, walking down Cody Lane to get to the underpass. Um, that also raises another concern of mine. If we put a roundabout there that all the roundabouts eliminate your stop signs and we have bicycles rolling through, pedestrians rolling through and you know we're going to increase what's going to come out of Kobe Lane into that roundabout. So I really think that needs to be addressed. Um and we've actually as the homeowners association, nobody has come in to us uh you know proposing this. um you know we all found out about it um that this development was happening but we hadn't been brought in um with the whole planning on the increased traffic for Cody land and I hope the town council can uh address these concerns. Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Who else uh would like to make uh comments? Steve. All right. I will close the public hearing then at 8:26. You have something? I just wanted to ask a if it's okay with council a clarifying question of Jim just for council to make sure we understand the presentation. Jim, on your presentation, were there any differences between alternative 4 and what your kind of ultimate reasonable recommendation was? just the um

making a good uh set of pedestrian bike facilities along the south edge of the new development and along the east side of the new development crossing Cody Lane on the way to the parking ramp. Other than that, it's alternative 4. So that's path on the south and east side basically for pedestrian

behind the behind the mini warehouse units uh parallel parallel to f lane but uh inside the project from the tree canopy from the existing trees from the mature trees. Okay, thanks Jeff for asking that. Okay, I will open it up to council questions and comments now if we have uh any feedback and and as uh as James mentioned. We have basically and I have right in front of me but uh three things that we were going to try to focus on which included affordable housing in the community benefit uh traffic generation and this fuel lane discussion which as Jim is putting as kind of more of a network discussion anyway. So, and we, you know, just it's a time check. We are 8 minutes over. So, um, we're not going to be able to cover all that tonight, but we will get another bite out of the apple. But I'll open up questions and and comments.

I had a question. And it says here 56% would be restricted to storage units for the storage. What other kind of businesses are going could go in here? like could a food truck could I have a food truck out of one of these storage units?

So, it uh is limited uh through the use table of the school PUB. Uh we did some restrictions to that in our proposal. Um theoretically, a food truck. Uh our proposal says that any business use would be a secondary business use, not a primary place where you would have visiting customers. So theoretically, a caterer or a food truck could park a truck in one of these units, come and get it, and go for the day. But if my food truck is my primary business, I could still have walk up customers. Is there a chance I could have walk up? Well, it's I mean, you

it'd be restricted by the HOA because it is gated and secured facility. Uh and so if the HOA was aware that someone was using it in that way, uh it would be restricted through those guidelines. And so with that gated access that means no business could have like walk up customers

essentially. Yes. That was the limiting factor we were asked to put in place uh as we looked at the allowable uses in the uh in the PUB to limit it to secondary places of business uh more towards the storage purposes. Um, I would say with the adjusted trip calculation, and maybe Curtis could talk to this, uh, that could accommodate some more of that use, but that hasn't been considered yet. We were still some of the examples you put in there included like mechanic and things like that, like a like a bike mechanic or

Yeah. Or car mechanic. That was in one of the examples that you gave like the gypsum similar kind of Okay. differences. Yes. The gypsum development does not have the restriction we have in place that actually allows places to have it as a primary place of business which we um which we prohibit. So it's not an exact comparison. You they actually probably have higher business use than we would ever have given the initial restriction that it can't be a primary place of business. So if you think of any business think is it their primary place of business then that's a no. A food truck to me would be the primary place of business. Yeah. And I think that would be a a no. What about like a shipping? Could I have a a drop shipping business here

that receives orders? Again, if it's a primary place of business, no. I mean, if can't be customerf facing, you know, I mean, we were thinking, you know, what about a local party planner, event planner? You plan a wedding, you need to store a ton of stuff, but you maybe just go in there once a month with a customer and say, "We have this decoration, this decoration. take a look at it. That kind of business use is what we had in mind. A planned appointmentd driven visit

kind of. So maybe sometimes a customer would come in but not a walk-in customer. It's probably what we think. And again, all the other developments, it looks like it's 90% used for storage. So that's why we're quite flexible on restricting it because we really feel like we we have it there at 45% but we think it's highly unlikely that it's even going to be used that much but we want to leave that door open because we think it could be you know also good for the community to some extent as long as it doesn't impact traffic.

You also said there was only one comparable type of facility in Glenwood right for storage. What makes this different than the storage that's already in South? So, it's the size of the unit. Okay. Uh it's a larger door and it's a 20 foot by 50 foot size unit. Uh so, used for larger RVs, for boats, for trailers. Uh a typical uh southside storage unit is 10 by 20, 10 by 30 at max. Typically, those doors are 8 ft tall. Uh with a roof rack, with a food truck, anything like that, you would not be able to get that into these units. Uh, and so it really it's the size of the unit that that makes it unique. What about utilities? Do they have is it water?

They have water bathroom in my the So they have water and sewer hooked up to the units. They're typically sold as shelves. Okay.

Um, and then they have electrical uh to the unit as well. Uh, some people if they use them as a uh as a storage, they might put a kitchenet in there uh or a shower. Uh there are restrictions in the code that we've discussed with James from the beginning of this of what defines a residential unit and that would be limited. Uh so it's a reduction in what you can actually have in that kitchen uh that makes it a residential unit or not. And again the residential portion would be restricted uh by the HOA as well because we know that is a concern. Uh, and I'm actively working on about four of these projects, uh, currently. And, uh, that's a consideration by every planning and zoning and city council I've spoken to. Uh, and the operators of these facilities are very heavily strict on that.

And I'm sorry, I just I know you already said I just wanted so I got my notes right. You said that restriction on what could go into this storage unit is a function of the HOA. Correct. It's and James, you might need to correct me if I'm wrong. It's the HOA would have their bylaws on uses, then it falls to the city zoning or the PUD. And if someone wanted to put a business in there, they would need to get a business license or business permit for that space. So, it would also be permitted through the city.

Yeah. And you know, the the restrictions would be carried over into the PUD. So, you know, the first line of enforcement would be the HOA and then the town would kind of be the second line of enforcement. Other other questions or comments including online from Hannah and Nel. I'll go I'll go ahead and ask one while folks may be thinking of their questions. um the personal use storage units, in other words, the ones that aren't designated light as light industrial and AE F and G buildings, are they going to be built any differently than the other um units that will um either will be light industrial, they would be sold as a uh they call it a cold gray shell, so it would be steel studs uh and an open unit. uh it could be built out by a personal user. Uh depending if they want to put a mezzanine in there um or uh say it was someone with um that wanted to work on their own cars and wanted to put kind of a mini shop in there, but again that doesn't rise to the level of a a true auto mechanic because they're changing their oil or or maybe doing minor work in those. Um and so but they would be sold similar whether it's the business use or the personal use. So, are they going to be built out the same? And then it's up to the the buyer to finish them out,

the individual. Yep. And then it's just a matter of the covenants for the use, but otherwise they're they're going to be identical in all the buildings. Yep. And and not finished out and any any interior fit out would be permitted through the building department. Okay. As well. Okay. Thanks for clarifying that. Go ahead.

A couple of things. Uh first, I just I wanted to say thank you. I feel like you guys really listened the last time you were here and I appreciate the time that you've spent um investigating ways that this intersection can be improved. Thank you for for taking the time to do that. Um I have a question for the just for the town. Um is the town planning at all to improve this intersection? Are we essentially waiting on a developer to pay for it? Well, the town hasn't had previous plans to improve the few lane access and it has really come up, you know, in relation to the new application here. So, uh we do not have funds currently budgeted to make improvements to FU Lane. Um so that would have to be another discussion. Okay. Um, you know, you're right. It has has brought the neighbors out to talk about the existing issues. Uh, so I'm just wondering if this application, you know, didn't go through, what are we saying to to the neighbors who are already saying there's there's an issue? I think we'd have to have another town council discussion about if this application didn't move forward, you know, whether the town would be interested in making further improvements.

Um, and do we know how many more residences are scheduled to come online in Southside that are approved but haven't started to build yet or aren't occupied? Yeah, in Stoz Mill. Um, we have probably there there's a total of 49 lots, single family duplex lots, and uh, you know, they're probably about, uh, a third built out, a third to to half, I'd say, a third. So, you're probably looking in about the range of 30 30 more including homes.

Yeah. Individual homes. Is that up on the west side of Southside too? Closer to Rio Grand. There's a couple small parcels on on the west side of uh Southside Drive. Those are those are vacant parcels. They're they're not currently in the town. Uh they're in unincorporate unincorporated picking county. They have future land use designations on them. So that there is a certain amount of development that the master plan would say might be acceptable on those lots through a review process. Clay and Paul th those would be yeah the designers isn't it?

Yes. On their warehouse site adjacent to their warehouse site. Yeah. There's more than just mill. Well, not currently approved. Approved. There's the 30 contemplating the master plan, but quite

So, I I have a question on on process here. You know, we've um you know, we're having a public hearing. There's a suggested motion to continue the public hearing. Um and this is all very good information in and you know the conversation and dialogue is developing but what is when do we get to like the gating uh factors as part of the application process like sketch plan etc is that um like when does that occur? Is that something that has to be triggered by the applicant? I'm just trying to understand and triangulate on that. So, so this this process is kind of one round with P&Z and council and and then there's a condo process that would follow up that review if they received approval of the the one round of PNZ and council. Staff has not provided a draft ordinance for you as of yet. Uh we we wanted to kind of have some feedback on kind of these bigger items uh before we brought forward an ordinance. The PNZ did recommend certain conditions that would be included in a draft ordinance and staff can bring that back at a future meeting potentially the next meeting for consideration if if that's acceptable.

Okay. So, in other words, this is your main round of review on this project. This isn't a this isn't a a new PUD where you'd have that sketch, preliminary, and final. This is because within an existing PUD, this is set up as a special use review and an amendment to the PUD. So, this is this is the round of review. As James said, um, kind of based on the discussion of these preliminary issues, that'll kind of inform an initial draft of the ordinance with, uh, staff recommended conditions and those that have been directed by council at this point. Correct. Yeah. And then that'll be your typical, you know, two reading, correct? Sketch plan review.

Yeah. It would be for this approval, there'd be two. Yeah. Is there an approval with this because or was that going to be a suggested motion like maybe at the next meeting? I'm just trying to where's the approval in this round? It would be to bring now that there's been some preliminary discussion on kind of these fundamental issues with the project to introduce the form of the ordinance on the application like potentially at the next meeting. And then to approve the project if that's where council were to go would be an approval of that ordinance on first reading and then an approval of that uh ordinance on second reading and then the project would be approved. So it's within this within this process

is there is there sometimes there's on these land use applications you know oftentimes there will be the ordinance that comes along with the initial presentation from the applicant but I know on some of the other bigger ones there's been similar to what we've done here where there's getting a some sense and direction of council before drafting an ordinance that has a bunch of conditions in it. Okay, that makes sense. Isn't it? Will there be a a prelim or a sketch prelim final? Is it or just one? This is it. Okay. Okay, that's helpful. Thanks for Yeah, I have nothing that Okay, that's because Yeah, I was wondering that

I think the rest of my feedback is I I do feel like it's too dense. Um, and I think that a development this dense is going to have a really big impact on Southside and in order for me to feel okay moving forward with that. I I would have needed to hear more from the Southside residents and I don't know how exactly, you know, we should go about that, but I do feel like there needs to be more outreach and I don't even I'm not even saying it's on your shoulders to do that. Um, but I do want to feel like the residents of Southside have had an opportunity to weigh in and voice their concerns and I know some of them have done that. But I would I would really like to hear from more people in Southside because I think that this development will have a a big impact.

Thank you. Other other comments or further questions? I I mean I had another question. I'm sorry got a lot of questions. So my understanding is that what you're really asking for us is amendments to the master plan for warehouse and storage to be added for the industrial piece and highdensity residential for the residential piece. Is that kind of correct?

Yeah. I mean there's several PUD amendments uh one related to building height uh to go slightly above the current building height in the PUD. And then there are master plan amendments that would be required. Uh one of them is to change the future land use map from existing land use to um warehouse storage for the southern portion and multifamily residential highdensity residential for the northern portion adjacent to the park and ride for the residential. And then the uh other master plan amendment request that would be required is to adjust the typology in the master plan on the project to allow for the residential to be completely separated from the commercial storage which is how it's proposed. And so I guess what I'm kind of what I'm what I'm curious and I appreciate you coming back listen to the pri prior comments coming back for a lot more affordable housing but what could be built like what part of this project could be built without any council approval like without having to come to council. Could none of this be built? There's no storage. There's no residential. they could uh you know keep the building and site as it is and put a new use in there that's consistent with the industrial uh requirements wi without a council approval. Um basically any new facilities require at least a site plan review which includes a council review as part of that.

Is is residential part of the current existing usage of that? Uh residential is not basically residential of any kind requires a special review um which includes a B&Z council review. Okay. And the master plan amendment and the master plan amendment

and that was a big part of our initial site planning going back to starting the process with PNZ two years ago. um was looking at replacing the facility, uh replacing the square footage in kind, um what would trigger housing, uh what would trigger those different changes to that and then the traffic being a huge uh concern. Uh and so looking at uses and looking at adding housing because we were right by the uh the parking ride uh is kind of where we landed with that. And uh when we landed on those uses uh it didn't make sense to stack them in the typology, which is why we're asking for the the split. Um and so that's kind of what led to uh these iterations of design that we were at right now.

And I have one last question. I think it's for danger. It says on the application that they're doing a fee in lie of the basalt parkland dedication requirement. Yes. That's basically saying development of this side would have to have some sort of park or open space and they're suggesting instead of that they'll pay a fee that goes towards supporting other parks. Correct. Is that correct? Yes. And it's assessed on only the residential portion. Um parkland dedication only comes in as a requirement on residential. I couldn't imagine be much parkland right for apartments.

Well, four 47 units. So it the fee is about $11,000 per unit on the 47 units and that can only be used for existing park. No, it could be used to establish new parks or to um improve existing parks in town.

And how how much green space would a multifamily development of this size require? um on on the residential component where the parkland dedication requirement comes in. Our code says that uh per each uh person generated um or let me get this right. Per per each uh what is it 25? I I'll have to look it up. Yeah, we we could come back with that. But

because I did I did wonder when looking at at the residential why there isn't any green space. And I I just think if if I was a person living here, I wouldn't find that to be very enjoyable that it's only buildings and no green space. So I would encourage you to reconsider that.

Uh and Hannah, thanks for saying Hannah. Yeah, go ahead. Hannah, if you'd like to let me see. Wait a minute. Thank you. Can you hear me? Yes.

Okay, great. I was just about to make the a similar comment on the green space that I think would that that many people in there having some some parkland would better fit the character of Basalt. Um, and I guess a a question maybe about the master plan is that and this could be for staff. My understanding is typically when folks ask for a variance like the 38 foot height, there has to be some sort of community benefit that that incentivizes council to support something outside of that original community oriented vision. And I'm wondering if in future meetings on this we could get some examples of of what folks are asking for. Like one example I have is for the town of Basalt building where we're having 100% all affordable all electric units. That's like a three-foot variance from the original vision. Uh um and so if we could get more context for what being that much over um the the height limitations would be, I think that would be helpful um in terms of assessing what community benefits we might want to see.

Yes, staff can bring that back at future meeting.

So, thanks Hannah. Um so I I'll go ahead and make a comment. Um, you know, in thinking about where we are in the process and thinking about what what this project entails and the master plans, I have a lot of trepidation in changing the master plan in order to kind of fit a project within um the town. In other words, you guys have this project, you've been receptive to the feedback, you've you've improved the proposal, but fundamentally it doesn't fit the master plan. And if if we go and allow the master plan to be amended, we if we choose to amend the master plan in order to fit the project in it, no matter how good the project is, that kind of invites picking apart the master plan on an alocart basis in order to shoehorn various projects into various parts of basalt. And at this point, I'm not really comfortable doing that. I mean, I'm making it sound like the worst case scenario, but it's a slippery slope, right? People like, well, we want to, you know, there's variances in things that that we can do um as a town, you know, like river access and height and and things that are more um nuanced, but this is, you know, a, you know, departure completely from what the master plan envisions for this parcel. On top of that, like any housing that's close to mass transit like that, like we can't afford as a community to not have that be affordable. So, we have, you know, we're introducing free market housing, more free market housing after we amend the master plan. I I I I'm not going to be able to support that at this point. Um, so I mean, if staff is looking for feedback,

um, that's kind of where I sit based on the At this time,

I think that every parcel on the south side is going to be impacted in the same way. And I'm not comfortable that the a second roundabout at Cody Lane is going to solve it either. And I think that main piece of infrastructure that was envisioned um was blocked and now we're kind of stuck because that's that's a pretty significant piece of roadway that um was in the plan and accomplished a multiple multiple goals and you know that's still hanging out there. There was a slight little bit of conversation about it earlier, but I I think that anything that comes through in the pipeline over the next 5 to 10 years that isn't already in the pipeline, whether it's mill or Clay and Paul, um is going to be running up against the same issues and how long and you're going to have to accumulate a certain amount of cash before you could actually build the roundabout at that intersection. So you have the choice here is do we go down the road of temporary infrastructure and improvements or do we go down the road of what we thought we were going down a long time ago and really solve the problem for you know the next generations and that that's where I'm stuck. There's just too many unresolved pieces of the pie here that don't fit in. I think you mentioned the legacy piece. You know there's a legacy out there of ranch land around it. I'm curious about the county open space that uh Hannah mentioned the green space there there's a it's gated um and I know there's been complications out there before with adjacent ranches so three mile street plan we had um a lot of things like that aren't

going to be solved by moving forward with this this development that's where I'm I' I'd echo a lot of those comments from David and Rick that I in a place that is transit connected, I think we want to really nail those projects and add a lot of community benefit, make sure we are maxing out affordable housing and and I feel like we're trying to kind of shoehorn some of the the pieces into this to fit Um, and I really appreciate the applicants like taking our comments to heart and making changes and and really hearing us out and and trying to make these things fit. But I I have some concerns that the content itself might just not fit here, right? We're talking about putting gated luxury man caves in a spot that is transit connected and next to a neighborhood and and that merits green space. Um, and I think there's a lot of pieces that have have yet to find find a landing spot that feels comfortable within the MA master plan or traffic concerns or or child care, you know, kid safety concerns for me.

Thanks, Hannah. And Jel, I know you're on. Did you have anything? I'll take that as a no. Any other uh questions or comments? I have some questions. Yeah, you can come up. Yeah.

Um I was just wondering if you could guide us a little bit what you have in mind when you say more affordable housing. You know, like sometimes I'm negotiating with myself. I don't know exactly what you're solving for. what what numbers would would be helpful for you. You know, we want to collaborate, but I'm not I'm not sure what it is that you're looking for exactly. So, if you could be just more specific in guiding us and also the master plan a amendment, and I might be mistaken, so please do correct me. It's just that we're it is zoned for the uses, but we're we're dis we're we're putting the residential portion in one side and the industrial in the other. It is zoned for mixed use. So the amount of muni unit unit mix is in the master plan. It's just that we're not stacking the residential above the industrial part. Does that make sense?

Zoned high density. Pardon me.

Is it zoned for high density housing? So the master plan has a future land use map and the future land use map has designations for the anticipated development on certain properties and and then it also identifies certain properties as existing land use so that they're not anticipated to be redeveloped over the life of the master plan basically. Um and and so this property was designated as existing land use and so you know you'd have to adjust that the the zoning the underlying zoning is industrial with a PUD on it and so the industrial zone district and and the PUD would allow for residential as a special review use with review of impacts and and u um review of how it fits into the character. So that's kind of the the concept of the special review use. Um so it it could allow for that. Um and and then the other master plan amendment required is that um currently the typologies require intermixing of the residential and commercial. So kind of a true mixed use. Uh and so um this project separates those. So there would be an amendment needed to the the master plan for that. And so because what we've seen is that I mean the maximum of affordable housing was uh basic center where there were I think 60% um because we've tried to look at okay

what what have recent developments done and is that more in line with town council expectations? I I think in this case my hangup is is on the just this amending the master plan to suit an individual development. Um like that's that's a bridge too far for me at this point. It's I I would you know if this were zoned where or the master plan contemplated housing I'd want it to be affordable near mass transit. But I mean even stepping back from that it's this is be a bridge too far for me as far as amending the master plan to accommodate a development application. That's that's my

even would you agree that the amendment is in spirit very similar to what it's zoned for even though it's a technical amendment. I do think the spirit of what we're doing is in line with what it's zoned for. I don't know if you would agree that's what we've we've discussed, you know, that we're not we're not because early on we did ask James could we resone it completely residential and he said no that would be too far of a stretch because we did consider that. So I'm just I'm just maybe putting that out there to consider. And then also I was wondering on the neighborhood support, you know, and by the way, maybe you can address John uh Fitz Fitzpatrick's comments if if you guys are concerned about that, but I have reached out to pretty much every neighbor. As I said, we had unanimous approval of our HOA review committee and what I've seen is that people are, you know, when they they would be here if they were opposed. I've gotten a lot of positive feedback. What form would you like to see that support? I mean, do you want would you like them to be here? Would you like them to to I don't know, send in letters? I'm not sure what kind of neighborhood support you would be looking for because I can tell you and I' I spend every day for the last 10 years at this place. I know the neighbors. I've talked to pretty much um everyone. The only reason why I haven't talked to John Fitzp I don't think actually I think he's the owner. I've talked to the business that's there. Can you guide me in that in that direction?

You know, that is a really good question and I would have to about that. Uh sometimes I think that the way that we receive information from separate neighborhoods in basalt should be more streamlined. There should be community committees so that we can have people who are dialed in and regularly communicating with one another and that's not anything to do with you. Um I think sometimes it's just we hear it's just based on who shows up and not maybe a real sampling of like everybody lives there. Um, so yeah, that that is a good question and not something that I have figured out for myself. I I don't even really have a problem with the way that you've laid out the development and separating it. I don't have an issue with that. I just think going back to what Mayor Knight has said, it's it's not in the master plan. And I think that there are reasons that it's not in the master plan because it sounds like the infrastructure isn't there to support something like this. And there are other homes, estimated 40 more single family residences that are scheduled to come online and we haven't seen the impact of that yet. So I don't even necessarily think that this is all bad the way you've done it. I just think it's not in a master plan and it's kind of not your turn. And could you be specific what parts of the infrastructure you think are not equipped to deal with it?

Well, obviously the the whole uh intersection issue around few lane and I do appreciate that you've addressed that. Um but the issues with Cody Lane as well just there's a lot more there's a lot more residential that's coming online in Southside and we haven't solved for what that's going to be yet. So, I'm not I'm not saying that I would never vote for something like this. It just seems like it's not in the master plan. There are other things ahead of this in the pipeline.

Well, I thought we've addressed that few lane. We're alleviating this and Cody Lane, I can speak have our traffic engineer talk to us. We've really I'm just saying this because we've really tried to address all the infrastructure issues possible with it. So if you say there are some I I actually think we can we can address them because we've thought through this for two and a half years. So I I I if you if you think there's a specific one you want to talk about maybe you know you can say two words about um Cody lane I think we've talked about fuel lane and that you know for what it's worth we would improve it and the proposed development would at no point would have would it have any negative impact on fuel lane. It's just that that's an opportunity to improve it, but it was never going to have an negative impact on fuel lane. And I I just wanted to consider, you know, the the opportunity to have this housing next to a raft bus stop. As you've seen, we were right there. I just I just And again, if if you wanted to negotiate more on what what that would look like, we're open. And I let just um

just to answer your question on public comment, just if you do have persons who are supportive of your project or to get their comments made a part of the public record, they can do that in writing or they need to show up to a meeting and make public comment. Yeah. If they can't make the meeting, writing every letter, those are the ways to get it into the Okay. Well, I saw it somewhere there. Our neighborhood, everyone says yes, I'm in favor of it because otherwise I would be standing there, but it's hard to get people out of their home on the phone as my experience, but that's fine. I

Yep. Thank you, Mara. She obviously would like for me to answer that question that was posed in public comment with regards to Cody Lane. Um, as you know, the residential portion of this project, the access would be to and from Cody Lane. Um the residential is expected to generate 21 peak hour trips and that's the highest volume during the peak hour. That's equivalent to about one vehicle every three minutes. Um and so that is not a significant traffic volume in terms of of the volume of traffic on that roadway. Um looking at the existing counts there, that roadway um carries about 130. Um in the peak hour today we're adding 20. So it be be about 150. Um the capacity of that roadway is significantly higher. Even if we were looking at a collector type it would be about 5,000 vehicles per day. So you know this is only about 30% of that capacity. So there's plenty of uh traffic availability reserve capacity in Cody Lane. So there's no no traffic impact relative to that. And it just I wanted to give you a little more clarity just going into the master plan and looking at typology three. I mean it some fundamental differences is it talks about integrating the employee housing into the commercial and there's there's some elements to it that are very u aesthetically and functionally fundamental that are different than what you're proposing. Not that what you're proposing isn't is is you know negative in and of itself. just does not align to what is envisioned in the master plan as as written today. And it's in amending that just for a project. It just seems premature at this point. If if council wants to consider amending the master plan more holistically, you know, because it has been six years, but that would be one thing. But to to to do it

just for one project, I mean, look at if you can go, it's on page uh 132. I mean, it's just very different than what what what you guys are proposing.

And and I think what what we found in the initial discussions was the mixeduse commercial uh mixed with the traffic is somewhat at odds of if you did a a mixeduse commercial, you would have much higher traffic counts uh because you'd be looking at um more intense type of uses towards the development of that site. uh leading to more of the lower-end warehouse storage type of the site. Um that blended the existing use and and uh in discussions with planning and zoning, we talked about uh the need to protect some of the industrial space uh within basalt still uh because as it gets eliminated uh it never tends to come back. And so that was the blending of keeping some small intensity, low inensity industrial uses uh in that as we worked our way through a process. Just giving you some backup to the reason.

I I appreciate that. Yeah, but we got to look a little more further out and like Gloria was saying in her comments at the beginning of the night, you know, we're finally made the list for the underpass and additional egress out of Southside. That's going to be down the line. like all of these decisions that we're making are going to last a very long time and right now what this yes it your to your point about that your your proposal would have lower traffic counts. Well, that fits now but what we need to be able to make decisions on based on the master plan is a much further time horizon. Um so that's why you know we can't just look at what can it handle now. We need to look at what we could be doing in the future based on all the things that are envisioned for the area and for the town.

Yeah, I think when we start straying from the master plan, it does it starts to feel like it just matters, you know, things get built based on who's sitting in these seats. And I think that's why the master plan exists, right? So there's some continuity and I think a development like this would be something that would need to be considered in a master plan these these sorts of changes. All right. So, we're I know we're quite a bit over, but Jack was say, James, just from a process standpoint, you know, whatever direction the council wants to go, I think process-wise, continuing the public hearing to allow staff to draft an ordinance for council to then vote on. Is that where

that that would be the next step? Yeah. So, I mean that would be our staff's recommendation is to continue the public hearing to May 12th and staff will have an ordinance in the packet and then you can continue the discussion and um be in a position to make you know make a decision on the application at that point. So, I'd entertain a motion. Uh can I ask a question? Not. It's We're kind of not time for that. We closed the public. It'll be real quick. Now, I This is Now, we can't do it. Sorry. All right. Yeah.

Okay. So, I would entertain a motion that we continue the public hearing to May 12th. And with at that point, staff will have an ordinance for us to consider. Second. Well, I I was I would entertain a motion. So, so move or is there a second? I'll second. It's been moved and seconded. Pam, will you please call the role? Yes. Uh let's begin with Hannah Berman. Yes. Angela Anderson, yes. Rick Stevens, yes. Angel Dupreart, I think we lost Angel. We have lost Angela or Angel. Okay. Greg Chaffron, yes. And David Knight,

yes. Okay, motion carries.

Okay, thank you very much. Appreciate all the work you guys have done. Next up is 7B which is a public hearing and first reading ordinance number seven series of 2026 an ordinance of the town council of the town of assault Colorado approving code amendments to the town code town code section 18-103 to adopt by reference the 2025 Colorado wildfire resiliency code. Jeff, James, and Mitch, thank you. Appreciate your help. I will take the lead on this one. Okay.

And um so few years ago, the state legislature adopt legislation to form the Colorado Wildfire Resiliency Board, and they test that state board with adopting a model wildfire resiliency code. And then from there, there's a requirement for local governments uh that are have areas that are within the wildland urban interface to adopt a a code that at a minimum meets the wildfire resiliency code. And so the resiliency code regulates the wildland urban interface in areas that have fire hazard risk to try to mitigate against those risks from with structures and with sight and area requirements. And so the wildland urban interface is determined based on state maps that identify wildfire hazard areas. And there's areas of no wildfire um uh uh risk uh fire intensity risk and then there's low moderate and severe fire intensity risk areas. So in basalt there are areas with no fire intensity designation and those are areas within Willlets, some areas within Southside um mostly and then there are areas that are currently mapped as moderate wildfire hazard risk. And so the the wildfire resiliency code again is kind of has two big sections. It has structure hardening requirements and it has sight and area requirements. And the areas or within those code that you have to comply with again depend on your wildfire hazard intensity classification. And so if you're zero, you don't have to comply with anything. If you're low, you have to comply with what are called class one requirements. And if you're medium or severe, you have

to comply with class two requirements, which is is everything. Um so on the structure hardening piece, those things are mostly relate to building materials for your roof, your siding, um uh your maintenance of your eaves and sophets and gutters, location of fences and retaining walls, um fire rated glass. It's mostly the materials of of your building. And so new construction would have to comply with that is in these fire hazard intensity area with these structure hardening requirements. There are also some requirements that if you do a certain level of replacement of your house remodeling that you would have to comply with certain aspects of the structure hardening regulations. And another way to look at it is you're exempt from complying with them if you do some work on your house up to a certain point. So, if you're going to replace less than 25% of your roof, you're exempt from these class two from these structure hardening requirements. If you're going to replace more than 25% of your roof, you got to do the whole thing. It's got to comply with the code. If you're going to build an addition of less than 500 square feet, you're exempt from the requirements. If you build more, that addition has to comply with the code. If you're going to replace more than less than 25% of your siding, you're exempt. If you're going to replace more than 25%, you got to comply with the structure hardening requirements of the code. On the site and area requirements, they are really three different areas that the a property is broken down into. There's an immediate zone, an intermediate zone, and then this more extended zone. And within the immediate zone, it's a zero to five foot area around your house. It's this the goal of

the code is to really hardscape that. And so it's Most vegetation is not permitted. Ignition resistant vegetation is. There are some exemptions for larger mature trees that might be within that zero to five foot zone. Um the next zone 5 to 30 feet and most of the requirements have to do with tree spacing and overhangs over to over your roof. And then the the larger zone is is 30 to 100 feet. And there's kind of canopy spacing requirements. Um like the structure hardening, the site and area requirements are only triggered well maybe unlike but it's for new development. If you're doing work on your house, if you even if you're if you're replacing your roof and you triggered these structured area requirements, you don't have to comply with all of the site and area requirements. The the only element within the wildfire resiliency code of when you're doing work on your structure that would trigger comping structure that would can trigger some level of compliance with the site and area requirements is if you're replacing your sighting and you're you have to do so in a manner that requires compliance with the code. You have to comply with that zero to five foot zone of your house. And so that would be removing uh vegetation, hardscaping it, allowing only ignition resistant vegetation.

Is that 25% of the sighting? Was that what the number was? You're going to do more than 25%. Yep.

Um so those are kind of high level what the requirements of the code are. The code also has it's enforced by would live within the building code. It's a model code, so it' be adopted with lo some local amendments that I'll get to in a minute. Um, but the code does come with some discretion for the building official to make some determinations on alternatives to certain materials so long as they uh don't increase the wildfire hazard risk or fire hazard safety and they're within the intent of the code. Same with kind of some modifications to um um on specific plans for properties, you know, maybe if there's uh you know, through an assist somebody has a wildfire study done that says, you know, actually if I maintain things this way, it's not going to increase the fire hazard intensity. Let's leave this tree there. There's some flexibility and discretion for building officials to make um those determinations. We did include a few local amendments and again the these are to kind of I would say to further provide discretion to the building official um in making determinations as to when a fire hazard might exist and defining what an unsafe structure is. These were just things in reviewing the code that um I kind of viewed as more connecting some of the dots between what's in the code and the appendices and better defining um unsafe structure which is kind of littered throughout the the the code otherwise. Um those are the main local amendments and the proposal is really to adopt the co the code mostly as it is. Uh I think in a prior work session we had discussed that the code could be adopted to apply uniformly through town regardless of

your wildfire hazard designation. So even in this the map there's areas that don't have a wildfire hazard designation or if they were low it would they would still have to comply with all the uh all of the requirements of the code. That was kind of a option for discussion that we had at a previous work session. The way this is proposed in this ordinance is not to do that. It is to look at the wild look at how your property's designated from a fire uh hazard intensity standpoint on the map and from there determine how the code would apply. Part of that is because the co the town already has a pretty significant wildfire hazard regulations on the books that at least for the low intensity classification certainly exceed that. and for the for and you know I'll let Mitch you speak to this a little bit but I'd say on a whole we're 90% of the way the way there um but by uh not by looking to the fire hazard intensity and not just uniformly uh applying it across the town. it does at least not avoid applying some restrictions that wouldn't unnecessarily have to apply to the these properties unless the council chose to do that. Um, I think the last thing I would mention is that uh Mitch as a building official and Chris Biser as our um as our arborist, they've reviewed the code and have some potential amendments to the the the code itself um that would maybe would not and I guess let me rephrase this a little But within the code, I mentioned these alternatives and modifications. Those really relate to sight specific determinations. These are not wholesale changes to the to the code. And so some

of the wholesale changes to to the code that Mitch and Chris would like to make. There is a process to do that with the state where you can petition the state through a variance process to say locally we would like to see these kind of amendments. We think that they are still they're not going to lessen the uh our ability to protect against wildfire hazards and um therefore state you should approve them and then they can come back to council to approve them. So that process with the state opened up a few months ago and is available uh to pursue. And so what staff's recommending is to adopt the code as it's written with these few local amendments that wouldn't lessen the restrictiveness of it and then give us the staff a chance to see if the state would approve these variances. If they do, then we could bring them back to council at a future date. Um so that that's the code in a nutshell. I think uh most your local community there's an obligation I guess I guess the last thing I would say is I think there's been a lot of um lo statewide communities have been grappling with how to adopt and implement this code and to that end there was some legislation introduced into state legislature this session to extend the deadlines for adopting the code to next year and also require that the state board review this code at certain intervals to make appropriate changes similar to the way the ICC does for building codes. That legislature was defeated. So, we're stuck with this deadline of adopting and implementing this code by July 1st. Um, and I that's the main overview and I'm happy to answer any questions you guys might have. Mitch said it didn't if you had anything to add or Mitch is also available for questions if you have he can speak more to the building material issues than I could if you have questions on that.

That was a good summary. Um you guys have anything to add? Jeff's on point. Exactly. Nothing. Jeff,

you have any questions for clarifying questions for Jeff? Otherwise, I'll open the public hearing. This is a public hearing. So, I'll I'll go ahead and open the public hearing here at 9:24 um for anybody in the room who wants to come up and make comments. I can tell no one will. Um we have one person online, a few people online. Anybody online want to make comments from the public? Go ahead and close the hearing 24 and uh open up for council comments.

I think I don't want to ask our folks with anything more than they already have to do. But you have to take the same approach with fire mitigation that you do with irrigation management on domestic watering and changing people's mindset to water less, manage their vegetation, appropriate vegetation, and also to do the basics of creating a defensible space around their homes is really hard to do. And it is technically challenging for the average citizen to do either one of those things without some sort of incentive. Um, we recently dedicated a pretty good chunk of change in one of the subdivisions to allow people to access funding to help pay for the defensible space cleanups. As soon as that was noticed, we were approached by other entities that wanted to take a lion share of that funding and use it for bigger projects. And what I think for me personally, um, that wasn't what the intent was. The intent was to incentivize our homeowners whether and you know, I haven't looked at the map lately, but this year there's no such thing as an area that's not prone to wildfire. It just really isn't. And you know, we've chased this tail for a long time. And and building is great. Building codes, you have an enforcable way to do the right thing. And in HOA covenants and all these other things that are supposed to be enforceable are just not enforceable. It has to be through peer pressure and getting people organized in the neighborhood to to share expenses on property lines to understand what the what the projects look like. Um James

and I went through the ESA piece of this. Uh it took a long time. Um it's for the average person it's a tough row. So, if there's anything we can do and we've they've had a giant meeting at the library last night about the or Thursday night with the water issues and they've had conversation after conversations with agencies in the valley with trying to get counties to adopt recommendations on wildfire urban interface language with fire departments. It has taken years and now I think we're just at the cusp of having a real risk in front of us. Um, and it would be terrible to have wildfire and no water to fight it. So, it's it's coming to coming to a head here and uh I've been frustrated for quite a while with trying to make progress and get culture shifted to to work around and get these defensible spaces created. Um, you can have, you know, you have an arborist that can drive a neighborhood and identify, and I know that our staff guys could do this, identify hazards and and priorities in neighborhoods and adjoining properties and help maybe get those guys on board to facilitate some basic cleanup. So that's just one of my things. But maybe it's just an outreach that we can do every time we have a Earth Day or a concert or something else. We can also promote compost, fire mitigation, water conservation. Get the triple threat out there or something. Thank you for letting me soap box. Appreciate it. I had a question for you, Jeff.

Yeah, I can. Um, so by July 1st, I'm saying with this new ordinance, people aren't going to have to remove plantings. No, except for those more. No, no. Only if you a new trigger this new you trigger it. And the triggers are a new development. Or if you're replacing more than 25% of your sighting, you have to do the this 0 to 5 foot zone. Got it. Got it. It's only these triggering events. It's not retroactive. Correct. Yep. Got it. Well, if you if you ask for the fire department to come out for an assessment, they'll say that they'll tell you to do those things. Absolutely. Then you should comply. So that's not code driven. That's just insurance driven at this point.

I just there was a note in I think the March um 10th minutes about people becoming unhoused due to this. So that's where I was thinking that was be something that caught my attention. I don't know what that was about. That was more about if let's say there was an incident and somebody had to replace the the amount of sighting was 26% of their sighting instead of 25 and so then they had to do the sighting for their entire home but just how costly plus the sight remediation. Exactly. So, so I think the point that Angel was making was we're going to guess that the insurance is probably only going to pay Yeah.

for that part that was damaged and then you're on the hook for the rest of it because now you've got to bring it up to I see. Okay. I thought this was like a retroactive. And then that brings up the last point that said u in your memo about staff discuss making town council the deciding body for uh modifications rather than building a threshold. It was kind of an appeal process. So, if you had a situation where um there was a request for a tree removal that was required and there was issues with neighbors not liking the tree removal uh or or something of that nature that staff would have the ability to kick that up to council.

I think that's a great idea. Make town council the bad guy rather than Well, just it makes for a better kind of mediation scenario. Is that part of the code as written? I don't think so. Um, we can consider adjusting that if it's not. Yeah.

Once we talk about mitigation, you know, we partner with the fire department quite a bit. So, you know, actively going out and actually looking for lad fuels and how it's set up. That's, you know, I I think the fire department really takes lead in that sort of scenario. So, you know, we're we're basically on the new construction, how it works. Um, I'm sure if we get requests or complaints, we have to respond some way, but you know, it's it will be a touchy situation to make sure we make the right decisions when we have to.

Yeah. So on the as written, there's the discretion of the building official to permit modifications so long as it's not essentially increasing the fire hazard risk and it meets the intent of the code. Um, and so maybe it the if this is the direction council wants to go, the process would be if there's an unfavorable determination of the building official, it could be appealed to the town council rather than make somebody go to town council if they're going to if the building official is Yeah. Yeah. more expeditious and less cumbersome for an owner to just deal with the building official if they're going to get what they want.

That's more typical of our of our code. We're appeal building official. TR TRC takes two or three months and cost 600 bucks. Well, we we we have our we have staff discussions on things like that to to at least get to a point where we can understand what's what's a realistic point of view on things before we make any decisions. you know, it's um you know, an amendment like Jeff has mentioned, you know, we're 90% there.

We're we've been so far ahead of the game since before the state even came in and started doing this, you know, we we've done really well. and being able to continue with our current code on the areas that aren't even rated is above and beyond. the the extra that we have the extra mile that we would have to go per the state is on the moderates as Jeff mentioned and that just is that extra 10% that has to come into play you know and if if we uh make a proposal to try to make our code as acceptable by the state for the whole town as we have it now and they accept it then that might be another path to make because I, you know, in my opinion, we are doing extremely well with what we're doing right now.

All right. Well, um, if there are no other questions or comments, I'd entertain a motion. I move the town council approve ordinance number seven, series of 26 on first reading and continue set the second reading for May 12th, 26. And before there's a second, Rick, did you want that to include an amendment for an appeal of a modification decision to town council or just leave it as it is?

Um, yeah. I think that that would help people through some of the barriers of doing the right thing, but they don't can't afford to do the whole thing. Maybe they can do, you know, what they need to do to protect their specific site, but if it was a natural disaster or something that took the roof off of somebody's house, you know, that would be a different story. Okay. If that's agreeable. Sure. So, the motion to approve with that amendment. Um, I guess it's on the floor. Second. It's been moved and seconded. Pam, will you please call the role? I'm sorry. Who who seconded?

Angela. Angela. Thank you. Okay. And that's who we're going to begin our roll call with. Angela Anderson. Yes. Rick Stevens. Yes. Greg Chaffron. Yes. And this has that that amendment. Yes. Yes. Yes. David Knight. Yes. Hannah Berman. Yes. Motion carries.

Thank you very much. All right. All right. Next up, we have item 7 C, resolution number 21, series of 2026, resolution of the town council of Balt, Colorado, approving a contract for design and entitlement services for the development of a new public service building. And this is Gloria and Catherine. Catherine, thanks for sticking around. Hopefully, you were able to get some other things done.

Yeah, I started working after a while. Um, and thanks for Roger for sticking. He's on the line as well. Um but tonight uh staff has before you um a contract to consider for design and entitlement services for the Basalt public services building. Um the need James, you can go next slide. Thanks. Sorry. The need for a consolidated public services building was identified in the 2020 master plan that this new facility would house both the police and the public works department. Um the project was prioriti prioritized in the 2025 strategic work plan and um prioritized for further advancement this year in 2026. Uh the need for the facility is driven by the long-standing space and functional limitations uh that both departments face. Um both department facilities uh do not meet modern operational safety or staffing standards. Next please. Uh the proposed project site is located southwest of the original road and highway 82 intersection. The project site um seeks to do more than add space. It seeks to reorganize and consolidate the departments into a secure, efficient and purpose-built facility. You see on this slide before you the two um the two properties that we that the town currently owns. Um, prior to issuance of this RFP for design and entitlement services, the town worked with W Architects to do a detailed needs assessment for each department and uh that resulted in a blocking diagram which you all saw and was presented to you in December of last year. Uh, town advertised a request for proposals to provide D design and entitlement services for that development. Uh,

James, next slide, please. And the proposers were asked to perform this work as part of three separate tasks. The first task being public outreach and programming to inform the sketch plan application. The second task was that PUD sketch plan application. And the third is a combined preliminary and final PUD application. um that combined uh preliminary and final is is not typical of our process, but um knowing that this is a high priority for council, that was um one step we felt comfortable taking in um just creating some efficiency in this process. Uh currently the town staff is progressing also um an annexation application for one of those two properties which is not in town limits and you'll be seeing that a bit later this summer. The town received uh 10 proposals from well-qualified firms and interviewed the top three teams. Ultimately the selection committee selected a team led by W architects and engineers as a top proposing team. Uh next slide James. Thanks. Um the W team brings a depth of knowledge and proven success as we've worked with them previously and they are um additionally supported by Lion HARP um previously connect one design and Roaring Fork Engineering for their efforts. Um on the next slide the team's proposed schedule um outlines their completion of this phase of work in March of 2027. Um, and at that time the town would opt to, you know, further the construction process. Uh, the next step would be uh construction level documents, but we'll of course be keeping you all informed on those next steps as we go. Um, tonight, town staff recommends entering into a contract with W Architects and Engineers to complete the design entitlements as outlined in the RFP. And as I mentioned,

um, we also have Roger Schroer, I probably butchered your last name, sorry, on the line, um, who can answer any addition additional questions you have of Wool. Then perhaps you'll just say, um, hello. He's presented to you in the past. But, um, we're here to answer what questions you all have.

See this? Okay. What questions or comments do do we have? Well, thanks Jeff for you guys for addressing the compression of the review timeline because that's also going to create affordability in the project I think and uh I think there should be an incentive if you finish the scope discretion before March 27 personally somehow you can compress it even more. I mean I I don't I'm just throwing it out there. Sometimes that happens. Some of it will be up to you guys, right?

Yeah. I think we should um initiate a public outreach process and start understanding um how that's going to go and then maybe we can and we are doing that right now. Um so after this meeting will be um right now the first I think we just published it. It's on let's talk basalt. So, we do have this project on Let's Talk with the Salt right now. And then our survey is going to go live tomorrow um to see if the community has the pallet for a increase in tax, a half cent tax for the funding of this facility.

And I appreciate the approach with this that so we have that flexibility like let's make sure we set the table so we could get this done in as expeditious a manner as possible. But at the same time really want the community to be able to reach out, give us those inputs, need to hear what they how they feel about, you know, frankly taxpayer dollars and the financial implications of it, but also understand like what they're getting and the long-term benefits and how frankly desperately this is needed, not just from like a functionality standpoint with um police and public works in their current state, but also attracting and retaining talent. and making sure you know we can continue to provide the best services not just now but for again our our time horizon is very long so not just now decades in the future right this is what this sets the table for so I think having that community dialogue and setting the stage so that we can move quickly once we get those inputs with W I mean it's great I think you guys teed this up really nicely so thank you

I just had one note the resolution ution does authorize me to make some changes to the agreement which I will have that are more kind of technical government contracting things that don't exist within the form AIA set. So just just a note for that's fine. Yeah. Other questions or comments. We want to honor our new uh counselor by asking to a motion if if you'd like to make the motion. Motion to uh approve this contract

or adopt res the resolution to adopt resolution 921 series of 2026. Second. Thank you both. It's been moved and seconded. Uh Pam, will you please call the role? Absolutely. Let's begin with Rick Stevens. Greg Chapron. Yes. David Knight, yes. Hannah Berman, yes. and Angela Anderson. Yes. Motion carries unanimously. Thank you. Well, thank you all. Long meeting, good meeting. And uh those of you watching, have a great evening. Thanks for sticking around. And we are adjourned.