City Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Good morning. I would like to call the Colorado Springs City Planning Commission public hearing for September 9th, 2026 to order. And before we start into our formal agenda, I just wanted to take a quick moment to do a quick moment of silence to acknowledge that this Friday marks the 25th anniversary of September 11th, the terrorist attacks on our country. And just want to take a moment to remember the lives that were lost that day. the courage and sacrifice of first responders and service members, the families that were changed, and the impact on our nation. So if you all could just join me in a moment of silence. Okay, thank you so much. With that, we'll start into our agenda. The Planning Commission is comprised of nine members appointed by City Council to review various development applications and proposals. Planning Commissioners are community volunteers with expertise across a wide variety of areas. Each Commissioner acts independently and carefully assesses all the information and evidence presented to make their decision. Our procedures and ground rules are as follows. The city planning staff facilitates the process for planning applications. This commission reviews those applications and proposals governed by city code. Some applications are quasi-judicial, where the planning commission is the final decision authority, and for others, the planning commission is a recommendation body to city council. So for items... For items presented on today's agenda, our procedures will be first city planning staff giving a presentation on the application, followed by the applicant who will have up to 30 minutes to present the details of their application. For any items that are being heard on appeal, the appellant and applicant are given equal time. After presentation, we'll take public comment, starting with public comments in support of an application, followed by public comments in opposition of the application. Each citizen who signs up to speak, and if you haven't done so, please do so in the corner, will have three minutes to speak. Keep your comments brief and focused on the issues at hand, and please respect other attendees' rights to both listen and be heard. Once we complete public comment on any item, the applicant will have a rebuttal period of up to 10 minutes to respond and address comments. And at the conclusion of that rebuttal, the discussion will move back up to the commissioners for consideration. We may ask questions of city staff, the applicant, and other city bodies or representatives. Commissioners will not engage in questions or dialogue with the public. Throughout the hearing, we will ask that everyone conduct themselves respectfully, understanding that others may have different views from your own. Disrespectful words or actions speaking out of order were not recognized by the chair, and the use of profanity will not be tolerated, and those in violation may be asked to leave the hearing. So with that, Solange, can you do our call to order and roll call?

Chair Hensler. I'm here. Commissioner Robbins.

Present.

Commissioner Clements.

Here.

Commissioner Didiano. Here. Commissioner Willoughby. Here. Commissioner Case.

Here.

Commissioner Engel.

Here.

Commissioner Cecil. Here. Commissioner Egbert.

Here.

Thank you. We have nine members present. Great.

Okay, moving to item two on our agenda. Today we'll... serve as our annual meeting for the Planning Commission, and that is the time in which we do appointments. So at this time, as discussed in our work session last week, we are looking for a nomination. We had presented a slate, I should say, for chair and vice chair, and an appointment to the Downtown Review Board. So I'm looking for a motion to... appoint myself as chair and have a vote on that, which sounds really self-serving, but.

Commissioner Willoughby, I'd like to make a motion to appoint Nadine Hensler as chair of the Planning Commission.

Commissioner Robbins, I second.

The motion passes unanimously.

Thank you all. And now looking for a motion to nominate Commissioner Case as vice chair.

Commissioner Robbins, I make a motion that we nominate Ryan Case as vice chair.

Commissioner Willoughby seconds.

The motion passes unanimously.

Thank you all very much. Ryan, congratulations.

Thank you, guys. Appreciate it.

Next for appointments, we do have a need to appoint a new representative to the Downtown Review Board. City Planning Commission has a dedicated position on the Downtown Review Board, which I have held that role for the last couple of years, and it is time to pass that baton. So I don't think that we need to make a vote for that, but I would like to note for the record that we are nominating Commissioner Jennifer Cecil to be the Downtown Review Board representative from Planning Commission, pending council approval at their next meeting. Trevor, anything else I need to add to that?

Trevor Gloss, the Attorney's Office? No, that's good.

Okay, thank you, sir. Okay, and then with that, communications, I don't think I have any communications. But let me just look at my notes one more time. Yeah, I didn't have anything besides our nominations from our work session, so. Mr. Walker.

thank you kevin walker planning director just a couple of quick things um just a reminder that next thursday the project tours will be heard by the city council um and that will be held at the pikes peak center and i'm sure you can probably catch it on facebook and other uh venues um so that will be an interesting hearing um and unprecedented from my perspective that we've had two hearings like that uh out of order and uh at different venues so um quite a big project so the second is uh yesterday at city council uh the city council approved the beningos ranch slate of items 16 items uh unanimously and so that went uh that went forward uh They also approved the use variance for the coffee shop at Woodman Valley Chapel, which is down at their location downtown here at Cascade and Platt. And then they also approved the Buckingham rezoning with an additional condition. So that was a third reading for that. I think those are the items that they were catching up on. And that's my communications for the day, unless you have any questions.

Okay, thank you, sir. Next on our agenda, changes or postponements to the agenda. Are there any changes or postponement to items on today's agenda by city staff or from commissioners? And I think not, okay. Let me rephrase that. I think no additional changes, right? We had two items. Do you need to read those into the, okay. All right, so we had two changes previous to the meeting starting to our agenda. So if Solange will read those into the record.

I didn't for a D V S a dash 2, 5, 0, 0, 1, 0, cattle Creek development standards adjustment and item for a B C O D E dash 2, 6, dash 0, 0, 0, 4, height allowances for accessory dwelling units ordinance. So apologies, we need to vote on each one. So item 4A, Kettle Creek Development Standards Adjustment.

We need to vote on the postponement to a date certain. Thank you. So looking for a motion to accept postponement of item 4A.

Commissioner Willoughby, a motion to accept postponement item 4A.

Commissioner Robbins, I second.

The motion passes unanimously. And then item 4B, hide allowances for accessory dwelling units ordinance.

Commissioner Case, make a motion to postpone item 4B.

Commissioner Willoughby seconds.

The motion passes unanimously. Thank you.

No other changes or postponements to the agenda, correct? Okay. Next is the approval of our minutes, and I hope that everyone had a chance to read through all of those. I was actually very impressed, I will say, on the project tour special hearing meeting minutes. I thought that those were excellent. Good job, Solange. I think that you... reduced it down to the very pertinent issues, but still caught the entire content, I think, very well. So did anyone have any changes or amendments to the minutes?

Okay, yeah.

It was a lot, but okay, well then looking for a motion, sorry, you need to read those in, yeah. So we have three sets of, go ahead, sir.

Commissioner Robbins here, I just wanted to make a motion that we accept the minutes from- I think she has to read them in, hold on one second, Dave.

Go ahead.

Yeah. 5A CPC 2743, minutes for the August 6th, 2026 work session city planning commission meeting.

Okay, I guess I'm good now. Commissioner Robbins here. I make a motion that we accept the minutes from August 6th of 2026.

Commissioner Clements, I second it.

The motion passes unanimously. Item 5B, CPC 2744, minutes for the August 12th, 2026 City Planning Commission meeting.

Commissioner Robbins here. I make a motion that we accept the minutes from August 12th, 2026 Planning Commission meeting.

Commissioner Clemmons, I second it.

The motion passes unanimously. Item 5C, CPC 2749, minutes for the July 23rd, 2026 Special City Planning Commission meeting.

This is Commissioner Egbert. I'm going to abstain from that item since I didn't attend the meeting.

Commissioner Clemmons, I'll be abstaining too.

Okay, Commissioner Robbins here. I make a motion that we approve the minutes for the July 23 Special City Planning Commission meeting.

Commissioner Willoughby seconds.

The motion passes with seven members in favor and Commissioner Clements and Commissioner Egbert abstained. Okay.

Thank you so much. All right, on to our consent calendar. Items on the consent calendar will be acted upon as a whole without further public comment or discussion unless a specific item is called off the consent calendar. The Planning Commission takes action on the consent calendar with a single vote without further discussion. Items called off the consent calendar will be heard immediately after the rest of the consent calendar is decided upon. So Solange, can you read the items into the record, please?

Item 6 a 0 and e dash 2, 5, dash, 0, 0, 1, 7, Cherokee Metro district water tanks on map amendment. Item 6 B 0 and e dash 2, 6, dash, 0, 0, 1, 3, Creek, sorry, Creek bend zone map amendment. Item 6 C L U P L dash 2, 6 dash 0, 0, 0, 4 Creek bend land use plan.

Okay, does any planning commissioner wish to call an item off the consent calendar? Does any city staff member wish to call an item off the consent calendar? Does any member of the public wish to call an item off the consent calendar? Either those in the room or if there's anyone online?

There's somebody online.

Okay, all right, seeing none, we will look for a motion and a second to accept the consent calendar as presented.

Commissioner Willoughby, a motion to accept the consent calendar as read into record. Commissioner Cecil seconds.

The motion passes unanimously.

Great. Thank you. All right. Moving on to... We have no unfinished business, so moving on to our new business. And Solange, if you could read our first item into the record.

Item... Item 9AZONE-25-0029, a zone map amendment consisting of 22.37 acres located southeast of the intersection of East Platte Avenue and Wooden Road from Business Park and Light Industrial with conditions of record airport overlay accident protection zone 1. Accident Protection Zone 2 and Streamside Overlay to Light Industrial Airport Overlay, Accident Protection Zone 1, Accident Protection Zone 2, and the Streamside Overlay. Our presenter is Allison Stocker and Item 9B. Establishment of the Wagner Equipment Land Use Plan for Proposed Heavy Vehicle Uses consisting of 22.37 acres located southeast of the intersection of East Flat Avenue and Wooden Road.

Good morning. Good morning. For the record, Alison Stocker, Senior Planner of the Land Use Review Division. I just want to make sure I can see what I'm doing before we get going. Okay. So this is going to be the Wagner equipment zone map amendments and land use plan application. So, to get us kicked off, this application is going to consist this project consists of the 2 application types, the zone change and the land use plan amendment for approximately 23 acres Southeast of plat and road. This property, as you've heard, is a mixture of business park and light industrial with the airport overlay, the accident prevention zone one and two, the stream site overlay, and the current zoning does include some conditions of record. We'll go over in the next slide. The request of the applicant is to consolidate the entirety of the property under the light industrial zone district, remove the conditions of record, and retain all of the other overlays that we heard. The intent of this application is to allow for the development of heavy vehicle sales, rental, and repair in the future through a development plan application. So here on the slide in the red box, you'll see the approximate boundaries of the zone map amendment and land use plan area. So this does not include the entirety of the parcel. The parcel's, I believe, about 60-ish acres, give or take. So that southern portion will remain untouched by the zone map amendment and the land use plan as well. So the project will only consist of that 23 northern acres. And... The intent behind the application to move to the light industrial is to allow for the heavy vehicle sales, rental and repair options, which are not currently allowed under the business park zone districts. So light industrial was the next kind of higher intensity zoning option available without going to something even higher. The conditions of record for the property, which are listed here on the slide, include that the following uses shall not be permitted, which include automobile or recreational vehicle storage yards, automobile, recreational vehicle or truck repair garage, recreational vehicle or truck sales and or rental business or a truck terminal. When I looked through old Chapter seven, which was when this ordinance would have been implemented, None of those uses were defined in code but we can kind of make the assumption that they kind of overlap with what the applicant is requesting today. So, on the screen here, this project is within the town East master plan area. This plan was last amended in 2009 at the time. This property consisted of a mixture of different kind of future land use designations also not defined by code, which included business services and neighborhood commercial. On the slide here, you'll see a snip from the land use plan that was submitted to planning for review and is in your packet today. You'll see that there's access onto Wooten Road and East Platt Avenue. There is some overlap in the southwest corner with the stream side 150 foot buffer. So it does not contain any of the inner or outer buffers, which are where a majority of the streamside kind of restrictions and requirements come into play, but it does trigger streamside if any development for any type of land use were to occur in that kind of hatched area in the corner. So, with the potential removal of the current conditions of record staff did look into that as a part of the application. Of course, this area has changed significantly since 2009 and we feel that with the change in kind of how the platte corridor is moving the proximity to the powers Boulevard. Um. different improvements at Platte and Powers. We feel that this land use does make sense in this location just because we want to, of course, keep some of these higher intensity uses closer to intersections, closer to highways, especially knowing that the use being proposed is more heavy vehicle related. We would like to keep those types of vehicles off of more of our residential and lower traffic volume roads. This project has been in review since October of last year. It became ready for hearing last month in August. It's gone through a number of reviews to make sure that we've captured everything, as well as understanding the full history of the project. The project has gone through 2 public notices as of now, uh, there's been about 44 postcards that have gone out to the properties within a 1000 feet. A lot of the properties in this area are quite large. So not many postcards did go out this go round, but we did have some that would go out to some of the residential. That's just barely within a 1000 feet and no, no public comments were received. Our reviewers, both our internal city and our regional partners had very little informational. They had very little constructive comments at this point. Most of their comments were informational since we're at the zone district level and the land use plan level. Most of the comments, as I said, were informational. We do know that traffic impacts will be required at time of development plan review and that the stream side overlay won't be really able to be fully assessed more until time of development plan when we have a better sense of what land uses may or may not be within that 150 foot buffer. So that is something we're working on through that application as of right now. The two applications were found to be in compliance with Plan COS. I can go into greater detail if you'd like, but we have some narrative in the staff report speaking to that. And then we did find that the applications both met their respective review criteria, so both meeting the zone map amendment and the land use plan amendment. or land use plan review criteria. So on screen now you have the zone map criteria and then I also have the land use plan criteria. And then beyond that I have optional motions for commission to consider both for that zone change and for the land use plan. So I'm available for any other questions. I know the applicant's here and does have a presentation ready so we can go through questions now or I can come back up if needed.

I think we'll probably wait to hear from the applicant first, but does anyone have any questions right this moment? Okay, thanks Allison.

Good morning, commissioners. Thank you for this opportunity to present our application for Wagner equipment, equipment, rezone and land use plan. Our presentation was just handed out to you so you can read along and take notes on it or scribble on it or. This is a rezone to a light industrial use that we feel is compatible with the town east master plan. As Allison had mentioned. Okay, next slide. Thank you. The specific uses that we're seeking approval for may include heavy equipment sales and repair, a small office space, and other service type businesses as permitted by the code. Wagner Equipment is a distributor for Caterpillar Construction Equipment, and this site is ideal for the type use that they're seeking to have approved. We are adjacent to the business district to the west of the subject site. It includes RV sales and service, warehouse storage, warehouse uses, and other light industrial uses to the east of the site also. There's an RV and a boat storage site that is adjacent to the property. THE SLIDE SHOWS THAT THE USES TO BE ALLOWED ON THIS PROPERTY WHEN REZONED TO LIGHT INDUSTRIAL COULD INCLUDE AND THEY'RE ALL BULLET POINTED HERE FOR YOU. The report that staff prepared and as part of our letter of intent or our project statement indicated that there are no adverse impacts anticipated to any of the adjacent existing neighborhoods. There will be ancillary lighting for building exteriors when we get to that point, and there will be parking for employees and customers on site. Next slide. Thank you. Wagner Equipment is pretty well established throughout Colorado and northern New Mexico and northwestern Texas, I guess. But this map here shows where there are other locations of equipment. THE TYPE OF FACILITY SHOULD THIS REZONE MOVE FORWARD THAT WAGNER INTENDS TO DEVELOP. I SHOULD MENTION TO YOU THAT THERE IS DEVELOPMENT PLAN PACKAGE OR AN APPLICATION THAT'S ALREADY BEEN PREPARED AND SUBMITTED. to planning and it is presently being reviewed. So this indicates where Wagner's other facilities are. There is another Wagner facility in Colorado Springs already, northeastern part of town. They've outgrown it and need to expand and that's why this property is being evaluated for that. Next slide, please. As Allison mentioned, the Town East Master Plan, which became effective, it was owner-initiated application for the Master Plan to be approved, came into existence in 1985. This is one of the last remaining parcels within the Town East Master Plan That's undeveloped. It is vacant right now. There are no other structures on the site. And as had been mentioned, this is the northern portion of a larger site. So we are largely, if not entirely, out of either the Zone A or Zone B stream site overlay. TO THE SOUTHWEST OF THE SITE, AND THIS PLAN THAT YOU'RE LOOKING AT DOES INDICATE THE RV SALES AND SERVICE SITE RIGHT AT THE NORTHWEST PORTION OF THE TOWN EAST PLAN THAT YOU SEE HERE. THAT IS AT THE CORNER OF WOOTON ROAD AND EAST PLANT. There is an existing storage warehouse facility immediately adjacent to us. There is a boat and storage facility that we're indicating here that is in the clouded area that you're looking at and If the site looks familiar, if you've been to the flea market, the you and me market, it's adjacent or within the vicinity of the flea market. This has no impact on any of these other existing uses and none of the adjacent property owners who were advised of this zone change have had any comments regarding this. Next slide, please. The 23.37-acre site is accessible off the frontage road along East Platte, and it is accessible off of Wooten Road. So there are two points of access. There will be additional required accesses to the south that will be evaluated when the development plan review is completed. Next slide, please. This gives you a better idea of existing facilities that are in the immediate vicinity, both north of East Platte to the east that shows the flea market site that's there. And to the west of Wooten Road, that's primarily where the bulk of town east is located right now. And you can see the RV sales and service and the warehouse, the storage warehouse site. Next slide, please. And this is a boundary map of the proposed rezoned area. And you'll see also that it is strictly the northern portion of this site and not the southern portion. Next slide, please. Allison had shown you this. This was the land use plan that had been submitted and reviewed by staff. And again, you'll see that there is a hatched area that does encroach part of the stream site overlay. But again, the zone or the buffer A and B are both out of that area.

Next slide, please.

We're proposing the rezone to the light industrial as it satisfies goals identified within the Colorado Springs Master Plan. It will diversify the local economy By providing a business type that is not too prominent in the springs right now actually the amount of light industrial property is pretty minimal if. they're. had been other areas we would have looked at them but this this one makes the most sense we're addressing strategy te 2.8.3 which promotes improvements that make industrial districts cleaner energy efficient and safer for integration with surrounding neighborhoods including THE IMPLEMENTATION OF COST EFFECTIVE TECHNOLOGIES AND ENVIRONMENTAL SENSE OF BUILDING AND DESIGN. THE ARCHITECTURAL PLANNING OF A PROPOSED 80,000 SQUARE FOOT WAGNER EQUIPMENT BUILDING WHICH WILL FOLLOW THE REZONE CONSCIOUSLY ADDRESSES AND IMPLEMENTS CLEAN ENERGY, EFFICIENT TECHNOLOGIES TO COMPLEMENT THE SITE AND APPEARANCE FROM ITS FRONTAGE ALONG EAST PLANT. The proposed development plan, the landscape plan will incorporate attractive, sustainable, and water-wise elements. TO COMPLIMENT THE NEW BUILDING AND THE EAST PLAT FRONTAGE AND THE EAST WEST SETBACKS AND THE SOUTHERN BUFFER AREA. YOU'VE HEARD OF THIS PORTION OF EAST PLAT OFTEN REGARDED AS THE EASTERN GATEWAY TO COLORADO SPRINGS. I KNOW WE WERE REMINDED OF THAT. We have presented other proposed uses for this site, which had been voluntarily withdrawn because the consensus was that some of those uses were perhaps not the kinds of uses that were compatible with what one thinks as an Eastern gateway to the city. THE ECONOMIC BENEFIT TO THE CITY OF COLORADO SPRINGS BY REZONING THIS PARCEL. APPROVAL OF THIS PARCEL WILL LARGELY FINALIZE AND COMPLETE THE TOWN EAST MASTER PLAN INITIATED IN 1985. APPROVAL OF THIS REZONE AND LAND USE REQUEST WILL ALLOW WAGNER TO DEVELOP AN AESTHETICALLY ATTRACTIVE SITE that will be complimentary to the Highway 24 East Gateway to the city that I mentioned. Wagner Equipment itself has an established or has established a multi-generational deep-rooted legacy of philanthropy that includes corporate donations, youth advocacy, and technical workforce development. They are an active participant and educational training of technical trades that service and repair the types of vehicles that they sell. And Wagner's intent after their approval of this is that they would follow through and carry that out in the Colorado Springs area. At full build out and operation, approval of this rezone and land use plan will ultimately result in employment for 120 full-time skilled and professional trade workforce at this site. That's pretty significant. It'll start out smaller, of course, but that is the ultimate build out and goal for this property. And this proposal is also enthusiastically supported by the city's Economic Development Division. We'd recently met with staff from the Economic Development Division. They sat in on one of our planning meetings and they did express that they were enthused and very receptive of this proposal. Next slide, please. This is the existing Wagner facility in Aurora, Colorado, off of Tower Road or Smith Road. I don't know, you may have seen it previously or visited. Pretty impressive facility. This is not identical to the one that would be proposed for development on this site. but it is representative of the type of facility that Wagner is known for developing.

Next slide, please.

And our request is that you approve to rezone the existing property from L. I. C. R. B. P. C. U. A. O. A. P. Z. Two S. S. A. P. Z. One to light industrial. A. P. O. A. P. Z. One A. P. Z. Two S. S. O. also approve the land use plan, which removes the conditions of record from the northern portion of the property. And that concludes the presentation, and I'd be glad to answer any questions. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Gumon. I'm impressed with all the APOs and APZs. You did a good job reading those all out.

I had to rehearse that.

Do you want to do it again? No.

No.

All right. Commissioners, questions for the applicant?

No.

Okay. Questions for staff? I guess you don't go too far just in case we do have questions, but thank you so much for your presentation. Thank you.

Commissioner, we have a question for Allison. Can you just repeat the part that you said about? I think I misheard it or didn't hear the whole thing about keeping heavy equipment off the residential streets. Do you remember what you said about that?

Oh, um, for the record Allison soccer senior planner, um. My, my kind of planning approach to this was that the location of this property being in close proximity to powers Boulevard and keeping it near highways means that, you know, if. Heavy vehicles are having to either be loaded on tracks or driven on, um, you know. You know, other types of streets that are not major materials, um, that means just more impact on the community in general. Whereas keeping it close to the highways means that. You know, the impact of large vehicles going down streets or being towed or. What have you is is smaller than what it could have been if it was in a different location at town was kind of my whole point. Yeah. Okay. Thank you.

Great, okay. I'm sorry, I have one more technical question for Alison. I just wanna make sure that when we do motion, whatever way we motion, there is little inconsistency between the acreage, whether it's 2.37 or, sorry, 22.37 or 22.83 acres, and just wanted to make sure we used the right number. I understand if you gotta flip through a couple things to ascertain the exact one.

Yes, thank you for pointing that out. I think at some point in time, we got a little mixed up with the acreage, so let me.

Well, we'll go to public comment and let you take some time to research that. Yeah, okay. Okay, all right, so. Okay, let's go to public comment. Do we have anyone signed up to speak in favor of this application? No, do we have anyone signed up to speak in opposition to this application? Do we wanna check online for, let's go to the phones.

If there's anybody online that would like to speak in support or opposition of this item, please unmute yourselves for star six. There's nobody online, okay.

Well, we'll give Allison a couple more moments to look up that information.

Trevor Gloss from the City Attorney's Office. Allison can confirm from the legal description, but it seems like it is 23.37 acres.

Thanks, Trevor. Do you want to become a land planner?

Just kidding. Hey, sorry, this is commissioner Cecil who forgot to click on request to speak. I do have a concern and. Um, it's not necessarily material to this application. It's more of a question for my fellow commissioners given the light industrial includes some sensitive uses that have been discussed at length. Recently, um, and the fact that Wagner's, uh. really huge supplier of diesel generation power. Do we have any desire to consider any amendments that more directly limit the uses just to the equipment dealing end of things? I'm trying not to say the, I'm trying not to say data center.

I'm not seeing any interest or appetite for that. Personally, I don't. I mean, I think my understanding of this company and the type of work and equipment that they provide is really more in support of the construction industries. And I think with the growth to the southeast, especially around Peak Innovation Park, I think it makes... business sense i mean i can see the economic reason that they may want to locate and obviously they've moved out i don't know that it's a driving force to support data centers but fair enough i wanted to raise it and ask yeah that's what we do okay any other questions any other concerns okay go ahead sir i still question

There's a question for Allison. So even though, and this is more just educating me as a new commissioner here, but just because the land use plan shows a full movement intersection, that will be taken care of in the next phase where the traffic impact study, is that correct?

Allison Stocker, Senior Planner. Essentially, yes, um, so traffic engineering does review both of these applications. However. The traffic impacts study, of course, it's not conducted yet, but then also, um, the actual turning radius and engineering plans that go into the decision making of what type of access can be allowed and what turning radiuses can be allowed. that type of information isn't fully assessed yet. So for the sake of just clarity, we wanted to put that note on the land use plan just to make sure that just because it shows a three quarter turn does not necessarily mean that that will be what is achieved at time of development plan. There's ongoing conversations between the applicant, traffic engineering and city engineering to make sure that what will be approved more officially through the development plan actually is feasible in the field.

Okay, so the intent was a three quarter left in is what there was the intent of it.

That was the intent. Um, I know there's been some ongoing conversations and maybe developments. I don't. But we have details on, but either way, um, those, um, types of details would get decided more officially through those other approvals.

Got it. Okay.

Thank you. and um to follow up on your earlier question the 23.37 acres is the correct acreage there's there were some slight adjustments along the way so apologies for that confusion that's okay thank you um seeing that we didn't have any public comment um mr gumon do you want to

make any rebuttal or additional statements, even though we didn't have any public comment. I just wanna give you that opportunity. We may have some more questions.

Commissioner, it's Bill Guman, William Guman and Associates. We definitely don't have any rebuttals. And we just encourage the rezone and land use plan to be viewed favorably for this. Wagner Equipment has a proven record of being a good corporate citizen. AND I THINK IT WOULD BE A HUGE BENEFIT TO THE CITY TO ALLOW THEM TO LOCATE THEIR FACILITY HERE. IT DOES MAKE SENSE FROM A LAND USE PERSPECTIVE AND ALSO FROM AN ECONOMIC PERSPECTIVE. AND AS I MENTIONED, MY FIRM HAS BEEN AFFILIATED WITH THIS PARTICULAR AREA OF TOWN. VARIOUS LAND USE PLANS HAVE BEEN SUBMITTED OVER THE YEARS. PROBABLY THE PAST 10 OR 11 YEARS. I KNOW THE OWNER OF THE SITE AND REPRESENTATION FROM WAGNER ARE HERE. THIS IS OF ALL THE PREVIOUS USES THAT WE LOOKED AT PROBABLY THE MOST COMPATIBLE WITH THE CITY'S LAND USE PLAN FOR NOT ONLY TOWN EAST BUT CITYWIDE. SO I WOULD ENCOURAGE YOUR SUPPORT OF BOTH THE APPLICATIONS AND THANK YOU.

Awesome. Thank you, sir.

But no rebuttals.

Okay. Nothing to rebut per se, but all right. Um, conversation from commissioners. Jen, are you still signed up or is that from before? Okay. Commissioner case.

Commissioner Case, for the record. So I guess just some comments here of how I viewed this. I appreciate the presentation. In order for this site to really be developed, I think it has to be the same zoning across the whole site. So from a land use perspective, I would agree with the rezone. And if there's any other questions with the commissioners, just for discussion, I'm happy to chat about that. But spot zoning with BP and LI is very difficult to do anything there. So I think having that comprehensive is effective for everything. So thank you.

I concur with Commissioner Case, and I'm particularly excited about the, let's not call it, I want to say the transfer of employment opportunity to our city and the workforce development commitments that the company likes to keep. So I'll be supporting this.

Commissioner Engel?

Commissioner Engel, I concur with Commissioner Case and also I think the planning staff did an excellent job of reviewing this and looking at all aspects of it and what remains in terms of traffic things I think can be sorted out in an orderly way.

I support the proposal.

Commissioner Robbins.

Hi, this is Commissioner Robbins. I guess I concur with the rest of everyone else so far along this. It's a good use of the land. And I like the location because of your access not only to powers, the growth of the city going east and south. The airport location is not too far from that. So I think this is a great use of that property and really appreciate all the work you guys put into it.

Commissioner Egbert, I will be supporting this item. This is a good economic development for the city, and bringing this use into the city is great, as opposed to pushing it out into the county. So, thank you.

Excellent points all. Anyone else, or are we ready for a motion? Allison, did you have something?

No? Okay.

We're ready for a motion, comments?

Okay.

Commissioner Case, I'd like to make a motion to recommend approval to City Council of the zone change of 23.37 acres from BP, LI, CRAO, APZ-1, APZ-2, SS-O, Business Park, and Light Industrial with conditions of record, Airport Overlay, Accident Protection Zone 1, Accident Protection Zone 2, and Streamside Overlay to LI, AO, APZ-1, APZ-2, SS-O, light industrial with airport overlay, accident protection zone one, accident protection zone two, and stream site overlay, based upon the findings that the request complies with the criteria for a zone map amendment set forth in city code section 7.5.704. Commissioner Willoughby seconds.

The motion passes unanimously.

And while I still got the mic, I'd make a motion to recommend approval to City Council of the Wagner Equipment Land Use Plan based upon the findings that the request complies with the criteria for a land use plan set forth in City Code Section 7.5.514. Commissioner Willoughby seconds.

The motion passes unanimously.

Good. Thank you, Mr. Goodwin.

Thank you, Allison.

I think we're going to take about a 10-minute break before we start our next item, just to anticipate that we'll have quite some time during that one. So we'll be back in 10 minutes.

I don't think, oh, I do have, okay.

I think we're gonna try to come back to order here. I don't know if folks out in the hall can hear us, but if you are here to speak on the Lowell zone map amendment and have not signed up to speak yet, please do so so we can keep track. I guess we took a break and lost our crowd. Wait, so Lowell and Wagner are, no. Oh, okay. Well, then good, okay. Well, as soon as Commissioner Case returns, we will begin again. right we're about ready to call back to order uh just waiting on one commissioner if anyone's here to speak in favor or in opposition for this project and have not yet signed up please do so with our city staff All right, thank you. We will come back to order now. Solange, if you could read item 9C into the record.

Item 9, C, 0, and E, that's 2, 4, that's 0, 0, 1, 1, a zone map amendment consisting of 1.2 acres located at 2000. Sorry, 202, 251 and 252 East street from plan development zone, 15 dwelling units per acre, 60 feet maximum building height, single family attached and the detached apartments, condominiums, commercial office, civic to plan development zone. 184 dwelling units per acre, 950 square feet commercial, 65 feet maximum building height, apartment, condominiums, leaf work, commercial retail, office and service. And item 9D, LUPL-24-0010, a major modification to the Lowell neighborhood land use plan to remove lot 2, 3, and 4. the poet's loft subdivision from the Lowell neighborhood concept plan consisting of 1.2 acres located at 202, 251 and 252 East Las Animas Street. Our presenter is Bill Gray.

Good morning, sir.

Good morning planning commission, uh, bill gray, uh, city planner with the, uh, urban division. Um, and as introduced by. Uh, so launch, this is an application for Lowell's common. It is a land use plan modification and a rezoning. So we are located at the intersection of South Nevada Avenue and East Los Animas on the east side of this site. On the west side is Weber Street. The property is described as lots two, three, and four of the Poets' Loft subdivision. It is currently zoned PDZ. Uh, the low neighborhood, uh, plan, or the low neighborhood was zoned in 1998. It consists of approximately or consists of 58 acres. So it is the blue area that is on the zoning map on your screen. That existing zoning allowed for residential to be built at 15 dwelling units per acre. It allows for a 60-foot building height. It allowed for a mix of uses, including a wide range of residential, commercial, and civic uses. The proposed zoning will also be to PDZ. It will allow for mixed use the major difference between the current zone and the proposed zone is the density and building height. It remains a mixed use property. It does set a limit for commercial. It's proposed to set a limit for commercial square footage. It would be assigned to the ground floor, and the application would implement parking standards. The site area is 1.20 acres. And I need to. This so, um, a little context, uh, for this site. So, the little neighborhood. Um, is, uh, predominantly are. Predominantly developed there are a few parcels within the neighborhood, 58 acres that are undeveloped, which includes the, uh. 3 properties that are associated with, um, this application. Um, it is, um, parceled out and or has been subdivided over, um, its history. Those lot sizes, um. Uh, have various sizes from. A quarter acre to, um, uh, over, uh, 1 acre in size, um, the area adjacent and surrounding this property is mixed use as well. So there is, um, there's commercial, uh, and residential. Uh, within the low neighborhood, and also to, um, the, the West, um, uh, across Nevada Avenue. Um, and this is close to, um, city center or the downtown Colorado Springs. Um, it is also, um, served by, um, the city's existing street system. It's on a main, uh, arterial of the city, which is North Nevada. It's also served by, um, uh, secondary. um arterials and local streets it is on transit routes it's near bus stops it is also accessible it does also access it is also on bike routes and it is served by a pedestrian or sidewalk system so next slide so that that kind of covers the land use so in terms of other aspects of this area since height will be an important factor as it relates to this application this site is adjacent to three three and four story buildings and i would say that the wool neighborhood is predominantly three three to four stories in height again the maximum height that is allowed in the lowell neighborhood currently is 60 is 60 60 feet i would like to bring to the planning commission's attention that the original height of the pud was 55 feet so it has changed over its history so there has been some increase in the height. The density has always remained the same. So this slide will give you a little perspective on the density of the Lowell neighborhood. So as I have indicated, the Lowell neighborhood, which is 58 acres in size, has a gross density maximum of 15 dwelling units per acre. But the Lowell neighborhood has developed kind of on a site-by-site basis. And as I had mentioned previously, the property overall has been parceled out into smaller sized pieces and then subsequently developed into apartments, townhomes, or mixed-use structures. So as you can see on this map, if you look at the density of parcels on an individual basis, you can see that densities range anywhere from 25 dwelling units per acre all the way up to nearly 80 units per acre throughout the Lowell neighborhood. And this is just, these densities are just in the vicinity of the proposed application. So this application came to the city. As submitted, it was for 184 dwelling units per acre, 220 residential units. It was to be six stories in height with a maximum of 65 feet. It included mixed use. That mixed use was residential, ground floor, commercial. And in addition to that, the application kind of took from the form-based code, which is across the street to the west, to include height bonuses and other similar features that would have been allowed in the form-based code. And this application also would have implemented an off-street parking standard for each of the allowed uses. Thank you. The impetus of this application that was submitted by the developer was really to address affordable housing or just in general housing, not only for the community, but for the downtown area of Colorado Springs. It was also to try to continue the Lowell neighborhood concept. So the Lowell neighborhood concept was a walkable, mixed use, kind of urban neighborhood for the city. And it was an area that was, at the time in 1999, declined and was ripe or ready for some redevelopment. So, in order to do that, this application needed a modification to the concept plan. So, that is pretty simple. The major modification is simply to remove the 1.20 acres from the Lowell neighborhood. neighborhood plan and then the next step was rezone the property to a new PDZ to facilitate or be able to facilitate the applicant's vision for this application. In reviewing this application, we evaluated it against the standards for major modification to land use plan, the requirements The requirements of a land use plan, even though this application submitted a land use statement, it was allowed to submit that because it is under 10 acres in size. And so a couple of things that factor into the. The findings that staff made as it relates to this proposal. So we are looking at compatibility in terms of. Uh, adjacent adjacent uses, how does the building form fit with, um, adjacent and, uh, surrounding, uh, and properties, uh, and what, um, impacts are. Um, are are are created as a result of of this change. So, um, in order for this application to meet those criteria, we felt that there needed to be some adjustment to the application in order for it to comply with the criteria and also best fit with the, um, with the, um, low neighborhood plan that has developed over the last 25 years. And that was to continue to allow it to be mixed use, set the maximum number of residential units to 220, which equals 184 dwelling units per acre, set the ground floor commercial to 950 square feet, Establish a maximum building height of 65 feet, which would allow for a five to six story five to six story building. We felt that was in line with the 60 foot height that is allowed currently in the low standard. and also to require that this project meet the urban and architectural design standards of the Lowell neighborhood. So when the Lowell neighborhood was created in 1999 by the developer and the city, there was a set of urban design and architectural standards that went in place to kind of ensure that that urban design, walkable urban development. There was continuity as the site developed over time. So in addition to those things, this application is also located within the Bristol Lowell Urban Renewal Area. And many of the goals or Uh, include included in that plan are housing and affordable housing. So this application, um, even as proposed, and even as revised would conform to the goals of that, uh, low, um, urban renewal plan. So this application was submitted in June of 2024. It was ready for Planning Commission review in the middle of August of 2026. Not on this slide, but I should mention to Planning Commission, there seems to be a long period between initial date and review by the Planning Commission. One of the things that the applicant did, or waited on with this application was the development and then approval of the Bristol-Lill urban renewal area. Because if it was to proceed under affordable housing, there are some financial incentives that may be available to anyone developing housing or affordable housing through that. Through that plan, this application has had 3 public notices through public notice occurred at initial initial review. We held a neighborhood meeting and we were also before the planning commission hearing notice was 1000 feet. There was approximately 250 postcards mailed. The site was also posted on each of the major streets that included Nevada and Weber. We did get 17 written comments at the time of initial review. The Planning Commission did receive an additional packet of public comment yesterday, and those comments are from the public notice that was made for this hearing today. To summarize kind of the issues that were identified by neighboring residents and residents within the Lowell neighborhood, those issues included insufficient parking, too many units and or density that is not compatible or justified. There would be a negative impact to neighborhood safety. The building height does not fit the architecture of the neighborhood. Those are kind of the, I guess, those opposed to the project. There was support for this project in terms of housing. People did feel that this concept met the intent and purpose of the original little neighborhood. Um, and that the zone change lines with the elevate downtown, uh, master plan. Um, the application was also reviewed, uh, by city agencies. Um, of note, traffic engineering did a review the traffic impact study and found that it met, um. Or they agreed with the, um, the recommendations and findings of that they will be requiring a updated and revised. traffic impact study at time of development to further the details and fine-tune the recommendations for any traffic or street improvements that would be required. SWENT provided an informational comment as it related to storm drainage. Engineering review also did the same as it related to adjacent public improvements. The police did cite concerns over traffic volume and parking. One of the things the applicant is doing to address this concern is they are establishing formal off-street parking standards for this PUD. Um, Colorado Springs utilities also provided informational comments as it related to utilities, uh, planning and parks, schools and impact. These would be due, uh, upon, uh, right time of development and the fire department provided the applicant with information regarding access requirements for building buildings over 30 feet. In height, because the fire code now has. New standards for aerial apparatus, being able to access buildings that is now part of the fire code. In addition to all of those things, this application was reviewed against the city's comprehensive plan. I think there are five major points where this plan would be in compliance with the comprehensive plan. It reflects the neighborhood identity where it's being located. The development is of a vacant lot, so it does promote redevelopment of vacant or lots that are in need of some redevelopment. It's targeted infill. It is adding housing and diversifying the housing or continuing that diversity of housing that exists in the Lowell neighborhood. And it locates housing in an established network or an established neighborhood with connections to transportation systems, activity centers that would be retail, service, employment, and also in terms of majestic landscapes, outdoor recreation. So, on the following screens, you will see the review criteria for a land use plan city staff found that the applications comply with the criteria. For approval, but with conditions, the next set of criteria, major modification to a land use plans we have reviewed. This application against that and find that the statement and major modification applications meet the criteria for approval, but with conditions. And finally, the criteria for a zone map amendment and in city staff's review that those criteria, we find the rezoning in compliance, but with conditions. So, the following slides would be the draft motions for planning commission. The 1st slide is the motion for rezoning, which includes 6 conditions. The 1st condition just addresses the things that are necessary to include in an ordinance. So that would set. uses, density, intensity, building height, and then the conditions two through six are the revisions to the application that staff feels need to be made in order for this application to meet the criteria for land use plan change and a rezoning. And the second is to deny the application, finding that the criteria is not met, This motion is for the change in the land use plan. These five conditions are the same that I just reviewed with the zone change, and also it concludes a motion to deny if the criteria is found not to be met for a land use plan amendment. And that concludes staff's presentation.

Thank you, Mr. Gray. Does anyone have any quick questions or clarifications before we move to the applicant?

This is Commissioner Cecil. I just wanted to ask, because I'm not exactly familiar with the procedure, on how appropriate it is to have us move to make alterations to an application like this as opposed to placing conditions on it and what the reasoning is for them not to maybe withdraw and reapply or something.

This is used America these should be reviewed as conditions the same as you would with any other application

Okay, the phrasing of it was slightly different and I didn't know if it meant we were doing something differently.

No, the findings that staff is making to the Planning Commission on this is that this application, as submitted, meets the criteria subject to the conditions that we feel that you should apply to it in your review and decision.

Thanks.

Okay. Commissioner Willoughby, just a quick question. Can you speak to the density? How did you come up with the max density or it was just reflective of their application?

Yeah, the density is just based on 220 units and that was part of the original application.

Thank you.

Okay, I think we'll move to the applicant which might answer more or bring up more questions.

I apologize if my voice sounds weird. I had a cold last week that seems to be lingering in my throat still. My name is John Olson with Urban Landscapes. We are representing the applicant on this property. Toby Gannett is here as well. He's the landowner and developer for this. Excuse me, wow. First of all, I want to congratulate Nadine and Ryan for your appointments and but really more than I want to congratulate. I want to thank you. I want to thank all of you for for serving as planning commissioners. I know it's not an easy job. It's very difficult service that you all do. Hopefully we won't have a project Taurus type meeting here today should be. Pretty straightforward, not 12 hours long or however long you all were there.

14 and a half, but really, who's counting? 14 and a half, okay. But thank you.

Wow, all right. I don't know if this is a PDF again, right, Dan? So we probably have to scroll. Okay, so I'll just... You can probably just guess when I'll go, but I'll give you a nod otherwise. Okay, so... Wow, excuse me. So this image is showing kind of a concept of what this will be, and this will kind of move forward into this. Obviously, the Lowell neighborhood, if you want to go to the next slide, the Lowell neighborhood is at the south side of downtown. It was put into place, as Bill had stated, with an urban renewal plan in the 80s. And then Earl Robertson had brought this forward in about 2001 is when the first poet lofts went up. You think back to that 2001, I mean, Nadine mentioned it earlier, that we're on the 25th anniversary of 9-11, and so that was way back then, where downtown residential wasn't really present yet. We had the City Walk went live in 2001, which is an interesting context. We had the Lowell neighborhood started to come online during that time. and Palmer Village, which is now what's been changed multiple times to Southwest downtown. Now, I can't remember what our urban renewal plan is called down there, Park Union, I think. So that's an ever-evolving thing, but the goal was to bring downtown to being a neighborhood and to have this residential aspect. So 25 years ago, we were talking about having people living downtown, which is wild to me now. because we've gone so far and we have a lot of downtown residential, thankfully. So this image is showing kind of the conceptual proposal. We're showing 220 units. That's the idea, that's the goal. This is a PDZ, so I understand why there's a maximum density number on here. I don't typically like to pigeonhole ourselves and paint ourselves into a corner like that, but it's a PDZ, so it is what it is. Um, 180 units or 220 units I'm sorry would be divvied out with 180 on the North. There'd be structured parking and 40 on the South and some sort of structured as well as on street for parking for that 1. the existing plaza would remain. And then if you can go to the next slide, Dan, I think we showed this image a few times later on. This is the site, kind of giving you some context looking west. The Lowell neighborhood, was comprised at the time of some live-work units for quite a while and townhomes. And over time, and we'll get to a timeline of that here in a bit, but it started to evolve, and there was a big, long, stagnant period of time for the Lowell neighborhood. And part of that was economy. Obviously, this went through the 9-11 time, it went through the Great Recession, all those different aspects, as well as this is the second urban renewal clock, if you will, over there.

Go to the next slide.

This is some of the timeline. The original URA was established in 1988 for this area. And then, as I mentioned, 2001 is when the Poet Lofts began their construction. 2003 was the construction of the townhomes. Beezer Homes was the builder, and I know that because I moved here in 2006, and Lowell was one of the neighborhoods that was at the top of my list to look at as a nerd, planning nerd, and loving the new urbanism. Lowell and Spring Creek at the time when we moved here were really what Colorado Springs had in the world of new urbanism, and then Gold Hill Mesa came along shortly thereafter. 2003 commenced the townhomes, as I mentioned, and then we have a very long gap. And we'll go through some of these images, but Weber Apartments went online, Village at the New South End came on, and now there's the Draper Commons project as well that Toby was also the developer for in this area. You can go to the next slide. For this application, as Bill mentioned, we started this process in 2024. It also started to get the URA clock and designation kicked in at that same time. This project is looked at as an affordable housing development, so there's lots of financing nuances, which I'm personally not gonna get into, but if you really wanna dive into the whole capital stack, I'm sure Toby would love to talk about it. He knows it like the back of his hand. Financing in affordable housing is a very complex. Set of data, so I caution you in in diving too deep into that, but it's a lot, but financing is a big part of this project and it's a big piece of the of what we were asking for in our land use statement. Uh, in October, 2025, we had the community building meeting at the cab, the community or at the city administration building. Um, we had a good mix of, um, downtown supporters. Uh, and just proponents and nonprofits that were involved. Given that this property has worked with the arts concrete couch was also there, and they've been a supporter of this project as Toby's been a supporter of theirs as well. Resubmittals went in we started to move forward a little faster beginning of this year Heading towards this Planning Commission hearing today This will have to go through two hearings of City Council after this for obvious reasons with the zone change Go to the next slide Put this in here really as a placeholder, somewhat for in case you want to go back to it and look at it. This was the original plan. This was done by, well, it was Mark Tremel in whatever firm he was at that time. I don't remember the name of it. Eric pulled it out of my head eventually, but it was before Tremel Design Group. It was another one before that. If you go to the next slide, we can come back to this if you guys would like later. Here's some maps based on that of a timeline kind of going into it. In 1993, the police station, which is just to the north of this property, was constructed. And just before that, the Lowell School, of course not just before, that's been there for a long time, hence the name of the neighborhood, and the String of Pearls laundromat were there. Those still exist today. String of Pearls is an affordable housing development that remains there today. Next slide. These are gonna go kind of fast, Dan. All the blue on here, Poet Lofts, Prestwick Townhomes, Westwood Townhomes, Wyndham Apartments, Peak Vista, and a parking structure. So all those were done between 2000 and 2010. So there was a good amount of activity for a while. If you can go to the next slide. Skip ahead a whole decade. And then 2020, we start to see a little bit more movement again with the Rio Grande apartments that are to the east of the police station, the Weber apartments to the south, and the Sumner House apartments to the south of that, which is one of Toby's. Next slide. The three darker blue in the middle there, those are what we're talking about today. So those were, excuse me, Those are part of this application. The ones to the south, there's some right along Nevada. They're under construction right now, some multifamily. And then in the future, you'll see six blocks down there, kind of squares. Those are really the original conceptuals. I don't know what those are going to get built and when. But we also have the Bristow House, which is one of Toby's. At the extreme southeast, uh, just to the north of what's concrete coyote or concrete couches property.

Slide please.

I'll leave these up here while I take a drink and you can kind of go through these every couple seconds, Dan, but just some. Some general information on on the dire need for housing, which I'm sure you've all heard many, many times. Pike's Peak Housing Network estimated a housing deficit of 13,815 homes in 2025. That's here in the Pike's Peak region. That's a significant number. Going back to this slide, just because of what's going on. Oh, that's right. I wanted to show some directional arrows. So this slide was updated. I came and listened kind of in the corner of your informal planning commission hearing and heard questions about parking. So I wanted to add these arrows on here. Per the traffic study, we have access to the property for parking from Los Animas Street, and then it'll be exit only onto Weber. That's what the traffic impact analysis is showing today. So that's how traffic is intended to move here. So not really pushing people out toward Nevada necessarily out of the structure. Next slide, please. My... wow, my office actually used to be just to the south of this property. And once you kind of live there, or work there, or live as I kind of did, because I worked there, you learn to not really take that Los Animas onto Nevada, because it's not a fun intersection to turn onto. My office today is actually just across the street, so we are over in the old homes that Chuck Murphy owns today, which is a great spot, and it's great proximity to this as well. I won't dive too deep into these. You all see these all the time, but the main elements of why this fits the Plan COS, infill, affordable housing, public art, and efficient use of our city's infrastructure. So you can go through these relatively quickly, Dan, because they basically all say the same thing. There was a whole laundry list that's actually in the narrative that we provided. These were just the kind of main elements. And with that, it goes to this image, which I think is probably the last one before, maybe a last, yeah. So, oh wait, let me show this one. So we do have this site plan, we can refer back to it. And if you go to that last one, it's a very conceptual image that was put together by KTGY architects of a massing study that they did for the property. I'm happy to answer questions. I'm sure I forgot some things, so we can dive deeper back into that time here.

Thank you John. Do we have questions now before we go to public comment?

Commissioner Willoughby, just one quick question. The parking, you said structure, the parking garage or, okay, just making sure I was clear. Thank you.

Yeah, it is structure parking. It's probably, I mean, the details of it haven't got ironed out. I mean, KTGY did a little bit of an analysis on it. It's probably looked at going, Down below grade, and then maybe 1 above that is the reality. The goal for parking on this is to with HUD financing in particular is a 1 to 1 ratio. So we need to either park on street, which there's not a ton of adjacent on street or structured. And this is a combination of the 2 that's proposed for this property.

Okay, that's what commissioner will be again. I was just going to ask. It's a combination of on street and parking garage to get to your full count adjacent on street. Okay. Thank you.

Yep.

Sure.

Commissioner will be commissioner and commissioner will really answered ask the question that I was going to ask. You said your goal was to get to one. one parking place per dwelling unit. Is that going to be achieved without on-street parking or will you need on-street parking to achieve one per dwelling unit?

So, I shouldn't necessarily say a goal, because with the financing, you have to provide 1 to 1. so they need a 1 to 1 ratio and that can be on street adjacent just like a. An apartment typically is, especially in the downtown area. So it would be a combination, I think of the 2 and in the end. Designs of that parking structure, you know, if it comes out efficiently, and they can get more, they're going to get more parking on there. But that's the, that's the intention is a 1 to 1 ratio. And I did forget to mention earlier, as we talk about parking, as we talk about building heights and other aspects, when we brought this property forward, the form-based zone is right across the street. So a lot of the language that you're seeing in here is directly reflective of that form-based zone. I think it's transition sector one. Ryan's probably here at 2 is 2. thank unity. Um, and so our initial inclination was, let's just extend the form based. To this area, if we have to do a rezone from a to a, or what was a to a.

Sorry, it is one, not two. It touches both. It's one and two. It's one and.

Yeah, so that's why the language is what it is. And really with the height is the only one. In terms of the conditions of record, the height is one that we would really like to push for more, mostly because of financing. As you see in this image, this is showing a six-story building. So six story would be allowed for the heights, even for the conditions of record. However, financing looks at it more favorably. If you can go higher, even if you don't go higher, that's a big help in terms of getting this thing actually financed and constructed.

Do we want to continue with questions or go to public comment?

We add this commissioner will be have 1 more parking. Sure. I know you haven't figured it out yet, but in your initial layout, do you have any inclination of, like, 2 thirds parking garage? 1, 3rd on street or you haven't gotten anywhere near that far yet.

I think it's probably closer to 80% is on is structured. Um, so the majority of it would be structured, uh, cause there's just not that much Jason on street to this site. Um, if we go, if you go up just real quick, Dan, I'm sorry. I wish I had a clicker. Um, I would have brought a PowerPoint, but my fonts are never recognized here and it gets all muddy and weird and so I didn't want to do that. You'll see here, our on-street parking is really the piece that's on for that northern building just to the south. And then that's about it for the site because we do have an access point on the east. There's a few, one, two, three, four, five parallel spots kind of on the little turn of Los Animas, but there's not a ton there. There's obviously no on-street parking available on Nevada Avenue in this area.

So just to be, Commissioner, will it be clear, when you're saying you're accommodating it with adjacent on-street parking That's Los Animas, like within your within that plan or is adjacent mean like that's Los Animas three streets over?

No, no, no. Adjacent means adjacent. No, HUD wouldn't allow that. No, I know there's been there's been lots of you guys have probably seen them. There's been applications that have requested on street parking that is, you know, two, three blocks away. And it's a downtown area. So that makes sense. A lot of time in downtown area to have that. but that's not what HUD would allow in this instance.

Okay, thank you. I'm done with my questions, sorry.

Well, for the moment. I'm sure we'll be back. Commissioner Engel? Okay. Commissioner Robbins?

Yeah, Commissioner Robbins here. You answered part of the question. The reason for the height of the building, now will that be the tallest building? Didn't hear me, huh? Would that be the tallest building in that area?

In the Lowell neighborhood, it would be, yes, that's correct.

Yes.

And so, and kind of going back to some of the, I know Bill mentioned the density, and obviously the density is a, when you hear the number, what was it, 184 per unit or per acre, it sounds like a scary number. Right, but this is downtown so if you think about all the apartments that have gone up recently, I don't know their exact densities. But they're right in the same range, you know, you can't a 15 unit to the acre is really. It's a, it's town homes. Um, the bees are town homes that are there might even exceed that. It's uh, those are pretty dense. So, um, this was a 2001 plan that established the overall 15 units to the acre because we didn't have any residential downtown. So, at the time, everybody was thinking this is aspirational. You know, we'd love to have some town homes downtown. How great would that be? not really thinking about anything more than that. I mean, aside from CityWalk was looked at as a very ambitious plan at the time and it's done well and it kind of helps set the tone for having some downtown residential.

I may be getting ahead of myself on this one, but what was your average square footage per unit? And is it, you're talking two, three bedroom?

As I recall, Toby can correct me. I think the majority of these are one-bedroom units is what's planned. There might be a few two-bedroom units, but the intention is one-bedroom units and, generally speaking, one car.

Gotcha. Okay.

Okay.

Commissioner Case, do you want to ask a question? Okay.

Commissioner case for the record. Um, so this is a mixed use project. You have some commercial uses that are anticipated here. Um, do you mind just describing a little bit more about that vision? I see they're looking to recommend a 950 square feet condition. Um, I know that's quite small for any kind of commercial. So, yeah, I understand that.

That's a great question. Uh, that's that's it's again, that's probably like a maximum not painting ourselves into a corner. We want to allow that potential for, you know, if there was a coffee shop or something, or or even just a small studio or a fitness or whatever, something that might go into that. Um, to allow for it, but those building designs haven't been developed to that point. Um, this is obviously a, an affordable housing 1st project. Uh, not necessarily kind of diving into the, um. Into a commercial aspect, it's there as a potential, but not as a. The reality isn't price strong on it.

Okay. Just trying to understand, especially with traffic. I know if you're talking about single units, residential guys coming and going, and then you throw in commercial uses. I won't get into all the details, but then you've got to think about parking for the commercial use and is there designated spots and things like that. So thank you.

It'll be a data center for the 950 square feet.

That's right.

Too soon. Too soon. Hey, Ryan. Ryan's over here. Where'd Kevin go?

Commissioner Willoughby, one more question. Does the HUD financing require a minimum number of units or dwelling units per acre, or is that driving the density that you're going for, or those are completely unrelated?

To a degree, and I'm probably not the one to answer that. Toby, do you want to? Yeah. Toby Gaines is going to jump in.

Sorry, if you would just repeat the question so I can answer it directly.

Yeah, commissioner will be, I was just asking does the HUD financing drive is it tied to the dwelling units per acre or are you required to have a minimum number of units that you're providing in order to secure that financing?

So, not a minimum number of units.

Sir, can you state your name?

I'm sorry. Toby. Not a number minimum number of units required, but the complexities of this financing are very sophisticated and that is what enables us to deliver below market rates. And so with today's construction costs, land costs, financing costs, it's important to align with the HUD policies. And this is what's called the HUD 221, deeply affordable housing financing. And it gives a little bit better rate than what the market is to enable those units to happen. So it's a very complicated puzzle that you put together. And obviously, with the additional land cost of it being downtown, having higher density makes that financing more efficient. And that efficiency is essential in driving the affordability. So a very complicated answer to your question more than happy to sit down and go into it at length. But that's kind of the broad strokes of that.

Perfect Thank you.

Thank you.

OK, other questions? I mean, I actually have a whole list of them, but I think I'm going to wait until. No, it's OK. I think we'll take public comment and then we'll bring it back with more questions. But you actually still do have 16 minutes and 42 seconds. I know you can't see the clock, but I can. Is there anything else that you want to present at this time? OK, thank you guys. All right, then we will go to public comment for those who are speaking in favor of this item.

Our first registered speaker is Leila Gibson-Green.

Good morning. If you could state your name for the record, and then you'll have three minutes to speak. Can you do it one more time? Just a second. Hold on.

Okay.

All right. Third time's a charm, ma'am. Thank you. Good morning. My name is Lelia Gibson-Green, and I am in favor of this project. And it's because of the livability and walkability. Those are the two concerns that I have. Livability, we all need a quality of life. And this project bring about quality of life, meaning there will be a sustainable environment Programs stores and different things there that will make a difference in the neighborhood. For an example, affordable housing that is necessary. We need a place to live and we need to be able to. Afford it, we need to be able to have green spaces, stores and different things like that. That was just mentioned. This project will address some of the livability livability. We should have amenities. at least in a 10 to 20 minutes of our environment. And so this project is addressing that. And also it is a walkable design project, which also bring about physical and mental health. And then when you tie all that together, it also will help our economy And so this project, I am in favor of this project because it will address those challenges, livable and walkable. It also will, as I said, sustain housing problem that we have here in Colorado Springs. But then you have your mixed use of land, but also a diverse group of population of people sorry, of individual who's live in the home. Okay. And so we need that. We need a project or building a living environment that we all can, depending on our income and our work space or green space for our children. We need to continue to build such a project. And then, um, I heard about the parking. It is necessary that we have the green space. And so if only one park space per resident, that's a good thing. Why? Because that would allow individuals to park either on the street, but also they have to walk. And so when I'm thinking about projects like this, it brings about a whole circle of things for me. As a walk-in advocate, it helps to know that these projects are being built with all of those things in mind. Thank you. Thank you so much. You're welcome.

I appreciate your comments. Is there anyone else signed up to speak in favor?

Nobody else has an app to speak in favor. If there's anybody online that would like to speak in favor of this item, please let me yourselves pressing star six. Okay, there's nobody.

I'm guessing not. All right, then we'll move to public comment for those in opposition of this item. Do we have folks signed up?

Our first speaker in opposition is Connie Bedore.

Good morning, ma'am. Thank you for joining us. And if you'll state your name and then you'll have three minutes to speak. Hold on, we're going to help you get the mic a little closer or turn it on or both.

Thank you. All right. My name is Connie Bedore. I live at Wyndham Apartments, which are for the elderly. And it is right across the street diagonally to what is proposed. Everything in our neighborhood up to and including Cimarron Street is all three-story or below apartments. All of a sudden we're going to potentially have a six-story building. To be frank, I'm not even going to have sunshine because my apartment faces west and where the sun would shine into my place, I'm going to have a building there. Right now, there's 15 units in that place. It goes to 84 units. That's 12 times the amount of people who potentially can be living there. There's a point where the population becomes so dense that there's too much, too many street noises, there's too much going on and it's no longer a residential feeling neighborhood. It just, it feels like a New York City environment i'm worried about traffic because a lot of traffic comes on las animas and pulls straight through to get to fountain boulevard nevada through las animas to wasatch to fountain they're trying to get east and they use that as a means of going through. So there's a need to do a tremendous traffic study to see how that would work out. The amount of on-street parking that's available is practically nonexistent during weekdays. When I started hearing about this project, they said a three-story building. Now they're talking about five or six-story building. They were talking about 150 units. Now they're talking upwards of 220 units. It's like this is growing and growing and growing so we can get financing. If we make it bigger and bigger, we can get the financing to make everything work. And what is it going to do to the neighborhood? And I just think it's too big a project.

Thank you so much for your comments. We appreciate it.

So long, do we have? Okay, our next speaker is Chris Suka.

Good morning. You probably know the protocol. State your name for the record and you'll have three minutes to speak.

Hi, my name is Chris Sukach. I live at 201 East Las Animas. First of all, I'd like to apologize for my appearance today. This is the first time I've been to one of these meetings and I am clearly, clearly too casual for this meeting. So just want to let that be known. I have provided comments for the record in the form of a letter, so I'll let most of those stand. But my main question with this is, and I think some of it was answered, I think the answer comes down to financing, is the significant increase in dwelling units per acre from 15 to 184, because that's That's a pretty big variance. And also, I would like to say that it's too bad that our comments have to go into either a yes, no category. I understand that from an organizational perspective. But I am pro-development. I am in favor of and thankful for those lots being turned into something besides vacant lots. I look forward to new neighbors. I'm just concerned about the amount of density and if we can still get to meeting that intent of affordable housing, more neighbors, filling in that space, making it a productive use of the space, without hitting that 184 dwelling units per acre, it seems like there's some there there between 15 and 184. And I'm just neighbor. I don't have the method to get between there. But yeah. And honestly, yeah, the 10 stories made me feel a little overwhelmed, you know, in my four story building next door. um i think that's also i guess that would be my main question i think you did answer the question that it is it does come down to uh financing and maybe not necessarily had requirements um so that's all thank you for the opportunity to speak thank you for being here and uh there's no we try to dress nicely but there's no requirement but it is great to see people of

all sorts coming in to speak and participating in the public process and you don't necessarily have to be in favor or against you can certainly use this venue to To just weigh in your comments. So thank you for doing that And I think that in many cases we find the applicants take those to heart So I think there might have been a community meeting on this one, too I saw some notes from that but you might have missed that but either way, thank you all for being here.

Yeah Okay Our last registered speaker is Tyler Lee O'Connor. Oh

Welcome morning. You'll state your name and you'll have 3 minutes.

Yes. Tyler Lee O'Connor. Good morning. Thank you for allowing me this opportunity. I'm not gonna lie. I did not intend to speak. So I kind of cobbled together some notes just to talk about. Um, I think my neighbors covered the majority of the concerns as Mr gray as well, but just to re, or to reiterate and highlight some of them as a resident who lives here. I'm a new resident to Colorado Springs. I've been here for a little over 2 years now. I live right in the neighborhood in the same complex as Chris over here at the poet lofts. And in the time that I've lived here with the configuration as it is without this additional 180 units, there's been numerous, you know, we're in a traffic accident prone area as it is. So I think one of the concerns that we have is that the city addressing that traffic pattern independent of this project, but if they don't prior to this project, there's a litany of kind of compounding issues. I think that we as a residents there have parking is definitely A HUGE ISSUE AS WE'VE KIND OF DISCUSSED REPEATEDLY HERE WITH THE MIXED USAGE NOT ONLY ARE THE RESIDENTS THERE THAT LIVE THERE BUT WE GET YOU KNOW FROM THE COMMERCIAL BUILDINGS ALL OF THEIR CUSTOMERS THEY NEED A PLACE TO PARK AND THAT CAN'T BE YOU KNOW EIGHT NINE BLOCKS AWAY DOWNTOWN. Um, so just something as well, I think we're, we're, we're talking 1 to 1 unit. I'm not, this is not my area of expertise, but just as an individual who has neighbors who knows other families. 1 to 1 just doesn't personally seem like a reasonable number now, even if it's just 1 bedroom. If you, if you're looking at a couple who worked in. TWO DIFFERENT LOCATIONS WHETHER THEY WORK UP NORTH EVEN DOWNTOWN OR THEY WORK ON FORT CARSON OR IN A MILITARY CITY YOU KNOW IT'S THE LIKELIHOOD IS THEY'RE COMMUTING SOMEWHERE SO THERE'S I THINK SOME DISCREPANCY TO BE CONSIDERED THERE AS WELL The height difference, it was pointed out that this would be the tallest building. Uh, I mean, the additional 5 foot difference doesn't seem dramatic. Uh, but I just, I looked up just earlier, which I thought was fascinating was, uh, the, uh, the low school building there. It's a historic building since, uh, 1995 built in 1891. so that's like the heart of the neighborhood really. And then if we're going to build this grand. Apex right next to it. It's I think it's inconsistent with the design of the neighborhood and that's something I think should be considered as well Generally speaking we were looking at the the density of the Lowell metropolitan district as a whole and I agree, I mean, looking looking at a 20 year old requirement is not necessarily fair to constrain modern standards too, but we're looking at, like, 456 times greater than what the existing units are there and the existing community really how it's dispersed. And I think that's also something worth. uh noting so uh i'd lastly kind of close with that we keep calling it downtown but there's a reason why it's also the lowell district it's the lowell neighborhood it's its own identity south of downtown realistically speaking so they're really constrained to constrained is the wrong word it's uh it's its own neighborhood and i think the the arguments to be made for the urbanization of downtown don't necessarily match the urbanization arguments for the lowell neighborhood So, as Chris said, I'm not I'm not by any means I'd prefer to have neighbors there instead of a vacant lot that is overgrown. But I think the density concerns are a little. That that would be my primary concern.

Thank you so much, sir. We appreciate it.

Thank you.

I will check online. Okay, sure. Yep. If there's anybody online that would like to speak in opposition of this item, please unmute yourselves now.

There's somebody online. Okay, great. And I do see a couple of folks that are in the room that did not speak. Do you by chance want to make a comment? You certainly can. That's fine, just come up and state your name for the record, and again, as usual, you'll have three minutes to speak, but I just wanted to, since you're sitting over there, yeah, if you'll just bring that down.

Can you hear me? Just bring it a little closer, there you go. Kimberly Repke, I'm a resident as well at the Poets' Loft. My concern really, and I'm not sure I haven't studied much about the development itself, but what I heard today is I am concerned with the density and the number of the units in the development, but partly it seems that the plan is removing the unit itself from the Lowell neighborhood and from the Lowell Neighborhood Association. And if that's the case, my concern is whether or not the developers will be paying taxes in towards the development or the maintenance of the Lowell Neighborhood Association. Because as it stands now, we have some issues with maintaining the parks and the street lights and the watering of the neighborhood. And the development itself is going to create an extremely, a lot more people that are gonna be using the parks and the area around there, and I'm hopeful that the developers would be contributing to the maintenance as well. So what I don't understand and what I'd like to find out is whether or not that's gonna happen.

Great. Would you speak to that? Yeah, we can certainly, we'll have them come back up for rebuttal, but do you have any other comments?

Also, yes, to the parking, as it stands right now on a weekday, all of the parking spots are being used by the businesses that are already there. And if you can see the curved nature of the street around the park, there's no parking spaces there that are going to be able to be used by residents so i'm not sure how that's going to happen and as i left this morning to drive over there was a big moving van so somebody was moving in or out of a building but all of a sudden when i heard 220 units i started thinking wow you know where the moving van is going to go there's just some other issues that i think needed to be addressed about the density

because i'm not sure that the neighborhood as it's laid out right now can handle it particularly with the parking situation so those are my issues okay thank you so much for taking the time to speak all right okay at this time we will bring it back to our applicant you'll have 10 minutes for rebuttal okay thank you

I'd like to just start by just saying thank you to Lilia, Connie, Chris, Tyler, and Kimberly. That civic engagement is what's going to make this neighborhood great. Excuse me. And it is.

If you can please state your name on your right. Oh, sure.

It's John Olson, Urban Landscapes. Thank you, John. Sorry about that. Need like some kind of big red thing here to say, state your name, right? Because I never remember. But as I mentioned, you know, I think it's great that you all came out and you care that deeply about your neighborhood. And that's kind of what we saw in the community meeting as well, which is a great attribute, you know, if every neighborhood were like that. People will be more neighborly, right? Get to know each other. So kind of going back to some of the questions, I am going to ask Toby to come up here to help with one of those. What should we touch on first? I heard some question about this being proposed as a three-story building. I don't think it's ever been proposed as a three-story building. It may have been in the 2001 or 1998 master plan. But in terms of this, it hasn't been that. And that kind of goes to the density thing, too. The site is pretty tight. It's pretty narrow. And to park it, you really have to have a podium-type construction. And that construction type, you really need to have a number of units that are actually going to pay for that construction type. So that goes along with that, and that's what you run into in a lot of urban settings such as this. Let's see here. I've got a few stars in here. That one I just touched on. 1 to 1 ratio parking kind of just diving back into that. That is the parking ratio of downtown. That is the parking ratio of a 1 bedroom unit throughout the city or a studio unit. So that's that's where those numbers come in. uh the lowell school beautiful i'm glad that was referenced uh 1891 is a beautiful building i mean i think we all we all are very grateful that that that remained some of those great schools we don't want to see i don't personally as a resident here don't want to see those schools go away there is a four-story building between there and this property just for context. So it's not directly adjacent. And that four-story building actually is a little bit unfair in terms of it being a four-story building. The first floor is actually 20 feet-ish. I know because I was on the, quote, second floor loft space of the first floor for about five or six years. And let's see here. Parking, I want to go back to the parking piece, because this is something that we will have to dive into deeper as the development plan kicks in. But one of the things that we really want to talk to is the police department. on this because they have a parking structure they have a parking garage that is grossly underutilized and not to call it the police department but they actually charge their police officers to park in that parking garage and that's problematic for the neighborhood we'd like to go and talk to them and figure out how do we provide the police or officers to be able to have a place to park when it's there. It's accessible. If you're going to be charged, just like a city employee, if you're going to be charged $60, $70, $80, $100 a month to park in a garage, you're going to choose to not do that. I think I would choose not to do that. So that's just a policy thing, I think, with the police department that Hopefully it can be fixed and discussed at least with the police and the city going forward in the development plan process. The HOA involvement piece, we are intending to still meet the architectural guidelines. So that was a question from you, Kimberly. In regards to the contribution to that, I don't know offhand. I'd like to ask Toby to come up because I'm sure he's dove into this.

My name is Toby.

In terms of the homeowners association currently, and over the past many years, we've paid a 3rd of the entire budget annually for the low neighborhood. And that's a rough number and we anticipate. Anticipate continuing to pay that amount. Um, but but for a point of interest, that 3rd, that's been paid over the past 20 years, um, has been paid with no units. Um, and so we, in effect have been subsidizing the little neighborhood. and those amenities to maintain that area. And we believe in being good corporate stewards and we will continue to support the neighborhood. We're working with the Parks Department to finish the legacy loop. We're working with Concrete Couch about bringing arts and greater civic engagement into the area. So we are strong community stewards and we continue, we anticipate to continue to do that in the future.

I looked over my list. I don't see anything else unless you all have further questions. Happy to help answer.

Commissioner will be there.

I'm sure we do. I'm sure we do. So you have 4 and a half minutes left. You're good. Okay. Then we'll, we'll move to questions. No, it's fine. I mean, I think that's fine. We'll probably get a lot of things answered, but if you wanted to use your rebuttal time, you certainly could.

Commissioner Willoughby, you're up. Commissioner Willoughby. Mr. Olsen, there's one other star that I had. Have you, I know that they, it's just a rough massing model, so you haven't determined forms of buildings or anything, but has there been any shade, shadow, view shed studies? Just addressing one of the public comments saying, I won't get any sunshine in my window now because the building's too tall. I don't know if you can speak to that, but if you can.

You know we have not on this particular project However, the right-of-way of Webber Street. I want to say is it's at least 80 feet. It might be a hundred feet Add the setbacks in there I'm not I'm not saying you're gonna be able to see the Sun setting you're right in certain times of the year I think a sixth I think it does take a study to tell you that you're probably not gonna see the Sun setting behind the mountains because There's going to be a building there. But access to sunlight, et cetera, I mean, even in, I hate to even use it as an example, but you go to cities like Chicago and New York, you still have sunlight. It's just not as much when you get to those type of building heights. So it's not like the sun's going to be shut off for this.

This is Chair Hensler. Since we're talking about building heights, I just want to dive into that a little bit more. Because we see that the current standard is 60 feet, the current PDZ or PUD, 60 feet. You're proposing 65. But when I look at the... the form of the existing poet loft building. It has some parapets. And when I see you have a couple different, I mean, we can pull up the presentation and reshare. You have a couple of different kind of conceptual renderings that were presented, some with like a brick look that's very similar to the existing poet loft, and then the other at the very end of your presentation that looks more angular and modern and less brick. But again, that's massing. I get that. So can you talk about when we talk about the 60 feet existing and I start to count those floors and like you said one of them is 20 feet you know ceiling to floor floor to ceiling height how tall is that building really is it only 60 feet or is that only to the top of the roof or is that to the top of those parapets can you make some comparisons and

So your questions are good, and I was scratching my head a little bit too when Bill was presenting because I think one of the comments was that the height's already been increased by five feet.

Because it was 55 and now it's 60. And is that 60 feet to the parapet of that existing building?

That's where I'm going with that. I think that height increase wasn't necessarily because it went up five feet, but it's how we define building heights. At the time, it was always defined as, and Shiva, I'm sure you're well aware of this, Um, it was always defined as the building height was to the peak of the roof minus 5 feet. Right from average of the 4 corners and, uh, with the update, it became to the peak of the roof. So, okay, as proposed, it's 65 feet to the peak is what would be. Required now, 1 of the things that we had requested was actually beyond the 65 feet. We said 65 feet plus density bonuses that and that relates directly to the form based code.

So would you gain an extra floor then?

Maybe not necessarily, but you might have a more usable ground floor, right? Or your parking, if the parking decks kind of kick into it, those are generally 11 foot floor to floor on a parking deck. Those might kick in right? So there's all those different aspects. So that's again. I, I hate painting ourselves into a corner, whether it's density or whether it's. It's a building height or by number of floors or however that works. The downtown form based code actually uses a floor number of floors rather than building height for that reason.

Yeah. Yeah, and I you know, I mean, I think you can ascertain why I'm asking I think that when we look at the existing building Is it really only 60 feet or where is that 60 foot height? And if we're only I mean if we're going from 40 to 65 That's gonna feel dramatically different a five foot difference may not feel quite so dramatic and is it really even five feet? so just while we're on the conversation of building height they wanted to ask if

and i do also want to ask about what you anticipate and maybe that is also for ryan t for tiller as far as building exterior some of your renderings show consistency which i think would be really great but that is the goal is to have it consistent you know i think the the look of the brick is fantastic um and and that was a question that that bill had asked uh as well as will you be working with the or conforming to the low architectural standards and and the answer is yes so that's the goal is to do that so the massing model again it's just a massing model and i should have caveated that even more you did it's just that architects tend to just draw things modern now no offense yeah no thank you i think that's helpful and i'll leave it there for now so um commissioner angle i think you're up next

Commissioner angle my question is about structure for the parking is is the vision that that parking would actually be done in the two buildings you're constructing and it would not be a dedicated building.

Yes, that is correct. And if you have the plan, the site plan is a little deceiving in that way, because your point is very well taken. Um, the, the question is, so, if you look at this plan where it says 180 units, and you see the building looks like. Looks like an L, right? Correct with a very short top. That building in reality, if you're looking at it from the top, is probably going over the top of that parking. So the parking might be a sub-level and two levels above that, and then residential above those is probably how that's gonna get designed in order to get it. So if you look at figuring out how to get 180 units, that little L is not gonna be enough space for that to work.

So, but basically, can you bring that slide back up? What would you do for the forty unit building to the southeast?

The forty units? So a lot of I think what's anticipated is to maybe have a little bit of parking underneath, maybe a bay of that forty unit. But a lot of the parking for that forty units would also be on the street or on the building to the north.

All right, final question for me related to parking with the business units that you expect will be on the 1st floor. Would they use that parking also in the structure?

They would need to be parked 1 way or the other. Yeah. So, if those were the on street or on there, they would have to be. And that would go into the development plan piece of is how you park it and what those uses are. So, if it's a commercial use, that's really just for the residents, for example. Like, let's say it's a. Let's say it's a gym that's not a part of the building that others can use. Right correct. It's probably not a lifetime fitness type thing. It's probably pretty small and people that are using it are walking to it. So those don't necessarily need parking spaces. Right? Thank you.

Sure. Commissioner Cecil, is your question about parking? Okay, can I ask one more question about parking since we're on it and structured and you said earlier that you think that you should be able to park maybe 80% and I know we're asking you for details when you're at a conceptual kind of level, but. But if you were to do 80%, that is about 176 parking spots, which leaves you like 44, if the math that I'm doing is averagely correct. Is it possible? with the pro forma as you move through this to park it 100% if you reduce units, park it 100% within a structure if you reduce units, or does that just throw off the whole project? Because I think that that type of, I think that this area's grown so much with so much housing, and we live in Colorado Springs, everybody drives. I mean, some people might walk, and I know Ms. Green Gibson, wants to walk and we all want to walk, but most people drive. So is there any opportunity to see those numbers shift? Or do you feel like, if anything, it's going to shift the other way and you're going to use street parking more? And ask me your crystal ball.

I don't think... I'm trying to understand your question.

So the more parking spaces that you... Can you get to 176 units and park at 100%

Um, and not have to use any street parking and still make your pro forma work as a 100. so the, the levels or the area median income levels that we're trying to hit on this for portable housing is 70 to 110%. Um, you would add a minimum, the more space you dedicate for parking rather than units. Um, the higher the is going to have to be for the pencil is the is really the short answer to that. So, um. If we were to park all 176 and only have 176 units, I don't know that this pencils.

Okay. Yep. And I get that. And I think that's the balance, right? That you all as developers and that we as planning commissioners and citizens have to balance is that we need affordable housing. Yet we know people drive. And so I recognize you're trying to do the best you can. And I think I'm just asking, like, is it possible to park at 100% and still make it work?

Yeah, and my crystal ball, maybe it's rose-colored glasses, whatever it might be, shares Lillian's opinion of this, of hopefully the more urban and walkable the neighborhood becomes, the less dependent on the automobile that we have. People are always going to have a car, I think. There are some residents nearby, so I know if he's listening, he'll tell me, I don't have a car and I live right here, John. And he's right. There are some residents that do not have cars in this area. For the most part, you have one car per household if you live in the downtown area. And there's a great website, and I think I shared it on a different project with you all, that breaks that down. And in this space, I believe it's a one. Average of one car, and that's what's registered through the state per household.

Oh, that's so interesting.

Yeah, it's a great website. It's fun to nerd out on.

Yeah. Well, and I think I mean, I think that your ideas around the police operation center parking and is there opportunity there for some maybe some shared parking or paying for that or offsetting or what have you? I think it's great. And maybe there's some opportunities to to find some creative solutions. So. Thank you for answering my hypothetical questions. Okay.

Toby may want to add something to that.

Toby Gannett for the record. I think one of the biggest complexities in affordable housing is parking. And that's why you see so many affordable housing projects built in greenfield sites is because that's where the cost of land is the lowest. And so developers can afford to build affordable housing in these greenfield sites, far from workforce centers, far from education facilities. And so, in effect, what we're doing is we're pushing our affordability to the places where people can least afford it. And from the heart of this project, from the very beginning, our goal was to make a project that is affordable, downtown, walkable. We have transit sites near there. We have trails near there. We have education facilities, workforce facilities, restaurants that our residents work at. So from the very start, we knew we were going to be pushing the envelope in developing an affordable housing project downtown because the land's more expensive, the parking requirements are high, but that's exactly where we need to build affordable housing where people can walk to work and where they can get on trails and open spaces. So there is an incredible cost to this parking structure. but in our pushing the envelope in terms of the number of units, that enabled us to afford that parking structure and the land costs and the development costs of downtown, because that's exactly where we most need to be building housing that's affordable for our kids who are going to college at Pikes Peak State College, for our people who are working in the restaurants downtown. The last thing we need in our affordable housing is to be developing it 30 miles from where those actual amenities are from where the work occurs. Basically, you're asking people who can't afford our cost of housing to commute 45 minutes each way to pay the gas to pay the car tax to take their time away from their families. Because that's the only place they can afford to live. This project very intentionally looked at downtown as a key place for affordable housing to be built. And yes, it is absolutely the hardest place to build affordable housing. And we've been committed to that from the very start. If I was smart, I would have flipped this land to a market rate developer. And these units would have been what you're seeing downtown at 2000 to 6000 per unit per month. That was not our intent. We need workforce housing in the downtown core where they work, where they play, and where they can have a high quality of life.

Thank you, sir. I appreciate it. Shiva? Commissioner will be sorry to cut in front of you. We're still on parking. It's parking related. The police department did have a concern about the parking. Did your revised plan with the off street parking satisfy their concerns?

Or probably not.

Okay. They still are concerned.

I mean, they're, they're, they're concerned. It kind of goes to. To the point earlier than I think the point that that some of the residents have stated and and that is that there's. There's not a whole lot of on street parking spaces in the whole neighborhood and so to to meet the 220. With structured and on street, we're gonna have to have a lot of structure. What I would like to talk with that that gentleman at the at the police department is where do you park at? And why aren't you parking in your garage?

Okay, thank you. Okay, commissioner Cecil, do you have a question? No patient.

What am I doing? I'm giving feedback. We're hearing it up here. Okay. I think it stopped. Hi commissioner Cecil. Um. I was actually excited about where we were going right before they're talking about the affordability of this because the particular, for instance, of a student of Pikes Peak State College, being able to live here seems kind of unreasonable when you consider that the average graduate of Pikes Peak State College is only making about. and that's far below the 70% AMI rate. So I wanted to learn a little bit more about the housing affordability mix that you're planning including the reasoning behind whether or not you've pursued LIHTC credits and also why the phrase deeply affordable was used when we're only talking about affordable in the 70 to 110% range.

A little bit in the, there you go, flip that. Does this one work? Yes.

Yes, okay. I think that's a phenomenal question. And this project from the very beginning, we had the four universities in town look at global best practices and affordable housing for all of the Draper Commons projects. And today we're just talking about the Lowell Commons project. One of the findings that they had was that many people in affordable housing, such as a LIHTC project, if they get a promotion, they get kicked out because they're earning too much. Does that make sense?

Given that the average salary for graduation for even a BA from UCCS is well below 70%, I think they have a couple of cycles of promotion to still remain in that range. It just doesn't reach deep enough for them to attend while being students or immediately after graduation.

I think you're exactly right. And, uh, quite frankly, I was former chair of bike speak state colleges foundation and, uh, some of the welding graduates are earning between 80 and 100,000 dollars right out of school.

And yes, they, and the electrical engineers are doing phenomenal at the moment, but.

So back to my original thesis is that this project is a three-phase project by design. The first phase is a LIHTC project adjacent to this that is targeted at the 30% to 60% AMI. That was deliberately done. The second phase, Bristow, which John alluded to, is a project that's been awarded Prop 123 funding and will serve between 70 and 110% AMI, and specifically with under a 90% average. The third phase is the one that we're talking about today.

The 90% average, is that an average of under 90% AMI, or the 221 loan requires 90% of the units to be...

100% of the units will be under 90% AMI. The third phase is where you got the term deeply affordable, and that is a HUD 221 D4 has three different types of financing. The first is market rate, the second is called affordable, and the third is deeply affordable. And so we have chosen to go after the most affordable HUD financing that's possible. Now, would we love to have all projects in Colorado Springs, 30% to 60% AMI? Probably not, but those are some of the most difficult projects to build. And I've worked hard. Our Sumner house is full of that 30% to 60% AMI. But we do have residents, and to use a military comparison, in affordable housing, E1s through E3s would qualify for 30 to 60% AMI. If an E3 gets promoted to an E4, they are on the borderline and may get kicked out of affordable housing. So the project second phase, Bristow House and Lowell House that we're talking about today that got the urban renewal, are specifically designated for E4 through junior officers. That could be a teacher that's in their fourth year of teaching up to an assistant principal. And so that kind of gives the flavor for the people that we're talking about in these two. That, as you look at the housing needs assessment for Colorado Springs, we are about 10% are homeless, 10% are in the 30 to 60% AMI, and roughly 60% are in the cost-burdened workforce housing category. category, and that's exactly what these two projects, Bristow and Lowell, are trying to address. And what we don't want to do in our affordability, as we try and attack affordability in Colorado Springs, we don't want to just hit those 30 to 60% people. We need to address that workforce housing band from an economic development perspective that our businesses need to be able to pay a wage to those people and have an affordable housing component that hits that. So does this project hit someone getting right out of Pikes Peak State College with a CNA license? No. Does this hit someone getting out of Pikes Peak State College who is an RN? Absolutely. That's what this is for. And I've been in talks with our local hospital systems that are trying to attract nurses to our region and can't. because the disconnect between what they can pay and what the cost of housing is, the nurses are going elsewhere, and we have a massive nurse shortage in our community. Likewise in our school districts. That's a huge problem for our school districts. We can keep passing all the mill levies we want, but if we can't afford to house our teachers, That's a problem, too, and they just need to keep increasing wages as fast as housing does, and the Tabor Amendment won't allow that. Likewise, the base housing allowance that the military does is anywhere from 5% to 7% on a good year, and our housing prices are going up at 10%. well that puts our military at risk and so yes these are some of the first major affordable housing projects that address the workforce need in colorado springs but They have not been done, and we need 50 more projects like this to meet that need of our workforce, not necessarily that 30 to 60% that the LIHTC delivers. So imagine if you're an E3 who is celebrating just getting a promotion in the military, and no longer gets affordable housing has to pay for market rate housing and that that uh promotion now is eating away at your cash flow on a monthly basis because you need to pay more for housing so this is i i i'm sorry i'm going into so much detail but workforce housing in colorado springs is desperately needed to remain to improve our competitiveness and to help our corporations pay a livable wage. So I think this is one of the key economic development issues of our community.

Thank you. I actually appreciate the detail. And I do have a question before I ensure you have more given that you have kind of these different phases and affordability options within the areas that you have worked to develop within Lowell to call it for greater term. can someone like that move within your developments if they hit that that um they get a promotion and they kind of hit that next level or that that cliff right are they able to move easily within as opposed if i'm in one ownership versus a different part that makes a lot more difficult can you and this may be going down a rabbit hole i know this isn't a criteria at all for approval but um but it sounds like maybe that's a component

That's by design is so that they can actually get a priority moving from 1 level of income to another, and they'll get priority over people outside of the project. And so that was very intentionally and deliberately designed into this project.

Awesome. Thank you commissioner Cecil.

Hi, uh, commissioner Cecil again for the record. Um, do you have it or have you gotten a letter of commitment from hud or had certified lender for the range you're targeting?

Um, we have yes. Okay. Yeah. I mean, that's the simple answer. We also got, uh, for phase 212.8Million from in an award, the largest award 1 of the largest awards in state history. Uh, and chapter realizes Colorado Springs has 1 of the largest issues with this in the state. But, yes, the answer is yes to HUD and we are working through the process.

And what's the duration of affordability that we can expect from this project?

The financing is for 40 years.

That's great, I'm really glad to hear that. Hearing about the additional detail and the reasoning around, I remember voting on Bristow and really being excited about that, but that was a couple of years ago, and so tying it all together was a helpful tangent to go down to help me understand, because I live in the immediately adjacent neighborhood, and when my neighbors go to work, they're making 15 bucks an hour, You know, they're going to work at all the shops and restaurants up by at the moment and I want those folks that I live near that are my friends and community to have a place they can afford to live. So, the intimidating range. Even of 70% am I, I was like, oh, wow, I don't want to lose any affordability as we move forward. I want to have a mix of incomes because I really enjoy all of my neighbors. Um, so I appreciate you doing that. I'd also like to make the comment that given the neighborhood, the low was before it underwent urban renewal was a major. Loss in many ways that I think we've learned from from that era in. and urban development, but feeling some of the displacement pressures adjacent to the area. I think the highest and best honor we can do to the folks who lost their homes or who were eventually forced out is to make sure that all Colorado Springs residents have a place to live where they were displaced from. And hopefully some of them will even be able to relocate back if that's still in their interest. I'd also like to lift up particularly the comments that Tyler Lee O'Connor made around the accident prone area. I really think we may be approaching a density where the quasi roundabout is no longer the most efficient or safe way Um, I know this these buildings are going to approach largely toward the street and there's going to be a little on street parking, but it already feels quite narrow. And because I drove through that on my way here today. Sorry. Um, that's, I think a thing that's concerning, especially contemplating the traffic engineering around the crossing at Nevada. right there at Los Animas. I think that needs to be really thought through carefully, but I understand the onus on all of that is not exclusively on your firm. I just wanted to get that going as a comment, and I will now stop talking, Nadine. Thank you.

Did you have any comments back? Okay. Does anyone else have questions for our applicant?

Okay, you pause too long.

I know. Well, I was like, I had, I had a star somewhere on my notes and I can't find it.

So if you have another question, or if anyone, any other commissioners do just as a basis for density, like, this isn't that much more dense. The May was 177 per acre per acre, which is, you know, just down the street from there. Widener apartment homes had a lot more large units. So it came out around. 73, 74 per acre, but we're looking at, just as a point of reference, the Norwood property at Moreno and Cascade, the May having a similar density.

I WOULD LIKE TO BRING OUT A COMMENT ON THAT IS THAT THESE UNITS ARE SMALLER. THEY ARE 550 TO 800 SQUARE FEET. SO WE DO HAVE MORE PEOPLE PER, I MEAN MORE UNITS PER ACRE. But we have much smaller units. And so a lot of these units being built downtown are 2,000 square feet and above. And so we do have smaller units. In many cities across the country, they're giving much greater exemptions for affordable housing than is currently built. And I'll give an example for my LIHTC project. If we had more reasonable parking ratios required, I could have doubled the number of affordable housing units and still had parking. But in many ways, our codes are outdated and we're choosing to house cars over people. And so as our community develops, the more that we can encourage biking, walking, mass transit and the like, the more reasonable, lower parking requirements will be downtown. You know, if I looked at an affordable housing project that's 20, 40 minutes outside of town, Yeah, it needs to be a one point five to one to two to one parking ratio because both of those residents are going to be driving. But as we look at urban cores, there are even cities in the United States that are making affordable housing projects parking exempt. Now, I think that's foolish, especially in Colorado Springs. But I think there is a reasonable accommodation that can be made that our city is currently not making for affordable housing that would spur more affordable housing in our community.

Okay, uh, commissioner will be commissioner will be not a question. Just a comment. I appreciated commissioner Cecil's references to nearby and then your comments Toby, because originally I was a little bit hung up on that density. You answered some of my questions earlier, but I think all that context really matters. And in how you arrived at that density, and then Jen, your comparison of nearby densities makes it feel less ominous.

And my name's Toby, for the record. And the plans that were submitted 10, 15, 20 years ago on this building had it at 55 feet. So it was a massive, massive building back then. As proposed, those units were just very, very large units. So we're taking relatively the same mass and converting it into more units, but the mass has remained relatively the same that entire time.

This is Chair Hensler. I have a question about the retail component, because I think in the project summary, right, that's 950 square feet of ground floor, maximum of 950 square feet, which I think as we kind of had a question earlier is not much. And I think to the idea of walkability and some of the public comments that we heard, and no, you're not going to put a grocery store in there probably, but if there's a coffee shop or a gym or some things that keep people engaged in the neighborhood, 950 square feet is not really sufficient. Is it possible that that could be a minimum of 950 square feet instead of a maximum that you're dedicating? No. And is this because of your pro forma and your head requirements?

Yes.

Actually, the 950 square feet is a placeholder, and it allows us to have one small function that very easily could go away and become a common area space. So to give you an example, 950 square feet is roughly from here to the wall.

Right.

Yeah. So it is a placeholder. HUD does not allow any more than 20 percent. We've already backed off of that from a commercial. And so commercial is just a thumbnail of an overall body that we're talking about.

And I get that, and I think having been on our downtown review board for a while too, we run into this with some of the other developments who either have not planned any ground floor commercial or retail, and it's all apartments to the edge, or they've planned it and nothing's been built in it, which I get is an economic constraint. I also think a lot of those projects are a little bit isolated, right? Like even the May we're talking about, that's probably a little bit different, but there's retail and restaurant all around it, or what's the other one? The Eco 333, there's not maybe a lot of people who are walking around, but you have a lot of captive audience with nothing but housing around. It just seems like you could really utilize that. But I get that there are some constraints. So I just want to ask, because once we put that into a condition, right, if it's a minimum or a maximum, then that's in there. So I didn't want to leave the hearing without discussing it further.

this one doesn't oh wait there it goes it's working you have the magic time john olson um uh maximum uh it was is preferred i mean a minimum i think i think lowell is actually kind of a good case study um in the past when lowell was developed the live work units were requiring a work component on the ground floor and the market didn't necessarily Allow for that to go and flex and the market and especially as with, uh, if you can think about the Prestwick homes, um, those are at the. What would be the Southwest corner of the low neighborhood? Um, there's frontage along Nevada, which is. Way above Nevada, so it's not really frontage just kind of. There, and then there's frontage to the South, which isn't really facing anything. There's no activity. So, when those were required to have a work component. It added a struggle, so. I appreciate the, the intention on it. I think that the concern would be, what if we can't fill it? What if we don't have somebody that could go in there, allowing the opportunity to have it is great. And on the other side, the flip side of that, you know, we had an apartment project in a loan tree, Colorado. And, um, our client on that is similar deal is a 6 story Texas donut is how it was referred to as, you know, with the parking structure in the middle. Um, but there was a requirement loan tree that had to absolutely had to have. A retail on the ground floor and our client, you know, struggled with that for 2 to 3 years, not wanting to get it off the ground because they were worried that they would not be able to fill that. Ultimately, it became 1 of the greatest coffee shops and loan tree, but, um. It was with a lot of pain and suffering with the financing elements of thinking about having a space sit vacant.

For the record, what coffee shop is that?

I don't know what it's called. It's right on Ridgegate. Okay, I'm just wondering if I've been there. It is a great little space.

Okay. Any other questions from commissioners? I'm sorry, Commissioner Engel.

Commissioner Engel, I have a question for Mr. Gray. Can you bring that chart back up which showed the densities for the various areas surrounding this particular project? You had a chart that showed what the current densities are.

Yeah, that's it. Thank you.

All right, uh, it's obviously that the proposed density for the projects greatly exceeds what's. And other locations in the low area is that am I accurately interpreting that?

So, the whole of the Lowell area has a maximum density of 15 dwelling units.

Yeah, but I think people have blue people have missed. I don't want to say misjudged, but people have used that number as if it's the number the number right next door. And that's really not the case. The actual numbers are the numbers you lay. You have here, they, they range from as high as seventy five, I think, is the highest seventy five dwelling units per acre to as low as twenty five. Yes. And what we are proposing is a hundred and eighty eight eighty.

Maybe a way to look at this differently is so the density of the blue area right now. With this property remaining vacant is 14.82 dwelling units per acre for the low. Neighborhood if we developed it. Under the proposal. The whole density of the low neighborhood would increase to 19 dwelling units per acre. If this project were developed as it was conceptually planned in 1999. The whole of the density of the whole low neighborhood would go to 15.4 clearly.

They're going to get above 50. I don't think there's any doubt about that. But the question is. Do they need to get up to what they're currently discussing today versus one of those other numbers that we see in the neighborhood?

I don't want to get into net and gross because that's way too complicated. I'm fine. And I can't answer all of that.

My point is simply that what the neighborhood experiencing today is nowhere near what's being proposed.

Am I accurate in saying that nowhere in the neighborhood? Do we have a parcel that was developed at 184 dwelling unit? Thank you very much.

Bill, one more before you go away. Ryan Case for the record. So as we're looking at traffic, obviously that's a scenario where this is a significant undertaking of 220 units. And as we're looking at this map here, Are there contemplated traffic improvements for the entire area that might be outlaid for the developer at this time to help improve the whole area? Because there's a lot of one-ways. There's a lot of different traffic movements here, and I didn't get to review the traffic impact study. I don't see it in our files, but I was curious if the team had time to review that or if anyone could speak to that.

Not sure traffic engineering is online, but I do know that the traffic, um, impact study area, uh, included the intersections at Nevada. And Los animus and Weber and Los animus, um, it did conclude that the existing street system is adequate for the, um, exist, or the, uh, proposed or anticipated traffic. The traffic study did focus on this being a residential project. There were some recommendations in the traffic impact study that related to queuing lanes on primarily South Nevada. So how long might a queuing lane need to be or does it need to be increased or is the existing condition going to be Adequate so we did traffic engineering did conclude that they felt that the the findings and recommendations of that study were adequate. But they did make a further recommendation that they would want an updated traffic impact study to, I guess, further evaluate. The public improvements to the street system to make sure that if there are intersection improvements left or right hand turn lanes or crosswalks or things like that, that needed to be added that they would deal with that at the time of development. But for rezoning purposes. for what is going to happen, they did find that, they felt that the conclusions of this study, that the street system was adequate to serve the anticipated development with the condition they provided updated analysis.

Okay. Thank you. And then secondary to the applicant as well, John, you mentioned parking, and we're going to go back to beat that dead horse, but you mentioned the police department has paid parking for their employees. Paid parking, well, can be an issue for some people. Is that envisioned for the project? And then secondary to that, does that potentially help with any financing mechanisms to help the project overall get more money, even to improve the area significantly more?

so real quick i want to touch back on los angeles and then we'll talk about parking i love talking about parking it's fine bill answered that exactly the way that i recall the tia as well and just to add to that there wasn't a recommendation of a light or physical improvements there were some paint recommendations in the tia in in how that worked and then the other one that i showed where the Access to the parking structure on the north wasn't in only that was very intentional on the as well for traffic impact because the, the, the obstacle with that intersection of Los Angeles and Nevada is really pulling out of it onto Nevada, not necessarily pulling from Nevada into Los Angeles. So they were, they wanted to be very particular with the analysis that you are accessing the parking structure. in to the garage and then out on the lever.

Just for context again of that, thank you. Thanks, yeah.

Yeah, so I think there's another one on here somewhere where I drew some arrows. I don't even know what slide we're on to, so probably go down.

Keep going.

There we go. There it was. All right. So there's the arrows. So the access into the garage would be from Los Animas, but out would be to Weber. And that was to dissuade people from going on to Nevada from Los Animas. Okay, now back to parking. So the parking question, if you wouldn't mind just restating that, I'm sorry.

Just paid parking or if it's going to be part of the project and then secondary to a financing piece. I mean, is that something that can help the project as a whole if there's a nominal paid parking aspect? I mean, most apartment complexes have paid parking or it's subsidized through rent or something of that nature. But does that help potentially with financing? And then maybe is that an opportunity for reduction in density?

Most downtown do, and I don't know if I don't, I doubt that Toby's gotten into that level of detail. And it was an affordable housing project. You really don't want to charge too much, at least for the first space. Maybe if it's an extra space, then you charge more. Right. But for a first base in a parking structure, you usually don't want to charge because you're already cost burdening the people there. just like you would be for an affordable housing out in Payton, where you have to drive, basically, to get to your job. Here, at least, you have the opportunity to be able to walk and access jobs via bus. And it's really that car dependency piece of it that is what makes this project unique, is the dependency isn't there as much as it is on a lot of affordable housing projects. Oh, yeah?

To begin it for the record, my 1st phase has all 3 parking. My 2nd phase is predominantly surface parking with some paid underground. This will be paid parking within the community. You know, if you just have free spaces, then people are more likely to have more cars and it's pretty common in cities across the country as as you live closer to an urban core, you pay more for parking. You know, the greatest thing that we could do is have a conversation with the police department right now. I got a lot of police cars, police personnel parking on my lot. Not only are they parking on the street, but they're parking on the dirt of the lot because they are charged to park in their parking facility that is taxpayer funded. But unfortunately, if you look at any Satellite image of that parking garage. It's mostly empty. And so we have a disconnect where we have a parking facility that has been paid for by the taxpayers. The police understandably don't want to pay on a day to day basis. To pay to park to go to their jobs, but there needs to be a reconciliation at the city so that that parking facility is used by the people that it was intended for right now on any given day. I'm just making up a number here, but 40 plus police cars are parked along a Weber street that should be or could be in that garage. And those are really the spaces that the residents of this neighborhood should be using. And the police should be using the spaces that the taxpayers paid for. But there will be paid parking in this facility.

Okay. Yeah, that answers my questions. Thank you, guys.

so i feel like we've exhausted a lot of questions here are there are there other questions comments move towards emotion sure would you like to kick us off commissioner robbins okay yes i i do have comments i scribbled a lot you get a little closer to your mic thank you no no no no turn can you hear me okay

Fantastic, okay. I've made a lot of notes over here just listening to everybody and I guess I can just kind of randomly go through all my notes, but the one thing that Worries me is a number of people in each unit and starting out you talked about everything is a one-bedroom unit and Then it got to where well kids well if you have a one-bedroom unit now you have children involved and And then the next thing I hear is, well, we got to have something for the students to go to college. Well, I don't know about you, but I know what students do to places. And keeping it to one person per unit is not even sensible. Um, the other thing I remember from my previous previous police occupation was that the more people you put into an area, the denser you make it, the more tensions, the more conflicts and the more problems you have safety issues. Um, I just think it's. The density that you're proposing to me is not sustainable. I don't think it's good. I think it's gonna be unsafe for everybody in the area when you do that. I think what's gonna be happening too is where's the guidelines for the condition in the complex? Where's the guidelines for the people? How many people you can have in the unit? And then you guys have talked extensively about traffic as well as the parking. And I've been in that area before. Even when it was first done, I used to go to the little coffee shop that was down there. They closed out because they couldn't keep things. It was actually a wine and a coffee shop and it didn't last long. So to say that they have 950 square feet that's supposed to be business and then give them a one bedroom on top of that, that doesn't make sense. That's a waste of space as far as I'm concerned because it's not gonna survive as a business down there, but maybe that's what Lowell would like to have. I just don't see, and I really appreciated all the financing angles and look at things that you have done. But I'm not seeing this as being a good situation. I think you're trying to put a square peg into a round hole. And I cannot go through all this. I just don't think it's good.

It's not going to work.

keeping the construction, the maintaining the area, the property values, I see that as being a real issue down the road. We have a commissioner that lives close by, and when you have something where eventually over five, 10 years, it turns into a real trash pit because you're cramming people on top of each other, Um, they're not gonna care. And to me, it's just gonna get destroyed. So I appreciate I want affordable housing. I think that we really need it in this city. I've lived here for a very long time. Uh, I like the idea that this is close to the downtown areas walkable. You got trails. at all the restaurants and everything, but to me, I just can't see this, so I'm against the project. Sorry to take so long to mention that.

Thank you, sir. Commissioner Engel?

Commissioner Engel, my assessment is this is a difficult choice because there's one group that benefits and one group that loses. Under the zoning map amendment approval criteria, it talks about nothing's gonna be detrimental to public interest, health, safety, convenience, or general welfare. I cannot imagine adding the density you're suggesting to an area that doesn't have that density and it's not gonna degrade the general welfare of the people who live there. So the question we're faced with is do we approve this which is good for low-cost housing at the detriment of the people who currently are in the area. And I personally cannot square that. I don't think that's really legitimate. You talked about parking, and I think parking's important, but the other thing I would add to the parking debate, when you talked about the type of people who would live in there, nurses, teachers, lower enlisted people in the armed services, they aren't gonna walk to work from that location. They're probably gonna drive. So I think the parking issue, and it's unfortunate you're put in a position where it's so difficult to make it work, but I think that's not totally resolved in my mind. So for those reasons, I don't think it meets criteria D2 of the amendment zone map, and I cannot support it in its present configuration.

Thank you. Commissioner Willoughby, I think you were signed up next.

Okay.

Any other commissioners would like to make a comment at this time or a motion? We'll give Commissioner Willoughby a moment. Go ahead, Amanda.

I'm going to concur with my fellow commissioners Engle and Robbins. This is Commissioner Gigiano for the record. I also am just not comfortable with the density as relates to the neighborhood and the safety and concerns of the existing neighborhood. So I appreciate what they're trying to do. And I'm sorry to have to say that I'm also not in support

As the notorious resident of the adjacent neighborhood, I intend to vote in favor of this. I support the Lowell Commons application subject to the conditions recommended by staff. The proposal will transform along vacant property, and the benefits are not always direct. There's no negative, and only positive. Sometimes it's a net that we have to reconcile up here. But seeing a mixed-use development, adding housing near downtown employment, transit, bike connections, existing utilities, and neighborhood services, I think makes a lot of sense. This location and use are appropriate and complimentary and consistent with the planned COS document, as well as Elevate Downtown, although I take your point again, Mr. Lee O'Connor, on south downtown versus individual neighbor identities is a real tension at the moment. However, the site is, I think, appropriate for a greater residential density. It's been overgrown and it can be a thriving part of our neighborhood that contributes much like the May building, which barely added any sensible traffic to many of us who lived on that side of Nevada. I don't believe it's going to have any displacement impacts. I'm just kind of glossing over the criteria. It's going to establish clearer and site-specific requirements. The 65 foot six-story limit, if limited to that, I think will continue to allow for integrating the architectural standards of the Lowell neighborhood and provides reasonable safeguards for compatibility. staff's conditions would also appropriately remove the lodging and high bonuses and clarify the permitted uses densities and the commercial area and so with those conditions incorporated in those controlling documents i find the application satisfied the approval criteria and do merit approval thank you any other commission that will be

Commissioner Willoughby, I would also be voting in favor of this for a lot of the same reasons that Commissioner Cecil cited. I do think that it aligns with Plan COS. I understand the parking concern, but I believe that it has more positive than negative impacts. I think that working with the police department could be a benefit to all parties involved. Unfortunately, downtown parking is just what parking is, and I think we do have a real need to provide that affordable housing in the downtown area. So while we can say we want affordable housing, we can't all say, but not in my backyard. So it has to go somewhere. So in my opinion, I think that this is an appropriate infill project for this part of downtown. I do think that it generally is consistent with the architectural character of this neighborhood. And I would be in favor of the conditions that staff has put on this motion. I don't, Commissioner Cecil really summarized a lot of the things that I was going to say as well, so just I would be in favor of this. Thank you.

Anyone else with comments?

Commissioner Egbert, I will be supporting this item. I do concur with the commissioner's discussions, and I do really appreciate Toby's passion for this need for our community, so thank you.

Commissioner Clements, did you have a comment?

Yes, I'm Commissioner Clemmons for the record. Listen, everybody, I agree with Commissioner Robbins and my next door neighbor here. And I just, I'm very concerned about the density and the parking in that area. So I will be voting against it.

Commissioner Case, do you want to make any comments?

Yeah, Commissioner Case, for the record, so thank you again for everyone's comments. I hear my fellow commissioners' concerns and do share some of those as well, and I think it is a balance between need and wants and ultimately what can be done in a certain area, and to provide housing in a densely populated area can be very difficult at times, and there's problems that need to be solved, and I see the group before us as a group that can help solve some of those problems. And while this is a zone map amendment, there's a lot to be done down the road as well with the development plan. And I think this is really kind of the first step of that piece. So I think that's where I find solace in a lot of this is a lot of those traffic impact studies will be done down the road. A lot of those mitigating factors that residents are concerned in will be dealt with as well. And so I will be in favor of this project. Thank you.

okay um i think there's a lot that's been said i i will i concur with a lot of those that are in favor of this application and will be so myself i think it as i look at the criteria it is consistent with the development standards and compatible with surrounding areas and and capacity inadequacy or other impacts i believe are manageable as to commissioner cases this is chair hensler by the way i never say my name um i do think that the height and density is well matched and i'm particularly in favor of maintaining the Lowell neighborhood urban and architectural design standards. I think that would be a real win to have that be consistent and not have it look like a completely different development. And I'm also really encouraged that an underground parking structure is being considered. I know from my professional work, those are extremely expensive and complex, but they are long lasting and they pay off over time and it really helps keep traffic impacts and parking impacts. So I think if my math is correct, I'm gonna seek a motion to approve this item, if someone would like to make such motion.

Commissioner Willoughby, motion to approve item 9C, zone 24-0011 Lowell zone map amendment. Do I have to read all of these things? Motion to approve. Recommend approval to city council of the rezone consisting of 1.20 acres located at 202, 251, and 252 East Los Animas Street from PDZ to PDZ, sorry, PDZ planned development zone to PDZ planned development zone based upon the findings that request complies with their criteria for a rezone set forth in city code section 7.5.704 with the following conditions. The draft zone ordinance for the Lowell Commons planned development zone is required to indicate land use types, mix and intensity as follows. A, mixed use buildings with residential and commercial land use type. B, allowed residential use to include apartments, condominiums, and or live work, And commercial use to include office, retail, and service. C, maximum residential density is 184 dwelling units per acre. Any live work unit will be counted as a residential unit. D, maximum commercial square footage is 950 square feet. E, maximum building height is 65 feet or six stories maximum. Item two, the land use statement is revised to set maximum building height at 65 feet and not more than six stories. Item three, all references to lodging use type and standards and requirements related to lodging are removed from the land use statement. Item four, the parking reduction factors in the land use statement are revised only residential and retail and residential and office service. Item five, the height bonus table is deleted from the land use statement. And item six, the Lowell neighborhood urban and architectural design guideline regulations shall be made as an exhibit to the land use statement.

Thank you, Sheba. Commissioner Cecil, I'll second.

The motion passes with five members in favor and commissioners Robbins, Clemens, Stigliano, and Engel opposed.

Thank you. Sheva, could we endeavor you to read the motion for 9D since you did such a great job?

Commissioner Willoughby, motion to approve item 9D. Recommend approval to city council of the major modification to the Lowell neighborhood land use plan based upon the findings that the request complies with the criteria for land use plans set forth in city code section 7.5, .514, and 7.5, with the following conditions. One, the land use statement is revised to set maximum building height at 65 feet and not more than six stories. Two, all references to lodging use type and standards and requirements related to lodging are removed from the land use statement. Item three, the parking reduction factors in the land use statement are revised for only residential and retail and residential and office service. Item four, the height bonus table is deleted from the land use statement. And item five, the Lowell neighborhood urban and agricultural design, agricultural, architectural design guideline regulations shall be made as an exhibit to the land use statement.

Commissioner Cecil, I second the motion.

The motion passes with five members in favor, and Commissioners Robbins, Clemens, Gigiano, and Engel opposed.

Okay. While I believe this item moves on to City Council already, it is listed as quasi-judicial in my packet, as was the previous item. So I'm going to read the appeal instructions for the record.

So because these items are recommendations to City Council, there is no appeal. City Council will just make the final decision, and then someone can appeal from City Council's decision if they want. But as it is, these are recommendations. There's

That's what I thought, but they both are listed as quasi-judicial. The Wagner equipment item was as well. So if anyone wants the appeal instructions, let me know. How about that? Do you want me to read them? No.

Thank you.

Okay. These will move on to city council. You can watch them next month. I think with that, we have no other items of business. So we will adjourn at, look at my agenda. We will adjourn at 1220. Thank you so much.

Thank you.