Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

made big promises and were very effective at organizing minorities.

Recording in progress.

Good evening and welcome to the July 30th, 2026 Lewisville Planning Commission meeting with a roll call please.

Chair Brown eyes here. Commissioner basket. Commissioner bangs here. Commissioner Choi here. Commissioner Hunt here. Commissioner Mahaley here. Commissioner Richie.

She is also not in attendance. Thank you. Motion to approve this evening's agenda, please. So moved.

Second.

All in favor? Aye. Motion carries. I'll now open up the floor for anybody who wanted to speak for items that are not on this evening's agenda. Or item, well, yes. Seeing none, we'll move into our first item of regular business. Mr. Post, good evening. So I will now open a public hearing on a request for a final planned unit development, final plat and special review use. The purpose of the hearing is to receive evidence Regarding regarding the application materials and provide a public forum for all interested parties who wish to comment on this request before the Planning Commission The procedure for the public hearing will be as follows first There'll be a presentation and testimony by city staff followed by questions from the Planning Commission to staff Next we will have a presentation and testimony by the applicant followed by questions from the Planning Commission to the applicant After these two presentations, members of the public who have joined this meeting in person by computer or telephone may speak regarding the application. Anyone who would like to speak in person is asked to complete a speaker card. Use the raise hand function if you're participating by computer or star 9 if calling in by telephone. Please limit your comments to three minutes per person. Two people present at the meeting may pool their minutes to allow one person to speak for up to a total of six minutes. The purpose of public comment is to receive public testimony, not a forum for debate or dialogue. Commenters are encouraged to raise pertinent issues and may ask questions for clarity. However, these questions will not be directly answered during the public comment period. The applicant and staff will then be allowed to make a closing statement. I'll then close the public hearing and no further testimony or other evidence will be received unless the Commission decides to reopen the hearing. The Planning Commission will discuss the matter and may approve, approve with conditions, deny, table, or continue to a specific future meeting. Public hearings are recorded for the public record. All testimony must be presented after stating your full name and city of residence. Does anyone participating in the hearing object to the procedure I've described? Seeing no objections, do we have notification?

Yes, public notice is satisfied.

Thank you. Do any planning commissioners have any disclosures? Seeing none.

All right, thank you, Chair and Commissioners. Matt Post, Planner with the Community Development Team. The item before you this evening is Resolution 10, Series 2026, a resolution recommending approval of a final planned unit development, a final plat, and two special review uses to allow a 135-unit mixed-use development on 4.3 acres. on the property located generally southwest of the intersection of Highway 42 and Griffith Street, excluding Louisville Tire and Auto Care. So the subject site under consideration this evening is highlighted in yellow in the exhibit on the screen. A bit of background here, historically the property was developed under industrial zoning standards and currently contains industrial buildings and warehouses. I believe there are currently some tenants in those buildings but the majority of the site remains underutilized. The property is located in both the Highway 42 revitalization area and the Highway 42 urban renewal area, which, as the Planning Commission is familiar, is within Louisville's mandatory rezone area. Development within this location, really the bounds of the exhibit that you see on the screen here, is intended to transition older industrial properties into mixed-use development with densities that support transit. As industrial properties redevelop, they are required to rezone to either mixed-use residential or commercial community mixed-use. In 2015, this property was rezoned from industrial to mixed-use residential and commercial community mixed-use. CCMU was on the eastern, I'm sorry, yeah, the eastern half. The MUR was on the western half. following that rezone in 2016, a final PUD and final plat were approved for the property, approving of, or allowing rather 33 dwelling units and eight live work units. That PUD was never executed and ultimately expired. In 2022, a revised PUD that proposed up to 66 dwelling units was approved by the Planning Commission, but later denied by the City Council. And then in 2023, the eastern portion of the site that was originally CCMU was rezoned by the applicant to MUR. So the entire site is now mixed-use residential. And then finally in 2024 the applicant here tonight presented a concept plan to the City Council that is generally reflective of the proposal that you have in front of you this evening. Council at that concept plan hearing in 2024 provided non-binding feedback that was generally supportive of the overall concept including several of the waiver requests that we'll discuss later on tonight. Continuing on with background here, so again, the Highway 42 revitalization area was originally intended to support, again, the redevelopment of the industrial district or the industrial properties that were here, but also to support future rail service in this location. Initially, that vision centered around RTD's Beeline commuter rail. Since then, those plans have evolved into the Front Range Passenger Rail, which of course now is referred to as the Colorado Connector, which is proposed to run from Pueblo to Fort Collins with initial passenger service anticipated to begin in 2029. Louisville remains a proposed station location within that service plan. The city continues to work with the Front Range Passenger Rail District on station planning. That said, as shown in the exhibit on your screen, the currently proposed and agreed upon, although this is subject to change, station for the Front Range Passenger Rail is in the red rectangle that's in the exhibit on the screen here before you. It'll be a single platform station, again, for that passenger rail service. The subject site is highlighted in yellow. That blue line that you see would be the direct pedestrian path from the site to the platform station. That is approximately 0.2 miles, making this a highly walkable transit supportive location for mixed use redevelopment based on the Highway 42 revitalization plan that was adopted in the early 2000s. moving into the proposal here so part of the proposal is a final plat to subdivide that 4.38 acre property the plat proposes one lot together with utility emergency access and private access easements necessary to serve the development and surrounding developments some of those easements preserve existing access configurations on the north side of the site lewisville tire utilizes A rectangular portion of that property for parking currently that will maintain or that will remain rather be maintained under this plat and subdivision request. And then there will be a private access easement for the property directly to the south of this old style sausage, which will allow access through the internal portion of the site on the south side. Because the applicant is proposing an entirely for rent development, so these 135 units will be for rent. Both the apartments in the townhomes will remain on just one lot, so this subdivision is just a one lot subdivision. If this was a for sale product, for example, we would typically see townhome lots. The current subdivision is reflective of some townhome lots, but again, the applicants proposal here for a for rent product. is the reason for the one law subdivision here. Public land dedication is generally required as part of the plat process and is a provision found in our subdivision ordinance. Public land dedication is not proposed as part of this application. Neither the 2016 replat or the 2022 rezoning of this same property required land dedication or fee in lieu from the city at those times. So under our subdivision ordinance, the final determination regarding public land dedication does rest with the City Council and that provision. So that will move forward to the City Council as it is currently proposed, assuming that this application were to move forward this evening. Moving to the actual PUD here, so the PUD itself proposes 99 apartment units within a mixed-use building that is directly adjacent to Highway 42, and 36 townhomes arranged in six-unit clusters along Cannon and Griffith Street. Again, the graphic on the screen provided by the applicant does a good job of showing the mixed-use building on plan right, and then the townhomes plan left. The mixed-use building will include approximately 2,100 to 2,400 square feet of commercial space, and then there are two special review uses required here. One would be to allow a building footprint in excess of 10,000 square feet in our MUR district, and then... to allow ground for multifamily residential within the MUR zone district. We'll discuss those later. The applicant also proposes a solar canopy over the central parking area, along with amenities that include a fitness center, wellness center, playground, dog run, and then approximately 24% of the site landscaped with a public plaza space within the mixed-use building recess adjacent to Highway 42. The development provides 173 on-site parking spaces, including an additional 20 spaces within the three-story townhomes that are roughly central to the site. Nine of those surface spaces, however, are reserved for the exclusive use of Lewisville Tire, and so those are in the top right portion of the screen. Again, the applicant is improving that, but those nine spaces are reserved for Louisville Tire. There will be an additional 20 on street public spaces available following public improvements on Cannon and Griffith Street. Of course, as the Planning Commission knows, and it's worth noting, the city no longer requires minimum parking for multifamily uses anywhere in the city. The City Council chose to abolish that or eliminate that requirement citywide. So there is no actual minimum parking requirement here for the multifamily use. The only actual codified parking requirement would be for the commercial uses on this site. So of course the applicant has actually not changed their parking plan since that code was adopted. I think in an effort to address some of the concerns of neighbors, but also just I think what staff mentioned when we adopted that ordinance in the first place was just the reality of the market will require parking and we never adopted a parking maximum. Again, so parking minimum does not apply here for multifamily uses. A quick focus on the mixed use building here. So again, 99 apartments. The building is proposed at 48 feet, 11 inches tall, requiring a height waiver. And the building is also approximately 406 feet in length, which will require a building length waiver. We'll discuss that further. And then that building footprint, somewhere around 30,000 square feet, I think 30,563 square feet also requires a special review use to allow a building greater than 10,000 square feet. So to help offset the scale of the building, the applicant through lots of back and forth with staff has included, again, a recess in the building adjacent to Highway 42 and then a pedestrian plaza directly in front of it. to, again, break up the perceived mass of the building along Highway 42. Additional architectural articulation was included, and a pedestrian passage through the building is also included that would be essentially publicly accessible to allow pedestrian access directly through the building without actually having to enter the building. But we'll discuss some of these details further in the waiver analysis. So, again, 36 townhomes were proposed. Twenty-four of those townhomes were proposed as two-story townhomes. It'll be directly adjacent to Cannon and Griffith Streets at approximately 29 feet 6 inches in height. That would be the max height of those townhomes. Those lower-profile buildings were intentionally placed by the applicant along the site's perimeter to provide a transition to the existing residential neighborhoods, again, DLO townhomes directly across Cannon and then Little Italy single-family homes directly across Griffith. In the MUR's own district, a minimum height of 35 feet is required. So the applicant is requesting a waiver from the minimum high standards for the town homes here to go below 35 feet at 29 and a half feet. The remaining 12 townhomes on the site are located more centrally and behind the two-story townhomes, and they are three stories in height, ranging from 41.5 to 41.75 feet tall. You can see the three-story townhomes are the upper elevation, and then you can see those three-story townhomes in the rendering, sited behind those two-story townhomes that are directly adjacent. to the public right of way. And then again, also located on the site is an 1800 square foot fitness and amenity building. And that's directly adjacent to the amenity spaces, the playground, the dog run area, and then a wellness area as well. Moving into analysis, so there's in-depth analysis in your staff report. Happy to answer any other questions here, but we'll briefly summarize key findings. So the final plat establishes utility access and private access easements requirements, including emergency access requirements to serve both this development and surrounding properties. Staff find the plat conforms with Title 16, notwithstanding the public land dedication provision that will be left to City Council for decision and any recommendation from the Planning Commission. at that point. The plot is also consistent with the 2026 comprehensive plan including the neighborhood center place type designation in the downtown opportunity area which provide the framework for necessary and orderly redevelopment of the site. Moving into PUD analysis, the site is, development of the site, rather, is governed by a particular section of the municipal code and then our mixed-use development design standards and guidelines. We'll begin with inclusionary housing here. So the ordinance requires that either on-site affordable housing be provided or another option be satisfied to meet the requirements of the inclusionary housing ordinance. The applicant has elected with this application to pursue the fee in lieu, which is currently calculated at $4.72 per square foot of onsite market rate for rent housing. So based on the overall gross floor area, there's a number in your staff report, somewhere around 500,000. That's not necessarily accurate. The true number would be north of 400,000 we would need to go through and subtract. stairwell areas, retail areas, other things like that. But again, that fee would be collected at the time of building permit application. That's the applicant's pursuit here. It's worth noting that this does represent a change from the applicant's concept plan hearing in front of the city council, where they had indicated an intent to provide on-site affordable housing, so I'll let the applicant explain that change in approach. Obviously, the approval to allow fee-in-lieu is a decision that rests directly with the City Council, but obviously happy to answer any questions regarding the inclusionary housing ordinance. It is worth noting we are in the process of updating our inclusionary housing ordinance. The for-rent fee-in-lieu, as of right now, after the proposed first reading of City Council, has gone up by one cent. So it's gone from 472 to 473. So just to note, and then happy to talk about AMI figures as well if there's any questions arise around that. Further analysis here again. Actually, let's, you know, I skipped over a couple items here. I'll try to cover them quickly. So beyond the inclusionary housing piece in the municipal code, The muni code does regulate uses so the uses proposed on the side are permitted with the special review uses that are being considered for approval The proposed the proposal also requests waivers here from the overall density on the site again We'll cover that but that's mandated by the municipal code maximum density on the site is 20 dwelling units per acre the applicant is proposing 24.8 dwelling units per acre and again there's a discrepancy in the staff report in this the staff report says 24 25.47 after a revised calculation from the applicant today the number is 24.8 so the applicant is requesting a waiver to allow for a 24.8 dwelling unit per acre density on the site uh they're requesting the waiver from minimum and maximum building coverage from minimum um i'm sorry minimum building coverage building height and then required street frontage which we'll discuss further In relation to the mixed-use design standards, overall, staff finds that the proposal is generally consistent with the intent of the mixed-use design standards by creating a connected, multimodal, pedestrian-oriented development that was intended to serve the purpose of the Highway 42 revitalization area and a future rail station. The proposal satisfies the standards related to site planning, circulation, parking, open space, landscaping, and architectural design, although waivers are requested for block length, building length, and ground floor transparency. Again, for that mixed-use building, which we'll discuss. And so we'll hop right into that here. So the applicant is requesting eight waivers here. Again, there's detailed analysis provided in the staff report, so I'll cover key points here. The first is density increasing from 20 dwelling units per acre to 24.8 dwelling units per acre. The neighborhood center place type, which is where this property is located as identified by the 2026 comprehensive plan, contemplates 18 to 30 dwelling units per acre in this location. And the proposal for additional density also aligns with our housing plan goal to increase housing opportunities on appropriate infill sites or sites that are underutilized. So staff feel that the request for density is in line with the comprehensive plan and the intent of the housing plan. Again, the applicant's also requesting waivers from both minimum and maximum height. So the additional height is limited to architectural roof elements that create variation in the building and then reduce the overall perceived mass. I have a rendering that will show after this. While the reduced height on the perimeter of the site for the townhomes provides a better transition to those surrounding neighborhoods. Staff do support those requests. Staff does also support the requested waivers for building coverage and building frontage as they allow for additional landscaping, open space and pedestrian amenities while maintaining the intended urban form for the district. The proposed building length of 406 feet exceeds the 200 foot requirement. So the code requires a maximum building length of 200 feet. The applicant is proposing a building length of 406 feet here. So throughout the review process and really is part of the reason you know this this application was first submitted in 2024. This has been a long long time coming here and so part of the reason this is taking so long. There's been a lot of back and forth between staff and the applicant. Regarding the size of this building. and some of the waiver requests moving forward. So we've worked with the applicant, again, to reduce, moving this forward, to reduce the perceived mass of the building if a building of this scale, length, and size is to be proposed. So again, the applicant introduced additional articulation, including a recess or a recession in the overall building facade that's over 100 feet in length. They added that pedestrian plaza at the request of staff, again, to further reduce some of the massing there. They also varied roof forms at the request of staff. This is a change from what was originally proposed. And then included that pass-through or that paseo in the center of the building for pedestrian pass-through. So those features generally reduce the overall perception of that one continuous building that's along Highway 42. And staff do feel, we do feel rather, that with those changes made to the building that The proposal generally meets the intent of the mixed-use design guidelines as proposed, and then also allows the applicant to achieve the densities contemplated by the comprehensive plan, and then also implement some of those housing policies found in our housing plan. The proposed block length, 460 feet, also requires a waiver. That number may be 430 feet. I have to look in the actual plans there. But given the site's location directly adjacent to C-DOT, I'm sorry, Highway 42, Highway 42 is a C-DOT controlled right of way, so they won't allow any additional access points in that location. So, again, the applicant did provide that pass-through or that paseo in the building, which kind of functionally breaks up the building there. But because there's access restrictions from CDOT there, the applicant is requesting a waiver from our block length standards. So, the standard is 300 to 400 feet. That's the maximum for a north-south block length. The applicant is requesting, I believe it's 430. I may have that number wrong in here. But I'll take a look here and answer that question for you guys if it pops up. But that's part of the waiver request that's occurring here. Finally, the applicant's requesting a waiver from the 35% ground floor transparency requirement, specifically on the mixed-use building adjacent to Highway 42, and they're asking to provide 28.5% transparency. This was also a back and forth with the applicant for quite a while. That transparency standard is intended to create a pedestrian-friendly and a pedestrian-oriented streetscape and realm at the... at the street level, our standards for measuring ground floor transparency in the mixed use design guidelines require that area to be taken floor plate to floor plate of a building. And so that's the ground floor plate to the second floor plate and that's a pretty significant distance if we're looking at ground floor heights that can be anywhere from 12 to 15 feet. So it's a really, really large area. And when you take that 35% calculation into play, it requires a lot of fenestration or windows and doors on a ground floor. And working with the applicant, a more standard approach for those pedestrian-oriented streetscapes would be an area of 2 to 10 feet above grade, which is more within that pedestrian realm, and then satisfying the transparency standard there. So the applicant is providing 28.5% transparency when measured floor plate to floor plate per the code. If we actually apply a two to 10 foot measurement there, the applicant is meeting that 35% requirement. So again, staff feels from a pedestrian perspective, that's an appropriate request. Also considering the fact that ground floor multifamily will exist right there. So there's a bit of a residential privacy concern that's associated with that along that frontage. But I have some graphics here that we'll be able to take a look at as well. So the graphic on the screen, the rendering on the top shows the actual elevation proposals. This is in your staff report, but the triangles that are shown in green, those four triangles there are the elements of the building that exceed the 45 foot height limit. and they using the average grade measurement those portions of the building would go to 48 feet 11 inches tall so it's those individual four portions there the original proposal by the applicant actually had this same asymmetrical gable design on the four sections or the three sections of flat roof as well so they've actually reduced the overall scope generally of the encroachment that they're requesting here. For example purposes, the rendering below are the DLO apartments that are directly southeast of the proposal, including the commercial space by the South Street underpass there. Those are 45 feet in height. So again, the applicant requesting 48 feet 11 inches. The applicant provided a conceptual massing and rendering diagram. I think it does a good job of showing what this development would look like and the potential height impacts of it. You can see the articulation of the building here relatively well, including the plaza space that's proposed. and the four asymmetrical gables that would exceed the overall height. Again, that height is non-habitable space and provides for varied roof forms when considered with the architectural variation. You can also see the three-story townhomes behind and central to the site, and then the clusters of the two-story townhomes So the two-story townhomes here and then another cluster of two-story townhomes that are behind the three-story townhomes here. And of course, Delo Apartments in this location and Delo Townhomes here. So this provides a good, again, provides a good example of the scale and massing of what is proposed on this 4.38 acre site. Building length. So again, this is the other waiver here. So you can see the floor plan layout above directly adjacent to Highway 42. That is 406 feet in length. Again, the requirement is 200 or the maximum rather is 200. In working with the applicant, again, you can see that lower rendering there where that greater than 100 foot section of the building was pulled back away from the street frontage and a pedestrian plaza added and then additional articulation provided there as well that paseo or pass-through that pedestrian pass-through is located in this location here's a transparency exhibit So you can see the red outline would be our code mandated area requirement for this, which would mandate that 35%. So you can see how much taller that space is there, where the green line that's provided by the applicant is the space two to 10 feet above grade, which again would be more in line with the standard, more in line with a more accepted design standard for pedestrian-oriented urban formats. So you can see there's still a significant amount of fenestration and transparency provided, particularly at that southeast corner or plan left top rendering, which is the proposed commercial space where the applicant has storefront proposed. This rendering site plan is a good example of the coverage waivers that are proposed. So again, the mixed use residential zone district requires a minimum of 40% of the site to be covered with buildings. I believe the applicant's requesting 28% if I'm not mistaken. So it's a reduction in the overall building coverage that would be on site. The applicant's proposing 24% landscape coverage here. So again, staff do support this request because there are some direct conflicts between the density requirements that are here and then the coverage requirements that exist in the code. So I think these items pop up quite a bit. You know, we've done the same thing recently here. The other standard here would be the 70% building frontage requirement. And so that reads that 70% of the linear footage of the property that's concurrent with the public right-of-way has to contain a building within the minimum setback areas. And so again, that would be a really kind of walled-off development. generally appropriate for a very urbanized area where you have a strong pedestrian realm. So the applicant's requesting a waiver there for I believe a 58% coverage as opposed to the 70% coverage. Now again, that is including That reduction in building frontage also includes the 406-foot mixed-use building there, which takes up a really significant portion of that Highway 42 frontage. So a waiver is still required to get past the frontage requirements there. So moving into the special review use again, the first is to allow ground for multifamily residential within that M you are zone district. And then the second to allow a building of greater than 10,000 square feet in size and the mixed use district. So that complete analysis is in your staff packet. But in summary, staff finds that the proposal is consistent with the 2026 comprehensive plan. and the neighborhood center place type, as well as the downtown opportunity area with the intent of increasing housing availability and diversity, the goals of which are also found in our adopted housing plan. The proposal redevelops an underutilized site with a mix of housing and neighborhood serving commercial while providing adequate infrastructure, circulation, parking, utilities, and site amenities. So accordingly, staff find that the proposal meets all special review use criteria. Moving into the comprehensive plan, again, properties located in the neighborhood center place type and the downtown opportunity area. These areas are intended to support compact, walkable, mixed-use development and supportive transit services with densities that fall between 18 and 30 dwelling units per acre. part of that 2026 comprehensive plan. The proposed density falls within that range. The proposal also advances several key comprehensive plan goals, increasing residential development opportunities through infill redevelopment, diversifying Lewisville's housing stock with a mix of housing types and price points, enhancing neighborhood livability through improved pedestrian connectivity and appropriate transitions to adjacent residential neighborhoods, and then supporting an active mixed-use corridor with the inclusion of ground floor commercial and housing above. And then, obviously, the proposal also advances the housing plan by expanding opportunities for multifamily housing and then a diversity of housing and the types of units that are proposed. Staff did also review a traffic study with this proposal that evaluated the impacts of the development, including 4,000 square feet of retail space. Well, again, the applicant's proposing somewhere in the 2,100 to 2,400 square foot range. The project is projected to generate approximately 1,072 average weekday trips, including 62 a.m. peak hour and 86 p.m. peak hour trips. The study concludes that the surrounding roadway network will continue to operate at acceptable levels of service through the 2045 planning horizon considered by the study. The only intersection improvement identified is signalization at Highway 42 and Griffith Street, which was also identified in the Coal Creek Village traffic study. However, that recommendation is driven by regional traffic growth on Highway 42 and is not a direct result of the development. And the study concludes that, again, the development does not independently create the need for signalization at that intersection. That's a projected growth number. The only project-specific transportation improvements recommended are stop signs at the access points to Cannon Street. I'll also note because as part of the Coal Creek Village approval that the applicant for Coal Creek Village, if you recall, was required to come back to the Planning Commission with a traffic study that included the results of the DLO boom traffic study. So I thought it was worth noting here that both independent traffic studies came to the same conclusion as well as the Cold Creek Village study, which is that, again, the surrounding transportation network can accommodate both developments without requiring additional off-street roadway improvements beyond those that were already planned in the city's future 42 improvements. And so with that, staff is recommending approval this evening of a final plan unit development, final plat and special review use to allow the mixed use development here with the following conditions. So prior to city council approval, the applicant shall address any remaining staff technical comments. that do not materially alter the development as approved by the Planning Commission. We have some cleanup items on the PUD that we'll address with these comments. And then two additional waivers, which were addressed this evening, which would be to add the waiver for minimum building height for the townhomes, and then add the waiver from maximum block length to the PUD. And so with that, happy to answer any questions. The applicant also has a presentation.

Thank you very much. That was a lot of information. I appreciate it. Now open it up for Commissioner questions of staff. Yes, Mr. Mailey.

Thank you. Great presentation. Could you go back a few slides that show that one? Actually, you mentioned a solar canopy. So is that over the entire central area? Or could you speak to the solar canopy in reference to this drawing?

Yeah, so the solar canopy will be located over these central parking spaces. Just the center aisle there? Yeah, just the center aisle. So this location here with that 21, which is referring to the number of parking spaces. But this location here and then this location here.

Okay. And then for the walkthrough, the Paseo, looking at the elevations, it looks like it is that only for residents or is that a public way, like a public sidewalk?

I'll allow the applicant to answer that question. My request was that it be accessible. publicly. To do that formally, we would need some sort of actual easement agreement there. But I'll let the applicant answer that question. But I believe it is open so that folks can actually pass through it.

Okay. And I have a number of other questions regarding to density and scaling and other things. Should I hold those or?

Yeah. Can I just ask one question?

Yeah.

Before you do that, as we're talking about the parking lot there, I know we don't have minimums for parking. I'm just curious though, do you know whether any of the townhomes, is the only parking on this site the surface spaces there that are on this picture?

So the three-story townhomes here all have garages. They have garages. Yeah. So the two end units are single-car garages. The interior units are two-car garages. And there's actually additional parking available. You can see they actually have drive pans here or driveways. They can actually park more vehicles there. However, we can't count that towards parking because they're functionally private for those residents. But yeah, there are garage parking and then additional parking Right outside those garages.

Sorry, and that's only for that top row.

That's just just for these three units.

No other Internal garage parking for the two-story units everything else is surface parking Do we have a sense of the for this type of For this demographic of townhome and apartment what the average typical number of vehicles is per dwelling unit. I

I'll defer to the applicant there, but I would say that I believe they have a relatively high amount of studio and one bedrooms. So I'll leave that to the applicant to answer what they anticipate.

And then the density of the townhomes there, I think as a whole, the property is 24.8 or whatever it is, dwelling units per acre. Do we have a sense of what the actual density is of those townhomes relative to the neighboring townhome development? It looks comparable but a little tighter. Is that true?

I would have to look. I have that number buried in some of my notes over here. I can find that number for you so we know what it is. But I believe it's relatively comparable. It is below 20. I will say that, but it's... Okay.

Yeah, I'd be interested in the comparison there. And I have some other questions, but I can wait for the applicant's presentation. Thank you.

Great. Thank you. Additional questions? So, 406 feet strikes me as rather monolithic. I appreciate that you've worked with the applicant to push things back and articulate a little bit. And even with the PSEO, it's not an inviting space. It doesn't break it up visually. I think many people view this as I don't know, the front porch of Louisville, the sideways entrance. We talk about gateways a lot around here. That's a pretty big wall to have in that space. Are you aware of any other residential buildings that are 406 feet in length?

Not within the city of Louisville, no.

And any others that have like a paseo?

I'm not aware of any in the city of Louisville, no.

Thank you. Any additional questions?

Following up on that, I want to make sure I understand, I know that staff has looked at this and are comfortable with it. Is this in part, I think I heard you say, driven by the fact that you can't really make another block in there because you can't make a street?

There is the restriction on an access point. However, it doesn't necessarily have to be a vehicular access point. The same design concept can be achieved with pedestrian and bicycle access. But generally, the lot and block standards that are found in the MUD DSG are in consideration of vehicular movements as well. There's no delineation between modes of transportation. So adding an additional access point here again would be, we'd have to get that through CDOT, which wouldn't be supported. But there would be other opportunities potentially.

It doesn't have to be an access. It could be just two buildings.

That's what I was wondering. I mean, it kind of is sort of like two buildings because you have broken up in between. Were there discussions about widening that out and literally making it two buildings? Like, why wouldn't you do that?

We did, yeah. We had lots of discussions surrounding that. I'll allow the applicant to elaborate a little bit more on kind of the feasibility analysis that they performed and some of the responses that they provided to us regarding that.

And then can you refresh our memory again? I know you touched on it briefly of how no public land dedication ended up being part of this equation.

And when this application first came through again, 2024, right? This is another application that we've had in review for a significant amount of time. Original notes on the application indicated that planning, I'm sorry, that public land dedication had been satisfied. That was pulled directly out of the 2016 staff report for the final plat in which prior city staff and prior council and prior planning commission had made the decision that public land dedication did not apply in this particular location i think you all recall uh some of the reasons and uh and and cold creek village there so you know when we moved forward this application that was the original intent it's been in for a long time and then Before coming here to the Planning Commission recently, that's when I realized that the actual, what we were relying on for public land dedication was the prior subdivision piece that came into question during Coal Creek Village. And again, that was also rehashed during the 2022 rezone of this property as well, right? So I think there's two different city decisions that show that we didn't require public land dedication previously. And so we move this application forward here, but I wanted to make sure that obviously Planning Commission is aware of kind of the change in approach that staff has been charged with following Coal Creek Village approvals here. And they give the applicant the opportunity to come forward here with their proposal given, you know, we didn't initially indicate that public land dedication was required and that their entitlement history shows that we didn't require it previously. Thank you.

I appreciate your attention to give the applicant an opportunity to explain some of their design decisions and how they're activating some of these building elements. To the questions that have been asked about the Paseo, I see on the overall PUD that the width of that proposed Paseo is 10.25 feet wide because of the nature of the single plat without having further subdivisions for the single use of a for-rent product. Can you speak to the requirements that would apply were those two separated buildings in terms of the building separations?

Yeah, if the applicant was still proposing a four-rent product, it wouldn't necessarily affect the plat. If that's your question, they could have two, they could still have those two separate buildings on one lot, generally.

Right, I'm just asking about what the minimum separation would be between the two buildings because of some of the other... Yeah, I'm sorry.

Minimum separation would generally be 15 feet per our mixed-use design standards, and that would accommodate an appropriate pedestrian pass-through.

So we're really talking about, you know, four and three quarter feet difference. Okay. I just want to make that clear.

Thanks.

Quick question. I know the applicant's proposing to pay fee in lieu for inclusionary housing. If that weren't the case, how many units? Remind me.

I can do the math quickly. 12% of 135 would be the number of units.

Okay. So fee in lieu is substantially more attractive for the applicant.

I believe so. Additional questions? Seeing none at this time, thank you very much. I'd like to invite the applicant up for your presentation. If you can begin with your name and whether you are a Louisville resident or not. Thank you.

My name is Scott Kilkenny. I'm the owner and founder of Live Forward Development. My address is 550 South Gaylord in Denver. So I'm a Front Range resident, but not Louisville. Although I spend a lot of time with Actual and there are things that we have to focus on. So we'll go through a bit of the presentation between us. This is the three of us, older picture of me.

Just quickly, this is a really good image just kind of showing how the building sets back there, how it really kind of feels as if it's three buildings.

And then 30 units on sort of the apartment side of things to blame.

This is an old image, but I think it's important to show this because this was, I think, probably the first design and massing that we came up with on the site, which was... really right after a visioning session with the neighborhood um and i think it's just important to show i think essentially we've been showing the same thing on the site for for three years through this process, through the initial rezone, through the concept plan, sort of an apartment building along Highway 42 and townhomes and a little bit lower scale on Cannon Street. And again, that's directly from feedback from the neighborhood that we worked with right from the beginning.

To show and scale sort of the height and again in that same line of thought, the neighboring townhomes, what feels more in scale with their height as we kind of move away and we get to the apartment is where we get to our taller sections.

Sure. So this just summarizes what Matt has put forward, what our requests are for you to consider tonight in our variance of requests for the 135 units as far as density, which is what we've always brought to the table. It's 2,100 square feet of retail rather than a Highway 42 corner. right size and with the right retail operators. We've talked to several parties interested, so we don't want to have a vacant storefront. That would be bad for Louisville, bad for the project, bad for the neighborhood. They've asked us to not create more open retail space that feels isolated. Density, as we've talked about, it's a blended between the two. The ground floor footprint of 30,563 versus 10,000 requires a special use. Our building height we've gone through that enough. I don't want to continue to keep repeating another for affordable housing and fee in lieu. I'm going to have Hunter jump in because I know that was one of the questions that you both have asked us earlier in the presentation for us and of Matt. So Hunter, if you want to jump in and talk through the inclusionary housing and how we've arrived at the request.

Absolutely. We have a couple slides on it as we go forward, and let's maybe wait until we get there and we can kind of go through it in detail, but acknowledged that we had initially discussed putting the affordables on site, and we'll get to why we're not doing that now in a minute. Okay.

This is through working with Matt and staff collaboration. Again, our density, the retail size change, the overall residential program, the ground floor footprint, building height variances. We'll get to the affordable housing on the next slide. And then our parking. These are all supported by staff. Again, reiterating what we've been through. And here we go.

I think we've talked about this in previous meetings. I think just one thing as a general thought here, and we'll get to some slides later that support this. Louisville has the second most single-family homes as a percentage of its building stock in the front range. Louisville has 7% of its employees, only 7%, that actually live in the city of Louisville, by far the lowest in the Front Range. Um, and in my opinion, all of that is because a lack of diversity in housing and a lack of new housing. And I think your housing study has supported this. Um, and so there's a lot of talk of course, about capital a affordable housing, which is means it's covenant restricted. Um, and people have to apply as renters to meet, you know, an AM, an average median income that allows them to rent those units. In our opinion, what is as important or more important is providing any housing and especially housing that people can afford that can't afford a $900,000 home. Which is the vast majority of the general public and clearly 93 at least or so percent of your employees. When we discussed providing onsite affordables over the last couple of years, it was also very much in tandem with the support of the city through incentives. We've been very open about the need for incentives to push this project forward due to its financial feasibility and meeting a 2024 energy code. and meeting all the other guidelines and goals that we've established with the community in terms of the landscaping and the project that we've built and the design that we've built. All of the incentives that we have pursued thus far, including a TIF, a new TIF, a reimbursement of public benefit through the LRC on the state level we pursued, $1.5 million grant through HEHA, the HEHA program, as well as another energy-efficient tax credit. I think it's 4080. I'm forgetting the last, 4080 or 48L, that unfortunately the Trump administration removed in the One big beautiful bill last year that was a $500,000 credit to the project, as well as tap fee financing through the city or tap fee reductions through the city. Our tap fees are roughly 10% of the project costs here, almost $5 million. none of those things have actually surfaced. And so because of that, and for some other reasons that I'll get to in the next slide, we let staff know probably five, four or five months ago that we were going to pursue fee and lieu instead. And we understand that this could be quite helpful to the city to provide deeply affordable units, which we could not do as much as we tried that You know, LIHTC and federal tax credits are required to be utilized to create those types of projects, and we're just not that type of developer. Again, like, we think we're providing a lot of attainability here, but we've pivoted from on-site due to the lack of incentives. And if you'll move to the next slide, the other issue with on-site affordables is... In Boulder County, because the average median income is so high, affordables are not really providing much value. And actually, Matt has maybe a better number on this with his recent study on the inclusionary housing ordinance. He told me last week that two bedrooms, that affordable two bedrooms are actually more expensive than market rate two bedrooms right now. So the rent spread between the two, if you're a renter, there's not a whole lot of value to going through a pretty burdensome process to qualify as an affordable renter. And we're seeing in the market overall, through property managers that we speak to all the time and other asset managers like Graystar, that these units are actually sitting vacant because there's not really a value prop and because... renters don't know even that they meet these AMI requirements. So nobody wants to see that. We want to actually see people in these units. We want to see people that work within the community live in these units or families that want to live in this community but can't afford a $900,000 home live in this community. So for those reasons, we've sort of pivoted and we want to be very upfront about what we've said in them. I've mentioned this, you know, $912,000 median single family home in Louisville. You can keep moving. The housing mix in Louisville is a 67% single family. Only Erie has a higher allocation as a percentage of your overall housing stock. Next slide. And I honestly think this is very powerful. Average Boulder County firefighter makes 85 grand, 30% of monthly rent is usually 30% is kind of the metric that is used nationwide in terms of affordability. So monthly rent is around 2100. Whereas I had this in a slide previously, but I don't think I have it now. A $900,000 home with current interest rates. You guys can do the math, but I think it's probably four times, at least three times as much as 2100. So again, you know, trying to provide attainable housing as well as affordable housing here. um and i wanted to address parking with you guys um we like to be you know somewhere around and i think this is this is in in in communities that are not immediately adjacent to transit we like to be in the front range around one unit or sorry one parking space per unit We're, uh, we're at that on this, I think a little bit above, um, we're also at about one point, just under 1.5 spaces per unit. Um, for the overall community on a unit basis, we don't have to provide any parking parking. As Matt mentioned, we were doing this because we, we think our residents want it and we don't want to, of course, burden. First of all, I mean, that's the number one thing. Like if, if a resident has a car and doesn't feel like they they don't have a choice to park their car. They're probably not gonna rent in this community, but also we don't want overflow to go into the neighborhood. So we're building to the market and I think we're building above market. RTD studied 86 apartment communities near Front Range Transit. Residents use 0.74 cars per unit at peak against the 1.23 spaces built. So that's a 40% of parking that sat empty. near transit. And we're providing 1.43 spaces per unit in lieu of the 1.23, which was already over parked. So we think this is market without transit. We think with transit, we're providing additional parking. And then that study also said that about 58% of Louisville renters keep one car or none. So just to kind of support, you know, having, you know, perhaps less than one space per unit and we're around one space per unit.

Scott, you want to take this one? Sure. Back to the sustainable development. When we talked about who will live at this project of ours and we've talked to at the restaurants, the servers, the bartenders, we've talked to some teachers and firefighters and said, where do you live? And not one of them has said Louisville. And we said, where do you drive from? So they're driving a car to get here. Many of them live pretty far east. They'll drive 45, 60 minutes to get to their jobs and then return home. So from a sustainable aspect, having a car that you have to drive most of them are fueled, not electric, park and go back versus having a house here you can walk to and from or bike makes a huge sustainable difference, a huge impact for the positive. The other issue to me is, and I talked to a waitress at Huckleberry's, And she specifically said, I work here because I like the community, but I can get paid more at least 10 times between now and my house. I passed 10 other jobs I could be working at, and I would love to be able to live here and not have to live in Longmont. So from that perspective, that's the kind of demographic that we feel that this product will provide to that individual and not have to have a car. She'll reduce her own living expenses by not having to pay insurance, fuel, car, all the obvious reasons. What we're looking for from these units, and you see that we're even looking at the evolution. We're building it today to the standards with the idea in mind that we want to upgrade for future solar cells with the canopy, with putting them on the roofs, making everything solar ready, continuous insulation, EV charging so that it is electric vehicles and electric bikes and electric scooters. We want to build to the 2024 IECC code. From the platform, Matt did a great job of walking us through and showing the 0.2 mile, about 200 yards, I believe, from our facility and how they would walk very easily, very safely from our facility to what will be the Cocoa train station, allowing for us to be a big part of, again, the sustainable aspect of people being able to use this, getting to Pardon me, to Union Station to be able to get to the airport, to get to the events in downtown Denver without ever having to have a car. So it makes just living here that much more accessible, but still having the bucolic nature of living in downtown Louisville and having all the amenities that this city provides. This is a passion of mine. One of the things I was the former executive director of Wildlife Habitat Council, which is an international foundation focused on taking really underappreciated land and restoring them to native species of plant that will attract pollinators. and native fauna, and then creating a classroom out of that space so that schools can use them, not just from a science side, from a math, from an English, from a physical education. So our site will aspire to build to the same standards of what I learned and helped to provide from the Wildlife Habitat Council and the pollinator group based out of San Francisco. So we've already identified with our landscape group how we want to set this up. And the public spaces will be not just park-like, but will have a component of pollinator and wildlife habitat preservation. You want to jump in?

Yeah, sure. Two longer presentations. Appreciate you guys holding tight with us. Yeah, so just to summarize, again, Just to reiterate, we started this process three, four years ago. We started with a visioning session with neighbors. We've got to appreciate the input. We've got to appreciate what they want to see this part of Louisville look like. Working with staff and Matt and sort of the nuances of all the code and the give and takes throughout it, I feel like we've tried to be a good partner in those dialogues, and we really appreciate their ability to sort of collaborate with us on this stuff. Um, you know, this, I think this area, you know, 10 years ago was started to be, you know, with the original DLO development was sort of looked at maybe with this visioning of, of bringing more multi use, uh, residential kind of living to this part of town. Um, We wish we could have gotten it off the ground sooner, but we feel even more strongly the time is right now with the Colorado Connector, the Highway 42 plans. Everything sort of is in alignment for this part of downtown that has us continue to be excited about this project that we hope meets the city's needs and can be a successful project for all of us. So that concludes our presentation. Great. Appreciate the opportunity to present and I guess open for questions.

Great. Yeah, we'll take a five-minute break right now and then reopen with questions of the applicant when we reconvene. Thank you. Great, thank you all. Are we? Yeah, okay. Great, thanks. If we can all reconvene. Thank you all very much. Thanks for sticking around. We will now begin with commissioner questions for the applicant. Who would like to begin? Surely we have something.

I have a couple of questions. Yeah, alright. Please thank you. Appreciate the thorough presentation. You guys also brought. Couple of questions for you. Just digging into some of your information. You had a lot of content that spoke to and and acknowledged the need for affordable housing. Some of the metrics that you posted in there around the average rent in Louisville about nineteen hundred dollars just north per month based on Your pro forma and what makes your product work here Where do you fall in terms of meeting beating or hitting right on the nose? that nineteen hundred dollar per month average To address your affordable product

Oh, there we go. Is that better? Okay. Thank you. That was a very good question to kind of follow up. So in looking at Boulder County's current 2026, 70% AMI for a studio, it's currently at 18, 20. 1837. 1837. Our pro forma for a studio is 1700. So our just pro forma market rate is less than the 70% AMI for Boulder County. Now two bedroom, we're more competitive. Our market rate is about an 80% AMI already at market rate. So if we were to take a affordable overlay and have to qualify those residents, it would leave the units vacant while our rent is already equal to or less than a 70% or 80% AMI. And a lot of the people that we've talked to through the property management, I think Hunter did a nice job of explaining it. When we talked to Graystar, we talked to some of the other property managers, they've said the 80% AMI folks, number one, don't realize that they're 80% AMI. When you explain to them they can get in the program, it may be the difference of $12 or $15 a month typically, but it's a 45-day process for them to get there. And that typical resident is wanting to move within 30 days. And so you lose that applicant. So you end up creating a pretty burdensome thing. So we felt that we're already at a very affordable, attainable level with the performance levels that we've come in.

Okay. Thank you. I appreciate that. A couple other notes. On your site plan, and I think even in your presentation, you alluded to elements being solar ready and having a background in sustainability. Solar ready is good. Solar now is better. If you could pull back up your PDF that you had in your presentation.

I might have to have Matt help me since it's your laptop.

specifically you know i had some of the questions and it maybe pertains to the waivers that you were asking for related to some of the height variances so you have and if you go to page 21 actually one more up there's a great site section here so uh These heights that are presented and yeah, these are all good images. If you'd go back to page 21 on this PDF.

Sorry, I just don't see the page number. Oh, sorry. Oh, there it is. Oh, I got you. Oh, thank you.

Yeah. So, you know, 40-foot building heights proposed right on the east and west side of what would be a north-south activated parking lot. You have a note related to a solar canopy, an overhead canopy that's solar-ready. thinking about this idea of you know some pretty significant shading that happens from a 40 foot building height on what would be just over about 100 foot spread between those building footprints have you have you looked at what the impact is of those building Heights on the efficacy of a solar canopy there and is it simply a proposed solution or a committed solution

Just acknowledging the question, is Hunter still with us? Yeah, I'm on.

Commissioner, it's about 60 feet from... Hold on, I'm just kind of doing it really quickly right now. From the furthest part... of the building, which is building west of the apartment building, which is the area where the building was set back significantly. It's about 60 feet to the eastern edge of where that canopy would be. And then from the other parts of the building, which is actually a little bit further south, so it might be at least in a large part of it, more appropriate. It's about 78 feet. We have not done a solar study there, but we have engaged a couple of different solar providers, Namaste and Freedom Solar. We have elevations. I think Matt has elevations of the canopy there. We don't have a commitment to that solar yet. We're still trying to understand... and this is a little bit contradictory to affordable housing, how we can provide energy to our residents with solar there such that their energy bills are paying for it, just like they would be paying for any other electricity, right? Which is a bit of a challenge. So we haven't fully committed to it, but it certainly is designed to be solar ready going forward there. And I think because of that, 78 foot separation, we should be in a pretty good spot.

Maybe said it a different way because it was confusing to me when we went through the solar process to be able to provide it to the multifamily, we would in effect become a utility company and we would have to get approval from the PUC to provide that much electricity to that many residents and we'd have to be the electric bill provider and it didn't make sense.

Yeah, the term under the Public Utilities Commission is a master meter operator, which I'm assuming you guys don't want to be in the business of being a utility to your renters.

No.

Okay. And does that have a long-term impact on the idea of integrating any solar PV into some of the building massing that you've specifically kind of addressed was designed with that intent?

We're developers, so we're eternal optimists. We are very hopeful that regulations will solve this problem and we will not have to be a utility company and the site will be able to enjoy and take advantage of it. In the same way that we were going through prior to the latest changes, we had a lot of incentives for solar, all of which have evaporated. So it no longer becomes an economically beneficial thing. So then it goes into the let's make it solar ready so that when the economics change and regulations change, we're ready to go.

And ultimately there's no method, unless you were an operator, to be able to apportion that to different units anyway?

We tried to go down that path and by providing it, we by default become a provider of energy.

Right, unless you're able to just feed it into the grid fully, but yeah. So it doesn't look too promising at this point. Right. Okay, thanks. I appreciate you sharing that.

Additional questions? Thank you, that's all for me.

Have you built any other buildings that are 406 linear feet?

I am building one right now that is 475 feet in Bentonville, Arkansas. It's 160 units, so four over one apartment building.

Did you have a question? Yes.

A couple of questions. Pinging off of Colin's question about the apartment rental rates, what are you anticipating? I assume that the townhomes will be sold. Are there rentals too? They're all rentals.

We want to keep it as rental. We want to keep it available and accessible.

That answers that question. And my second question, you mentioned you want the Paseo to be publicly available. Is there going to be any kind of formalized process for that to make sure that maintains that way or how is that going to work legally?

Yeah, that's actually a big issue. Recognizing someday it'll be a different owner. What would the city have in place to

ensure accessibility that would take further review on our part but you know that generally that would be a perpetual public access easement in in one way shape or form i think the challenge there is actually having an enclosed easement space that passes through a building there we'd probably have to review the legality of that prior to making a determination so does it have a roof on it

No, the rest of the building is over it. Right. It's only on the first floor.

Oh, it's only the first floor, so it's not open air.

So, yeah, I interpret the Paseo as sort of a public hallway. Is that accurate? It's closed. There's doors based on the elevations?

Correct.

Okay.

Well, there are no doors for the public access. But yes, it does pass through the building and then it opens up for the rest of the site. But through the apartment building, it would go underneath, you know, a building, the rest of the roof, if you will.

Not to be pedantic, but it sounds like what I saw in the elevation, I thought I saw doors. What you're describing sounds more like a tunnel. It is. Or a breezeway. A breezeway? Thank you.

A breezeway is a breezeway. We talked about in the setback in the public park is that being opening up to a lot of public art. So you saw the representation of a mural. We would include in this Paseo the idea of doing muraling in this corridor, also doing other public art that really draws people in. So it becomes more of a stroll so that people understand and want to use it. It doesn't just look like a hallway.

Again, their future owner could whitewash it, and yeah. So while I appreciate that, it sounds nice.

I would hope that if we did it and it was appreciated, that nobody would want to take that away. Right.

Additional questions?

Yeah, your presentation was very comprehensive, so I have very few questions. You've overcommitted on green space, which is good. And you've overcommitted on parking, which is good. But why not more green space and slightly less parking?

It's a great question. We really have kind of driven into, this is really before the most recent terrain discussions, is we really wanted to meet the market where it was at. And by doing it this way, we felt that there was a lot of initial concern and almost anxiety from the neighboring community that they were going to overrun the streets with residents parking on the streets. So they were very adamant that we had ample parking on site and it wouldn't spill over into the streets and destroy the quality of what was looking there. So this was a reaction from our part and a commitment to the neighbors and the neighborhoods.

Okay. So is it slightly more parking per unit than you would typically?

Yeah, as evidenced by what Hunter said, we would have done 1.23 and we're at 1.44. Okay.

Thanks.

I mean, your research, have you come across any publicly accessible right-of-way breezeways anywhere ever?

Again, I'm building one in Bentonville right now. Exactly that. And it's halfway through the building. In this one, I'm doing an archway that goes through the building and it connects to the rest of the city with the same kind of thing. And we're using lighting to really draw people in to see that it's available to get through the building so there's a break.

And is it a dedicated public right-of-way? It is not. No. But it's very accessible.

In terms of a dedicated public right-of-way, I'm not sure on the technicality of it, but... Certainly in urban walkable areas have seen many instances in cities across the world with Paseos that go through buildings or frankly Paseos that go underneath roads as well that are probably around the same width around 10 feet maybe 12 feet in width Yeah, and my concern lies with breaking up this 406 foot expanse with something that we can protect in the future That will always be there

So I'm not certain.

Is the concern about pedestrian connectivity or is the concern about building massing?

No, to me this doesn't break the building massing. It's the articulation that breaks up the building massing. It's pedestrian connectivity.

i mean to be honest i think we're much more focused on the pedestrian connectivity along caledonia and the new street that we've created there and the hardscaping that we've created there and the raised curb between the apartment building and the amenity buildings there we think that that is going to be the much more well-used path We do think those residents in the know will use the Paseo. I mean, I really honestly think it's probably the Delo Towns residents that might use it most, right? Because there's not a whole lot of destination between Highway 42 and Cannon Street, the railroad. cuts it off from the rest of the town. So if you're going west along Highway 42, you're likely going to Main Street or some of the retail establishments just to the south of us. And I think, you know, going to Main Street, it doesn't really make a lot of difference if you cut through the building, which you can do, or if you cut through Caledonia or one of the streets a little bit further to the southwest.

I was just going to add that there is obviously a distinction between right-of-way and just a public access easement. Right-of-way would be very restrictive and would not be an option, I can tell you now, for the Paseo, but there probably is an opportunity to explore for a public access easement that would be recorded on the plat through the Paseo. Again, I'd want to consult with the city attorney prior to committing to that, but I believe that would be an option we can explore.

Okay, additional questions for the applicant?

Would the applicant be open to considering an agreement with the city for a public access easement?

I think as evidenced by four years of being open to everything that's come our way, we are open to having discussions and working through something that's a win-win. I can't commit to it now because I don't know what it would look like or how it would be, but I'm looking at my other partner and he's giving me the let's talk about this, so I think that we're open to it.

So as a condition you'd be okay with that as a condition potentially I'd want to see what it looks like right note to pursue the discussion.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yes All right any additional questions Seeing none. Thank you very much. I'd like to open it now for public comment as we move into public comment period I'd entertain a motion to

add three additional e-mails that were received later this evening or today.

Motion for that, please? I'll move for that. Second? Second. Thank you. All in favor? Aye.

Thank you.

All right, please limit yourselves to three minutes. Begin with your name and city of residence. If you have speaker cards, if you're here in person and you have speaker cards, would you please give them the staff over here? And if you are participating online, please use the raise hand function. I see we have five people right now participating online and one who's just raised their hand. All right, can we begin with? Our first speaker.

Yes, we have in-person Mike Daborski.

And can we give the second person who's next in line?

The next person is virtual, and that is Jillian Myler.

Great. Thank you.

Hi, I'm Mike Daborski. I live at 601 Pine Street in Old Town here, and I'm directly a neighbor at Old Style Sausage to this development. I'm very much in favor of it right from the get-go. I'll give you a little, build you the watch to tell you what time it is. I feel like I know all of you through watching you on Channel 8. You're celebrities at my house. When it's on our cable station, I do appreciate the fact that you do sit in this seat and I sat in your seat at one point in time myself. Hopefully you have a you enjoyed as much as I did and that was 20 years ago before that my father sat in your seat and before that my grandfather sat in City Council, so I've got 70 years worth of planning and city growth within my household and That to me is important. I mean, throughout that whole process, whether it's Bella Vista, our first development, or Wood Brothers Homes, or Hillsboro North, Hillsboro West, Dutch Creek, all these places in town that if you don't live in Old Town, you live in one of them, they were done right. And that's why we live here. This project, given that it's taken four years, and I think Todd and Scott are far too humble on their community outreach, it truly was done genuinely. It wasn't just to pacify the neighbors, as most are. They went the extra mile. They heard the neighbors, and they responded, and you could see it in their presentation and the way the design of the project came forward. This project's done right, and it would complement everything else in town, and I think it fits a need. You can see it in the letters and the breadth of letters that we've had. I think it also speaks to the... It satisfies the entire community, the business community as well as our neighbors. I think they've really thought it well. As far as the waivers go, they generally impact the neighbors closest to it. I'm the neighbor closest to it and we have some neighbors here behind us as well. I don't think it would negatively impact me, the length of the building, the mass, the scale, the height. I think it's all good. The articulation that they put into the building itself, I think, breaks it up. And of course, when you're driving by on Highway 42 at 40 miles an hour, That'll seem like a very short building, so I think it's right for the community, and I would certainly urge this planning commission to move it forward to council and approve it tonight. Thank you.

Thank you.

Next speaker is Jillian Myler for CHUL. And then after Jillian, we have Michael McClure.

Hi, good evening. This is Gillian Miller. I'm a Louisville resident and executive director of the Louisville Chamber of Commerce. So this development has been discussed at both our advocacy committee and our board of directors, and I also had the opportunity to meet with the team to learn more about the project. And we believe this is an important investment in Louisville's future. Our businesses rely on healthy, growing community, and additional housing brings more customers to our local businesses, helps our employers attract and retain employees, and supports a vibrant downtown. And as Louisville kind of continues investing in projects like the South Street underpass and the future front-range passenger rail, developments that integrate housing, transportation, and commercial activity become increasingly valuable. But beyond the economic benefits, additional housing supports the long-term sustainability of our community. And Louisville, like many cities, is experiencing declining school enrollment. So welcoming new residents and families helps strengthen our schools, support our local organizations, and contributes to a vibrant community for the future. We also appreciate that the project includes a neighborhood serving commercial space, creating an opportunity for a new business. But we want to know that it's important to ensure that the development also complements the existing businesses. Thoughtful development also supports sustainability by reducing dependence on cars, encouraging walking and cycling. And these principles, as we talked about this evening, align directly with the Louisville's long-term planning. We appreciate the thoughtful planning that's gone into this proposal and understand it's been shaped through extensive community engagement and review. We believe that projects like this help position Louisville for long-term economic success whilst preserving the qualities that make our community such a special place to live and do business. So we look forward to following and supporting Daylow Boom as the project progresses. Thank you.

Thank you.

Next, yes, next we have Michael McClure.

Hi, my name is Michael McClure. I live in Louisville, actually. I live in DLO, directly east of the proposed, or excuse me, directly west of the proposed development. Directly east would be in the middle of Highway 42. Okay, the first thing, this is interesting to me. I'm going to speak off the cuff for a moment. The Paseo that we're talking about, if you look at a map,

If you're walking, there is... Oops.

Can we mute that? Yeah, thanks.

There's almost nowhere to go. Like, when you look at the development, so I live in DLO, I wouldn't use that because I would walk on Griffith or I would walk around the building on the other side, which is not South Street, but the next one up.

Caledonia.

Caledonia. No? will be will be caledonia right so I'm going through that there's not unless you're trying to walk across highway 42 in the middle of highway 42. When there's I mean in traffic like you're not gonna cross 42 there. It's just a Dangerous place to do it. So I don't see a lot of pedestrian traffic going that way But perhaps there's an interest some other interest there what I will talk about and we have been talking about recently in the this area is the unique challenge of cars and traffic and parking as you know, Louisville middle schools at the end of Griffith But, you know, you turn off 42, you go down Griffith, over the train tracks, Lewisville Middle School. And then Cannon is right there. And Cannon is not a particularly wide street. It was originally constructed narrow, and they have that one-off. in case you have not heard that term. In the DLO apartment area, it's sort of a narrow street with parking on the side. It's intended to sort of slow the traffic a little bit. I wish it did. We're concerned, and several of us are concerned. I submitted the email with the parking math on it, if you got a chance to look at that one. Interesting statistics brought about the required parking I'm not I'm really hoping that that works out the way that they're projecting if they didn't the parking turns into a street parking problem for basically for us who live there and for the traffic that goes up and down Griffith so quickly sometimes too because that's also the emergency access for the Louisville fire department in Louisville Police Department. So we're concerned about parking. I'm concerned about parking. I'm also concerned with RTD going in there about the additional parking load. And now, as I understand it, the Louisville underpass is supposed to be removing even more parking from the south end down by South Street if that plan goes through. So just please consider parking in traffic. The traffic study was... did indicate that there's not a problem as you may see from some of the submissions that recently came in we've been unable to maintain some of those signs that sit in the middle of the street because they keep getting run over and destroyed and the city takes them out and doesn't replace them to me if you hit a sign when you're making a left or a right turn out of cannon street onto griffith repeatedly That sort of indicates there's some kind of problem there. I do have to quickly commend the developers for working with our community over the last few years. They've really adjusted. They've really listened to the plans, and I really do like how the density does transition from where we live directly across the street, and then it goes up. It kind of makes sense. Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Thank you. Now we have Mike virtually.

Hi, I'm Mike Kranzdorf, not a Louisville resident, but my family owns commercial property just south of this development. And while I'm not a Louisville resident, I would love to live here. I don't need my big house in Boulder anymore. And so I'm very much in favor of this. There are a lot of waivers, but I think the waivers point to how hard it is to build in Louisville. The codes, I don't need to go on. They've really put a lot of effort into aligning with what Louisville wants, what the city wants, what the residents want. I think they've done a tremendous job. I've gotten to know Scott over the years, and these guys are really doing the right thing for Louisville. So I'm in favor. I support it. Please approve. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Anybody else?

Looks like we have one more person filling out a card in the hall. Other than that, we are looking good.

Great. All right. Thanks. We can welcome him up and grab the card as it works. Okay. Thank you. Welcome. You have the podium.

Now introducing Bruce Bernhardt.

Thanks. Yeah, I'm Bruce Bernhardt. My wife Connie and I live in the Delo townhomes directly across Cannon Street from this project. We moved here in 2018 when they were just built. And we were told at that time that, oh, yeah, the development is going to be right across the street. It's coming. It's coming. It's coming. And eight years later, we still have a vacant lot with some corrugated metal buildings and weeds. And I happened to meet these guys about four years ago. I was out on my patio and I saw them across the street. And I jokingly said, oh, you're going to buy that over there? And they said, well, yes, we're actually considering. And we had a nice little conversation. And lo and behold, those conversations have continued for the three and a half to four years that they've been working on this. I am a member of the board of directors at the townhomes. They've been so gracious to try to set up times to meet not just with the board, but with any residents that were interested. to talk about their plans, to hear our concerns. And their plan for this development is so much better than anything we have seen coming down the pike in the eight years that we've been there. And while... If you asked me what I wanted over there, I'd say I'd love a nice green space park. And that's not going to happen. This project is as good as anything. No, it's better than anything we've seen. And I just encourage you to work with them and make this happen. I think it's going to be a great part of the community. It's going to fit in well. Personally, I'm very excited to have something new and nice over on that lot, and I think these guys are doing a great job with that. So thank you, and thank you.

Thank you. We'll make it all official.

Thank you. No more comments at this time.

All right. Thank you all very much. but open it up back for the applicant response. If you were to address anything that has been raised, now is your time to do that and have a closing statement.

Thank you, and thank you everybody that showed up tonight. I really appreciate you being here and all the time you spent with us. Hunter, Todd, and I just wanted to say again, we appreciate the willingness and how open working with Matt, working with the planning commissioners, working with all the members of the community has been. We're patient, we're diligent, and we really want to see this project built, and we really look forward to being able to toast and have a grand opening and ribbon cutting on site as one of Louisville's iconic best places to live here on DLO's new project.

Thank you. And a staff response and closing statement.

Just answering one question, Commissioner Mahaley, DLO townhomes is 17 dwelling units per acre, but otherwise staff has no other closing comments.

Thank you. I will now close the public hearing and then planning commissioners will deliberate on the evidence presented. During deliberations, no further public comment or other testimony or evidence will be received.

Your thoughts are welcome.

Concerns, questions?

Yeah, I can go. Yeah, very comprehensive presentation from staff and from the applicant, so very helpful. Like I said, I have very few questions or concerns. As Commissioner Choi mentioned, solar now would be better than solar ready. The parking is a balance. There's a lot of local concern about not enough parking And so the applicant I think has addressed that concern albeit I would have preferred to see maybe more green space than parking, but I understand the balance and the efforts to address the frontage issue on 42 I think are more than adequate and I look forward to using the paseo That's it

thanks for all the time and effort you guys have put into this uh the commitment to the city as well as to staff doing a thorough job of looking at the overall application and presenting a good solid effort tonight to planning commission i think i agree with everybody who's spoken from a beneficial occupancy perspective, right, there are a lot better uses than what we have currently in that location. I think this does present a solution that addresses a lot of things that the city's been looking for, just in terms of the infill, in terms of an affordable housing product that gets brought to the community, which I appreciate where your numbers fall to make this product work from your perspective. I think overall there are a lot of good elements around this. I'm not personally too concerned with the distance of the building and the access, as one of our residents alluded to. Not a lot that's going to draw you out to that destination to the sidewalk on Highway 42. But I do appreciate the concern from the longevity perspective of just what happens with the next owner 30 years from now, 40 years from now. that being said i i do think that it's a good product overall good solution i appreciate again the applicant's willingness to continue the conversations around exploring the idea of a public access easement and just having that conversation continue with a recommendation based on that further analysis when this does and if this does get to council i think would be um something that would address maybe some of the concerns that are brought up by my fellow commissioners so overall i like it i appreciate it thank you thank you

I particularly appreciate a couple of things about this. First of all, again, I'm going to echo comments on the thoroughness of the presentations from both staff but also from the applicant. I also really appreciate and I want to commend the applicant for all the hard work in working with the community around the site. I think that's clearly paid dividends for you and I think it paid dividends for the final project. I think it's really good. I also am happy to see a development that has a different, brings a more diverse mix of housing types to the downtown area, and I think it'll be hopefully much needed and much utilized. So echoing some of the other things, I think this is a great project, and I appreciate all the hard work that went into it.

Yeah, echoing a lot of what's been said, very again, very thorough presentation, which I appreciate it. And more than anything, I think I appreciated most of the engagement of making sure community issues were addressed. I thought you guys did an excellent job of addressing that. Also, just because it hasn't been said, I liked that I would say a large number of trees are in the plan as well. I think that really helps with it not. Also, the height thing I'm okay with because no trees and if you just cut it off, it looked like Soviet block housing. You guys did a good job of avoiding that. Thank you. So green space is excellent. And the two things I've been stuck on, but I like how you've approached, I'll say directly, one of which you have control over, the other it's less control. The long frontage, and I was looking at this from a concern of building mass, but I appreciate the trades AS A SYSTEMS ENGINEER ALSO GOING INTO THIS, THINKING ABOUT I WOULD HAVE RATHER HAD THIS THAN CUTTING BACK ON PARKING BECAUSE I WAS CONCERNED ABOUT PARKING AND LOOKING AT THIS AND EVEN JUST DOING THE MATH. IF YOU EVEN ASSUME EVERY SINGLE APARTMENT, ONE BEDROOM HAS ONE AND THE TWO OR THREE BEDROOMS AVERAGE ABOUT TWO, YOU'RE STILL VERY CLOSE TO BEING, YOU KNOW, ONE FOR ONE. SO I LIKE THAT YOU GUYS WENT BIG ON PARKING. I LIKE THAT YOU DID MORE GREEN SPACE THAN YOU NEEDED TO. SO IF THE COST OF THAT IS A LONGER FRONTAGE, Because you've mitigated it with a very thoughtful design approach, I think it will be okay. The second thing is the traffic, which is related to the building mass. I think the comment was made you'd be passing by this at 40 miles an hour. I frequently find myself on Highway 42 not going 42 miles an hour. As anyone who tries to get to the sports complex around rush hour, which is when practice times start, that is frequently backed up. So I do think this is something... I will be voting yes, but I want this to be on the discussion because I understand that Highway 42, the plans aren't, what I think I heard you say is that the easements and a lot of the improvements are held by the CDOT. And so when it comes to one question I didn't get a chance to ask was on traffic lights and patterns. I think there's some work to be done there because I think this will exacerbate the existing traffic issue, particularly during peak hours. So I do not believe the third bullet point out there that it was acceptable performance. I think that's fact. I completely disagree actually, but I think it is. I think that can be managed and I think this is a good use of that space and consistent with the comprehensive plan and a good location for density strategic to downtown. So all that being said, despite my traffic concerns, I think we should be handling this. As a city planning, but this is a good use of density so. Those are my two big concerns, which I think were addressed and can be further addressed moving forward. So I'm generally in favor and thought the applicants did an excellent job. And again, the design elements I think were key here. Thank you.

Great. Thank you very much. Okay. I'll give up on the 406 feet. It still remains a visual concern. It's going to be there. But I do appreciate that you have broken it up quite a bit at that point. As far as the traffic, right, so CDOT calls for two lanes in each direction. They do.

Yeah. At some point. It's not there yet. Right. So...

Well, we can discuss that at a different time.

That's why it's not necessarily a them problem.

No, exactly. Of course, traffic is always a concern, but I think it's been addressed. I think, yeah, this kind of trade-off between parking, open space, density,

you've kind of weaved your way through i think what actually does feel like a good balance uh in it all so um i also find myself in favor of the project yes i just wanted to add one other note here and you know it's mostly an acknowledgement of of what's been acknowledged around the community engagement you know we have additional uh communication from residents that were part of an addendum that were given to us. We have public comment that shows up at the meeting to talk about those things. As much as I personally appreciate that level of engagement and that input from the community, from a pragmatic perspective of a planning commissioner, I don't care because our job is not to evaluate public sentiment. We're not elected. Our job is to look at what are the codes, what are the requirements, what are the requirements regulations around the approval of an application or not personally i love it and i think you guys did a really great job i love seeing people show up and provide the commentary i love reading the emails as a planning commissioner it doesn't matter what matters is what is the application how does it fit with the code requirements the acknowledgement of the variances that are being requested you know echoing what another public comment said was how hard it is to do work here you know you guys are looking at an equation that has 26 different variables and you've figured out how to make them all work by coming up with what I perceive as acceptable variances to the requirements, which takes a lot of creativity. So it's just another acknowledgement that as much as you've done to engage yourself with the community, which is a great kudos to you, that's just a boon over what you needed to do to be creative to meet both the codes, the requirements, and find the ways to bend the rules where acceptable. So that's all.

Thank you very much. With that then, I would entertain a motion to approve resolution 10 series 2026, final planned unit development, final plat and special review uses. Yes, and I'm gonna propose an amendment to that.

Sir, you're proposing an amendment. Can you?

Yeah, you have to move first.

Can I just say so moved or I need to repeat the so moved?

Yes, I would like to propose amendment with with a condition that the applicant further discuss with staff the what the legal potential are for some sort of guaranteed access to the breezeway and that a recommendation being made when it goes to Council based on staffs discussions. Sure, yeah, I'll run with that. In addition, the three conditions that have been provided. And with that, I would entertain, do you accept that as a friendly?

Can we summarize the three conditions?

Sorry, I thought those were extra.

Never mind.

Yeah, yeah, they're only in my head.

So are you looking for a motion of you just have to accept?

Yeah, alright. Do we have a second second? So there's three conditions that staff has included in the staff report. And so we're going ahead with it as proposed with those three conditions, in addition to which I've added a condition that the applicant and city staff further discuss maintaining permanent access through the breezeway. All right, with that, a roll call vote please.

Commissioner Banks. Yes. Commissioner Choi.

Yes.

Chair Bronis. Yes, Commissioner Hunt, yes, Commissioner Mahaley, yes.

Thank you all very much for your time. It is rare that we have people speak in favor. It's when when there's a when there's a project. that is for people who don't currently live here, it's very hard to garner support for that. So thank you for your work within the community to end this. All right, with that then, we will move into our commissioner comments. Seeing none, I'll open it up for staff report.

This is a couple of quick things. We want to welcome Amanda Cushman. This is our new staff support for Planning Commission. She's new in her career and learning about sustainability with a sustainability background. So we appreciate that she is sort of learning like where the rubber meets the road and learning these procedures. So appreciate that. So welcome, Amanda. And then the other thing is just to let you know, we currently don't have anything on the August agenda for Planning Commission. So it's potentially going to be canceled, but I will confirm within the next week.

Okay, that's it. thank you all very much a motion to adjourn so moved all in favor carries thank you all