Town Council - Regular Meeting

2026. We have three items tonight. And so I think we're just gonna roll right into this. The first one is ballot items. And I'm gonna turn it over

to you, Gabby. Is that right? Sure. That works for me. Hello, everybody. Good evening. I'm Gabby Ray, director communications and community engagement.

I'm here tonight with Luke.

Oh, you're from Parks and Recreation.

I can hear myself. It'll it'll

be turned off. Anyway, so we're here tonight to talk to you about ballot item surveying that we did. As you remember, in the fall, you gave direction that we should do some ballot surveys, statistically valid surveys about the ECC and a possible expansion. Is it that computer? Where? Okay. And so the presentation.

That was the

one with presentation. That was the one. We'll pause.

I gave you bad advice. I'm sorry.

Sorry. Yeah.

No. That's why IT should never

do legal work and legal teams.

Very fair. Very fair.

Well, while we're getting all that set back up, I think, yeah, the computer just seems to be giving me some feedback, Adam. I don't know from when, but that's what we're dealing with in here. So we'll have a presentation this evening from Polco. Polco has been doing some of our community surveys for the last decade or so. And so we do have contracts with them for both surveying, and for for balancing act, which is also a budgeting tool and engagement tool that we can use for the public helping us with our budgets.

So we used them for a survey about, the ECC the possible expansion and renovation at the ECC. We asked our community what they thought about paying for that possible possible expansion and renovation, as you had already had a presentation from Luke and the facilities team about what that might look like. Now we asked, the community if they would be willing to pay for it and in what form. So I'm gonna pass it over to Jason who's with Polco, and he's gonna walk through a presentation with you, all about the results that we got from that survey. And then we'll have some time for discussion, and then we'll talk to you about the other ballot item that you, have discussed for this year. So, Jason, I'll pass to you.

Perfect. Sounds great. Good evening, everyone. I just wanna confirm just to make sure you can see my screen on your end.

Yes. We can.

Alright. Perfect. Well, my name is Jason Neumeyer. I am the director of survey research here at Polco and National Research Center. I am very pleased to be here tonight to present the results from the 2026 Erie Community Center expansion survey.

Before I begin, on behalf of myself and my Polco coworkers, I would like to extend a thank you to Gabby who was our primary contact throughout the survey development and implementation process. She was a pleasure to work with, provided thoughtful feedback on the survey, on the report that's been shared, and on the deck that we're going to work here through here this evening. So before we dive into the results, I would just like to share a brief background on Polco. So Polco's main mission is to unite people, data, and government leaders to help communities to thrive through informed decision making that ultimately improves residents' overall quality of life. And as Gabby, hinted at before, we provide surveys, simulation tools, and advanced analytics that help to build stronger, more connected communities.

Polco merged with the National Research Center back in 2019 and combined their decades of social science expertise with Polco's, technology. And today, Polco and NRC are probably best known for some of our national, benchmarking surveys, like those you see on the right hand side, the National Community Survey, the Community Assessment Survey for Older Adults, among a few others. But we also work with dozens of communities around The US on custom surveys about specific topics or initiatives like we did here in Erie. In 2022, Polco and Balancing Act combined forces, and we now allow residents to share their insights through budgeting processes like, interactive simulations and transparent prioritization projects. So ultimately, taken together, PALCO provides the tools necessary to help empower resident voices.

So let's first take a look here together at an overview of how this survey was actually conducted before we turn to some of those key takeaways. So to to select survey recipients, a list of addresses was purchased from the United States Postal Service, and it was cleaned using, boundaries to remove any addresses that lie outside of Erie's words. From that list, 4,500 households were randomly selected to receive the survey invitations. Those households received survey mailings as you can see starting on March 3, and this survey remained open for four weeks. The first mailing was a postcard invitation.

That mailing was then followed a week later by a paper survey packet that included a return envelope. Both of those invitations included a web link and a QR code allowing the resident to respond to the survey online should they so choose. The survey was also available in both English and Spanish, and all mailings included instructions in both of those languages. In total, 846 completed surveys were returned resulting in a 19% response rate and a margin of error of plus or minus 3%. The results were then weighted using the most recent census data and the American Community Survey results to ensure that these results shown here tonight better reflect Erie's overall adult population.

Now you may have also heard that in addition to that random sample, the town also shared an online version of the survey that was available to all residents. That survey was open for the final two weeks of data collection and an additional 803 responses were received there. The presentation that we'll work through here tonight and the main report that's been shared with you are based on the 846 responses from the randomly selected households, but results to that open participation survey are also included in the full report of results. So with that, let's take a look at some key takeaways. First and foremost, residents are broadly satisfied with the town's parks and recreation system.

So survey respondents were asked to rate the quality of five facilities and services that are provided by the Parks and Recreation Department of Erie. Ratings, as you can see, were consistently strong across all of these service areas. Parks received the highest positive evaluation with 85% of respondents giving excellent or good marks, followed by trails at 78%, the Erie Community Center at 77%, and recreation programs at 75%. The availability of information about parks and recreation offerings was also viewed favorably with about three quarters of respondents rating that positively. Overall, taken together, these results indicate broad satisfaction with the town's parks and recreation system and obviously reflect particularly high approval of our, park facilities.

Now looking more, specifically at renovating and expanding the Erie Community Center, we find that most residents support those efforts. So respondents were asked whether they supported or opposed renovating and expanding the Erie Community Center to address current space and program constraints. As you can see here, about three quarters of respondents indicated that they either strongly or somewhat supported the expansion, while about one in 10 did not have an opinion either way. Only a small majority, 14%, reported, either strongly or somewhat opposing this potential project. Now of those respondents who supported the Erie community center expansion, the most frequently cited reasons relate to population growth and the need for enhanced services.

Just over one quarter of respondents indicated that Erie's growing population causes a need for expanded facilities, while another quarter referenced the desire for new or improved services as their primary motivation. A smaller but still notable share of 21% reported that the current Erie community center is overcrowded or too small. Additional reasons included the belief that the project would add some value to the community. And as you can see here, about 5% of respondents said that they were either a current user or plan to be a user in the future. Now among those respondents who opposed the Erie Community Center expansion, concerns about financial impacts were the most frequently cited.

One quarter of respondents opposing the project identified the overall cost as their primary concern, while 22% expressed worry that the expansion would lead to higher taxes. Other reasons for the opposition were common but less, less notable. You can see here about one in 10 respondents said that they just don't use the Erie Community Center, while another one in 10 felt that the expansion was unnecessary at this time. A similar proportion believed that the town had other more pressing priorities, and around one in 20 indicated that Erie is already overspending in some areas. And then finally, about 2% referenced concerns relating to planning or management issues around this project.

Finally, in that portion of the survey, respondents were also asked how important it was to them and their household that the Erie Community Center expansion focus on six of these different areas. So about two thirds of respondents rated expanded fitness space as an essential or very important area of focus for this expansion. Roughly half considered increased indoor playground and youth spaces, additional gymnasium space, and the modernization of mechanical, electrical, and AV systems to be essential or very important. As you can see, around one third of respondents gave essential or very important ratings to improving staff and administrative space, while around one in five rated the addition of new multipurpose meeting rooms as an important expansion priority. And the third and final part of the, survey really focused on, how we how this expansion would be paid for.

And as we can see here, most residents would prefer a sales tax increase over a property tax increase to fund this expansion. So after reviewing first the current status of Erie's Parks and Recreation System and providing their overall opinion on the expansion, residents were asked about a few different potential funding mechanisms, specifically how likely they would be to vote yes if there were a ballot measure proposed for a sales tax or property tax increase to fund the Erie Community Center expansion. Now around seven and ten respondents said that they would be very or somewhat likely to vote in favor of a sales tax increase of point 5% to fund the Erie Community Center expansion. You can see at the bottom above five and ten would be very or somewhat likely to vote in favor of a property tax increase of 1.653 mills to fund the Erie Community Center expansion. Now in addition, we also added some additional information here to give respondents an ability to understand what those actual impacts of those increases would look like on the day to day lives.

A 3¢ increase, in sales tax, for example, on a standard $6 coffee or a $90 annual property tax increase on a home valued at $800,000. Now support for the two funding mechanisms did differ in the composition of the two supporter basis that you see on the bottom. For the sales tax increase, a majority of supporters fell into that very likely category, 43%, with an additional 26% saying that they were somewhat likely to vote yes. In contrast, support for property tax increases was more evenly split between the two levels of likelihood, 24% saying they were very likely to support, while 22% said that they were just somewhat likely. So these patterns indicate that not only did the sales tax option have a larger overall base, of support, but it also had a higher proportion of respondents who expressed a strong likelihood of voting in favor.

Now with a subsequent question, respondents were asked which funding option they would prefer if they were forced to choose if the town did decide to move forward with the Erie Community Center expansion. As you can see, around half of respondents opted for the sales tax increase, while close to two in 10 opted for the property tax increase. Also, two in 10 said that this is just not the time, to expand the Erie Community Center that matches some of the numbers we saw earlier in the deck, while about one in 10 were undecided on how to proceed. Similarly, we asked respondents who preferred these two different options what was their most common or what was the reason why they supported the sales tax or the property tax increase. Among those who preferred the sales tax increase, the most common reason was the concern about current existing property tax levels.

So about four and ten respondents indicated that property taxes were already high, making the sales tax option more acceptable to them. Another 24% preferred a sales tax because it distributes the cost among a wider base of residents, visitors, and consumers. Other motivations were cited, less frequently. 11% referenced home affordability as a key factor. 9% said a sales tax was easier to absorb or digest than a property tax increase.

And then smaller shares noted that they can control how much they spend in Erie or that a sales tax is simply just more favorable to them personally. And then finally, among respondents who preferred the property tax increase, the most common reason was concerned about the fairness of the sales tax. About one third of respondents preferring the property tax described sales tax as either unfair or regressive, making the property tax approach more acceptable to them. Around 15% felt that residents rather than visitors or consumers should be responsible for funding this project. And about one in 10 cited the stability and predictability of property tax revenue as their primary motivation.

Finally, some smaller shares here toward the bottom of the slide reference personal economic circumstances or local economic conditions, including not being a homeowner or the perception that Erie does not have, enough businesses to support a sales tax based approach. So in sum, our three key takeaways here from our our survey, first and foremost, residents are broadly satisfying with the town's current parks and recreation system. Most residents support renovating and expanding the Erie Community Center, and when asked to choose, most residents would prefer a sales tax increase over a property tax increase to fund the ECC expansion. So with that, I will catch my breath, and I'd be happy to answer any questions you might have about the survey, its implementation, the report, or this deck that we just ran through here tonight. Thank you so much.

Alright. Great. I will bring it back, first to to Gabby and Luke to see if you have any other comments before we jump in and ask questions.

Just super happy that the survey showed that they're satisfied with parks and recreation. So regardless of the discussion here tonight, that's a that's a that's good for me. So and that's a direct reflection of the staff that we have and the hard work that they put in every day. So I'd be remiss if I didn't mention, that that the community is satisfied with Parks and Recreation because of the staff that we have. So awesome.

And I would just note too. So after after this discussion this evening, our plan is to continue with education and outreach about this possible ballot item, assuming because the results were so good that that still feels appropriate. And so Rachel and some other team members from the ECC are planning to be at the town fair to actually have some renderings out there and talk through and and answer questions there. And, of course, we have a a web page and other materials out about this as well, of which we will be, promoting and pushing information until we no longer can assuming you add something to the ballot, and then we have to kinda stop doing that. So, just wanted to let you know that this is just one piece of a longer process as we get going, and, let me know if you have any questions about that.

But first, let's get through the survey questions that you may have.

Alright. Sounds good. Just bring it back to the group here, and this is steady session format. So anybody can just jump in, and we'll stop the conversation if we're talking over each other.

Oh, we didn't we didn't segment in in any way, in any demographic way, or ask specifically businesses, right, what they thought?

No. This was just a survey for residents at this point. Yeah. So

how many, let's say it's a sales tax. About how many years, would it take to, pay off the expansion plan?

Was that twenty year?

You can either do a thirty year, sales tax revenue, Bob, or a fifteen year. It just kinda depending on the rates and, what that kind of looks like. And we've already engaged with our bond counsel on that and director Hancock, and so we have some of those initial numbers. So you're either looking at a fifteen year or a thirty year. Okay.

Based on the you know, this is kind of more of a question about strategy if if we do go forward with this. Being it it'd be fifteen to thirty years to pay off, probably would delay a second rec center. Should we are we looking at going bigger on the expansion, with the anticipation that it may be, several years before we get a second?

Yeah. That would be a a council directed if they wanted to pursue a second community campus for sure.

At the, I think it said in here a point 5% sales tax increase. Is does that generate enough money to do a fifteen year bond? Well,

I think that's the that's the next step that we need to take. So when we talked to our bond counsel back in, you know, January, February, we did calculate at a, you know, 30 to $32,000,000 general obligation bond that would that would be sufficient to generate what we needed to make a payment on it. So but, you know, things things change, and so we'd have to revisit that when it comes time to put that on the ballot to to figure out what that final number is. Yeah.

And I

I was I I will say, Sarah Hancock was trying to be here with us today, but they're they lost power up in Longmont. And she's not feeling well. She's she didn't wanna be in person. But she had mentioned that, you know, watching our sales tax numbers, and and she'll come present that to you as well, it has been lower this year than it was previously. So when we had bond counsel do all the math for that, point 5% sales tax, It was accurate at the time, and now we're gonna have to revisit that.

So it's entirely possible that that would need to be higher in order to get the amount that we need and the time that we need it. But that is something we haven't done the math on yet, wanting to get through this presentation and get some solid numbers from finance about our sales tax revenue outlook. So probably not gonna stick to that exact same number, but director Hancock didn't think it would go up that much, not significantly, just probably minimal increase.

So there's a strategy we're gonna have to eventually work through on whether you do

correct me if

you think anything I'm saying here is wrong because this is where at least where it's coming together in my brain at this point. We would do a a point five sales tax increase. It would be to pay for the expansion and remodel of the rec center. Could we say that this is a tax into perpetuity only to be used for recreational facilities so that when we paid off the expansion and the remodeling, then we've got a revenue stream to start paying for the second rec center. Does that make sense?

Yes. If if council wanted to do that, yes. We've seen a lot of other communities have a general obligation bond for construction, and then, that sunsets when you pay off that bond and then the whatever remaining amount remains as a as an operations fund or a capital improvement fund for parks and recreation facility. So, yes, you if council wanted to go that direction, you absolutely could. It's just how you read the bank ballot language. Yeah.

So I think that planning one of the questions, I think, was on there about, you know, planning for this is a very small percentage. I forgot what it was. 2%, on there. People didn't wanna do this because we didn't plan for it.

I get that. But if

we can plan for it now so that there's a revenue stream later for the second one, then I may be in favor of that depending on what the other options are.

So does that affect if something comes up and we need to have a tax increase of for some other project that we're not imagining right now?

Yeah. So I think this is why it'd be good to know what other community is doing

this because it would be saying, hey. We're gonna have a points five sales tax, and it is gonna be

used into perpetuity to build recreational facilities and to potentially operate them if there leftover revenue. But if you do that, then that point five can't be used for other things Mhmm. That may come up.

And you end up layering one tax on top of the next, and most communities do that. It's just a question of what the appetite is for how far you go with that.

Mhmm. Like, how long?

Or or possibly use the strategy that Saint Farrain has recently effectively used, which they bonded, right, property tax. I mean, I

think we've used the same concept on sales tax.

But property tax, they were paying off their bonds, and they went back to the voters and said without raising your taxes, basically keeping that revenue stream intact, would you approve to continue with those payments so that we could build the next set of schools? And so maybe that's a strategy where we we lock this into just our rec center. And then when that time comes for the second rec center, we go back to the voters and say without increasing your taxes, we extend it out further. Yeah.

Go ahead. So, in the last survey, we send it out to the entire community. Right? And now 800 people will decide for 40,000 people?

Yeah. So the the survey that the council had last summer was sent out to all residents in the town. We ended up getting basically the same percentage of respondents. So from a statistically valid perspective, this one that went out to 4,500 residents with the waiting is the same as saying we send it out to all the residents and still got the same percentage back.

So a couple of questions here from the just looking at some of the internals here. So it looks like for the respondents versus single family condominium duplex apartment. Do those numbers that we looked at to compare does that pretty well reflect? I mean, I know most people are in single family homes in areas, but do those numbers guide? I was mostly thinking about the apartments, because that seemed a little low to to

Yeah. It was pretty close to our our demographics from the census. It wasn't far enough off. It was certainly not outside of, like, that 3% margin of error either that away from what our census tells us we have in town. Now, obviously, the census is a little bit behind, right, our growth. But it was close enough that we weren't concerned about the numbers being too far off of what we would have expected on any of the demographics that were in the survey.

Okay. Yep. And I

don't know, Jason, if you had any other thoughts on that.

Yeah. I'll just add one quick thing there. We obviously wait to the most recent census. The American Community Survey is also run by the census every year, so there is a little bit more updated data since 2020. Also, all of those demographic questions that we asked, you can actually find in the full report breakdowns by gender, length of residency, tenure, all of those types of things. So you could see there's even districts. Right? Three major districts. So if you'd like to see how those different areas or different demographics responded, that's all available to you in the full report too.

Oh, excellent. Excellent. I'll look for that. And then my other question would be on page 14. So it looks like expanded fitness space was the main main requested need.

And then I see the third on there just below 50% was additional gymnasium. So I'm taking back to our previous discussion and we kind of had two different layouts. One was, you know, expansion on the on the existing building and then the other was, you know, adding a second gymnasium space. So I guess based on this and then based on depending on what kind of income we can generate to pay the bonds for this, I mean, are we fairly comfortable doing a two phased approach for this because it seems like you know, those are are pretty high options that people want both or at minimum, people seem to really want those.

Yeah. So what we all presented to you back in January. January was was was the whole project.

Okay.

So, yes, we are considering that second gymnasium, additional fitness areas, rework in the a side, which is that South Side with additional community spaces, mini miners, playground, adjusted staff, and administrative areas. So this is the full package. So what we what we're asking about is is the full package. Okay. Cool.

Yeah. I've been pleased to see the public seems to be thinking along the same lines we are. So, yep, that seems

to reflect there. So yep. Yeah. I guess

I was gonna ask, are there any surprises when it, you know, when they they mentioned which areas were most important? Were there any surprises, or or was it in line with

what you We we did a a survey back in November 2024. We went through all of last year and presented the connecting you to fund playbook, and there are no surprises here. We know we need additional product space, right, which is not part of this project, but we know it. We know we need more fitness space. We know we need more gym space, and we know we're busting at the seams and sort of staff and administrative space and community room space. So all the things that we have we have planned for and asked the community about came out in this particular survey for sure.

Okay. So I'm not sensing anybody that wants to stop our momentum here. Just kinda looking around. So with that, would the next step then be that you come back to us with one, two, three options to say we could do it this way,

this way,

or this way? Yes. And then we would make an actual motion and and approve whatever you bring to us.

And that's gonna be around July? End of July. Early August is the the deadline to to decide the valid language.

Okay. So this will move pretty quickly then from here.

But between now and then, we'll just be a lot of community, education on what we're doing and what what the potential asks could be. Alright. Awesome. Council member Mortalow, I did wanna correct one thing because I did exactly what I didn't wanna do, and I answered too quickly. On the on the, on the series, the revenue bonds, it's a twenty year term or a thirty year term.

You just listened to me. I said, what? I don't know.

I said, oh, did you?

See, you gotta touch me a little bit harder.

The one

time I didn't hear you. One one last question. So this basically maximizes the footprint of that property?

Yes. Yes. Alright.

There's there's

really the limits.

Yes. Yeah. Alright.

Well, great. I'm gonna let Jason go. Thank you so much. Really appreciate you being here. That was fantastic. And then we have another topic.

Alright. Sounds good.

Thank you. Have a good night.

Thanks, Jason.

You're welcome.

Receive the survey here.

I I don't remember. Did you get it?

Good. I did not. So

for the, like, little last part of our ballot discussion, we wanted to talk to you about the rest of your direction that you gave in the fall. So if you remember, you directed that we should do the statistically valid survey about the ECC expansion and get those numbers, and then also that we could do a nonstatistically valid, just a survey of the community about a potential lodging tax. When we talked to you about that in the fall, the idea that staff presented was that the lodging tax was going to specifically be to fund, to take taxes from a hotel that is planned for town center that does not yet exist, but we wanted to have the tax in place. After further research, from staff and trying to get things in place to start that conversation, we realized that a lodging tax in the state of Colorado has to cover any lodging that is thirty days or less. So that means it does have to cover short term rentals if we're going to implement a short term a lodging tax in, the town.

So I wanted to make sure that everybody was aware of that requirement. So that would be a different question. I mean, the question is still, would you support a lodging tax? But now it's not just a lodging tax on a hypothetical theoretical hotel in the future, but now it is, would you support a lodging tax on a possible hotel and on short term rentals? When we'd had this conversation a few years ago now, we weren't quite prepared to ask this question because we didn't have a full grasp on what short term rentals look like in the town, and we weren't entirely sure kind of how how that might work for us in collecting it and what it would be used for and all those sorts of things.

And we have director Normella here tonight as well from her, department's perspective on this if you had some questions. But it is on her work plan this year to work on updating some of our municipal code for short term rentals and kind of what it looks like to have licensing and some of that in the town, which does not currently exist. I will say a lot of this conversation has been sparked because Sundance is on the way, and many communities surrounding us are are already seeing a lot of their short term rentals booked out, for that event next February. So it is timely. It is something worth talking about. It is something worth deciding if we want to collect money on that that event and that opportunity. So I just wanna lay all that out there for some discussion.

So I probably need more information myself, but my gut feeling says don't rush this because then if we incite the those that are doing short term rentals without really understanding what we're doing, that could be a problem. On the flip side, I philosophically don't have a problem with with doing that. That that's literally just off the top of my mind here.

And I'll say one more thing.

I'll just note, and then, yes, please give some data and information. I did draft a a possible survey already that I've kind of sent around to some of the key players internally saying, like, what else are we missing? What do we need to know? Is this an acceptable set of questions to ask our community, and could we be ready internally? I think we're feeling fairly good about all of that, but wanted to bring this to you first. And and Sarah was pretty key in in pulling a lot of the details together for that potential draft survey as well.

I'll just say I did some additional research on just who in the area has lodging taxes. And honestly, most of our neighbors do. You know, I'll throw out, you know, obviously, Boulder, Broomfield, Firestone, Frederick, Longmont, Lafayette, Lewisville, Superior, Thornton. You know? So we're kind of, you know, we would be in good company to have a lodging tax.

And all of these lodging tax, as Gabby said, they do apply to anything thirty days or less and or under thirty days, I should say. And so all of those same communities, if they do have a licensed short term rental program, then they are collecting tax on those. So every one of them has you know, are ubiquitously collecting if if those short term rentals are in, you know, require a license. Those that I'm still researching how many are actually doing a license or some type of registration for short term rentals. So, I I can come back with you or come back with a greater depth of research on that, but just, you know, Firestone, Superior, Broomfield, Arvada.

Arvada just put one into place that was activated May 1.

So, you know,

I think a lot of people are starting to get into registering in some way, shape, or form their short term rentals, and this is best practice as we move forward, particularly as they increase in this area. And we have events like the Sundance Festival. So we anticipate and you'll hear work plan item later this evening is that the short term rental, some type of license or registration is on the books for doing this year. We would go out to the community and invite those who do have them to come talk to us and just let us know how that works. And in looking at some of the structures of these license programs, they are meant to help with code enforcement, particularly if you get a short term rental in your neighborhood.

We have them already. And if there are problems with how they're being run, we can't really since we don't regulate them right now, we don't really we can't go and enforce what's happening there. So a lot of these programs and the and the ordinances that go with them do have a structure for, you know, having to have certain elements not only in the rental itself, but some of them limit how many people can go into each, you know, for each bedroom. And they just have some basic life safety and building requirements. So it's a I I think it's a good thing to have.

And in terms of a lodging tax, I don't think we would be out of line at all with any of our neighbors in establishing one.

What's the range of rates?

Do know?

Yeah. A lot of them so it it it varies. But in general, they're somewhere around 4% to 7%. Percent. Some of communities, they all have, like, a 4% lodging tax. But they'll also have the unit or the person would also have to pay sales tax. And then those with higher percentages, like around 7%, they sometimes, exclude sales tax having to be paid. So everyone's kind of collecting anywhere from 3% to 10% as the that's the range.

How do you envision, this whole licensing program work? Would we need more staff? Who collects the tax? This is do we collect it locally? Do we how does it work?

Yeah. So I had a conversation with director, Hancock, and she was assuming that we would be collecting it, ourselves as a homeroom community. And we would like to know how many we're talking about. Right? Because she's you know, at a certain amount, if there's five of them, cool. It could be an Excel spreadsheet, and we track it that way. But, you know, you get more than that, and she's gonna need probably a software in order to take in all of that information, which has a budgetary, implication to it. And if there are hundreds of them, like, that that could be a staff member. And so it really does kind of depend how many we think we're, going to have in the town. So we could certainly look at places like Airbnb, VRBO, some of the other rentals to get a sense for that.

But you don't really know for sure until the licensing is kind of in place.

We don't also know how many people are complying with the license.

True.

Some of that comes from complaint based. My neighbors renting out their place, and they haven't got a license kind of thing. And some of it just comes from what our finance

So what would enforcement look like?

Well, we have to look more into the overall structure. I mean, we've just started doing some preliminary research. So we'd have to look and see how we want to do it and what are we staffed to be able to do. And we actually get inquiries now from people who say, I I would like to do this. Do you have any requirements? No. We don't. So I think there are people who wanna follow the rules. And, I think it's within this area, there are rules. And people are wondering, when do we yeah, where are so I think they'll be receptive to us establishing some regulation around it.

And yeah, there will be people that will have to go and see, and that would be something that we would treat as a regular code enforcement.

Would would, would,

those multigenerational properties be legal short term rentals?

They could if they register and if they're you know, whatever we wanna choose to do. If we wanna limit the number of days, that somebody can have it you know, rent a place out for short term. There's quite a range. Or it could just be all year. Somebody could just have a unit. So it depends on our there's policy decisions to be made around, how we register register them them and what rules we set up.

I'm just thinking of the ADUs now short term rental. Like, if those multigenerational units are legal short term rentals, why aren't they legal ADUs, or how do we make them legal ADUs? I'm going off on a tangent here. Maybe, but

This is still Sounds like there's two parts of this conversation. One is to figure out our short term rental criteria, and the second one is then if we're gonna tax Mhmm. Would be part of that. I wonder also if, maybe this would have been a question for Jason or you can follow-up with them. Do we cause any voter confusion if we have both the rec center tax and the, short term rental tax?

Typically, we don't because they're so different. They're just vastly different taxes, and the ballot language is going to be vastly different between the two of them. So that hasn't in in my experience in running ballot, surveys and then seeing the results of them, that hasn't become a problem. It's it's more about the appetite. I also think if you were to still run the two of these, one of them is very more likely to affect the residents, and one of them is more likely to affect visitors more, the lodging tax being the one to affect visitors more than residents. So that does also lend itself to being an easy vote for both of you if you were inclined to approve both because it wouldn't hit you in both ways. So

this is a conversation I've had recently, as recently as last week at senior lunch, but then over the years to kind of on both sides. So more recently, people are wanting to rent out their home for for, Sundance and asking me, do we have a list? Do we are we putting it out there? Are we working with Boulder County or Boulder or other municipalities about what rentals are available and those kinds of things? And then also, are there regulations that can protect them as homeowners?

And so the answer, of course, no. We don't have any rent. We don't have anything yet. And then the other conversation I've had several times over the last couple years is my neighbor rents their house, and I don't like it. There's big parties on the weekends, and they want some kind of enforcement around it.

So I do think, oddly, on both sides of the table that people are looking for us to do something with short term rentals. So I think it's timely if we could get it done before Sundance. And then I think it's ongoing. It would benefit the community too to be able to say, you know, here are the parameters at least that everyone is expected to work within. So, I think it's worth pursuing, and I was thinking the same thing that it's it doesn't prevent us supporting also a tax a sales tax increase because it wouldn't hit the same demographic. So

And I'll say, if it feels like that's still it's worth us going down an education and outreach outreach path with the community, we are, of course, coming up to our biggest event of the year with town fair, and I always try to capture that audience as much as I could can while they're there. So I I would like to have some sort of surveying or information there for them, which is, you know, just next weekend on the sixteenth. So that's why I had drafted a survey already for internal kind of review to make sure that everybody on staff felt okay with it and to be able to at least start the conversation with our public while they're out there. So I was hoping for a little feedback and feel the vibes in the room if that feels like something we can do. Certainly, you have, as we do with the other ballot item, the opportunity towards the end of July, early August to decide one way or the other, do you actually want it on the ballot this year or not?

You could certainly decide, no. It's not the right time. We wanna wait a year. That's a perfectly valid thing to say, certainly, after we get get some feedback from the residents. But I did before, I went out and just started having a lot of various pointed specific conversations with the residents, wanted to get a sense for if that's okay now that the the topic has expanded from just a hotel.

I think, you know, having it if we wanna have it in place, you know, before we do have a hotel, that certainly makes sense, although that's gonna be potentially years down the line. But I don't think as far as the short term rentals, I mean, typically that's a type of thing that if it gets increased, they're going to pass that on to the end user. So I don't I can't imagine us getting a bunch of backlash on that. I I think the policy area is something, yeah, we definitely wanna look at, but I think those can be done in tandem. So I'd I'd be fine. Like, I I think it's fine having it on this ballot if and it might it might be advantageous just to get it out of the way. But

The backlash that I would see is, like, I can't remember neighbors partying, and I've I've heard

Well, yeah. That yeah. That's the that's the policy end of it. Yeah. That's certainly and I on that end, I'm kinda curious too, like because I'm assuming some communities, like, in in their covenants, they may have, rules against short term rentals that I I assume would would that override any municipal rule that we if if, in other words, if HOA had a rule saying, you you're no short term rentals for longer than five days or something and ours was more lenient, I assume that the HOA could enforce their

Well, we're not talking about restricting them. We're just defining them and saying

Sure.

Yeah. Yeah. This is our test. I don't think we're gonna over override anything. They're they'd still probably be subject to their HOAs.

Sure.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So

That is is correct.

It's a separate legal agreement between a homeowner and Or

their their association. Yeah.

We would not be involved in any

of Right.

We would only enforce the rules we

put in place. But we would, you know, we

would have the conversation as, how restrictive do we want to be, what are the concerns we have around opening up ADUs or other types of units or homes. Or we could be pretty open about it and eventually get more restrictive if if it chooses if it proves to be an issue.

So I I guess my question would be, could could we, have the bowel language for the tax and then and then whatever the enforcement issues, those types of things, we can handle separately.

Those would

be separate. Yes. So,

I think, I saw in the news recently that they just repealed their short term rental ban.

Yeah. I think they're just creating licensing program for.

Forcing. So that was the we were looking for. Is it only for a certain

No. I think it's similar to us that they're happening anyway. Yeah. So they're just gonna create a process now where my people can register.

Because it's same thing here. There there exist.

Yeah. Yeah. And I will say as as the news story is increased about Sundance and the logistics around it, my team is getting questions on social media and email and in other places about this. How do we register? What does it look like? What does it cost for us? So it's definitely getting a lot of buzz, and we are close enough that I think it matters geographically, what we do.

Yeah. So I'm I'm okay with getting the data and figuring it out. I do wanna make sure, I think it's more along the lines of, council member O'Connor's questions, that we don't go forward with this, and then we have to hire a bunch of people or a bunch of enforcement or whichever it is. And the revenue we bring in doesn't come anywhere close to paying for the program. Sure.

Well, mean, that can

be a separate discussion as well. We can we can build the framework and say, here's what we want. And then, well, we can decide how strictly we wanna enforce it. So I think we should probably continue. It's it's an inevitable, I think, that's gonna happen, you know, certainly before we get a hotel. And I don't see a reason to be an outlier within the region. So I think just carrying on creating that framework and what what some of the questions are for the policy makes sense.

Alright. Think you have what you mean.

I do. Thank you very much. Alright.

Alright. We will move on to our second topic of three. This one is item twenty twenty six one ninety one, County Line Road, Highway 7, Arapahoe Road, extension feasibility study update. Staff swap in and out here. I'll turn it over to John transportation and mobility manager.

Thank you. Good evening, council and mayor. We are here tonight to talk a little bit about the Caroline Road extension feasibility study and the Airport North South connectivity study as well as how we've phrased it. Tonight, we'll we'll present the results of our Airpark North South connectivity study with the analysis that we've done for a potential new roadway connecting near Erie Airpark with a focus on improving direct access to and from Colorado 7. I'm joined here with Miguel Aguilar, principal transmission planner from the town of Erie, as well as our team members from DJNA. I'll let them introduce themselves, then we'll jump into couple of, items related to our road map.

Great. Good evening, mayor, members of the council. I'm Bill DeLow with DJ and A, and I was the project manager on the consulting team side.

I'm Mike Degle with DJ and A. I'm I'm assisting Bill.

Yeah. That's good.

So, just to get things started on the next slide.

Maybe he can use them

now. Yep.

Perfect. Okay. There go. Yes. Thank you.

So tonight, we're gonna walk you through some of our key findings related to the study that we've conducted. This is our road map for for the presentation and and some of the information that we're gonna be presenting. We'll move through the study overview as well as the timeline for the for the project, and we'll provide information on the shortlist that we have related to our efforts. We are gonna explain how we got to the alternatives and how we evaluated those for the process, and we'll provide information about the feasibility study results as well as our recommendations for you to consider. So let's see here.

Yes. So, just a a few items related to location of our study. We're evaluating the feasibility of a new roadway connection near Airpark, airport, EIK, focusing on direct connectivity to and from Colorado 7. Our objectives are to evaluate the overall roadway network analysis in this area as part of that, review process and screening. The study looks at existing but also forecast traffic growth, and we did look at the land uses associated with that area.

So we took into all the information related to land that is either proposed for development, has plans or is in existing condition developing and has operations on it. As part of the process, we also look to identify the direct connections, all the possible opportunities in the area, and we consider some of the emergency response related issues associated where, for example, the fire department and other resources are positioned in relationship to share ports and other, uses in the area. We are, as part of the feasibility analysis, looking to improve access, but also consider the circulation and and traffic growth and demand in the area as well as reducing the residential traffic impacts, which has been part of the consideration for all the analysis that we're doing and the feedback that we heard during the engagement process. Our motto is keeping regional traffic on regional roads and keeping local traffic on local streets. So that's that's our approach generally, and we took that approach with this analysis process just to make sure it's covered.

So with that, I'll hand it over to Bill, and we'll go get through the details here.

Thanks, John. So, yeah, as John mentioned, I'll be walking through the, alternatives development process, the analysis process that we did looking at, feasibility for the, the roadway extension. We looked at and identified really four primary alternatives that were evaluated as part of this effort. Alternative zero, first one is what's considered to be the baseline future condition. So this would be the, roadway improvements, new roadways, roadway expansions that are proposed as part of the transportation master plan, and those feature improvements within the the project area.

Alternative a, which we'll talk a little bit more about on the next slide, is a connection that would connect County Line Road to Airport Drive, cross over Coal Creek, and then move south and east to Airport Drive. Alternative b looked at a more direct connection to Highway 7, basically more of a straight north south alignment for that roadway. And then we also examined in emergency access route to that would specifically serve the airport with a secondary access primarily for emergency vehicles and would not serve through traffic. Some of the other items that I'll mention and highlight within the study timeline, the February, my March time period was, when we conducted the community engagement effort. There were mailers sent out to residents in nearby neighborhoods, advertising a community open house that was conducted on February 25.

We had 22 people that attended that open house and participated, reviewed the alternatives, and provide provided their input. Staff town staff, Miguel, also gave a presentation to the airport board in March to present the different alternatives and receive feedback from the airport board as well. So this map here outlines the the alternatives that I just walked through and provides a little visualization of where they would run. So you can see alternative zero, we've highlighted in the, the white. So all of the, the roadways that are showing up in white or or yellow, are part of the, baseline future network that will be built out as the town advances improvements and as new developments come online and those developers implement the roadways that they're conditioned to provide as well.

So that includes the future connection of Coal Creek Boulevard, which is really one of the more substantial improvements within the project area, making that connection from its southern terminus right now up to connect to County Line Road. We show alternatives a and b there in the center of the image, alternative a there in blue, and alternative b in pink. Alternative a, as we highlighted, does have that that little turn to the east there to connect to Airport Drive just south of the existing hangars, while alternative b makes that direct connection to Highway 7. And then in the green dash line, we show that secondary emergency access route to the airport. This slide here highlights the proposed roadway cross section.

One of the key constraints in terms of the alternatives is that there's a very narrow right of way available, about 30 to 35 feet of publicly available right of way that exists primarily along the alternative b alignment and route. And this is South of Cole Cole Creek, the actual creek itself. Once you cross over, head to it down towards Highway 7. There's only about 30 to 35 feet of available right of way. So this does allow for a two lane roadway with a 12 foot travel lane in each direction, but no multimodal infrastructure.

No sidewalks. No bike lanes would be able to be provided along this roadway with this cross section unless there was additional right of way acquired to accommodate that. In this location, we do have the Coal Creek Trail, so there is multimodal infrastructure that would parallel the roadway alignment and be present in this location. So this slide shows the estimated changes in traffic volumes with both alternative A and alternative B. So in the black, we've shown the future forecast traffic volumes along different roadways within the project area.

So along Coal Creek Boulevard there on the left, Arapahoe Road, and then up on County Line Road as you move to the North, as well as volumes along Vista Parkway there to the east. In green, we show locations where there's a reduction in forecast future traffic volumes with the one of the two alternatives implemented. And in the red or pink color, we show where there would be an increase in traffic. So, really, key items to highlight here, the alternatives a and b dot North South connection really helps to potentially reduce traffic along Coal Creek Boulevard, provides a shorter distance of travel, a little bit shorter travel time. And so we do see the potential for diversion of traffic away from the future alignment of Coal Creek Boulevard to this corridor.

There's more limited estimated redistribution from Vista Parkway, primarily because the overall distance traveled and the time of travel between alternative a and b and the current condition along Vista Parkway is not very different. So it the these alternatives add a little bit more friction, I think, to that travel. You have a few more turns that you would need to make as a driver if you were, for example, heading south on County Line Road for taking that alignment versus Vista Parkway. And so we don't see a a very significant potential diversion of traffic away from Vista. Most of it comes from, Coal Creek Boulevard.

Before we move on, can you can you say again what ADT stands for?

Yes. Average daily traffic. So this is the the daily number of, vehicles that would be traveling on the roadways.

Thank you.

Yeah. Thank you

for yeah. If I use an acronym,

I say ton of fun.

Yes. As a transportation person, I love my acronym. So, yeah, feel free to chime in if, I use one that you need a definition. So the next two slides will talk a little bit about provide some more details around alternative a and alternative b in terms of the concept design. And Mike and his team led the development of these concept designs. One of the key items here we show alternative day, there's a few key elements of the design that we wanted to highlight. First and foremost is the crossing of Coal Creek. In pink there, we show the existing existing floodplain for Coal Creek. So you go out there today. Coal Creek's a very narrow, small

you know,

most days, a trickle of water out there today or very limited amount of water, but the overall floodplain and potential for water flow within the creek and within the creek bed is quite quite substantial. And this really does add in a very high risk element to both alternative a and alternative b in terms of being able to cross that floodplain and interfere with that floodplain as little as possible. Both alternatives would require additional hydraulic modeling and analysis to look at the impacts of a bridge over the floodplain that's out of the scope of the the current effort, but it's certainly something that we flagged here as part of this this process to highlight the risk there. We've assumed that the design would bridge over the full floodplain, so there would still be impacts in the floodplain from the columns associated with the bridge, but we would try and minimize those impacts as much as possible by eliminating it to just those particular locations. But it still does require modeling.

There's still approval by FEMA that would be required, and there's still potential for impacts to the floodplain even with the just columns. And

and about how long is the bridge?

The bridge is over a 100 over 800 feet long, about 840 feet

long. Wow.

So it it's quite a a wide floodplain there. So it is a a high risk element to to the concept in making this connection here. And you can see to the north and to the south, it's it's a pretty wide floodplain throughout. So there's not really it's not just that this location is worse than others. It it's pretty consistent throughout the corridor here.

As we looked at, it's not shown here, but the emergency access has almost similar. I think it's about 700 feet that we'd have to cross there, so north. So the floodplain stays pretty wide throughout this part along Coal Creek. Another item to point out with alternative a is that turn to the east there in the connection to Airport Drive. Once the roadway turns east, it's no longer in public right of way, So that would require acquisition of private property in order to be able to make that connection, and that would certainly have a cost and and potential impact to property owners as well. I'm sorry.

Where is that?

That is just the the little hook to the east, just south of the existing hangars, the three vertical buildings, you know, that look like, you know, three Roman numerals there. And we make that connection to to Airport Drive. And then at the bottom, at the south end of the image, we've shown the planned traffic signal at the intersection of Airport Drive and Highway 7. That is a developer conditioned traffic signal that'll be implemented and paid for by development in the area. And so this alternative utilizes that connection and uses that future traffic signal to provide movements at Highway 7.

So alternative b looks very similar at the north end in terms of that connection and crossing of Coal Creek. Same length of bridge, same crossing in in that location. Where it differs is down there just south of the the three hangars. In this case, alternative b would continue along in the available public right of way, that 30 to 35 foot available strip of right of way, and then make a connection down to Highway 7 at the south. We've shown instead here that east west horizontal dashed black line that could be a potential connection to provide connectivity from Airport Drive to alternative b.

But, again, that would require acquisition of private property. It's not publicly owned right away in order to be able to to make that connection. The other key item here is the relocation of the traffic signal to the intersection of Alternative B and Highway 7. So in this case, the the town would be responsible for implementing the traffic signal, And the benefit or kind of objective with that connection from Airport Drive is that then you're opening up full movement at Highway 7 for the existing and planned businesses along Airport Drive.

So what My question there because I thought, as you mentioned in the previous slide, that at Airport Drive, that was a developer condition light. And I thought they were already the infrastructure is already there for them to put in the light, Or they're working on that now?

The infrastructure is currently not there for a traffic signal. CDOT has issued a permit previously.

There was

no action taken on it. And in fact, that permit has expired since.

Oh, okay. Alright.

Well, are you

talking about Air Airport Drive in Highway 7? Yes. Yeah. I thought that's a condition of

That is the development out there.

And at the CO, the light has to go in.

So bringing in the DA for the area of our track to there is a condition that once they get to the certain threshold that triggers the warrant for the signal that signal will be constructed at that location is not there now. The infrastructure is not in place yet. So that's why we're saying it's a developer condition signal. So So that is a condition of the of the existing project that's going on right now, though. Was once that warrant is met, will it be installed.

But I'm sorry. You said it's conditioned on volume? Yes.

But it it changed to that. Would that require a DA amendment? Or is it

Change would require a DA amendment.

Okay. The change to

The conditions for what we were working on with the developer.

For a light at airport. Correct.

Okay. So I'm confused. I'm saying it is the table a little bit. Let me go back to what David was saying. Assuming the development that's happening right now where we have the condition in there that the light goes in at airport and Highway 7

Mhmm.

Is there forget about any changes. Is there any reason that light will not go in there?

We do not anticipate that that light will not go in at this time.

The only way that would happen is if we don't hit the threshold for whatever reason.

Yeah. The traffic warrant threshold.

Okay. This

is separate from this conversation.

Alright. Okay. So

Bear with me. Yep.

There. And so assuming there's gonna be a light at Airport Drive, it's highly unlikely that CDOT would approve a second light. Correct? Correct.

Yes. Yeah. That was actually the the next item to highlight is, yeah, those two streets. Alternative b was pursued. Alternative b, its location, and the location of Airport Drive is is doesn't meet CDOT's requirements in terms of spacing of traffic signals. In fact, alternative b is pretty close. I don't think it meets either to Coal Creek Boulevard. It's pretty close to meeting that requirement. So but there would still be a process required with CDOT to go through and get an exemption to say, you know, we're within that half mile distance that they permit. And so would this be allowed?

So that is one of the risk with all another risk with alternative b is it would require a new process with CDOT to get that access and that traffic traffic signal permitted and have them approve, you know, basically, the relocation of a planned signal at Airport Drive over to Alternative B. This slide highlights again the different floodplain considerations. We wanted to make sure we walk through these as we do see this one as one of the higher risk elements for both alternatives. As we highlighted the there's that wide, floodplain for Full Creek. Any new crossing, regardless of the number of columns or potential impact, does require FEMA review, and approval.

And that, more detailed, hydraulic analysis and modeling of the floodplain to see how it changes with whatever impacts or impediments that a bridge would implement into the floodplain. One of the kind of unanswered questions at this point is you know, what those impacts are. Would they FEMA require mitigations? Would it potentially impact existing other properties that are nearby or other buildings? It's unknown at this point what those potential impacts would be.

But at this stage, we've tried to outline a bridge design that has as little impact as possible. And hence, when we get into some of the costs, why we when you have a a longer, higher bridge with fewer columns, that typically is more expensive than if you were able to build embankments and have a shorter bridge. So you'll see that a few slides with the estimates in terms of construction costs. And that's what we highlighted here. We looked at several elements related to cost, not only the the cost to construct the the roadway extension and the bridge, but also maintaining it over a twenty to thirty year period and use that information along with the the traffic inputs in terms of redistribution of traffic, travel time savings, safety, and other elements to develop and complete a benefit cost analysis.

This benefit cost analysis followed the US Department of Transportation's methodology that they use for their funding grant applications and decisions on whether to to fund projects that apply for federal grants. So kind of walking through this table from top to bottom, the the capital costs there up at the top, about $50,000,000 to implement the the roadway extension. Vast majority of that cost is in the bridge. That is the the major cost component of that improvement. The airport access there, we show over on the right, again, a much shorter roadway, a shorter bridge, and so estimated about $29,000,000 for the implementation of that improvement.

Maintenance costs for both the roadway and the bridge annually would average about $200,000 a year. That wouldn't happen in every year. You know, each element has its own useful life in terms of repaving, inspections, improvements to the bridge. But on an average basis, it's about $200,000 a year is about what it works out to. The vehicle miles traveled reduction, this is looking at the redistribution of traffic that we showed back several slides ago, looking at what that volume was on a daily basis and the shortened distance that those vehicles would need to travel, primarily those cars shifting from Coal Creek Boulevard, to the new roadway extension.

And so that's about seven to 8,000 miles a day averaged across all of the traffic in the future. And there's about two minutes of travel time savings between the the two alternatives and travel today on Coal Creek Boulevard, again, primarily a result of that that shorter distance traveled and a little bit less time spent on Highway 7, which does have higher levels of congestion and delay. The next two lines, the commercial industrial land use benefit and the residential land use benefit, I did want to point out on the commercial industrial land use benefit, that's estimated economic benefit over the next twenty years from development that's already planned in the Air Park area. So the the roadway extension itself will have more than likely very little influence on that development just because a lot of that development is already, entitled. It's already planned, already has access through, various, components and and locations along Airport Drive or County Line Road.

So we expect that 26,000,000 or so that's estimated there to be pretty much the same whether the alignment is implemented or not. And you really kind of see that with the emergency access. That's kind of the no build scenario, about 25,000,000, and that you get a slight bump with the the alternative a and b just in terms of that economic benefit. On the residential side, that economic benefit or output impact that's identified there is primarily a result of travel time savings for existing and new residents. Doesn't necessarily spur additional or new residential growth.

It's more the kind of the opportunity cost for residents within the the project area. And, again, that's spread over a twenty year time horizon per the US DOT requirements. And so then at the bottom, really get to the the key item with the benefit cost ratio and see about point four two to point five three in terms of benefit cost. When US DOT evaluates federal grant applications, they're really looking for projects that have a benefit cost of one or greater. And, basically, what that typically means is that the the project brings in more benefits than the cost it takes to build and maintain it.

So if a project has a number that's below one, it costs more to build and maintain it than the economic benefit that it provides for the particular study area. So all three alternatives are below one. And so would you know, the town was to advance one of these alternatives, pursue federal grant funding for its implementation, it'd probably be very hard to be competitive against other projects. A lot of times, projects that are funded are actually above 1.5 and above in terms of their rating and then being awarded funding. It would be challenging just in terms of competitiveness.

And then some of the other key findings, really building on the previous slide in that benefit cost analysis, since we're below 0.5 for both alternative A and alternative B, likely not competitive using the U. S. Department of Transportation criteria, which, as I mentioned, looks at safety, time, economic development versus that cost. The travel time compared to Coal Creek Boulevard is about two minutes of savings on average for drivers utilizing the roadway. And there are a lot of risks with both alternatives A and B.

We've highlighted those there in the pink, the high risk elements such as the floodplain impacts, which we really think is the highest risk element. Environmental approvals, that's a moderate risk crossing the creek. There's potential impacts to natural resources, aquatic resources, endangered species that would all need to be looked at and evaluated. As we mentioned, that CDOT coordination that's required with the connection to Highway 7, getting approval if that was a a new connection with Alternative B, and then the impact to play under entitled land uses, especially with Alternative Bay, making that connection over to Airport Drive and the requirement for private property acquisition too in order to make that happen. I'll turn it back to

you, John.

The signaling would only be a high risk for

For option a. For alternate Yeah. For alternate b.

Correct. B only. Correct. Thank

you, Bill. Yeah. So just, summarizing the the study and and the effort that we put forward, we wanted to screen all the information, make sure what we bring to the table shows kind of the end results associated with what we were asked to do and and see where the potential connectivity makes sense and how that would work. Bringing that back, you know, we we discovered that it's a roughly $50,000,000 investment in either alternative that would work in this particular area for about a two minutes of travel time savings compared to the Coal Creek connection in in the same vicinity. And as part of that process, we want we have our economists on this team helping analyze the benefit costs associated with the project looking out into the future, making sure we're taking a comprehensive and holistic approach, considering maintenance and other aspects of of the process.

And those ratios are, as previously mentioned, point five at best. And so it's not a strong benefit cost result from the feasibility study here. The risk is also substantial, and this is where we wanted to come to the table, provide information about regulatory agencies, how we have to basically work through them, and what that means with a location like this, where there is FAA and FEMA and other kinds of factors, CDOT involved, it's it's worth as part of the screening process to share that with you. Ultimately, as as staff recommendation, we don't recommend alternative a or b, given the the results that we have arrived at with the analysis that that we're looking at. We have a recommendation essentially to complete the build out of Coal Creek Boulevard through the developer process that that's already in play.

It's it's already in motion, so moving forward with that. And then there are improvements to Vista Parkway investments that are ongoing currently, and it'd be worthwhile to complete those as well as the airport drive signal and planned investment with redevelopment. That that's already in play as well, and we'd recommend moving forward with that given that's already in motion. And then also today, just

as

part of the process that we have with other development, we we're looking at parallel roads. The the shared in connection is also something that we submitted to the region. It's been accepted as as a connection for truck traffic, and that was, I think, part of the original impetus for understanding. Does it make sense to to look at this? And, that also has a factor in all this too.

So if we can get trucks to use more of a truck route directly to and from a landfill, for example, that part of this equation also is something that we're initially looking at and considering as a potential need in this area, Sheridan, you know, provides that that better connection in this vicinity. So with that, we will open it up to questions and discussion. However, you know, you'd like to proceed on this, we we're available as a technical resource to to provide feedback.

Alright. Great. Thank you. Appreciate the information. I do have a number of questions, and I'm guessing other people may as well.

I wanna frame this first as this whole conversation got started simply because people were upset about the traffic that has continued to increase in Erie. And it's been increasing because we have more and more people moving in on the existing roads. I think it's also because in the IGA with Lafayette, part of the agreement, part of our giveaway was that we would shut down County Line Road and allow Lafayette to take over that portion of County Line to service, their wastewater facility. With that, my understanding is that traffic flows, those going south on County Line and wanted to go east on Highway 7, started to go down Vista Parkway instead. And I I thought that was a significant increase, but the numbers you're showing me here tonight are not indicating that that was a significant increase.

So that's my first question. Right? Was the premise for us actually starting this conversation simply wrong? So what happened when County Line Road got shut down? What happened to the traffic counts out on, Vista Parkway?

Well, I I think a lot

of that was just oh,

you're asking that. Yeah. That's the staff.

Yeah. I think as part of the analysis and what we've modeled, we've modeled the build out condition here. So, I have to look back to see what happened with traffic trends associated with the closure of that dogleg, you know, my diagonal section. I don't have that information available right

now. Alright. Because that was a significant part of this. I'll speak to that

a little bit. Just having been there through that process, we can absolutely follow-up with you on this further. But, when the Coal Creek or when County Line Road was closed and there was the new condition of Coal Creek Boulevard and also the leg of Monroe that was open, obviously, it takes time for people to adjust to new traffic patterns. So there's there's an element of that that had occurred. There's also an element of

Can I pause you and have them put slide Is that shortlist of alternatives would build out? Yeah. So that the roads, when you're saying them Absolutely. See what you're talking about.

So there is a a level of what drivers need to adjust to new patterns.

This one?

That one before that. Do we have a different set in our deck? No. He was up there. He wasn't Yeah.

It's like seven.

That one.

That's right.

So the other thing that we did find is that despite our desire to have traffic routed a certain way during construction and deconstruction of County Line Road, Google Maps was taking them through Vista Parkway. So I do think that during the construction timeline that it was reflective that there was a noticeable increase in traffic along Vista Parkway. Part of the efforts that we had since then was to study Vista Parkway in a corridor study. We made sure that we were looking at that holistically, which was kind of the impetus for some of the improvements that we're doing along that corridor. We did show, however, that in that corridor study that Vista Parkway, while seeing a increase in traffic, was not operating beyond its capacity limits.

So it was operating within its ability to operate, and there was no overcapacity concerns from that perspective from a data perspective. Through the build out

or current?

Currently and through build out. Okay. In addition to that, once we noticed also that the construction traffic was not deterring the way that we had preferred, we did reach out. I worked with communications to reach out to Google to say, hey. Can we please show this as the preferred dive diversion route, which through a couple of efforts of trying to get their attention, we did eventually get them to do so.

But, you know, in the meantime, we still saw those increases in traffic. I'm not gonna say that there wasn't an increase in traffic. I would believe the people that live there on a daily basis saw an increase in traffic. But I will say that from our observations, we weren't seeing anything that was beyond the the capacity of the road from a data perspective.

Alright. We have somebody that lives right on this road that may or may not wanna comment. Yeah.

I did notice an increase. Yeah. But I also noticed an increase in, well, behavior in the circles and how oftentimes

well, that's not the right way

right way to say it, but I would since the closure of County Line Road, I was probably hit almost five times or so using those circles the way that, you know, you're supposed to enter circles. So I definitely noticed a change in behavior. Yeah. So, hopefully, the improvements on Vista Parkway can help that.

Yeah. It'll help that. And I will say that the data that we found in the corridor story for for Vista Parkway did show some of the inappropriate behavior. I I do think that was reflective at the roundabouts, which is why we're looking to make improvements specifically at the roundabouts, but also looking to do a road diet further south towards Highway 7 to kind of discourage that as a through route as well, kind of reflective of what it's supposed to be as a, collector road and not a road. So that is part of our goal, and that's part of why we're recommending let's stay the course on those improvements to Vista Parkway to make sure that it is safe and it's being utilized appropriately. So

Okay. My next question, just a clarification. What was the square footage cost that you used to come up with the $50,000,000 bridge?

I can speak to that. It's well, the the bridge cost was roughly about half, a little bit more than half of that $50,000,000, and we used 775 or $750 per square foot for cost.

And how did you up come with the $750 per square foot? And let me just give you a premise. Okay. I'm not an expert in this. So I'm using my friend, and I'm asking Gemini what is the average cost.

And they not only are giving me an average cost of about 365, but they're giving me bridges that are being built right now or have been built in the recent time frame that are roughly in that frame. So if you're using a 750, that would take it up to about 24,000,000, which is now I'm doing the calculations on this. But it still seems double at least on what the information that is out there with current or recent projects that CDOT has approved. So help me understand. That that's a big discrepancy.

Yeah. I agree with that. So prior to my my employment with DGNA, I worked twenty four years with the Federal Highway Administration. And and one of my former coworkers with the Federal Highway Administration is also over at DGNA, and I had conversations. Again, these are planning level estimates, so we didn't do a deep dive.

And so I I had conversations with, with our senior structural engineer, and that is I guess, we used with the Federal Highway Administration as a realistic cost per square foot. And that includes the entire bridge structure, superstructure and substructure.

Can you send us that information that was used for the basis of the 07/1950?

I think that'd be helpful because

it's more expensive to build a bridge in Colorado. So the number that I'm using, that three sixty five, appears to be more than what the Federal Highway Administration would be using across America in general. And so however you came up with that seven fifty, wherever it came from, it would be good to to really understand that. And then my question to John is, if the cost of the bridge is actually half of what's baked in here, do those numbers, those ratios that need to be, I think you said roughly one, and they're roughly a half. Do the are those proportional? So would it jump up to whatever, point seven five, point 8.9 if the cost of the bridge was actually half of what is being discussed?

There's a few different inputs because also the maintenance of the bridge factors in that. So it's not a one to one increase. Did look at, as part of the process that we've gone through, some less what could be less expensive bridges. And even then, you're maybe getting to one, but not really there because of the other cost, the other limitations. So even with a substantially less expensive bridge, even if it was more than half less, you're still not getting

back back to one. Okay. Which I

would just one thing that I just add on the bridge item too is it also, I think, reflects the objective of minimizing that impact to the floodplain. So the longer distances you assume for columns, we're trying to have as few columns in the floodplain as possible. That also makes a bridge more expensive. That direct kind of per square foot cost is difficult to do in different locations because each bridge is really unique just in terms of the Totally. Additions that exist.

Yeah. Totally. Which was a perfect lead into my next question. You couldn't set this up any better. Thank you. If you flip to the next slide, and, by the way, those at home that are seeing me pointing, I'm pointing to the screen. It's the one with the floodplain that shows the bridge going over it. One more back. It's the one that actually shows the pink.

Yes. 16.

It's here.

I don't know why I can't see the slide numbers in my deck. Potential Yeah. That's it. Yep.

That would work.

Okay. So when I look at this, it looks like the route chosen is absolutely the longest route you could possibly take to get across the floodplain. So when I look at this, it's going diagonal across the floodplain. Could the bridge be shifted so you're more perpendicular to the floodplain so that the bridge length goes from 840 feet to whatever, 440 feet, 500 feet. And, actually, the span you were talking about becomes simpler and reduces the the cost more dramatically. So maybe the way to really ask that is why did you choose that route?

Yeah. I can start, Mike. I'm sure you have some Sure. Too. Yep. But one of the big drivers is the the intersection of County Line Road and Monroe up there. Okay. Fitting a roundabout in that location and keeping that roundabout out of the floodplain, and then also having the the geometries, approach geometries, and and everything with that roundabout as well-being able to to work properly. So, Mike, I don't know if you'd add anything.

Yeah. I guess I can I can say we we did initially start with, I guess, subalternate concepts where we had we didn't have a roundabout, and and there were, like, regular t type intersections? And in that case, you would be able to be more on a north south alignment, which would which would reduce that bridge length some. And I guess the other the other point I would like to, I guess, add to the roundabout option is in good

I

question. That, that's bridge alignment be north south because you you're effectively, like, crowding that other leg for Monroe Street. So we had to we had to push that out to the east, which creates that that skew to the floodplain.

I have other follow-up questions, but they're but they're they're gonna be more detailed. Because when I look at where Monroe and East County Line, Coal Creek is actually far to the east, and it looks like there's a lot of room. I'm sure there's topography questions there. I'm just trying to figure out was the most expensive option ultimately chosen for various reasons, and are there less expensive options, that could be pursued that would actually change the the calculus on this?

I'll mention this. I I think from the objective of having County Line Road extend to Highway 7, we have this alternative, alternative a

Mhmm.

And alternative b, which is a little bit more direct of a connection. And our goal is to as part of the evaluation process and the, benefit cost analysis to see if the travel time savings with the direct connection to Canterline Road would give us better results with a more direct connection.

Right. I

took the travel time thing.

Yeah. Yeah. So if if we're moving things, shifting them from one place to another, it's affecting things on the other end as you have kind of, like, trade offs essentially. So if, for example, we're coming in at a different angle to Monroe and have a different type of intersection, ultimately, the stop control, the type of intersection with a signal, for example, other things, those start to add either travel time or they start to add costs and other things. Our goal was to try to make this work as best as possible given the configuration of County Line Road North South and what we have along that corridor.

I think another factor into this too is the floodplain. So while Coal Creek is further to the east, the floodplain abuts County Line Road and Monroe for a significant portion right there. So moving that down would cause impacts into the floodplain, which would cause impacts to adjacent properties as well. So with the goal of trying to minimize impact through this evaluation process, we we'd look for an opportunity to say, okay. This connection point is outside of the hundred year floodplain.

It's in the five hundred year floodplain, but that's not as heavily regulated as the hundred year floodplain. And that way, we can actually have a a chance to make the connection, also create a a chance for that bridge to actually start making its way to span the floodplain as well. So that was kind of some of the more direct answers. There's a lot of Okay. Nuance. But once you start impacting floodplain, now you're saying, okay. I'm gonna impact it here. Now we have to chase it through this floodplain of how is it impacting all these adjacent property owners as well. Sure.

This floodplain is wide. I mean, when I'm looking at what you're showing me right here. Okay. I have some other questions, but we'll let other people chime in.

So I got a few questions. So as far as the right way, you talk about a 35 foot. What, what are the constraints around that? I understood that there was a a 60 foot easement down the County Line Road. If if we carried it straight, half of it was owned by Lafayette, half of it owned by Erie. Is is Lafayette easement the constraint? Or

did you find it in

the sequence? We in the research that we did, we didn't find that Lafayette easement. So in the interest of being conservative in terms of the available right of way, we we went with utilize the basically, the town's easement or town's right of way in that location. So if, you know, potentially, there was, you know, that easement, a similar kind of mirror image on the other side, you know, certainly, the the roadway could be expanded. But expanding the roadway, expanding the bridge money.

Makes the cost more money as well. Exactly. Yeah. Understood. I'm just Yeah. You know, I

under wanna understand the constraints of not looking for a wider, more expensive road. I was glad to see that the the road, lanes were were 12 foot wide. Right? That's a standard, you know, high volume. Because I I think in the community meeting, they're only, like, 10 feet or something like that.

So so, yeah, thanks thanks for taking that feedback and and rolling it into this. That's great. Yeah. I would like to to understand the traffic on Vista Parkway before we close County Line Road, versus, now because, you know, as there had been a lot of concerns about the increase, and and we're only showing about a half a percent decrease, if we if we put an alternate road in. So so that information before and after kinda Line

Road was closed would be helpful.

Let's see.

And then you show the the floodplain as high high impact, but you're planning on a on a bridge that'll minimize that. Right? So what what are we taking out some of that risk by the design or trying to understand the

The the design concept, yes, that's presented here, tries to, with the information that we have today, minimize that risk as much as possible. As we mentioned, there'd still be a a detailed modeling effort that would need to be done, and it it's possible even the design concept like this could potentially have impacts to adjacent properties. We don't really know until that modeling effort occurs. And there's still also a process and review with FEMA that's required regardless of the the alternatives and just kind of, you know, experience from other projects that even before the last couple years in federal staffing reductions was a very lengthy process.

Yeah. I can imagine all the environmental concerns.

And then there's the environmental concerns. Like that are are gonna

gonna keep making a challenge. Yeah. Because, like, the mayor said, one of

the the

big things about looking at this was to alleviate some of the traffic that was generated on on Vista Parkway, but also reduce the traffic, yeah, going through the neighborhood of Parkdale, you know, with the and there's also a possible future school that's gonna be along, Coal Creek Boulevard. So, you know, those were some of the reasons that, you know, we're looking at this. As well as a a potential economic, you know, improvement or economic development opportunities along the gateway, you know, one of the gateways into into Erie.

I would like to speak really quickly, if it's okay, to some of the improvements that we're working through with the developer for Parkdale to make that a safer corridor, especially, near the school, if I may.

Yeah.

So, obviously, we remember from the presentation that there's a roundabout that's going to be going in near the school, which will help to slow speed down speeds down along that corridor around the school specifically. In addition to that, we're putting rapid flashing beacons on that roundabout similar to what we have done at County Line Road. It's becoming more common practice, and that creates a safer surface crossing at the roundabout. But our primary mode of safety for pedestrian and cyclist travel will be an underpass that we're working with the developer to design and construct as part of that project. So the goal would be to divert all pedestrian and bicycle traffic off of the road entirely into an underpass to cross that road.

That way, there's not any conflicts. The the surface crossing at that point would just be in case, you know, for whatever reason, there's a storm and the pumps break and a perfect storm of events happen where that, underpass is not able to be utilized. So I do wanna make sure that you're you're that we're conveying to you all that we are hearing the concerns around safety along Coal Creek Boulevard, especially near the school, and we're working with the developer to mitigate those risks.

Yeah. And

I I appreciate all the work that's being done, And and we're not suggesting anything be slowed down or changed in in that by by any means. So so yeah. Thank you. Yeah. Absolutely. And about how long is, you know, alternate a in as far as miles or you know?

That's

a great question.

Remember. Yeah. I know. I'm trying to remember that number. Wanna say we're we're less than a mile overall in this distance. I think we're we're more in the neighborhood of about, I would estimate, around three quarters to about a mile, three quarters a mile to a mile. Mhmm.

That connection.

You know,

part of this is psychological. But if you're going south and you wanna go east and you know you've gotta go west by half mile and go stack a half mile. And it's like, I'm just gonna go Fista Parkway. Anyway, that's I think some people may be doing that.

Yeah. I think human nature. Right? It it's yeah. I'm gonna find the quickest, shortest path and no no matter what.

What is happening is that well, prior to the construction on Airport Drive,

I was told that people

were actually taking Main Street up and cutting through those businesses and crossing an active taxiway and making their way to Newport Drive. No way.

Yeah. That's still

going on.

Yeah. Yeah. It's been

an endorsement issue that we've been working on.

And, also, for the most part, people use these maps, Google or whatever. Yeah. So it's not even psychological to most people. They blindly put maps nowadays.

Yeah. If you don't live here, I sure always see the Google thing. Mhmm. But if you live here

What if if you're my husband? Google every day, everywhere we go.

From his house to the grocery store.

I do that too because all the traffic's Yeah.

Yeah. I don't

I know the roads. I know this is subtle. But

Yeah. So the width of the road, it sounds like it's pretty narrow. Is that against our engineering standards?

So our engineering standards call for basically a wider roadway for the type of volume that we have assigned to connect between the highway and Road. So, yes, it is narrower. We have stripped out basically the majority of the multimodal elements. So there's no sidewalk. There's no bike lane.

There are only buffers, you know, basically in in the area, a little in the center, a little bit on the edges, that ten, eleven feet that customer was talking about was increased, you know, just because what we tried to do is keep the cost as reasonable as possible with the footprint of a smaller bridge and smaller roadway, knowing that there is a trail in that same vicinity to serve the multimodal. So it goes, yes, it goes against our engineering standards the way they're currently shown in our interim documents. We've tried to preserve the functionality while limiting the impact to whatever right of way we think can work in this particular area. So it is a much narrower type of work.

So would an engineer put their stamp on it? You have an engineer.

Yeah. I mean, I'll I'll speak to that, as an engineer. If if they were designed to, proper safety criteria and everything like that, I I would stamp it. It's just not to the town of Erie standards. So we'd have to make sure that, you know, any deviation from that is designed appropriately.

Proper structure elements are designed appropriately. Proper lane widths are assigned appropriately. And, you know, I'll I'll say too, there's a level of we'd probably have to evaluate if we were gonna pursue a path forward, making sure that, emergency vehicles can pass by too if there is an accident or if there's somebody stopped on the side of the road. So we'd have to design some elements of that. But, yes, I'd say just because it doesn't conform to the town of Erie standards doesn't mean that I wouldn't sign off on it necessarily.

Okay. So We would have to just compromise those in favor of the trio nearby. Yes. And then so safety, I know that that section of Colorado 7 is always red on maps. It's we've had recent cyclist deaths right there at Airport Boulevard, or Airport Drive. What is the safety? I mean, is there is there any enhanced or if we if we're really thinking about safety, is there any benefit we could realize with a or b?

I think with both a and b, certainly, there's a safety benefit that comes with the proposed traffic signal and the controlling the the movements. I think the Airport Drive, Highway 7 intersection today with the Mhmm. Hill and the elevation that you have there and the the unprotected or, you know, just stop sign movement from Airport Drive is is a very difficult movement, and I think it could likely contributes to some of the the safety issues that that CDOT's reporting along Highway 7. So I think the the signal itself would provide a a significant amount of improvement there. Okay. And then I think the other improvements that CDOT's planning and constructing along Highway 7 too will also help in that, respect.

But so the the stoplight is is warranted and and happening, so this doesn't then change that. Doesn't change that. Okay. On the safety. Let's see. And then I I do have concerns about alternative b, the the signal being so close to Coal Creek Boulevard. I think we've talked about that before and has weighed in that that's not close enough. I mean, that's too close for a second signal right there because the airport drive signal barely meets, I think, distance standards. Is that different? Are they compromising on their standards?

There there would be a a process that the town would have to go through with CDOT to basically apply and and, you know, get their approval for the location For the reason. Of the acquisition that alternative.

To your point, council member Barrett, it is unlikely that CDOT would allow that signal to go in so close to Airport Drive and Coal Creek Boulevard. What they would probably propose is, a decommissioning of the Airport Airport Drive signal in favor of this signal.

Like, keeping Airport Drive.

Don't know if they'd even allow that to be perfectly candid. It's they're very close together. Yeah. So it'd probably be a we take this option or this option.

Yeah. Okay. So So who ultimately has authority kind of to say, yeah. This is a no go besides the town?

On the signal?

On the connection. Like, at any point, if they're, like this floodplain doesn't meet, the signal doesn't meet requirements. Do you know who who would be able to say?

Yeah. Some of the other constraints. I think the the floodplain analysis wouldn't necessarily be a strict yes or no. It would be a You have to know. But, yeah, you need to mitigate Yeah. X, y, and z

possibly You have to,

you

know, additional items beyond that with with FEMA. So I think it certainly has a a risk. It's possible they could say no, but more likely, there would be some form of mitigation. It's just a question of how much does that cost and what does that look like. Similar with with CDOT, I think it's you know, they there's alternatives. Maybe they're not as appealing as they they might be depending on what CDOT requires. But, again, it may not be only know there might be ways to address it. You just may not have the project as originally envisioned. So I'd see those two as the main. Again, also, there's the potential for environmental impacts with Coal Creek.

Again, those are mitigations, potential additional costs, not necessarily know the project can can't proceed.

Okay. And then what about the FAA?

In the FAA side with both of these alternatives, we're outside of the runway protection zone, so we don't see an FAA issue. Okay.

They may have feelings about it, though.

Yeah. And and they're and they might require things like fencing and things like that on the airport property side and so forth, but nothing that we would anticipate would be a hard no.

You can't do this.

Okay. Just a note that you're gonna have to spend a lot more money

from a lot of space. Cool. Okay.

Put an airplane on the side of the bridge to make them feel better about it. So

you mentioned about private land for easements. Is there any estimate of how much it might cost?

I don't know in terms of the, like, per

acre cost of the Right. Like a

ballpark, I just wanted to add the the amount of this. I

I would say on that, I don't know if we want to get into this, but the bigger thing is that with the project that's going on there, you mentioned it's entitled and that goes right through their phase three development. So I don't think they're I mean, whatever the number is, I don't think it matters because I don't think they're interested in entertaining that. I

want to shift focus to the economic side of this. I'd like

to have Julian come up.

And I may invite David Nassar is here. David owns the land that this road would potentially go through. But let me start with the question you put to Julian. So, Julian, just introduce yourself and your important role

for the town. Sure. Why not? Thank you, mayor. Julian Jacqueline, town's economic development director.

Thank you.

Alright. One of the other items that this came to be to even consider this was, economics along a new road here. And, you know, what does that mean? It doesn't look like any of that was factored in. If I understood the economic number, it was simply what was already in the airport, and you didn't see putting the road through increasing or decreasing really any effect. Is that right? Correct. Okay. So then I think my first question is to the consultants here. Why wouldn't you see more traffic counts going through that development as generating more revenue? Mhmm.

Yeah. And I think that that is a good question. A lot of times when you have more, volumes and and more traffic by a development, you know, in theory, there there's an economic benefit to it. I think part of the the reality is just where this road roadway is located. So it's you know, that's one key component. Another key component is a lot of the the airport area. You know, we have the development that's adjacent to Alternative B there between Alternative B and and Airport Drive on the screen. It's already entitled. It's already going in. The new roadway doesn't necessarily make that development more enticing to build. It's already, you know, in process from that standpoint.

So so your professional judgment is that a development on a dead end is equally viable as one that has traffic counts that goes through it all the way.

Well, part of the part of the question is also access. With these roadways here and where alternative b is compared to that development, you have quite a bit of difference in elevation.

Yep.

But So a lot of that benefit

comes from improving access to those developments. Yeah. And these alternatives just in their setup don't do a lot for for access to the private property that's located here.

Interesting. Okay. And by the way, I'm only talking about alternative a at this point

Okay.

Because of the signal and everything else that we were talking about before that. Okay. So back to Julian. If this road were to go through, I think one of we've never spoken about this. I don't think we've had any kind of conversations as a council. The traffic that would come up through here Mhmm. Is there a possibility to create another URA and create another economic zone that doesn't exist today, or is that it's really not enough to that we should care about?

Yeah. Sure. I'll come at it from two ways. And, John, would you mind just going back to kind of the the one that shows alt a and b?

It's a

little zoomed out maybe, yeah, that works.

So to come at it the

first way, as far as development potential in this area, of alt a, alt b, or or any of it, I think the two locations that have the most economic potential, that were included in the, benefit cost survey are, in two locations. One being the terminus of Arapahoe Road at County Line, which is the seven owned property, which we've all envisioned for the potential future roadway entrance to the airport. That's been a priority of the advisory board since it started six years ago. When we did the most recent airport strategy document with the advisory board now almost a year and a half ago, we were looking at potential ways to generate more revenue for the airport, and that included not expansion of the airport, but expansion of uses to benefit the airport. This was one of those properties.

So this is what we call the westward expansion option. And that location included retail, flex industrial space, airport related office uses, those that would benefit from airport adjacency, but are privately owned, proudly developed with real tax based dollars benefiting the town. That was studied conceptually to just kinda quantify what the economic benefit might be of development in that location. It's not a actual development plan. There's no proposal.

There's no developer. It's on privately owned land. We just wanted to look at economic potential of what development in that location might look like. The road the proposed North South Connector Street doesn't impact that development, doesn't impact that site. It doesn't really activate or deactivate that potential of that property for development purpose.

It was just conceptual, and I think one of the numbers included in the study was 350,000 square feet of commercial space at that location. It's a number that was used in a impact study, but but not really anything that has real math behind it. And then the other one, I'm getting to your question quickly. The other one is what we've talked about with the NASA project. The number that was used in the study was 322,000 square feet of commercial in their PD, in their planned development.

That doesn't mean it's planned development. That's just part of their zoning. And the 322,000 square feet is the total footprint of both phase one and phase two of their business park. So that's already existing, already constructed first phase of the five buildings that already exist, plus the new five buildings currently under construction. So that's already happening irrespective of the road.

So long way of saying those two development areas and the economic output identified in the the the slides around what that could generate are absent really anything to do with this road. So all that aside, financial wise, if development occurs in this area, neither of these properties, none of this corridor is currently within the boundary of any kind of special financing district. There's no URA here. There is a URA on the airport property itself, and there's an air there's a URA on the, what we call, Sierra Vista property down on Colorado 7 closer to Bonanza. Not generating any money.

No developments occurred there. So it's a URA that's been in place for thirteen years with a zero balance because nothing's happened, so no money exists. That does provide an opportunity to consider a new URA, along this corridor. It doesn't currently exist, so we could go through the steps we've done with Gateway Phase 1 and town Center as of last year to, look at the feasibility of a new URA plan area for some portion of the County Line Road corridor. As development is considered with the Nassar properties included, the 7 N properties included, and so on, development potential there if in a URA could generate significant property tax dollars, sales tax dollars captured by a URA to finance things like this.

To create a URA, there's a lot of steps required by state statute. You have to meet definition of blight in the state statute, negotiate with all the taxing districts, but I I think here there's about nine of them, and basically go and ask each taxing district to agree to share back some part of their revenue that we then capture through the URA to pay for things like this. And then ultimately go through the steps with notifications, public hearings, and approvals. So could we? For sure. But there's a lot of steps that go into it. Yeah. If a URA were here, yes, development could generate revenue that could be used to potentially pay for something like this.

Would the current waste management truck facility, would that be considered blight?

There's 11 criteria in the state statute. Deterioration is one of them. There's also unsanitary, unsafe conditions, defective lot layout, environmental con issues. It requires hired third party consultants that are smarter than us to run those fieldwork condition surveys to determine based off state statute. If the area as a whole meets blighted area, not it doesn't help if any one parcel within the area meets the state definition. The entire area as a whole has to. So they would do their survey and figure out based off the parcels, the conditions, everything they know wouldn't meet, and that's up to them to help us figure out.

Yeah. Just like town center was determined blight.

Mhmm.

And some people would look at that and go, how could you consider that blight? Mhmm. And all the garbage trucks maybe isn't blight. Who knows? Right? But it's would be something that we'd have to go through. Yes. Okay. And then I think I would like to bring up David Nasser, who owns that property, because this could have an economic impact one way or the other. So do you want to come up and just talk? Yeah.

I think Jeff and Zach will join me too. Where do you want us?

So wherever we can fit you is hello, everybody. Quick

question just for Dave. Did I'm just curious. Did, did the traffic study consider when you closed, County Line, the impact on, Coal Creek not opening yet?

That was planned, and it's planned to be constructed in phases. Right. So, yeah, so it did take that into

account. No. I just meant the data. Like, what happened to that traffic? You closed one road, but you didn't open the other yet.

Well, we still have Monroe, which is opened, which has the same amount of lanes as the previous existing Coal County Line Road. Okay.

So so, basically, Coal Creek was opened before County Line was shut. Correct?

Yeah. That's yeah.

That was yeah.

Yeah. Alright.

So that was more curiosity.

Yep. Alright.

So the real question for you is you've got your third phase of your development that's right in this area.

You know, what

does this do to you either way? Right? If we don't put the road through, if we don't move forward, what does that mean? And if we do put the road through, what does that mean to you?

Well, first, Zach's our CEO, so I'm gonna let him start because he works in this kind of data more than I do. So you go first.

I think a few things there. You know, we've been working over the past five or six years to put infrastructure in Airport Drive. And you guys been down there recently. A lot's going on. Airport Drive has essentially been ripped up.

New water sewer infrastructure has gone in. That infrastructure was put in with the idea of serving two parcels, Lot 1, which is under construction now, and what we call Track E 3, which is the piece of property where the alternate a dips in all the way to Highway 7. So the impact of timing is important on us because those infrastructure infrastructure dollars have gone out. And in order of a in order for us to recap that cost, E 3 needs to keep on a schedule. Potentially, that could be worked out with the town where maybe there was a alternative to sharing some of that cost.

From a commercial perspective, I think it's a little different than a residential one where traffic generation is good for us. I think this could be a interesting gateway to the town that doesn't cut down Coal Creek. I think it could be a very appealing way to get into town where it has a mix of commercial uses, and I think we could see a benefit from that. Our biggest concern is timing and delay on projects. So I think that would just take a bigger discussion.

If property was taken out of E 3 for the road construction because we have gone through a pre app, some of that land has been allocated for parking and some other things. But if that could be traded in for other development parcels along that road, we would be open to it. I think there's a lot of moving pieces, and our biggest concern is we're not delayed into, you know, a ten year process where we can't monetize this infrastructure that is being dug up and put in the ground, you know, as we speak.

Yeah. So this is always the the balance. Right? You know, I often look at these decisions as hundred year decisions for the town. Right? Because you missed the opportunity today, and it's gone forever. No different than open space. Right? You missed the opportunity today, you build on it. That's gone forever.

I wanna focus on one thing you said. That's the economic opportunity to you.

So I just wanna make sure

I understood what you said. It sounds like if the road goes through, that is better for your development from an economic perspective. Am I summarizing that? Or is

it Well, I I think a lot of the development that, you see kind of falls under a destination kind of a concept. So, you know, people would come there for a purpose, like if it's a medical facility or a surgical center or something like that. I don't think that's traffic driven, but so it's hard to define the what the impacts are based on the usage. I think that's a big one. I think the gentleman mentioned about access. That's that's incredibly important with trucks and things of that nature. So I think that's a big unknown. What would happen if a road would right by us? How would you turn in? How would trucks operate?

What this is a little bit more, you know, macro. So I put Zach on first because he's he's really good at detail. But little things that add up to big things like and, Dave, this is just a question. But in our development agreement, we talked about the traffic, trigger. And there's it's a little different. And I think there's so much going on that we gotta all communicate, like, tonight, which is great, but the actual trigger is the fifth building. It's not a traffic metric. C dot gets the final vote, but there was actually two phases within lot one.

So I'm gonna pause you for a second to give context. Yes. You know exactly what you're talking about. I know what you're talking about. I don't know that everybody out there that might be listening knows. So this is the second phase that you're building today. That is not the land that this road potentially would go through. But the why it matters is because the fifth building, which is the last building. Correct? Yes. That triggers the signal having to go in. Exactly. Alright. So that that's the context.

Yeah. And and thank you. And and and this is meant with complete respect for staff. I mean, there's a lot going on. There's a lot to read, but that impact is, you know, got a ripple effect, you wanna call it that, whereby you could start phase one, build four buildings, your economic, you know, opportunity of the project as a developer is is x.

But if that trigger doesn't get triggered and the fifth building doesn't get built, you're just in the spot where you're stuck with that fifth building. And, you know, I think most people know that developers generally do best at the end of the project. You have to front run all the money, and that's why the timing is so critical. And so when you put the, the sewer, the water in the street, and you put the underground utilities in, that money is is debt money until you stand the building up. And and it's that time when the money comes back.

So it's a it's a really complex, you know, three-dimensional chess game with how the market works, how banks work, how they underwrite your banking, and any uncertainty, anything that gets in the way of that, and certainly a last building, that all has a really difficult effect on the developer. Developer. The reason I brought up the example of the fifth building wasn't as much literal, although it's valuable, it's communication. I think if we talk about these impacts of the development side, side, bring it into the room like we did tonight, and and I appreciate the invite, I think everybody starts to understand that it is a partnership. And and I think, you know, I've heard this tonight many times about, you know, the developer is doing this or might do that.

We are that developer. We we we live here. Our headquarters is here. We're not building and and leaving. So we just wanna kinda open the dialogue around these all relate to each other. It's not just the road. It's not just the access. It's not the traffic count. It's a big picture, and you gotta kinda think of it that way. And I think when you silo the discussion into, you know, any one subject subject and and no no one one does that intentionally. It's just because it's busy, and we're all thinking, and there's so much to do. But it is complicated. And and so once we pull the trigger on those public improvements and we spent the money without the unlock of that that second phase or track the e three

Which is the land that this road potentially could go through.

Yes. It just completely, has it's like a 99 arm monster. And when you move one arm, the other 98 move a little different. And you gotta kinda anticipate that, and it's complicated. So that uncertainty really, you know, gets us nervous. So my whole point is we're open minded to anything that makes sense. We just have to make sure that it's just not siloed into a road disc discussion. It really has to be looked at holistically. And and if we could bring that thought together, then I think it just opens up lots of actually, it opens up opportunities. What I've learned in business is that most problems become opportunities.

And if you think from that way, which we do, I think we can solve lots of these things together. I agree the North South Road has to happen. I liked your idea when we talked about it initially. I I gave it a nickname. It's going on the record now. We call it more roads.

So

that's the inside joke.

Scratch that from the

record. But

but it's a good idea. And and I think, you know, if we could be part of it and whichever option's chosen, I I think it it'll work great. Just seems to be the low hanging fruit is that the first alt zero or o is ready. And this seems like why not evaluate what happens because, then you get empirical data. You get real traffic. You get real impacts. You get real behavior. And everybody starts to go, oh, well, I didn't expect this, but, wow, this is what's happening. And you get to learn a lot. Seems to me that would be a great first step without closing the door on other steps.

So maybe that's the way we approach it where we keep the optionality there, but we get all o started.

Yeah. And all o is going. I mean, that's

That's going. Yeah. That's how

I did. I don't think anything we've said tonight, I'm just looking around the table. It doesn't stop that from being built out and getting the curve to go so you're not stopping.

And just one last comment, and and I I appreciate the chance to speak. I think if, what what probably should have happened, is that before the public improvement of driving, utilities to our site, we probably all should have made sure those entitlements were done before that happened. But that's not what we did. We we ended up, you know, civilly engineering, the improvement to the site, approved it, built it, and now we're not done with the entitlement. So when this discussion comes up, we're like, oh my god.

What's happening here? We just ran all these utilities to the site that may be impacted. Mhmm. So I feel like we just gotta flip this back the way it started. Let's get this entitlement done. We did make a pre op, like Zach said. We did present, but then, you know, when these concepts come up, maybe I'm wrong, but it feels like the brakes were just slammed on to that process, and that costs us money. So it changes our, our sentiment to the project a little bit. I wanna unwind that and make it positive. So I came tonight just to say a

few words about that. Alright. So what I'm hearing here is that, you're I'm sorry. What is the the nomenclature you're using for the third parcel? Alt e something? We we we call

it Track E 3, which is what it's currently Track E 3. Yeah.

So and there's just a pre app on that. I'm looking at Sarah over here. So you guys haven't actually filed an app on it at this point. Is that correct?

We we would have, but, you know, the process, you know, got maybe called in the question is the way to say it.

So So it seems to me let me try to throw something out, and we'll see if we have general support. If we don't, we don't. We'll try something else. It seems to me that this road connection is not gonna go through unless we get that point four five ratio up to one ish. And so there's been some ideas thrown out, right, on, well, what numbers did you use to actually create that point four five?

They seem extraordinarily high. So I certainly wanna see that data before we just scrap this to to make sure it's it's it's real in the context of this. But I think we also move forward with the app on this property, understanding that there may be a road there or there may not, and then we can look to Sarah and team to help us understand what the the trade offs are there. Right? Could you possibly develop that third track so you can recoup your sunk costs, but the road could still go through in the future at some point?

Or is that ridiculous because of other costs and it doesn't work? I don't know. But that's the kind of stuff that I'd want staff to weigh in on. And then if if the alternatives to try to make this go just sort of simply the numbers will never work, then I think we also have to ask the question that came out clearly in the survey, and that was the traffic growth and infrastructure of the top concerns of our residents, and they're repeatedly identified as traffic congestion, road conditions, and overdevelopment as urgent challenges. So I don't wanna just ignore what came out of the survey and not do anything.

Right? And so that's why I don't wanna quite give this up yet until we've explored all options to see if it's economically feasible. And

add one I thing. Sorry.

I might

add one thing just to keep in mind long term planning is

Yeah.

Even if tomorrow you decided you wanna build this

Yeah.

You gotta fit it in the CIF.

Well, and there's

So there's how much what are you gonna not do? What I mean, there's Totally. Triple effects. So it's just the budgetary. I mean, so mister Nasser is going on delay.

So we can build a town for 90,000 people and ignore the traffic concerns, the small town feeling because it's hard. No. I'm sorry. That's weird. We have to do prioritization. You're gonna

trade have

off what you want.

The easy thing to do at this very moment is just to say, alright. Forget it. We're not

gonna do it. We're gonna live with the traffic.