There you go.

Is that how I know I'm going to use it?

Call to order the Latvia Planning Commission meeting of October twenty second, twenty twenty-five.

Can we have the roll call, please?

Yes.

Chair Thomas.

Vice Chair Phillips.

Here.

Commissioner Here G.

Commissioner Matler.

Present.

Commissioner Ortiz?

Commissioner Watson.

Commissioner Wilson.

So we'll start with the public input.

Are there any members of the public wish to speak regarding items that are not scheduled for a public hearing this evening?

Please fill out a speaker request form and come to the podium and state your name and address for the record.

For members in the audience, please refrain from responding or reacting to the comments made during public input.

Move on to the next item, approval of minutes from September twenty-fourth, two thousand twenty-five.

That's it.

Okay.

I move to approve the minutes.

Second.

Motion and a second.

All those in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

All those opposed.

Motion passes.

Okay, uh, first item on our agenda is the public hearing resolution number PC 2025, a sketch plan application allowing a mixed use development at the southeast corner of West Baseline Road and North Carr Avenue to move.

Preliminary plan review stage.

504-610 West Baseline Road.

Noticed in the Daily Camera on October 10th, 2025.

So the next item on the agenda is a public hearing.

Um everything I already just said, the planning commission will be deciding whether the application should be approved, approved with conditions denied or referred back to the applicant for further study.

The commission will consider the record, which includes city planning staff's report, presentations by the applicant and the city planning staff, and any public comment received during the hearing.

Commission will evaluate this proposal based solely upon the record and the applicable criteria established under the municipal code, which are highlighted in the staff report.

It is important that each commission member remain objective and capable of considering information offered into the record.

Does any commission member believe that he or she is incapable of evaluating and voting on this application consistent with due process requirements?

Okay.

Um does any commission member have a conflict of interest or any other matter he or she would like to disclose prior to proceeding on this item.

Seeing none, the commission will now hear from city planning staff.

Amelia, take us away.

Thank you very much, commissioners.

All right, so we're gonna stamp follow the standard order of presentation.

I'm gonna give a brief introduction on the project.

Applicant will give their presentation, go into staff analysis, and then take public comment, questions of applicant and staff, and then your discussion and motion.

So this project is up on baseline road just east of highway 287.

It is zoned B1 and it is in Laura and the DDA as sort of described in your staff report.

The proposal is for a mix of residential and commercial structures and uses.

Quick look at the existing conditions.

So the bottom left shows the view from the west of the unpaved alley.

The alley would be required to be paved as part of this project.

Um there's some paved paved area that's sort of about midway down the block that it would basically all go all the way to.

So past this to the next location where the alley is already improved.

And then uh that larger picture is a view from the northwest corner of the vacant lot, and then there is also it's sort of hard to see here, but way in sort of the center, um, far center of the photo, are the commercial buildings that are proposed to be demolished as part of this, um, and then you know, redeveloped.

So the applicant is going to go into a lot more detail in their part of the presentation, but I just want to orient us a little bit.

So this is the site plan for the whole site.

It's just under two acres.

There's a commercial building that is proposed for the corner of car and baseline up there in the top left.

And then as you can see, the parking for the commercial is in a parking lot behind the building.

There are two current points of access in this sketch plan, one coming off of car, the bottom left, and then one coming off of baseline.

I will say this a couple times, so please forgive me, but just note there hasn't been a traffic study yet, so those access points may change.

Um, but really here we're seeing you know what what the proposal is at this early stage that it could potentially be, and being able also to see that there is adequate spacing and circulation for things like fire trucks.

So then moving east, we have all of the concentration of the residences.

So 24 units clustered into four different buildings.

The two buildings on that south side that abut the alley, they take vehicular access from the alley.

The ones uh the two on the north take vehicular access from that private drive.

Also difficult slash impossible to tell from the site plan, but as you read, each one of these units has a two-car garage.

So that's how the residents parking is being met.

There's also surface parking for guests and for uh the commercial building to the uh west.

Um, what else?

I think those are the big pieces to note here.

And uh I also just want to clarify something.

We don't have architectural elevations yet.

Um, but the standard zoning, unless they're asking for any modifications, they would come under B1.

And so, for instance, the height maximum for B1 is 35 feet.

They're not currently, nor do I have any reason to think that they are asking for anything higher than 35.

It says three stories, we can talk about that later.

Um, but regardless, that 35 feet would be the maximum.

And before I turn it over to the applicant, I just want to kind of situate us a little bit here.

Um, if you will indulge me a little bit.

This is my first time bringing a sketch plan before you all, so this is for everybody's benefit.

So trying to put the sketch plan to work a little bit and really be clear about what this is an opportunity to do.

So, what we have here are some sketches or some concepts, some concepts of plans, if you all forgive the reference, um, but to a site plan to the uses that are proposed, to density, and then we also have some initial review from engineering, planning staff, BBSD, again, high level, but these are really meant to give us an idea of the big pieces here.

What we do not have at this stage are a traffic study, architectural elevations, really any details on water dedication or detailed utility plan, anything like that.

Why would a code do such a thing as to give us a public hearing where we don't have all the information?

The idea here really is to try to put the horse before the cart to try to have a conversation about the big ticket items that would affect the site plan and that would affect the surrounding properties before staff in the commission spend a lot of time working at detailed reports and before the applicant spends all the money to put in those those detailed reports as well.

I sort of belabored this in the staff report, so I won't go into more detail, but just a reminder that we do have code language that makes it very clear that if something doesn't come up tonight, it can still come up in the future.

And that approval, if that's where the direction that you all go, approval of a sketch plan does not require approval of a preliminary plan.

So as you write in your staff report, uh we organized it basically by I think there were five or six key topics and form them in the put them in the form of questions.

Give you a little background on how we identified those key topics that we thought would be most helpful to discuss.

So, first we started with a list of requested modifications from the underlying zoning that the applicant identified.

We also referenced the PUD criteria, um, as you saw in your staff report and then the analysis attachment.

Reason being that it was PUD specifically, again, that big site plan conversation, that big um site plan view, but then also because the sketch plan is triggered by the PUD specifically.

So per the code, looking at the PUD criteria at this stage is appropriate.

We also actually have, even though this is early in the process, um, you know, because there's multiple iterations after this.

We've actually had multiple staff reviews and submittals and community input, just took that into account.

As staff, we also tried to look for things that would have big site plan impacts.

So big conversations such as the mix of use, such as the parking in particular, that conversation has real impact on the site plan.

So trying to identify that tonight as well.

And then finally, our code has a very long list of submittal requirements, and they have and they say very explicitly what needs to be submitted at sketch plan and that what needs to be submitted at preliminary plan.

So we took that into account.

We can ask for certain things at sketch, and we can ask for certain things at preliminary.

So that's a lot of why you see the what we have and what we don't as well.

I'm not gonna read all of the modifications, but they are here for your reference in case we need it in the future.

But you all saw those in your staff report.

So going through all of what I just described, what we landed at here, what we'd love to hear some feedback.

Of course, you're welcome to give general comments on not on these topics as well, absolutely.

But things that we identified as being really helpful to discuss at this stage were the use, the density, the setback reduction.

There are multiple requests for that.

We can talk about any of them that you'd like, but we identified that the ones along baseline might be of particular importance to discuss tonight.

Also the parking uh requests, whether there's adequate spacing for the shared amenities, and then again general comments that you might have.

So, with that, I'm gonna turn it back over or to the applicant, and then I'll be back later, as I'm sure you're all excited to see.

Thanks, Amelia.

Appreciate it.

Uh Hamira Cartrump for Trump Associates.

Uh, we're the architect and planner for the project, and uh uh representatives of the ownership group are here as well.

If you have any questions for that specifically, so um let's see, just click ahead.

Yeah, there you go.

Uh this is just sort of a view uh from baseline of the uh of the project, and uh just sort of as an overview.

This represents the eastern half of the site, which is the residential portion.

And uh currently it doesn't look like that, it looks like this.

I think you've all driven past it probably numerous times, and uh you know it at one point there were a couple of gas stations there, those were remediated, and one of the uh buildings has been torn down.

There's a little bit more remediation still to be done, but that site is basically uh cleaned up and ready for redevelopment at quite a substantial cost, I might add.

Um if you're uh on the uh west side of the site, looking towards the east, uh baselines on your left there.

Uh there are a couple of buildings left.

The uh building closest to us uh houses a liquor store.

The owner of the property owns that business as well and would be moving into the new building.

Part of the impetus of doing that uh retail building would be to move his business.

And um we're planning on developing the site from the west towards the east, so those businesses can remain in operation while the retail building is being built, and then we could uh move the retail component into the new building and then demolish the buildings that are on the east side of the site.

Um you can see the alley uh which is unimproved at this point.

Uh the other thing about this property is for whatever reason it has multiple very long uh uh curb cuts along baseline, which obviously it's state highway, really not allowed.

So we're gonna clean that up and just put one right in, right out uh access off of baseline, which uh we believe CDOT uh will be in favor of.

Um further to the east, there has been some redevelopment as you're all probably aware.

Some of you may have actually reviewed these.

Um the uh property closest to us is the daycare center, and further down the street there, you can see the uh 404 baseline project, which is another mixed-use uh fairly new project.

Uh 200 baseline is at the corner of uh Cornelius.

Does that get that right?

Oh SAO and baseline, and um has a small commercial building, and then uh townhomes that have the live work component as well as pure uh residential uh type uh townhomes against the alley there, and you can see the uh alley entrances.

Also to note here is that uh these buildings do step down to two-story along the alley, and uh the three-story is is centered uh more interior of the site.

Uh we talk a little bit about density and setback.

Um if you look at this particular site and you really only consider the area that is dedicated to the residential, you'd come up with about a 24 and a half DU per acre uh density on this one.

Just give you a kind of a feel for what these densities mean in real life if you've seen these projects.

Um if you consider the uh commercial building in this uh calculation get to about 21.4D's per acre.

Um this follows some of the principles that the city was uh pursuing in terms of moving the buildings to the street with uh street uh presence for retail, and so at this particular area along baseline, we we basically have uh about a foot or less um of setback from the uh public sidewalk, basically the sidewalks poured up to the building, but uh that's to engage the um the storefronts into the the sidewalk uh pedestrian experience and um as you get down further down the street to the um Liveworth, there's about a three and a half um foot setback, which gives a little more relief along here.

Uh the the distance between the curb and the building is pretty tight in this area.

Uh as you go further to the west, uh everything kind of opens up a little bit.

Uh there's a little more room for the right-of-way and the sidewalk and so forth.

But uh starting at about the daycare center, the city was imposing a uh streetscape standard, which included this um tree grate and no tree lawn or landscaping against the street.

Uh instead, there's a uh decorative brick band uh between the sidewalk and the actual street to give the pedestrians a little bit of offset.

Uh if you've ever walked along baseline in the areas that don't have any uh buffer there, uh it's just a curb in the sidewalk, and and it's pretty tough to drive by that traffic as it goes by.

So this with the limited space available gave a little bit of setback for the pedestrians.

So as you move on up, you can see that same treatment happens here in front of the daycare center, and as well as the 404 mixed use project.

Again, this density is a little bit lower.

It's 15.6 DU's per acre.

If you're only considering the residential component, if you add in the commercial, then it goes to about 13.5 DUs per acre.

So what we're proposing is kind of between those two, between the 200 and this one in terms of density overall density count.

So this is our proposed development plan.

You can see the commercial building about 8,000 square feet, addressing the corner at baseline and car.

And then the again is the east half of the site is dedicated towards the residential.

It creates more of a neighborhood that transitions to the residential to the south, as well as the mixed use and the residential that is further to the east into Old Town.

And obviously the parking is in the back.

Again, that's one of the standards that the city is trying to promote is you know, bring the buildings to the street, and then let's put the parking screen from the main thoroughfares behind those buildings.

Hopefully, there'll be a cafe or something that could utilize this space.

So we don't really know who's going to go in there other than Tenzin' Liquor Store.

But we're hoping that this would be a really marketable site for that kind of a use with a little cafe, coffee shop, restaurant, something like that.

So on our site plan, again, the sort of main ideas here that drove the site plan were to bring the commercial up to baseline, and that includes the live work units, which are these four units here and these four units here, which similar to the 200 baseline would have actual storefront kind of architecture that is set back, probably three or four feet from the sidewalk edge, so that we can have that engagement with some kind of a uh probably like a home business, uh small retail, it could be uh chiropractor, lawyer, uh any any use that fits in that small space.

Um they'd be designed uh as commercial uh standards, uh, so they have ADA access and also are separated with a one-hour enclosure from the rest of the residential unit.

Again, the internal drive would be uh more like a residential street on the south.

We have uh small uh front yard areas for these units, front porches, uh, and some parallel parking along this side.

Doesn't really show up very well.

Um and then alley loaded so that the garages are in the back.

Here, the uh these are more garage front if you're in that drive because the garages will be facing that internal drive.

What we've tried to do with the uh streetscape is to bring it internal so our um uh patterned concrete uh walkways would go through this area and create uh again sort of that buffer between the drive lanes and the and the actual buildings there.

We have a couple of small open space areas that are uh for the residents, they're not you know they're not public parks, they're really just uh little space, uh, some picnic tables.

Uh this has a little shelter at the south edge there, and um this one's probably gonna be the dog walk area, I guess.

It's pretty small.

There's not uh a lot of space for activity there, but definitely the landscaping helps to break up uh the building facades along basin as well.

Our stormwater detention would be along this area here, as well as uh some of the detention ends up in here and then goes down the alley.

We've actually put in a quite a bit of thought into the utilities, the uh grading and drainage to test this uh site plan uh with engineering.

These are intended to be fee simple townhomes for sale.

And so to that end, we've got to make sure that we can get the utilities in and out of there.

The public works is going to be fine with the easements that we're proposing.

So we have done a lot of work with the city to create this site plan, probably more than you would see at a sketch plan.

This is more preliminary plan kind of level of detail in terms of the site plan.

The landscape plan is well developed as well to make sure that we can meet all of the requirements when we do go in for our preliminary PUD and architectural review.

So again, on the commercial zone, we're really we have a wider sidewalk on the south where some outdoor areas for these retailers would be nice to have along this edge in the sun, and then again on the west side.

You can see that the tree lawn is pretty generous to give that buffer to baseline, and as well as an eight foot path sidewalk.

Not sure that Lafayette has really embraced the multimodal path like Boulder has.

We did it traffic counts on site for the existing traffic.

And they studied the intersections for level of service to know what impacts this development would have, and generally what the background traffic is for this area.

And so the bottom line punchline, I guess, is that the conclusion of the study was that this development, specifically at baseline and car, these two streets that are impacted, would not require any modifications in terms of additional lanes or enhanced signaling that the current traffic roadways and this traffic signal here would not be impacted enough by this development to require any changes.

And in fact, they if we look at this intersection, we're talking about a level of service of C through 2043.

There's a lot of intersections, probably in this town that uh fall below that C level.

C is uh deemed as being uh adequate by the Transportation Engineering Society.

signal here would not be impacted enough by this development to require any changes and in fact they if we look at this intersection um we're talking about a level of service of C through 2043 there's a lot of intersections probably in this town that uh fall below that C level C is uh deemed as being uh adequate by the Transportation Engineering Society so um I think that uh what we're seeing is just with the anticipated background traffic um and the increase in traffic that uh is anticipated over the next 20 years that this intersection will still uh function at a C level and um Vermont uh is at a B or a C over the next 20 years typically you look at the intersections because that's what fails first generally uh you know two or three or four lane road can handle uh a lot of traffic over the years but it's the intersections that will start to fail first and so you always want to look at those to see if you're gonna have any problems.

Baseline car this intersection handles about uh 18,000 trips a day at the peak times this development would generate about 16 to 19 uh trips in the morning peak hours and it would generate 35 to 37 uh trips during the uh peak afternoon hours so when you look at you know kind of the the impact of this particular development based on the background traffic you can see that it's pretty insignificant as traffic engineers see it so we wanted to at least understand it for ourselves have them look at our right in right out uh off of baseline so that we can present that to CDOT and uh we basically got thumbs up from the traffic engineers that we're proposing makes sense as far as they're concerned and that they didn't see any issues uh with this right in right out is a benefit uh as people can come and and go this way if everybody turns uh like let's say we got rid of that and everybody comes in on car and then you know let's say you've got to make a left turn into here and everybody who uses this has to do that then you could start to uh back up in that intersection so this is really seen as a benefit uh to help manage traffic in and out of the site so we think that this component will probably be part of the final design as well uh the fire department uh really needs this access out to the alley as well as the other accesses that we have for them so architecturally um you know as we've uh worked in the city over the years uh we've come to sort of understand and respect at least uh the historically what the city has been trying to do with baseline and public road and other areas of the city and um these mixed use developments um satisfy a lot of the goals uh that are in your comp plan and uh that the city planning department has been uh espousing for years even though the zoning uh there's variances you have to get to get a mixed use project uh of any kind of density um and so the planners over the years uh at city hall have always encouraged us to uh look at these kind of projects and um I think that uh certain things are getting codified in the next updates and within your comp plan that that are going to make um certain types of developments mixed use developments uh make more sense because really your land use code is um a little outdated in a lot of areas and so uh we we make up for that in the PUD process where we can ask for uh things that aren't specifically a by right in your code and that's what we're doing in in this uh development um let's see anything else uh we've talked about the you know the buffer which I think makes a lot of sense you can see that it's talking about the two story step down at the ends uh as it goes towards the east towards the residential um and then just to give relief within the site we've included these two story elements the the townhomes that are uh internal to the site are are all three story along there so um but they're pretty well shielded from from outside the site uh so when we look at this we we really try to uh see if if we're hitting the mark uh everything we've been told in your code and by your planners and we have uh at least two maybe three rounds of comments and and revisions and uh we think we're really honing in on what we should be doing here and uh so uh we we've we're meeting at least 10 of the policy goals in your comprehensive plan as it stands today um the urban renewal goals and the vision plan we've compared this against that as well and a lot of what we're doing meets those goals uh I think in our uh initial uh submittal we tried to enumerate all of those so that you could see how we were trying to meet the all of the goals um I think as far as LUR is concerned I don't know it's not even LUR anymore but the urban renewal area um is uh you know trying to reduce the blight in the area there and there has been blight in a lot of areas in off

Uh I think in our uh initial uh submittal, we tried to enumerate all of those so that you could see how we're trying to meet the all of the goals.

Um I think as far as LURE is concerned, I don't know, it's not even LUR anymore, but the urban renewal area is uh you know, trying to reduce the blight in the area.

And there has been blight in a lot of areas in Lafayette, all towns have it.

And it's a matter of how do you address it.

And I think when we look around, I do a lot of work in Lewisville as well, and um, you know Lafayette has done an exceptional job, and I have always complimented staff and you guys the things that the urban renewal has been able to accomplish, um, has really raised up Lafayette uh from where it was um you know a couple decades ago.

And so it really shows that it was a tool, you know, the urban renewal is a tool, and it was used really well, and you guys are reaping the rewards of that.

So it's unfortunate that it's sunseted, but we got a lot out of it.

So uh we really like what's happening in Lafayette, and I think that you know, we're trying to help with what we can do uh on projects like this.

Uh again, we did listen to the uh neighbors at the meetings, and uh major concern was traffic.

Um that was really uh if if any theme came out of the neighborhood meeting, it was about traffic on baseline specifically.

And so we can't do anything about the background traffic.

Uh, we're trying to make sure that you know whatever we do is smart from a traffic standpoint.

Um then obviously you're gonna be reviewing some things that we're proposing as modifications and variances.

Um, and those are pretty necessary to make a development like this work.

Uh we have a given dimensions that we have to work with, and so to shoehorn everything in the way that the site can accommodate it.

Uh, we'll need certain variances.

Um I think that at the end, if you think about the underlying zoning as just being straight commercial, and you think of a new big commercial building with parking on that site, um filling that site with commercial, um it would really have an impact on the neighborhood that I think uh would be uh negative uh compared to sort of uh expanding the neighborhood with more residential use on this site.

So uh we're big fan of mixed use, especially on sites like this, and um we're anxious to hear what you guys think of it.

So thanks.

Thank you.

Okay, so going back to those key topics.

This is an overview of the different references that staff was using.

The commission is welcome to use for each one of these conversations.

So the first one talking about the proposed mix of uses in the underlying zoning of B1, the mix of uses with multifamily and commercial together in a development is allowed.

Under Lura, it's a special use review.

So, in order to evaluate special use review and the uses in general, we can look at a couple things.

One is this resolution 2012 20, and that has can't remember off the top of my head what it's what it's called, but it basically dictates uh percentages for um residential and commercial within mixed use developments, which is what we're looking at.

There is language there that says that there shouldn't be more than 75% residential in a project that has underlying commercial zoning as a B1.

Um, there are exceptions, you can go up to 95%, but there are additional criteria that get triggered.

So the way that this is currently um being calculated is that they would be under the 75%.

I think it's like 72%, whatever the number was in your staff report.

The one caveat to that is that does count the live work commercial spaces, so the ground floor commercial 100% toward the commercial of square footage.

That's a question that staff has given to the applicant to discuss with the applicant for the next submittal to sort of be able to tease out a little bit more like what does that really look like?

Um are these really feasible to be 100% commercial all the time?

Does that make sense, right?

So next time let's say that this passes, we get to the preliminary plan stage.

It's either going to be below 75% if that number, staff appeals that that number makes sense, but it might also you might see something come back that where the commercial live work portion is let's say 50% occupied at commercial, that's what they've seen in other projects.

Then we might say, okay, it's actually calculated closer to 80%.

Then those criteria would be triggered.

But with the information we have right now, it's below that percentage.

I'm just sort of baylighting that a little bit for you all.

The other thing that we looked at was the comprehensive plan, and the land use for this area is neighborhood mixed use.

So that's exactly what it sounds like.

It's a mixed uses, right?

Which this is, and particularly ones that uh relate to the immediate area, um, the residential uses, so smaller scale commercial, and we can go a little bit more into detail about the design of those types of developments.

The next thing we looked at is the level of density.

And I want to try to clarify something that the applicant brought up a little bit, just because the numbers can you can kind of slice them into different ways.

So the level of density that the applicant is requesting in their application, the way that they got to 20.4DUs per acre is by taking only the acreage that is dedicated to residential.

So earlier, when I said that they have basically let's just round it up and say two acres, the way that they're calculating it is one acre is 24 for units, or it's a little over, right, to make that math work.

Now, there is an argument, I think, to be made that you could also calculate it as though the entire site were the acreage.

And so then you would have 24 units spread across almost two acres.

The argument for that is that this is being evaluated and coming to us as a mixed use development.

The applicant could spread the 24 units all the way across the two acres that they're trying to develop and integrate the commercial, but they haven't done that.

They've proposed something that matches a lot of the neighborhood mixed use design principles where the commercial is more concentrated at the corner and the residences are more concentrated on the other side.

So you could absolutely reasonable make the argument that it's 20 DUs per acre.

You could also get it to a little bit closer to 13 if you were to take those units and spread them across the two.

Both of those are above the maximum 10 acres that is allowed per B1.

But I just wanted to sort of spell that out a little bit more in detail for you.

So looking at this level of density that is a request above the zoning, we looked at the comprehensive plan, which very clearly limits uh the development to three stories.

And I mentioned this before, the max 35 is in place, uh, regardless, right?

They're not asking for modification there.

Um, but we haven't seen the design for this yet, right?

As I mentioned before, we don't have architectural elevations.

So we can't really judge, at least Steph doesn't feel we can judge at this point whether the three stories provides adequate transition and massing from the center of the site out to the comparably somewhat lower density residential around the site, specifically to the east and to the south.

But certainly there's nothing that staff sees at this point that would say they can't achieve that, right?

It's sort of still to be determined with more information.

So those are some pieces you can look at for density.

In terms of the setback reduction, specifically along baseline.

So the comprehensive plan, we can look to the old town mixed use design guidelines and then also the neighborhood mixed use design guidelines.

I will show you some screenshots from the comp plan a little bit later.

They are very text heavy, but they'll give you a little bit more of a sense.

But as was described in the set plan uh in the staff report, there are several different locations where it's mentioned street activation, reducing setbacks, bringing these buildings up, especially when they have commercial components.

It's pretty straightforward that the commercial building is a commercial component, right?

And then the applicant's argument why to bring the northern two buildings up closer to baseline is because of that live work first um story or first floor being built as commercial.

We're asking for your feedback on this in particular.

It does seem like there are references in the comp plan that would suggest that this is appropriate, but again, it's a pretty big conversation point for the night.

Also note that Laura basically echoes everything I just said about street activation and uh walkable neighborhoods and all that stuff.

So I won't repeat it.

Okay.

Parking and parking reduction.

This is quite detailed in the staff report.

I'm happy to answer questions about it if you'd like, but I'm just gonna give the big overview, which is that parking reductions are allowed via PUDs.

And so what we've done when the applicant mentioned before, they're asking for three, so basically one fewer guest space that's been then is required and two fewer commercial spaces.

Looking at the mix of uses.

So, as part of this development, they are proposing to have a shared parking agreement to cover the fact that they have under three, right?

Or three fewer than is required.

Um, the mix of uses specifically between commercial and guest spaces at this stage at least, staff feels that's arguable that you could have guest spaces at night and commercial during the day, and that there might be an adequate shared shared use across those different demands, which is something specifically called out in the code that you can use when you are evaluating a parking reduction request.

Now, as though that weren't fun enough to talk about of one more thing on parking, which is the live work.

So, going back to what I was talking about before, this is an open question for staff.

How is this live work going to be used?

How is it used in other places?

So we've asked the applicant at their next submittal to give us a bit more information about that so that we can evaluate how to park that.

There are really not very many instances where live work has been codified, so not a really great data set for us to work with.

So we're asking the applicant to bring back more information to say, okay, can you be really using the guest space ratio and using that as a live work, right?

Does it work with a shared parking agreement?

These kinds of questions.

However, hopefully there's still enough for you all to discuss, you know, your your thoughts on the parking overall, since again, it's an important uh important thing to talk about right now for a site plan.

Okay, so many words, but we have one more to go through, and that is uh the spacing for the street oriented and shared amenities.

So this is something that staff pulled out specifically because the comprehensive plan really emphasizes this for neighborhood mixed use, which is making sure there's street orientation, but also adequate shared uh amenity spaces.

So, really, I mean, you could argue that it's about the green space, there's certainly language there, but also about the space that's around the commercial building in particular, because it specifically talks about publicly accessible street activation.

So it's not only internal to the site, it's also how the site shows up for the neighbors.

Staff has done sort of a preliminary review of the spacing that it looks like is being proposed.

The applicant went into much greater detail about the spacing.

It seems like it is wide enough to provide you know adequate passing and maybe some extra like cafe tables and that kind of thing, but that's something we'd really like to hear from you as well as you look at this site plan.

And then finally, of course, any other topics that you have questions about or that you'd like for the applicant at this stage to pay special attention to as they move forward.

So that was sort of a big long list of all of the different tools that are available to review at this stage.

I'm gonna do a slightly deeper dive into the comprehensive plan specifically, because I do think there are some helpful things that are kind of big picture at this stage.

So, first of all, this is from the neighborhood mixed use section of the comprehensive plan.

It was in your staff report, and it certainly is a larger scale, right, than what we're actually talking about.

We're really only talking about basically almost the equivalent of that bottom corner with the purple and the blue.

But you can see that it emphasizes shared parking, parking in the rear of the building, not out in front, um, having that mix of uses close together with the row homes shown in blue, and then the commercial mixed use in the purple.

And then also, you know, theoretically right, this takes access from local arterial and importantly, also is respectful but is also integrated with nearby single family and lower density housing.

So this is kind of pretty specifically what the neighborhood mixed use vision in the comprehensive plan looks like.

Not gonna read all this text, I promise, but just to kind of give you a little bit of a sense of the language that I've been referencing all night.

It's here in the community-wide urban design principles in the comp plan.

So you'll pull out things such as non-residential buildings should be oriented towards the streets, parking areas should be located away from the streets.

There are some things we still need more information, such as transitions from this site to other sites, how they take other uses into account, don't have full information on that.

Also talking about integrating the mix of uses between arterials and surrounding single family and lower density housing.

So this is kind of these are the places where all the language that I've been referencing is coming from.

Also, old town mixed use.

This area is included in these design principles as well.

There are a lot of open questions here because we haven't seen architectural elevations, but just to give you kind of a preview, this talks specifically about building heights, should transition to the prevailing height of surrounding residential land uses, so something we have to see whether they transition.

Um, talking about integration of residential and office uses on upper floors above active uses on the ground floor.

So that is kind of like the live work model that they're proposing.

Um, and then also, of course, our fate our favorite architecture and design that celebrates the eclectic, diverse, organic, and funky nature.

I just really wanted to say funky in a public hearing.

I've never done that.

Um, so those are the kinds of things that you know we're gonna be drawing from as we move forward with the review.

So I think I just got two more slides here.

Um, this one is just to summarize that we've had a certain amount of public comment, neighborhood meeting, and the online forum.

There was a summary of the written uh materials from those um from those avenues in your staff report.

I'd say I wasn't present at any of that, I wasn't even a planner here.

Um, but I uh just from reading those, it was I would say a mix, probably about even about positive and negative, and as the applicants mentioned, a lot of questions about traffic, specifically about speed, specifically about the amount of traffic on baseline.

You all also received two public comments for this hearing specifically.

They noted traffic and then um both of them did, and then also concerns about neighborhood character um and emergency services.

And uh yeah, so the final piece here is, and I just want to make sure there was nothing else I wanted to comment on.

Okay, so the final piece here is staff is recommending approval of the sketch plan, which would allow it to continue the process to the preliminary plan stage.

The next steps are that the applicant they choose to move forward would submit a preliminary plan.

There would be internal and external referral again, but this time with more information, then it would come back to you in the form of the preliminary plan that makes it past that stage, it goes to council for the final plan.

And I just want to say as well, before I wrap up that the traffic study that the applicant uh was discussing, it's not something that's been reviewed by staff, or at the very least, it has not been reviewed by present staff.

As you all know, this is my only second hearing.

I think it's barely my third month here in Lafayette.

This predates me by about two or three years.

So I'm not 100% sure what happened in 2023 or even 2024, but I do know the most recent round of review, traffic study was not a part, and so they will have to have a complete traffic study, whether they've completed it or not, they're gonna have to resubmit it to us.

It's gonna have to go out to CDOT, go to our traffic engineer.

So all of that has to still be really looked at.

Um so I just wanted to make that point very clear as well.

These are the questions that when your packet they're up here for ease of reference if you so choose during the discussion.

And the way that we are going to communicate with the applicant, we have our second submittable comments from all of the different referral agencies, internal and external, though we'll be giving them later this week.

Also going to do our best to summarize your conversation tonight, the key points, but of course they're also present.

It's also the meeting minutes.

So there's a lot of different sort of belt and suspenders approaches to try to make sure that what you all hear talk about that is communicated adequately and and also written down somewhere so we can all reference it moving forward.

So with that, I think it's uh public comment.

Um just a point of order.

Um, I'm noticing that the next item is commission members having questions for staff, and in the past, Juvolva's done that after public hearing.

I just want to make sure that that is the correct order.

I think I would rather have the planning director answer that.

We've um gone back and forth on the order a few times.

Okay.

We so apparently this presentation doesn't get caught up with the way I structured it for your uh script today.

Um, but city council does it where the public hearing comes after questions.

If you guys want to follow city council's direction, uh we would flip it.

But if you want to hear from the public first, it really goes either way.

Okay, it's more strict at council, and so we have a harder time with uh consistency, but I would like to get it to the point where we're doing the same thing at planning commission meetings as we're doing at City Council.

So I'd recommend uh questions and then the public hearing if you're comfortable with that.

But if you'd rather stick with what you've been doing, uh I should have daylighted.

We can still ask the questions after the public hearing.

Yeah, it's what can we still ask questions of staff after the case?

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Okay.

Let's go ahead and have um questions from commission members for staff, then um, and then we'll move on to public hearing anybody like to start.

All right.

Um couple quick things.

Um, so this is different in the sense that um this is in fill versus project on fair piece of land.

So some of the things um I guess are implied, but I just want to make sure that they are covered.

So uh in terms of uh water and electricity now.

Um because this is in Phill and what was there before may have not had the same water requirements or what was there initially when water requirements were established.

Um, how are you gonna address ensuring that the water necessity is covered in terms of whether it's rights or cash and move for this project?

Yeah, absolutely.

So the I've I've just learned about this in the last couple days exactly how we do it.

So I'll invite anybody to jump in and correct me, but because it's been previously developed, it already has established water rights.

The piece that will be evaluated as part of this process is this part of this redevelopment, is the difference between the existing demand of water and what this would require.

So that difference is what they would be required to basically pay in for.

Um the details of exactly how that works, I don't know.

We have somebody who literally does water on staff all the time.

So she would process those dedication fees and look at their existing and look at their proposed, and that's how they would have adequate water service and bring it into the city, so to speak.

Okay, so uh as far as electricity goes, um Excel seems to be operating at kind of peak capacity most of the time.

So in terms of uh expansion of the electricity necessary for this project, I'm assuming there's no issues with that, or it's too early to talk about that.

I don't know about Excel's general peak, but it would be applicant yes, and also there are there always a referral agency on all of these.

So if they do have any issues, they would be able to discuss it at that time, or um, so talking not getting into traffic specifically but more generally.

Um so the ride in ride out on the baseline is fine, but people traveling the opposite direction tend to ignore the double yellow orange line on baseline and will make a turn into something that's on the other side of the street if that's what they wish to do.

Is there any concern about how that might be worked addressed?

Is that what you said?

Torque chops or yeah, we we don't know, and also just again to the all the the right in the right out, the access and and what would be required for that is all future to date, but yeah.

And the other piece of that, of course, is the in light intersection of car and baseline.

So looking at your peak times, that also includes the traffic from the school, both parents and buses that tend to come out that way, and that gets really really backed up because the light at that intersection is really really long on the baseline side and very short on the car side.

So is that something you staff going to look into addressing as part of this, or how's that gonna work?

Right, yeah.

So I think at the at this stage, what we've what our traffic engineer has has very clearly stated is that any type of additional impact that would impact signalization or impact a school is something that they would have to figure out a way to mitigate.

So all of I know all of these conversations, the proximity of the school, the length of the signal, the stacking is all something that's been yet daily to the applicant that these things are gonna have to be addressed.

I don't know how they're going to be addressed at this stage, and so I don't know if there's additional things that you want to add to that, but all of those are comments that have already come up as this is gonna need to be addressed, and then also additionally, I know this has already been stated, but CDOT's gonna get in there and talk about it baseline and what they're gonna be requiring as well, in addition to the city's requirements.

Okay, so my other questions are I think for more at the app for the applicant, so I will wait until that time.

Um along the lines of of CDOT and baseline, what conversations have you have staff had with them so far about this project?

What you know, reading the tea leaves are they gonna take out the middle turn lane and like what is the reconfiguration?

What might it look like going forward?

I'm not personally aware of anything.

They were on there, they have been, they're aware of the project because we referred out the sketch plan, but without the full traffic study, and their response was we need the traffic study, right?

Of course.

So I think everybody is aware that this will have to go through that process.

And I know there's been, like I said, several referrals for the applicant.

I'm not even sure they may have already been in conversation with CDOT, have to ask them.

Um, but I'm not aware currently that they haven't given any type of indication of what they might require or what they might, what their access permitting process might look like for this.

I've been copied out some emails with CDOT.

Uh you know, they've expressed concerns about the left movement into car backing out into the intersection.

Uh they've expressed uh some some stacking concerns on baseline backing up to the to the signal.

But they basically said these are kind of cursory concerns, but until we get a full study, we can't, we're we're not really gonna comment on it any more than that.

But our traffic engineer has been in contact with CDOT about this, and she's also explicitly mentioned impacts on school being uh being very important and something that we really have to look into.

So that that is you know the point of the sketch plan identifying problems, like those problems have definitely been identified and daylighted.

What is the is the typical section that the applicant showed us?

Is that what the expected finish um streetscape will look like with the the red stamped concrete stripe, and then um they're kind of showing it, I guess, on their plans, but is that the expected finished look of this whole property along baseline?

Yeah, so my understanding is it's just to tie in with the existing right.

Yeah, so just development by development that it would eventually create a unified look, like what's farther east.

Okay.

Um same question, it's it's about baseline.

And I think anybody who's lived in town here has noticed that part of the road has been torn up by uh the highway department about every other year.

Um I'm just since we're in contact with them, I would I would hope the highway department would fix baseline there.

Anybody know what it's it's it's every every few years the highway highway department has to come up and dig up that stretch of the road.

And there's some sort of settling I would hate to have a big development and the road causing problems, and I would hope someone would look at that.

And also, too, I'm just wondering, I have assurances that that entire lot has been checked as far as contamination.

So a couple things.

First of all, just to your to your earlier comment.

So that's the applicant's responsible for whatever their increased impact to what's already existing, right?

So to mitigate the impacts of their development.

So what for the road for the road, right?

So I I don't know the answer to your question.

Yes, but just to make that part of it clear, right?

Yeah, so that what's existing out there is is uh it is what it is independent of of this particular request.

Correct.

Um okay, so now to the gas station.

So I just to be very clear, what and the applicant may have additional information.

What I have from uh from the file is one of the gas stations has been remediated per state requirements.

One of the second submentable comments that the applicant will get is can you please provide the remediation information for the other gas stations since there are two?

So I think we're about halfway there, but that is definitely also part of our review.

I don't know if the applicant is aware of that.

The second gas station had a ginormous propane tank that caught on fire a few years back there, and then the business is behind there.

I think I I don't know if that area is contaminated also.

That's my one concern.

Uh yeah, and then the traffic study.

Uh, I I agree going on baseline and then taking a right-on to car.

Um with the traffic coming north on that road, I think that's gonna be a choke point that I hope someone looks at.

Okay.

Any other questions?

Yeah.

What do you do?

Okay, do you do this way?

Um, yeah, I might hop around a little bit on my questions.

Um, are the two little kind of pocket park green courtyards they have around the residential?

Are we treating those as functional turf or non-functional turf or kind of what's the what's the conversation right now on the material for those two green spaces?

Just super preliminary.

Okay.

I think it's yeah, very preliminary.

Okay.

Um yeah, whether this is staff or maybe the applicant, but I felt like I heard some language that those with grass maybe be private only to the residences.

Do we do we have any requirements or any language around those being publicly accessible?

Or is it just that they're so small that obviously it's not going to be a civic park per se, but that people can use it?

Yeah, I don't think there's any language that's proposed that it would be that it be fenced off or that it'd be signed or anything like that.

Um I will note as well, just because it's sort of interesting that the when you see the the um site plan, what they're proposing, those smaller footprints, the um I can pull it up actually.

I don't know why I'm acting like I don't have the slides.

Um but there are some smaller footprinted uh units there, four of them around.

There's actually face in to the courtyard as well, just to give you a sense of kind of of what the feel of that one in particular in the south would be.

Okay, and then just because I know obviously sometimes there's a rendering and sometimes there's the landscape plan.

The rendering shows it as treeline along baseline, but is the is the intention that it's more this like landscape versus just tree line?

Or the fully concrete issues.

Yeah, with the cooling.

My understanding is it's supposed to align with what's existing.

So which is the group, which is the yeah, it's not this right, with all of the like little plantings and stuff.

I think it's meant to be that brick and then the grate.

I don't I mean so I guess the question is they've got 15% landscape called out, but yeah, if you know if that doesn't seem like it's going to shake out when when they install that whole stripe along there.

Yeah, absolutely.

I think it's good.

Great question for the applicant, and then also just on the landscaping plan in general, it's that's definitely something that we're asking for a lot more detail on the next round.

So yeah.

Um I'll do one more and then I'll pause for a bit.

But the current ride in right out.

Was that a was that obvious?

It sounds like this has been a couple years in a conversation.

Is that more a staff or an applicant decision for that to be where that is versus matching Vermont Street?

Is it more desirable to kind of have the right and write out separate from a I would defer to the applicant on that, yeah, the history of those conversations?

Um, so I just want to be clear about the definition of mixed use that's in the call plan.

Is the mixed use tied to dollars amounts or type?

Because the applicant has told us that they have four different types of mixed use or housing with commercial as a mixed-used element portion of it, but they've tied that to a dollar amount, not necessarily a function, meaning a mixed use with multifamily could consider triplexes or duplexes or anything like that that allows you to change the style of the housing so that you are providing more variety than the townhome model, which is a type.

So I just need some clarification around that whether the applicant is meeting that idea of variety of housing, uh, because it can mean a couple of different things based on previous conversations of other applicants as well.

Okay.

Um all right, so from from my understanding, the mixed use is really about the commercial and residential mix across the development.

Gotcha.

So that's piece one.

Piece two is which is separate in the in the comprehensive plan as well, the diversity of housing type.

And my understanding of that, which I am again inviting to be corrected, but my understanding of that it operates in a couple different ways.

One is the site itself, which I think the applicant, as they articulated before, would argue that there are at least two different footprints.

There's and also there's two bedroom and three-bedroom, but then also a housing variety across the city.

That this is a housing type, the argument the applicant would argue, and I think is fair to say that is like not what it's not as well represented as a single family residence, right?

Or maybe like a uh actually I don't really know about the apartment complexes here, so I won't speak to that, but certainly as single family.

So I think it's operating on both of those elements in terms of diversity of housing type, which I do believe is separate from the mix of uses.

Okay, I got that.

Okay.

So do you have any uh further conversation about the type of housing with the applicant?

Because right now there's only two types there, basically.

It's a live work and a town home, and one the live work is a disguised town home because it has the bottom, is a different thing, right?

So just wondering if you had any conversation with your within the within the staff about more or a different type, duplex or triple X or something like that.

Yeah, I'm I'm not sure about the the longer conversation the last couple years that have been going on.

I do think that you know, at least the way that I was thinking about it, I think the live work is a little bit of an open question.

I think the applicant would argue that is a that is another type of housing that they're offering.

Um I think that's certainly an arguable an argument to be made there, but I think from a planning and housing diversity perspective, they are our two and three bedroom units, and they have different square footages.

That's the kind of thing that potentially can offer different price points and different level, different sizes of family, you know, somebody like a partner versus family might have a three-bedroom.

So when we look at housing diversity, that's one of the things that we take into account is as well.

So now I don't want to overstate it, it's five units out or so out of the 24 that are that smaller footprint.

Um, but I think that those types of differences are a little bit more what the variety that the comprehensive plan discusses is sort of about.

Okay, um I guess the sum that we'll have to maybe the applicant will know more, but that live work unit, if you were to buy that unit, if then somebody came along.

Are you tied to having that retail space underneath?

What if you just didn't have any kind of business that you were yourself actually need to use that?

And how does that work in terms of I don't know, the the deed and how that actually is?

Is that portion down at the bottom something you can rent out, or is it something that you're yours and you you don't you can't do anything about it type thing, or what's the what's the kind of push and pull there that allows a person to say, you know, it should be cheaper for me because I don't need to have the retail space, so and you have all of this retail space, and everybody just wants the two pieces on the back side of it.

How does that work?

So you're left with a little bit of emptiness on that street front, which could have um the opposite effect of what you're actually trying to achieve, which is to create street, you know, activation.

Yeah, and then the other thing about it is that maybe this isn't something that is part of the staff analysis, but and I'll just throw it out there so that we can just think about it a little bit.

Is the form where the entire commercial 8,000 is one corner, the residential is on the other side, and is there any way that there was a conversation about integrating that a little bit more so that it doesn't feel like this is here and this is here, you know.

I mean, there's sort of certainly creative ways in which you can laterally or horizontally vertically intersect those uses to enable what I think the comp plan is trying to do the mixed use, right?

It's just it's just that that's there and this is here.

It's a very suburban model.

We're trying to get a little more urban value out of baseline based on its traffic flow and people going through it and street activation, etc.

So I'm just gonna throw it out there as a point conversation.

Yeah, I think those are both very you know important things for the applicant to hear, and then would also be good questions just to give them the opportunity to speak a little bit more on that.

I think the live work activation, street activation is definitely uh it's a great question, you know.

I think just to be they they wouldn't have to rent it out as commercial, you know, we wouldn't have some sort of deed or anything that said you have to use this as commercial, they could just use it as residential space or leave it vacant or but I mean it's integrated, right?

So it it they could just use it as like another home office or a ski room or whatever they might use it for, right?

So um wouldn't be required to be commercial, which is one of the reasons why we have a question about whether this is fully commercial space.

Um, so that's that's one piece, and I think the applicant, like I said, can can speak and then give some more information to flesh out our idea of what live work really looks like, and then in terms of the commercial and residential integration, I think that's uh you know, I think that's a great thing that we'd like to hear some more feedback on because the comprehensive plan does have, especially for old town, the slide that I had up earlier, it does have a conversation about having first floor be residential commercial or sorry, commercial, and then the stories above being residential, which is a little bit more what you're describing.

At the same time, the plan before us, I think does bring in the sort of heavier use of the commercial building close to uh you know a busy signalized intersection.

So there's an argument potentially there that the residential is kept a little bit farther away from that, and that the commercial space is still it's sort of taking the the brunt of that um that signal impact, and also that there is you know, sort of walkable spaces between the commercial and the residential, whether you feel that those are adequate or whether you'd like to see something different, this is a good time to bring that up.

Um but I think you could you could pull some different pieces to make the argument either way, and so again, that's why the sketch plan is helpful.

Thank you.

Go ahead.

I'm a bit confused on um parking for the work live for the who comes to chiropractor, where would they park or in this plan or yeah, absolutely?

So the way that the applicant has laid this out, the commercial parking for that building is to the south.

So that's the lot.

That lot has um I think it's 48 or so spaces, and then there's parking on the side coming, at least the way it's drawn right now, coming off of baseline, and then there's also parallel parking on the inside of on the private drive, basically.

I think I've caught, I might be missing one area, but and then and then I think between the two buildings on the north.

So those are all the surface parking areas.

The way that the shared parking agreement, I mean, we haven't seen a draft, and again, great question for the applicant if they have a detail of what it might look like, but theoretically, right?

The shared parking would be probably across all of those surface spaces.

So the guests would be able to park the guests for the residences would be able to use um those surface parking, the parallel parking, but theoretically so with the commercial buildings if they, you know, if it's a really busy, it's a big brewery brewery day or something, right?

And they would come over and park in that area, and then vice versa, if there's guest parking that's not, you know, there's that you need more to use in the evening for the commercial, you could park in that parking lot if you are a guest of the resident.

I think there's definitely more details to kind of be hammered out a little bit in terms of what the agreement itself would look like.

Um, in general, we don't, I don't, I would say we probably don't want something that's so laborious that you know it's like three different signs trying to tell people where to park, right?

But it's more about at this stage, especially does the parking on the site overall is it adequate for all of the mix of uses, and then can you get from one parking area to another if you're kind of swapped?

So and also just to say for the live work units, the way that they're parking them is effectively with the guest spaces, those are also integrated into this.

Um question about um lot coverage and landscape coverage.

What would be the the required percentage of landscaping and an open area in this in this underlying zone district?

I definitely can tell you that, but I don't remember the percentages off the top of my head.

Um so unless is it three and fifteen, fifteen for landscaping and thirty for lock coverage?

All right, well, that should be.

I mean, seems like if that's a change, then we need to have that as one of the amendments we want to.

I don't think so.

I think the way that they at least when they're with their submittal, they are meeting the percentages for the lot for the coverage and for the landscaping.

Okay, they're with the information that they provided so far.

So they're not asking for modifications there, and yeah, but I just don't remember what the required percentages are.

Um, doesn't include the strip on the north.

Well, yeah, that's I guess that's my question.

Is if if that includes the strip that's currently shown on the north, then it's gonna have to shift if it's gonna be covered with concrete.

Um that's well, yeah, we just screwed it's not gonna be there.

Yeah, so do we I guess we can have questions of applicant unless anyone else has questions of staff?

I have one more based off of some good conversation a second ago for the live work units.

Has the building or fire department talked at all if they're feeling that the work portion of that is gonna have to be fire rated based off of a commercial use versus the residential being residential?

Yeah, so the way that the the way that the proposal they're they're gonna build it.

I mean, the proposal is that the applicant is gonna build it to commercial specs.

Okay, right, with fire separation and also a zero entry, 88 bathroom.

So that's gonna be a usable commercial space on the floor, is the proposal.

Okay.

Um accessible units.

Would those be considered then the accessible units, the the live work?

Uh I don't know the answer to that question.

I don't know if that would count toward that requirement or not.

Okay.

Does does staff anticipate any of these smaller units potentially fitting under any prop 123 housing cost items?

I don't think that's we're really early, but maybe question on setback on um baseline.

It seems like the three-story were pretty tall.

Is there any concern about shading, shadowing ice on the sidewalk if you're three stories up against on the street?

Uh yeah, so I not that I have not that I've heard, and I don't I'm not familiar enough with how Laffian handles those things, so I'm not sure.

Um, I do know that that's that's basically I I think that's pretty close to what it is on toward the east.

It's the same sort of setup.

So however they handle the icing on the sidewalk to the east.

Um probably how they would handle it here, but I don't I don't know.

I'll answer the landscape question.

So the 15% landscape requirements required for the commercial space because these are gonna be fee simple lots.

The landscaping requirement for the individual lots is based on their front yard, like whatever open space they have in those private yards, and it's 75% for that amount of space.

So they're gonna have very small yards, but they have to have live material within the percent of 75% of their front yards as it's currently written.

Okay.

So why are those yards facing north?

That's correct.

They're getting virtually no sunlight due to the fact they're shaded by the buildings versus putting them on the south side by the alley.

So uh part of it is access, part of it is also utility design.

So when you get two units and you're running like the utilities for the units on the north side through the alley, um then the uh utility design that's serving the southern units is also coming from the the more proper alley versus the present the private residential drive that's shown between them.

So it's a little bit of both.

But um typically we do want to have um and it also distributes traffic, so you get more traffic distribution by having two different points of access for those garages than you would if you concentrated them within the internal alley.

I guess that would constitute a slot home if you did it in the center only.

Right.

Yeah, yeah, which we don't want to do here.

But you are gonna be facing your neighbor's garage if you are on this, which is the current condition for the neighbor down the down road.

Um okay, sticking with our questions.

Um do we have any more questions of staff for showing the on two questions of the applicant?

Good.

The only other thing I'd add to uh Commissioner Hergey's comment about the mix of um unit types is that from a staff perspective, or at least from my perspective, when we look at something that's 10, 20 acres in size, we're looking for more of that mix of use when we have something that's 24 units total.

Um I think the mix of um live work and the product types that Amelia was talking about, where we have two-story, three-story, as well as two and three bedroom units is about as good as we're gonna probably get for a project of this scale.

So we feel like it meets that mix of housing types.

But if you have additional feedback or particularly your comments on ensuring that the ground floor of those live work units that face baseline um are commercial, remain commercial and are used that way, then that's great feedback to provide the applicant at this time.

Um we'll move on to questions of the applicant, and then we'll do that round is our public.

So um we'll just do some questions of the applicant and then we'll do the public hearing right after that.

Would anybody like to start?

Sure.

Go ahead.

Um the that was the point.

You can go ahead and come up to that.

Alrighty, pardon each other.

So I I floated it out there, my last comment about how I understand that car is the light, it's is the signaled um intersection, and that commercial, you know, would fall on that corner based on traffic that needed to come in for that commercial space.

I'm just trying to um I guess ask ask you whether there were any studies on typically, I don't know, historically live work is very urban kind of uh product.

It it actually lives on very, you know, busy streets, cities and what have you that have you know all this uh walk-ups on the top on the you know, the corner on the in between what have you get your apartment on top very it's a very you know typical city.

This isn't quite the same environment.

We understand that.

But I'm wondering if there were any conversations or studies done where you floated the residential on top of it and created you know the idea that you could have pass-throughs into the back into the lot, right?

And you know, be really kind of pushing the idea of a very animated bottom floor with lots of amenities, could be like you mentioned a coffee shop or now there's going to be a liquor store, we only one of those based on the times.

Um let's see, and then you know, a small grocer, whatever it might be, so that if you are going to be somebody who can afford a small home, a two-story up there, that the convenience of one of those is that you just go straight down and you get what you need and you come right back up, right?

In this model, you are you're really kind of having to struggle with parking, struggle with two-car garage.

Um I'm just I'm saying I'm just asking the question if you've pushed it enough to say, hey, could we turn the suburban model a little bit on its head to sort of really maximize the idea that the bottom floor is really something that even the neighbors across on either side could come to rather than it's a separate thing on one side and then residential on the other.

We we actually did a few studies early on.

Um you know, there's horizontal mixed use and there's vertical mixed use, and uh one of the things that um came out pretty quickly was that um the ownership of the commercial uh building and land and maintenance of all of that um is going to be different than the residential, even if this was apartments, it's it's a different um model for the ownership.

And so once you go vertical, then you've really got to think of a management structure that works for you know, whether it's condominium ownership of the little uh shop underneath, and then you're also limiting the footprint of that little shop, you know, depending on how you build upstairs.

Now, if you're gonna do flats, then that's a whole different model.

That has to be condemned at that point.

Um, I don't know how much you're familiar with the uh construction defect law in Colorado and what you know we struggle with, but um condominiums are a lot more ripe for um construction defect lawsuits than uh fee simple town home kind of development.

And so if you're looking for a for sale product um uh that's as safe as you can get and as easy to manage and sell the parts or rent the parts, depending on you know what your model is.

Um we really were um sort of compelled to go in the horizontal mixed use because uh you know the ownership model that was desired here, and so I think there are sites and and and uh developers who will go to the more expensive uh integrated mixed use that you've just described, which can be really interesting.

Uh typically I was in a larger firm and we would do these mixed use developments that were huge, and you could have a little neighborhood within that that is exactly what you say this grumbly little streets and and you know, little shops, you know, with things above, because that's not the bulk of what you're selling or renting, it's just a little piece of this huge development.

But when all we're doing is this one development, and the pro forma has to work, it's hard to make those kind of things because it's expensive, you know, to do it that way, um, but they're really cool.

So I'd love to be able to make that work on this kind of a scale and this kind of a site, but very difficult to get it to pencil.

Um it's a reality, you know, of kind of what we're doing today.

Um, and I get it, it kind of feels suburban, you know, with a retail building and a parking lot.

Um but when you think about you know, having neighborhood retail that close to where you live, I mean a half a block away, it's not like walking downstairs, but it's pretty close, and it also helps the neighbors all around to have some more shops and things that are easily walkable, and uh this site is uh within walking distance of a lot of amenities and the rec center and you know, the library and uh schools, and so it's a great site, you know, for housing, and uh even though it might not be integrated vertically, I think I think it will be uh well received by the buyers.

Um and finally this commercial.

I don't know if you've actually you showed us our rendering of it of some sort.

Um, maybe that's not as flat form yet, but always changes.

I'm I'm just wondering if there's a way to walk through it, you know, in a way that you're not so you're walking through the site to get to the back buildings, just something to think about.

That's it's not like you know, because right now it seems like it's a wall, not something that is permeable, right?

So well, uh a couple things there.

Um you know the planning model of parking in the back and bring the buildings to the front have really changed the way retailers have to think about their space because they usually have the inventory in the back and the you know the retail front door, right?

And so uh now they've got two front doors, uh causes some security angst for a lot of retailers, but uh they're figuring it out.

They're not the most popular building sometimes, you know, the one on public road uh has struggled a little bit with tenants in terms of that double entry, and how do I you know you kind of come in?

What might be the front door, but it's really the back door.

So it's it's kind of a an interesting model.

We we do feel like there are opportunities on this site for these kind of walk-through spaces where uh you know you are walking through somebody's business, but that's good.

That's foot traffic inside your business, you know, to get around to the real store that's on the south side of that building.

And so I think there will be those kind of opportunities, and uh as it gets developed a little bit more, uh you know, we might formalize a punch through or something like that.

But one of the things about these kind of retail buildings is that you never know who your tenant is, and you don't know if they're gonna want, you know, a thousand square feet or twenty-five hundred square feet, and so uh once you put that punch through, then you're limiting the the retailers that can go in there, and so we have to be really careful if we commit to something like that.

Is it only one story?

Yes.

I see it's very tall for a one store.

Interesting.

Oh nice high ceilings.

Um I'm curious to Commissioner Mettler had the comment of why why were didn't we why didn't you choose to align the right in right out with Bermont, the street to the north?

And it seems like taking that one live work block and just shifting it over would potentially accomplish that.

I imagine it has to do with utilities, and it looks like that's a kind of a complicated.

I don't have in my slides a pullback.

Uh I think you did in your slides.

I think it might be too far just past our side.

Yeah, I want to see.

It's in two.

I don't know, just try that.

Yeah.

Can you zoom in?

Yeah.

Yeah.

So yeah.

Because it kind of just creates.

There's Burrough right there.

So um essentially if we if we did align those, um, I think that you know, conversations we've had is that we don't want, you know, it's this isn't an intersection where people are gonna be going from one side of baseline to the other side of baseline.

So that alignment wasn't something that was really um seen to be necessary, desirable.

Uh if we were to put if we were to align with Bermunt, we'd end up with a little piece over on the east side, which certainly could be kind of a little standalone building of some kind.

I mean, we could we could design anything, right?

We could figure it out.

I guess the reason I ask is thinking about traffic stacking along baseline, backing up behind that right in, and um is that curb cut gonna be a little too close to car where there will be some, you know, um it's a good question.

And and I get I get the not wanting it to feel like an intersection.

Right.

Um there's just been so many places within Lafayette where we haven't made the connectivity and and streets are offset and it the upshot is we don't get uh traffic flow that makes any sense.

So um well, since this isn't a street that actually goes anywhere, yeah.

You have it'd be very specific into this development.

Um the other question I guess I'm I'm glad you said something about potential pass throughs.

I feel like that commercial building wants to have some porosity.

I'm thinking about Longmont Um and all the little the little pedestrian pathways that go through it.

I know a lot of those were existing buildings, but those are such vibrant spaces, and that is the kind of spaces that we're talking about in in the comp plan and to make some of those places where people can come in off the street and um and then the the retail spaces can orient towards those as well.

So um I think that would be really nice to see in the next the next plan.

Other questions of the applicant?

Yeah, so um we are of course in the in the rewrite of our code here, so um it's gonna be in there, but it's not yet, even though it's mentioned frequently in the comm plan, which is what sustainability features are part of this project, i.e.

um solar, you know, building materials, heat source pumps, any of that stuff.

What do you have rejected for this?

Well, I I think that um sort of uh the the standard of the industry these days is that we're all going o electric because it it is more sustainable um and getting away from fossil fuels, and um most communities are actually you know codifying that now.

And so the question is can Excel keep up, which I think was a question here, and that's something until we have an actual plan with real square footages that we know we're moving forward with, it's hard to engage with XL.

Uh they want to see panel schedules and load calculations.

So uh, but as soon as we get to the next phase and we feel confident about that, then we'll definitely be, you know, getting that uh nailed down with them.

We'll do some preliminary investigations.

But um the the uh international energy code, um every you know uh iteration of the energy code, you know, ratchets things up and there are options in there and some appendices and things that once they get adopted uh actually are hard to comply with, you know.

We're we're looking at at SEER ratings on HVAC equipment that doesn't exist, you know.

I mean it's like how we can't get a unit that meets that requirement yet.

And so we're getting exemptions from some of that stuff just because the technology hasn't kept up with the codes.

Um so what I would say is that I don't think you have to go too far other than just adopt the next energy code and you're gonna be right out there.

Uh you know, we there's a uh zero, you know, net zero uh appendix that is in the code if if you desire to go that way and many communities are but this is gonna be in theory if it goes forward is gonna be you know, once it's approved, it's going to be before we implement those energy codes.

So I'm asking you specifically as the architect what plans you have for including sustainability stuff in this development.

Sure.

Uh we always push um sustainability to the extent that we can um sustainability and affordability are at odds with each other usually, and so we try and do the things that make sense and you know, like uh I think PV uh until recent changes in um laws and rebates and things um has been sort of a no-brainer um uh because you can show a payback and and you can integrate that uh once uh it's not affordable anymore.

I think you're gonna see that go away, and it'll be harder and harder to get um you know an owner to do something that isn't really required by code.

Uh if it ends up costing him more, he has to charge higher rents, the guy next door isn't, and also you got an empty building.

So that's not sustainable either.

So we really have to get you know to a point where um, and I think it's in the energy code uh is really where those requirements are gonna come from more than they are uh for many zoning or planning.

So you used kind of you threw out the term affordability in there when you were talking about the size.

Um so in your mind, when you say affordability, what what do you mean?

Can you tie it to the to the area median income percentage or what are you looking at?

No, and I'm saying I should say attainable.

I should say um that you know we need uh uh a diversity in our housing stock that would make this so that if you if you build all the big you know three bedroom units, then that's gonna be out of reach of a lot of people.

If you can build some smaller units, um they cost less to build, and they cost less to buy and/or rent.

And so I think the way that we as developers and architects and planners can you know help to make things more attainable, thus affordable, uh not in the formal sense.

Uh obviously we have affordability that you know we have to meet uh in any case, but beyond that, I think just having uh a diversity of housing sizes is the best thing that we can offer at this point.

So it's basically gonna be market rate affordability.

Yeah.

Okay.

Um what conversations did you have with staff about density?

Um, did you start with a higher level of density and then look at it?

Interesting conversations along the way.

Um there was a previous plan that uh I think might have gone through a concept review or something, and the planners when we took over the project, the planners had indicated that more density would be certainly acceptable on this site than what was proposed earlier.

I think what was proposed earlier was in the 20-something range.

Um we actually had a more dense, so then you know, our clients okay, let's do more density then.

And uh again, that makes things more attainable, more less expensive, uh, because you're amortizing right the cost of the land and everything over more units.

Um so we kind of went down that road.

Then staff was like, well, we think this feels too tight.

Uh there's uh too many units on this site, um, you know, might not fit the character, so let's dial that back.

So we've dialed it back uh to what we have today.

There's several ways to achieve density.

Um when you're talking fee simple townhomes, it you can only get so dense because you gotta have a footprint, right?

So you keep making them skinnier and you know I guess that leads to have you considered um rentable units like apartments on top of the commercial.

We actually looked at a apartment scheme uh right before this final submittal.

Um it was decided that that wasn't um desirable for the uh owners of the property to pursue they really wanted to go the fee simple for sale model.

So anyone else have questions of the applicant?

I have a couple.

Can you speak to you know the shared parking agreement, the shared parking component?

Is this going to be a public parking lot?

Or is it going to be public for people visiting the businesses and for the tenants, some sort of like you know, some sort of permit process for how many visitors somebody can have.

Like I think the I think the shared model is great for this.

It makes sense for you know demand for commercial and people can inflow into the residential.

But can you just talk through if somebody were visiting the site in a couple years, what would what would that shared parking experience look like?

So we haven't really flushed out the agreement.

Um but in the past um where we've had shared parking agreements, uh the easiest ones are if there's a surface spot, anybody can park anywhere.

Since you have a retail building, um and you've got some uh potential commercial uses uh where somebody might want to visit uh on this site, then somebody who isn't uh a resident there or an employee or something uh will be able to park in any of those spaces that are available on the surface.

Um so uh I think that you know our shared parking uh solution for three spaces it's you know it's kind of a sledgehammer for when you need a little tack hammer.

Um we could just somehow re-rack it so that we didn't need that and make it simpler for management and so forth.

But I personally think shared parking is a great thing, yeah, like you said, and so I think that it's gonna behoove us to work with um the ownership, combined ownership of this entire uh two zones, the commercial and the residential zone, in terms of how they're marketing and selling and and what restrictions that they're going to allow to have uh for their residents and guests and so forth, and so that hasn't really been fleshed out, but again, it's you know, depending on what what happens with the live work, and I I want to circle back a little bit, and then you was um sort of saying we need more information on you know what is the parking demand, um, and there's not you won't find uh zoning ordinances around the country that all address this because it's relatively new.

Um, but from our anecdotal experience, we've done a few of these, and they you know, like the ones at 200, those were initially all commercial when when they first uh were tenanted.

Now that's all rental uh product over there.

Um and uh slowly, you know, one was um sort of an outside uh use, and one the other two I think were people who live there using it as a little commercial outlet.

I think there's like an interior design studio, it's really cool, art and stuff down there.

Um and uh I think it's turned over now.

There might be one commercial space left, and the other two have been become sort of absorbed into the residence.

So to your point, um, we don't know how people are gonna want to use it.

Now, since this is for sale, then you would assume that the people buying it, you know, there's a storefront on the street, so you gotta think, well, what am I gonna do with this room if you're not already thinking, boy, I really want to place for my Pilates studio?

You know, you're gonna have to sort of understand that this is a little different than you know, just uh a town home in front of a big open green space, right?

And so um, I think it will attract a certain type of buyer.

Um, since they are for sale, it's different than when you're trying to rent out that space separately or you know, to somebody who has that need uh that narrows your rental market, right?

Um it also narrows your your for sale market, so we can't really guarantee probably reasonable to assume maybe half of them might go uh commercial and the other half might just be used some residential use, you know, just somebody's home office who doesn't see any guests, you know.

So just don't know.

I'm curious.

The there was a number thrown out 1,550 square feet for those live work units.

Does that include the commercial space or is that separate?

That does.

It does include the commercial space.

So three stories, 1550 square feet, so 500 square foot footprint.

Okay.

I saw a note somewhere where there's a phase A and a phase B.

A was on the east and B was on the west.

Is that right?

Uh yeah, A and B if it was designated that way as we have here, we have buildings named those.

Um, but essentially we have a west phase and an east phase.

And so the commercial west phase would be first at this point the way it's planned.

Uh that way the the retailer can move into that space and we can demo everything that's on the east and build the residential space.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I'm just want to clarify.

I understand that uh when you do this development, you'll be paving the entire alley.

Not the entire alley.

Um so down to we understand that um to date uh what's been required of everybody who has developed along that particular alley is to pave the area uh that is adjacent to their property.

Now we have a little missing section because the daycare has paved and 404 has paved, and then there's the space between us and the daycare.

And so what I heard tonight for the first time was that well, we're gonna be required to pave that too.

So that just adds to the cost, and we'll have to figure out how to becomes a requirement, makes sense that it would be.

I mean, I don't know why the alleys aren't paved enough yet anyway.

That's another conversation.

And we've talked about housing products and types, and obviously this is a smaller development.

Um but can you talk through any discussions or thoughts on any of these units being as built with ADUs in them?

You know, that's that is coming up a lot lately.

Um, we have not had that conversation on this particular project on a similar project with kind of a similar configuration of units.

Uh, we have been looking at ADUs.

Um they tend to be more of uh something that's just be have a separate entrance, and it might be the the adult child living at home or you know, uh, because sometimes you know we're talking about connections into the unit from that.

Um so for on a for sale product that can be something that happens.

It we're actually looking at an affordable project, you know, which is like uh I don't know, 100 to 120 AMI, but where the ADs are are planned and approved but not built, and then the homeowner eventually when they get to the point where they can afford to can actually top off that garage with an ADU and have that extra source of income.

So it's an interesting uh thing.

Uh I don't know that it this site lends itself to that, but it it it actually I'm glad you brought it up because now I'm thinking about it.

Yeah, yeah, there's not enough height because you're already setting it back in order to navigate any kind of shadow onto the neighbors in the alley.

You're already setting it back to a two-story condition.

So I'm not sure how that would work in terms of an ADU because there's not that much space.

You need to bulk them up a little bit, probably.

Um so that it's interesting you mentioned that because what if you turn what if you bought one of those low work units and turn that and do something like I guess space.

Yeah, little little is that gonna be possible based on the B summon.

I suppose uh yeah, that would be possible.

It's just how this is like legally considered based on C water and all the things that have to go with that.

I I think we'll investigate that um because it's not something that's out of the question that somebody might say, I'll just rent out that unit to you know, all I gotta do is put a kitchen sink and a hot plate down there and uh yeah, you know, so I I think I can assume the difference, but can you talk through the difference in the AM versus the PM trip generation numbers?

Um yeah, obviously I I know future project will go further into that potential, but right again.

Since we just had the draft, we didn't get in this when we started the project two years ago.

One of the slides referenced the AM.

Yeah, I was getting right to it.

Come on.

The next one.

There you go.

Um, so that um was generated in the traffic study.

Um again, we we kind of stopped it at a draft until we got through a process where we really knew where our access points really needed to be and so forth.

That study actually had a um an access point in the middle of the block uh to the alley.

Um so that changes it a little bit.

But uh what this is saying is that from this site, uh the 630 to 830 peak uh would generate 16 to 19 trips, and that's in and out.

Um it includes the commercial and the residential, and so um well it's just because people are going to Willoughby at this point, right?

There's more people going south or east.

Well, if it's for this lot, the generation, I mean, I'm I'm assuming it's because of the commercial activity in the evening.

You would you think so versus people are just leaving for work in the morning?

But I I didn't know if there was if you had an explanation.

We didn't dig down, but uh we'll ask the question because it is an interesting uh difference.

Uh yeah.

I think I'm good.

Um I'm afraid we're gonna lose our public audience, so I'd like to start the public hearing.

So I'll sit down.

Um may have more questions.

Um we'll move on to public comment.

Uh this time we'll hear from any interested members of the public who wish to address the commission about this application.

Please fill out a speaker form if you haven't already and hand them to the clerk.

Um come to the podium and state your name and address for the record.

Um where can one get the speaker?

Speaker forms right outside the room.

I know we've received two written public comments.

Um that was was that the only public comment that was received that was written?

There were some mentioned in the packet, but it wasn't it was just the packet again, but the packet talks about the online public comment from the what do we call it?

No, there's uh no the intent to develop intent from the intent to develop period and then from the neighborhood meeting.

But there was as the time of the staff report, there were no public comments.

Okay from this hearing period.

Okay, in in the past we've had that, like those comments, even at that time.

Um, but that's just that's vote down the past.

We've had all of that written, all of that those written comments from intent to develop and and any other previous pack itself.

Oh, okay.

Yep.

Um I think we just have the one person.

Come on up.

I'll just take a name.

Um so I'm a homeowner in Lafayette.

Uh I drive past Car Avenue.

Can you say your name and name and address uh Louis Redner?

I live at 493 South Dover Avenue.

Um, so yes, I'm a homeowner in the area.

I drive past Car Avenue to get to baseline every day.

It's part of my commute to work.

Um I gotta say I'm a proponent of developing that lot.

You know, it's an eye sore.

Um particularly concerning is it's proximity to the school.

So changing that into something that's feels safer um is definitely a plus as well as um living in that area, you know, there's uh at least King Supers used to be there, but there's the development to that Vasa fitness, having that area be walkable is definitely a plus since there's a vacant lot to the left, and this one it doesn't really have much in terms of a protected sidewalk.

Um particularly if heading out and heading right on baseline um to get to, for example, the uh community fitness center.

Um there's not really again a protected way to walk there since I am within walking distance, so having a development from that aspect's certainly desirable.

Um again, as well as you know, seeing it.

I'm a proponent for having uh more amenities.

So again, you know, lawfight's very walkable, it's why I moved here.

Having more businesses within walking distance uh of my home is something that I greatly support.

Yeah, that's all I have to add.

Thank you.

Thanks.

Is there anyone else um from the public who wishes to address the commission?

All right, seeing no others, the comment period is now closed.

Um so we'll move on to commission discussion.

Um make sure that everyone is have the ability to get their questions asked and answered.

Um item for discussion is resolution number PC-202508 to approve a sketch plan application allowing a mixed use development at the southeast corner of West Baseline Road and North Carr Avenue 504 to 610 West Baseline Road.

Um anyone like to kick off the uh discussion.

Well, maybe it just quick point of order.

Um so I guess we're we're trying to change things a little bit in terms of how sketch plans are perceived in the process, and I guess again you say approve this.

I mean, we're not actually approving anything because we don't have the ability to put conditions or whatever on it.

All we're doing is commenting on it, and and that's pretty much it.

So does that still require a vote of approval?

So we're in process of making that update, and you'll get the um the presentation for the on the very next uh agenda item is that change, but right now this process and the applicant's fully aware that it is under the current, so you are making an approval approval with conditions.

Um we still just because of the way this works and that it's a non-binding decision, suggests you know that it is more of a comment or whatever.

But if you have something specific that they need to address if you feel strongly that you know, like the ground floor uh of those work areas have to be commercial, like you can make it you can add a condition to it.

That's how this is currently structured.

So I apologize for the awkwardness, but that's that's where we're at with the process.

Okay, yeah, great.

Thank you for clarifying that.

Thanks.

Can you put the language of the motion and or the there were some questions?

You had the kind of a breakdown of the different things for us to close questions or do you want the motion?

Um I think that's a good starting point for our discussion, maybe with those questions.

Um then we can unless somebody's already ready to make a motion, but I think we should do it while discussing it first.

Um I guess I'm curious about them the first question mixed use and um compatibility.

I in my mind it it makes a whole lot of sense the way the mixed use is um is presented here.

I understand that it sounds like there's an issue with the owner wanting to divide it, and and there's some legal um simplification that they want to do, and that's why they're separating it horizontally.

So um I guess my yeah, anybody else have any thoughts on that?

Or I think it's a pretty small lot when it comes to like true mixed use development too.

Like if there was going to be some sort of vertical mixed use.

I mean, we're not the kind of city that's gonna have underground parking and there's not space for surface parking, so it's it's almost like half the lot would end up being a parking lot anyway.

And this feels like a really good medium of the whole lot's kind of walkable, kind of dense, but you still have that breathing room between all the spaces.

So well, I guess I challenge that a little bit because the whole idea with trying to mitigate you know, traffic and things like that is to lessen the number of cars that are going to be on the site.

So if you actually build the site out a little bit more with less cars, and then you would have to then get variants for that because the car is you know the numbers are based on other things, minimums you know you'd be you'd be going towards the sort of uh vision of like being more walkable, using more other kinds of transportation or the buses or the bikes or whatever it is that you're walking.

So I'm I I think I understand, yes, of course, of course, I understand the sort of we rationale for it, but I'm never convinced that just because it's a dollar thing that as designers we can't do better, you know, because we can I I'm I'm I'm curious because the applicant said that they had a uh scheme that there was more density, and that would be interesting to me, yeah, because then you are actually then providing what is actually missing here, which is a more for more housing for in the various price points and you know, number of bedrooms, and so eight thousand square feet of a retail space um is is quite large, it's not like small.

If you think about a small 500 square foot, you know little shit little shop underneath your home.

That's a lot of space for just those kinds of very simple amenities that people probably need.

So I'm just I'm just okay.

Even if it's a thousand, there's eight spaces there for people.

Um just I'm just trying to ask the question and have a discussion about it because we don't normally talk about these things.

No, I agree.

Until it came up, I thought it was gonna be a two-story commercial space.

Yeah, it looked like the architecture made it very much feel like two, and that's just because of the massing and the transparency.

Right, and that might be driven by the need for a taller um structure high.

You just need to have more cleans.

So like there's no discussion on this would be a great building for like rooftop access for commercial.

I I mean I would like to see it.

Sounds like they've like they've studied it, but it in my mind it would be nice for the applicant to look at rental apartments on or or yeah uh rooftop access, green roof on a part of it.

Um something to use that space.

Um you are allowed to go to three stories on the site, right?

So it seems it seems like a little more all that air for yeah, or make it a future possibility.

That's right.

Yeah, something that drives more parking.

Yeah, too.

Yeah, but that's the point is that just because it drives more parking doesn't mean you have to have parking, yeah.

And and we're moving towards a model where we're getting, I mean, I have no problems with the parking reduction on this lot.

There are there are bus stops all up and down baseline.

There's um it's not uh the people that are gonna be wanting these units are are gonna be on their bikes, they're gonna be on their mopeds, they're they're um so yeah.

I I would be I would be for more more density in this area.

We've already got multifamily apartments behind you know, behind it, existing um so I kind of have a sort of an issue with sometimes we get into social engineering and assuming that because we build things much denser and more of it and eliminate parking, that people are gonna go, oh gee, I'm just not gonna have a car anymore.

I'm just gonna start.

It doesn't work that way.

It's a gradual process, I think, and you have to do a lot more changing of people's habits and the way they live to get to where we ultimately would like to be.

So we have to find a compromise kind of in between moving towards that.

The other piece of it too is this project, at least that part that's on baseline, is consistent with what's to the east of it.

So there's you know, there's no major transition problem here going from to something totally different.

So this is totally in line with that.

I mean, I I agree that I think generally the parking requirements, you know, we're we're just following what the code is, and obviously we're going through the code update and the rewrite and the comp plan, like all this kind of stuff is happening.

But they're like I I agree with you on where the vision is, and also you know, there's hundreds of thousands of people deciding every year where they want to move, and I think 28 people would move to a unit with no garage.

Yes, or with one garage.

I mean, there's two you there's two parking spaces per town hall.

So that's a lot.

That's a lot of parking.

Um and there might be people who are both gonna have a car, but I don't think it'll be all of them.

Um I I really appreciate your comment, Commissioner Phillips, because yes, you can't necessarily force people into being free.

They don't want to be free, right?

So as Richard Sennett said.

I mean you see where Boulder County has tried to do this over and over again with their various things of oh that's let's put bike lanes from from Lafayette to Boulder, but how many people do you see biking to work to Boulder every day from Lafayette?

Uh not a whole lot.

Eight or ten.

Okay, it's it's a it's a question of how it's designed.

I think it's a question of how it's designed.

It's I think it's designed incorrectly to because that's why it's not used as frequently because it's a designed incorrectly.

And so I'm asking the question.

We're asking the question can the design kind of promote what the vision is?

And you are absolutely right, it's gonna have to be incremental, but could we see some of that increment on this project?

Because it seems very typical.

Well, I I think this does go a good way towards that providing the kind of units that people want that you know, okay, as well as with two parking spaces, which um I don't I don't think they need, but I think there will be plenty of parking.

Um it's a state highway a quarter of a mile from another state highway.

This is a great spot for density.

Yes, this is um, yeah, it's a great spot for density.

So I guess um I think one one issue I've got is process where they've been on two years now in this project, and we've told them more than less than the back and forth and back and forth.

I know that's gotta be frustrating.

Five years.

So I I think that's really something we need to be cognizant of is we can't go back and change it again because I'm not yeah, and I I don't think I would be a proponent of saying you need more density, and we're not gonna that's that's I just I think that um if we don't get that better, people are gonna become in Lafayette because they're gonna go somewhere else because that's so long.

This is also the only four hours we get every two weeks to talk.

That's true.

Yeah, we get to do it in front of everybody.

Exactly.

That's my my reservation.

Totally get it.

Yeah, and I'm not everything to like put an amendment on this.

I think it's more just I think it's going to be.

Yeah, just for discussion on you know, we've asked questions of staff where they're at now, we've asked questions of where the applicant has made decisions, made changes, and we're just talking about it.

I guess I guess I just would like to say that we would be open to that if they wanted, but I don't think it needs to be on the I'm curious if you would agree, it doesn't need to be on the eastern side, I think on that on that commercial side.

That makes a lot more sense, and that's where the rental.

But if they're not wanting to get into rental housing, then that's or if they wanted to kind of be vertical at two stories and create more of a park environment, like a a real really nice garden amenity, that would be amazing.

Right.

So because why do we come to a place to live and maybe Commissioner Phillips will disagree with me?

There's something magical about trees and and grass and things like that where this development is very low on it based on you know just the way it's spread out.

So I just I think there's that push and pull provide a real amenity, like that little pocket part there is not really anything.

It's not really anything.

So it's just a separator between the two buildings in certain way.

Um so our conversation are our things about pushing that a little bit.

So I mean you want dense living, but at the same time you want amenity amenities.

I'm kind of like, okay.

I see those as being somewhat contradictory to each other.

We don't think the same place.

Well, more density means you take up more space, right?

So there's less space for amenities like that.

No, we're just saying that the the sort of one-story nature of the commercial building could become two stories and the space that's left over could become an amenity.

You're still having the 24 units that you're you're you're you've got.

Or you're reducing the other unit that part of the building units and having them on top of the commercial space is what you're saying.

No, I'm not saying that.

Oh, you want to put any more units that no, I'm just I don't know what you're saying.

I'm just saying make it like an 8,000 square foot commercial building but in two stories, so it's four and four, and then whatever's left over is a park or something that is larger than it's a little bit more than that.

You reduce the footprint of the commercial.

Taking half of it and just putting it on top of the lower seal.

Which then kind of says, oh wow, I would love to live really nice next to a big park next to me as well.

Yeah.

So we're we're basically talking part of the sky right now.

Oh, I don't think so.

I think we're just talking options.

We're talking about this is what they're proposing.

I I can't I don't see a major change or deviation.

Okay.

So personally.

Personally, we we don't see any big changes to what they're proposing.

Yeah, really asking the applicant to consider something that we're discussing.

No.

You know, when it comes I think for the sake of furthering the conversation.

Uh for the you know, the amenity component.

You know, obviously between the city or the state, there's different things about non-functional turf or functional turf, and also looking at there's these, you know, pocket park courtyard, green space between the buildings, whether that's actually a green space or it could be more of like a kind of like a little urban plaza where there's more, yeah.

You know, yeah.

Park benches or the courtyard patio furniture where you know there's the liquor store and then there's a coffee shop and there's something else, and it's like you could sit at the benches right at the car.

Or if you want the quieter spot, you go by the townhomes.

Like just thinking about it.

That's why having that pulling some of those amenities into the inside of the commercial building, or not inside it, but but making that a porous area so that it's not right at that big loud intersection and that amenity pushes into the building a little bit.

Right.

Um seems like it would be a more functional uh and a more appealing space, whether you're the the retailer or the the person walking by.

All right.

The one thing I'm really mulling over is the live work units.

That this is this is baseline, it's being proposed and discussed as live work, and it sounds like there's no real guarantee, or maybe there's not even necessarily a code section that requires it to be commercial or work.

I I don't think that we need to do that.

I think that it has that flexibility.

Somebody can move in and they can put up curtains and live there, or they can move in and hang up their shingle and be an architect there, or what I think that it's just another place, it's another topology that it has the flexibility.

And we have so we don't have enough of that.

Um I think so it can be whatever it wants to be.

Um and that's gonna just add some more vitality um and another another missing middle.

You know, cool.

So you've persuaded me.

Okay, yeah.

I don't I don't have a I I love the idea of the live work because they can be what you want them to be.

So make a sure you'll make a a motion.

Do we need the language of the motion up on the screen?

Would you prefer that?

I'm right.

So bad.

Make sure your point of order um so by approving this, okay, because then this kind of leads to course a PUD.

So while you're saying, well, this doesn't, you know, we're proving this, but this doesn't really create any kind of um on our part or on the applicant's part, you know, there's no okay, this has got to happen.

But yet it's leading to a PUD based on the assumptions of what was done here.

All right.

Okay.

It's not binding.

Well okay it's not binding either way, but it is leading.

Yes, it's giving it's it's providing feedback that that they should take into account when they're designing the preliminary.

So when they show up with a PUD that goes according to this, right?

While it's not binding at the same time, we can all of a sudden go, oh no, we want to go back to a 20-foot setback.

Right?

I mean, you could.

Okay.

Yeah.

I mean, that wouldn't be in good faith.

Exactly.

But you could find that's my point.

Yeah.

So I mean, um it's intriguing to me that we actually have this discussion about you know, reducing the footprint, not necessarily the square footage of that commercial building.

Is that something that we could ask for as a condition?

Just because we're curious about it.

You could ask for it as a commission, you could say we'd really like to see that, uh, whether they do it or not.

You know, they when they come back in front of you, they should have to they should tell you, you know, we heard you, we we didn't do it for these reasons and make a case, and then it's up to you to uh make that decision at preliminary where you have a more formal decision uh to make it.

I don't know.

Yeah, guys.

There was some there was some language in here to that.

Yeah.

Because partially if it's been a five-year process, not only is that staff turnover, it's also PC members turnover.

Yeah, and like there's just a level of it's whatever the whatever the opinion is of the people who are the review bottom at that time.

Yeah, that just gets really hard.

I feel like this is I feel like this project is a really good happy middle ground of a lot of different things.

And it could it could be more, you know, it could be less dense, it could be more dense, and that's a values-based decision at the end of the day, but I I don't feel like any sort of amendment would be necessary personally.

I agree with you.

Well, it's good.

The owners don't want to get involved in anything that's rental.

Yeah.

So that does in effect limit.

I'm not asking for a rental.

I'm actually.

No, I'm saying some of the the changes that we're asking for are implied that oh, we should do this on top of this, then it would be a rental.

Whereas they want to do fee, they want to do fee simple.

So I want to sell it.

There's no rental there's no rental on the You're conflating my I was suggesting apartments, and they're talking about commercial on commercial.

Commercial on commercial, yeah.

Just a two-story commercial space, that's all with the leftover with some public with with some amenity.

That that I would be curious to see how that pencils out because you're still having to service that, you know, whatever you do at the top, and maybe it's an office space, whatever.

Um I just you know, this this thing that we have to really use up every single space that's a piece of acreage possible, is a bit of a like, you know, why you can stack it and then it becomes weighted less on one side, meaning like it's like really low here, and then really feels like a real scale difference here.

That's that's also part of the perception of let's say the neighborhood behind like it feels like a wall with the residential, and then the just one story on the even if that one story is a is a 20-foot, you know, height, it's still uh it's still yeah.

It's still uh still yeah.

I mean, they they would have the the way to add ten feet on top of that, just have it be off the spaces and lower scale commercial of above.

Um again, if that doesn't pencil, I don't know how we how we kind of condition that at this point.

I guess maybe just knowing that we would be open to seeing that kind of a of an ad because this site allows for it.

You can you can do that.

Yeah, yeah, not like we must totally but also it I mean.

Move to approve approved resolution number twenty twenty-five that should we approving a sketch plan application allowing mixed use development to move to primary plan review stage.

We have a motion to have a second.

Is there any further discussion?

All those in favor, you say I'm opposed.

All right, motion carries.

I think we should have come on.

Let's let's do a ten minute break.

I was gonna say the warnings.

We will now hear next time on the agenda is a public hearing resolution number PC twenty twenty-five oh nine recommending the approval of an ordinance to amend a sketch plan and preliminary plan review procedures in chapter twenty-six development and zoning of the code of ordinances noticed in the daily camera on October tenth, twenty twenty-five.

I'll do a brief presentation followed by questions, public comments if there is any, and then discussion and motion.

It allows uh planning commission and city council to provide comments and feedback rather than formal decisions, and it updates certain steps of the review process.

And I'll explain, I'll go over some of those, but some of them we really didn't highlight in the presentation.

Like we removed the second pre-app meeting requirement, which was a waivable requirement.

We often didn't have a formal pre-app charge of another two hundred forty dollars and do that.

So we're we're just we're waving that step.

Uh and then also for the preliminary, we remove some of the prescriptive time uh prescriptive language about you must get the illustrative plan to staff 20 days in advance of the start of the intent to develop.

So we remove some of that really prescriptive language and just uh kept it to uh you know, just the just the required ones, like you must send out notice 10 days in advance and you must post it 10 days in advance and things like that.

And then lastly, we removed some outline development plan language that talked about they would essentially take the place of uh they would be considered a sketch plan for the purposes of the PUD process, but I believe all those ODPs have long expired now, so there's there's like no there's no need for for those to be there.

I believe the reason that that we took those out.

Um then there's something else I wanted to bring up here.

So the purpose uh really the biggest purpose is to include the decision making body, city council earlier in the process.

The way that we have this set up right now, they go from a very preliminary sketch plan all the way through preliminary plan, and then city council doesn't see the plan until it's a fully baked final plan with 100% engineering, everything's been tested, and then if they deny it, you know, that's a ton of money and soft cost that the developers spent when they could have probably got that feedback in hopefully a few months' time, not five years, but a few months, hopefully.

Um so and then uh you know, we want to align the sketch plan review with the stated purpose of the sketch plan, and I'll get into that a little bit more on the next slide, and then reinforce that these reviews are non-binding.

So the current regulations, I'm not gonna read all these.

I kind of have uh highlighted uh bolded and and uh italicized the important parts.

So the purpose of the sketch plan is to uh evaluate the appropriateness and to identify major problems which must be resolved and to assess the overall feasibility of the project, and preliminary plans kind of plug in right after that, which are to review a more detailed design and to resolve planning or engineering problems, which may have been erased at the sketch plan.

So we really want to like highlighting those, and that's really the intent, and how do we get there?

Uh the current process is pre-application meeting, the attempt to develop uh the neighborhood meeting, followed by formal submittal, staff review, and then bringing it forward to the planning commission, and then city council only on an appeal of the applicant or on a call-up.

So some of the flaws as we see it really is two kind of major ones.

It was what I already touched on city council, doesn't review until final plan, and then uh it's really not an intuitive process.

The sketch plan isn't binding.

Um sorry, I'm gonna rethinking this.

It's it's not it's it's not intuitive because it's not binding and defined as a review of the concept plan uh with the purpose of evaluating appropriateness and identifying problems.

However, the requirements are exactly like the preliminary plan combined with the decision options of approve, approve with conditions, deny, kind of imply that a more a bigger or more important decision is being made.

And I think that's what's caused a lot of a lot of kind of the confusion and problems with this process.

Now I would also like to say we think there's more wrong with it, but we're trying to take a lighter touch with this just to fix the what we think are the kind of the worst problems of it, and then for like further study it, further examine it throughout the land use code update.

So here's an example of our current system, it's basically broken down into five steps.

Pre-app intent, neighborhood meeting, staff review, PC action.

The proposed still has five steps.

We've just removed the intent to develop, and we've jumped up the neighborhood meeting, staff review, PC review, and then city council review.

So there's still three opportunities for public input.

It's just city council takes the place of the intent to develop.

Uh, and then also we put language in there that talks about review and comment, and we remove the language that talked about the approval or denial to reinforce that non-binding decision, and then we eliminated the ability for appeal to city council and and city council initiated reviews for the sketch portion of it, not for the preliminary.

Uh, but uh just because that's they're gonna be reviewing all of them, so it only makes sense.

So that's that's it.

That's short of it.

I'm sure you're gonna have questions.

I don't know if there will be public comment or not.

All right, do we have any questions for staff?

Go ahead, Mr.

Phillips.

Okay, so first, I just want to bring up that um something that uh Commissioner Hirchy brought up tonight, made me think about this process some more.

And the realization that you think when these people have you know already been working with you staff for a while before they get to us, even at a preliminary level, okay.

And so I mean though you're not designers and you're not architects, you're still influencing to some extent what they do, right?

So how does you know again where this commission seems to be in terms of being open to newer thoughts, if you will, like high higher density or this or that or whatever.

Um how does or does it even get communicated to the developer?

Are they just going, well, here's kind of sort of a basic tried and true model, and we'll go with this.

So it never even the thought never even occurs, and then they come to us and then we start picking it apart here, when they've already got to the point where they're kind of well, you know, we've kind of you know already solved all the problems that lead to why we're doing it the way they're doing it.

So I I mean, I kind of see this issue no matter what you're doing by giving the city council a whack at whatever, it's not gonna change that problem unless you guys are more proactive and say, you know what, you know, you can consider doing things other ways, don't feel that you are forced into this because of X.

Well, there's a lot to respond to there.

I think I'll first start by uh by uh trying to clarify that I mean, and I think this is maybe where it's coming from the five year piece.

I think previous staff and the whole development review team would get caught in this review system because of how this whole thing was.

Well, I mean it wasn't I mean it wasn't really a five year that motivated that.

I mean, regardless if it's five years or only one year, still, you know, well, they're going through you first.

Yeah, I and I'm getting to that.

So the way that the code reads, and this is where it's kind of been conflicting in terms of them getting in like this circular round of review with staff.

The code reads that you can advance after one round of review, and that's what we've started to let these applicate applicants do.

So they come in with a sketch plan, they get one round of comments from staff.

If they want to address anything that we've identified, we've identified the major problems.

Like if there's something that, like, oh, that you know, that you're asking for 60 feet and it's a 35 foot high limit, you're probably that's probably a non-starter with our planning commission.

They're probably gonna come back and revise it.

But if it's in the realm of what they, you know, like what is feasible here, what kind of aligns with the COD plan goals and objectives, they should be coming to you guys early on.

Like, and so that that's why this conversation tonight is so awkward, and I know that's part of the reason why you guys are frustrated, is that you don't get to them until they've gone through several rounds and and they're they're tired, they're not willing to make any changes.

But how the whole process should work is that they hear from staff, we do a preliminary type of review, they come to you, and you give them the same kind of comments.

And so what you're getting at is that how do they know that we might be tolerant of uh more density or uh parking reduction?

That's a like this the system that we're trying to set up is how they get to how they get there.

And so I mean we're under this cloud of a long time of review, and and these are the things that we're trying to do to fix it, but we don't we don't want that either.

We don't we don't want to spend two, three rounds of review saying that oh, what if we did more apartments or whatever, and then we get a traffic study that blows that whole thing up, right?

Like that just doesn't make any sense.

So this is this is why these changes are being made, and this will give you like these are the conversations you guys seem to want to have, and earlier on in the process, and the sketch plan is what's gonna get you there, and they will have the opportunity to get it get in front of you a lot quicker than they have so far.

Yeah, but this it's still it doesn't quite work, and that's what we saw tonight wasn't really necessarily normal.

He he went a lot further in what he did in terms of showing us what he was building and a lot of details that might normally be at sketch plan.

So if that's that's what I mean, technically that's what our requirement, I mean that's the next step of what we're gonna be walking back to is not getting so I mean because like it doesn't look any different than what you guys get from a spar application, yeah.

Like you get 10 plan sheets, they start talking about landscaping, they have some level utility design that's not that's not this discernible to the general public.

It's that's really not even terribly discernible to you guys as to like how baked is this application versus something that we get that is you know gonna be a permit ready right afterwards, and so we're trying to make this system that actually is distinct from like when you get a smart application, and I think I think we're headed in the right direction or preliminary plan, yeah.

It's not that far off.

But that that's not what this tonight is doing.

This is much more procedural through the land use code update.

We're gonna look to walk back the requirement and further distinguish what you get an application-wise from plan sheets.

Some some municipalities really are like call them bubble diagrams where they just kind of cloud like, hey, we're thinking commercial in this location, right?

And we're thinking residential in this location, and and then you don't get as much, right?

Like you're able to actually chew on a little bit more.

So there's a uh right sizing to that, like but uh I think in both Jake and I's experience what we get in Lafayette for a sketch plan is is both frustrating to an applicant because they have to give you quite a bit before they get any feedback, and that's also seemingly frustrating for you guys.

So let's talk about the addition of the planning commission in the sketch plan city council.

I mean city council.

Sorry, glad we're city council.

Yes, thank you.

Uh um so only twice that I recall has there been called up from city council.

Uh one was a while ago and it was actually called up, um, even though we approved it.

At a preliminary plan stage, yeah.

Um, the other one was some weird thing where it would already been called up before we even went through it.

It was already on the schedule to be called up in front of council.

The last one that got that went to council after it went to us.

That one silo was written that way.

Like we tried to shorthand it right so that we didn't have to have an appeal or uh um or a call-up, right?

And so we could because it's otherwise like it really extends their process.

No, no, it's fine, but I'm just saying that but council didn't want to uh council didn't want to call it up, and so that they had to run through the whole process and and get an appeal.

So like they went it took a little bit longer to talk about my point being that okay, so that's two times correct in the past, I don't know, three, four years or more.

Um so adding council onto this at the sketch plan level.

Your intent is because you know, to to remedy that happening because if it only happened twice, I don't know if that's such a big deal, or is there another thing because there is the potential for a council, you know, to look at this and go, oh well, I you know, I'm I'd like to see something different.

So who is the applicant listening to council or planning commission at this stage at sketch?

They should be listening to both of you, but hopefully it's not a contrary uh direction.

And well, it will be it could be, but the ultimate decision body is city council based on comments that the commission would be providing, right?

Yeah, but they might provide they might they may provide like uh a different point or something that you guys didn't discuss.

Interpret the criteria differently.

Well, I think what Commissioner Phillips is getting to is that Commissioner Phillips, please.

I did say that.

I thought you said Mr.

Phillips, that's why she said speaking.

Uh of many.

What I think the point is that is that the body here is very uh cognizant and has the kind of expertise to actually look at something like that sketch plan and ask the meaningful questions.

Whereas when you have more of a political body, that becomes a different conversation, right?

And it's not evaluated with the same weight as you know, we would have based on the criteria that are required for spatial utilities, whatever the the sort of you know the sort of building piece of it is.

So I I don't really understand, would wouldn't they want to see it after we have kind of really polished it up for them to say, look, you're gonna get a great project here, rather than oh, you know, I want to see something over here which doesn't make any sense based on a previous evaluation of the project.

Yeah, I I mean obviously the expertise on planning commission can often be, I mean, it's usually a mix of lay people, professionals, so but often the the expertise is stronger on planning commission, not always, but but what if you think about it as a second opportunity, an additional opportunity for city council to hear what planning commission thinks.

Because right now they only hear what planning commission thinks at you know, at your recommendation based on the preliminary plan, and then when it gets to them on final plan, now they're gonna get a recommendation from you at the sketch plan stage, and again uh towards the end at the final, and you know, I think the way we'd like to go is that if at preliminary you would go, they would go planning commission, city council, and then final would be an administrative review for just the technical kind of engineering matters and and so forth.

I don't know that we'll get there.

I don't know if the community will think that's a good idea.

I don't know if the working group will or city council, but uh in in my mind it's another opportunity for planning for a city council to hear planning commission slots on a project.

And then and it's also to Frank to your other point, what we're trying to avoid is I believe it was way before my time, but there was a self-storage that the commission recommended approval for.

They went dead 100% design, they took it to city council and it was denied.

So that's another thing we're trying to prevent.

And it's not necessarily that it's happening here, but developers are are getting denied at the final stage after they fully designed things.

Throughout the metro area, and so like we're hearing kind of they want this early feedback too from the decision-making body.

So it's not just staff creating this concern, it's it's something we're hearing about too.

The only thing I'd add um is just that it also, I mean, in an ideal situation, and I hope that we get to that place, right?

Because our code gets more clear, we will get there, but it's an opportunity for the applicant to hear twice, right?

They're gonna hear from planning commission, they're gonna hear from city council.

And if they hear the same thing, they're they're much less likely to come back with an application that says, Well, I know planning commission said this, but I'd I'd still like to see whether or not council agrees, right?

And so they get an early opportunity to say, oh, that density's right, or that you know, that mix of uses is right or isn't right, right?

And then you have more concern, like so if this were too, and this isn't under this the the last application isn't under this current thing.

So if this were the other one would have advanced the council and they'd have said, yeah, I would like to see more density, or if what you can that would have, you know, reaffirmed it rather than them coming back and having like the kind of optics of like, well, we never heard from council.

So we'll tell the planning commission that we can or can't do it, and then see whether or not city council agrees, because there's always like not an appeal, but uh another body, second chance.

Yeah, second chance.

So what if they say different things?

That's that's it.

I mean then you're then you're really adding to the process, you're muddying up the water.

What I what I what I I mean, you guys spend a lot more time with these applications is than city council typically does.

What I envision to happen is that we will present what was you know, what the proposal is, what planning commission said, and then council will likely spend uh half the time, if not less, kind of either reinforcing um what you guys said or adding to it, but it'll probably be like you guys have anything to add, and it'll probably be a fairly quick discussion, but it'll be an opportunity for them to either echo or it's putting daylight on something exactly.

And to Commissioner Ortiz's point, if they if they are hearing different things, that's why we want them to do both of them.

Because if they're hearing one thing from you and and and council is gonna say something completely different, but they don't get to hear that voice, like they're set up for failure there.

So it's almost better that they get to hear both those perspectives up front, and then they kind of have to try to navigate them both and try to try to try to find a common ground and thread that needle, it's not gonna always be easy, but that's that'll be up to them to do.

That's true.

And as we try to make the sketch plan process easier and more efficient to get to you guys, like an applicant will be more willing to like, well, if I heard two different things for both bodies, I want to come back with this, like before I go to step two, I want to come back with a sketch plan and so that I hit the mark.

And that as long as that is a two to three month kind of process, it's gonna be utilized more.

So like if if you they get different information from each of you, they're much more likely to come back to the page.

But take that page and I specific thing that happened where we passed and then they kicked it back.

So in a similar situation, okay, since this is just sketch, how would they have done what they wound up doing?

Which is basically they didn't they it was they didn't think it was a proper use, even though it was used by right for that.

That was a preliminary plan, so I don't want to model the two, right?

No, I don't, but I'm saying how would they have conveyed the same same result that they did at sketch plan low?

That's a use.

That's pretty I mean that's what we talked about tonight.

Yeah, we're looking at the use of so if they just said they didn't want that use and that didn't fit, that didn't meet the call plan criteria, we're not interested in self-stores because it doesn't activate, they could have said that early on.

Which when you refuse, oh okay, because again it's comments, it's not oh they can still make an application.

Yeah, yeah, that's at their own risk.

But if they hear from two bodies that the no, it's not, or if they hear from one and then another that's a at a higher level, yeah.

Yeah.

Or maybe it was a project where it's a use by right type process, but they were asking for four deviations, and then they just scrap three of them because both of the bodies were just saying, ah, you're going too far.

Yeah, it's that middle ground.

I was I was gonna ask uh with the sketch plan when would we we'd be able to make conditions you wouldn't really be making conditions, you'd be giving feedback and again it would be that okay because when I read this, it's probably like we didn't have you you wouldn't even you wouldn't even make a motion of any kind.

You would just conclude it when you were done with your discussion and you'd move on to the next agenda item, and it's up to you know, we'll have the recording, we'll have the minutes, the applicants here, staff's here, and so it's you know up to them to kind of be taking notes and hear what's important, and staff will remind you of things when we get to reviewing.

Well, but you know, planning commission said this, but we're not seeing this anywhere on the plans.

Why are why are you doing that?

And they might have a good reason, and they might want to take it forward and try to try to explain it again a second time in preliminary why they didn't do that, or they might change, and that's kind of up to them to use that information, which is really I we think is really the intent of what it is now, too.

It's just that weird decision at the end that kind of yeah, but it's a lottery so I think it'll also kind of get us away from this format of a meeting, like where you know it's more of a discussion rather than like uh question, like you can ask questions, and then like one of the nice things tonight would have been like well, what do you feel about us like the story?

You know, I can actually ask in it, right?

And yeah you guys are into this discussion, but if it becomes more informal, like you can just kind of have that as a as a conversation versus quote unquote, you know, uh yeah, decision or or hearing it's gonna feel a little different.

Would be the goal.

And those having those decisions in there just doesn't convey use planning commission.

I think it can be used prior staff, it can use current development review staff, and we have to kind of constantly reinforce the fact that this isn't binding.

You can revisit a topic that you that you didn't touch on in a future one.

We we kind of constantly got to be daylighting that, and that this is about identifying problems, not solutions at this stage, it's identifying the problem.

So we're we're constantly reminding each other of that too.

So hopefully this will clean that up also.

All right, is there any other questions?

We do have this as a public hearing.

Um would anyone like to any interested members of the public wish to address commission regards regarding the proposed ordinance?

No, if you'd like to if you have a comment, if you I didn't think well, I just auto something you know, get it.

You could just come and state your name it's pretty simple, yeah.

Is an idea like just state your name and address and then asking.

Oh, sorry.

You can fill it out afterwards.

Yes, either.

Bob Glenn 401 West Cannon Street, Lafayette, Colorado.

Uh just after hearing everything.

I mean, I've heard Joe's opinion, and I appreciated Frank bringing up like the one-offs, and I can see a positive either way, but uh it's been addressed with y'all in questions on y'all, but is it something council also wants that extra stuff?

Uh or they feel it's worthy and interested, so that's all I would say.

Okay.

I don't know if I'm allowed to batter how they works, but I figured I would throw that at the group.

Is that something they want and are interested in the council themselves?

Theoretically, we'll give them the option.

If we if we pass it, if we pass it.

Because that's a question for staff.

Is this something that has been discussed with council yet?

Great or something we have to vote on.

It is never done this for it.

We can defer it.

We can totally defer it.

I think I'd like to think about it.

I'm not sure of all the implications yet.

Now they want to get this approved by that's the point that hash it out right now.

Yeah, let's I mean, we just have to know.

We're ready to return this for discussion.

Can you put the the the slide by side?

Yeah, that's a good one.

Oh, that's fine.

Yeah, yeah.

So is there something here that is a little bit concerning for you?

Yeah, it it I don't uh want a double review and then want the process to get longer.

And it seems like it's watering down what planning commission does.

I think planning commission is that voice to talk about it to get it in the best shape it can be focused to council.

Now it's it's it's kind of making plan commission.

Um not important, but but optional.

So we would still have preliminary plan, but then we don't see it at final.

That's the current um yeah, we keep it the same way it is where you review preliminary and they come back, finalize the plans and take it to council.

From my perspective and experience, this feels like it's gonna speed up the process.

Yeah, because rather than going through multiple reviews with staff or needing to go through this more technical earring process, like they can decide at what point it sounds like they can decide at what point they want to come and talk to us, and then it's scheduled for planning commission, then it's scheduled for council two weeks later.

It's kind of a it could be a three-month thing by the time they submit something and talk with them with the review body.

Yeah, that might be a little optimistic right now.

Yeah, but I think the stake off of somebody who really wants to meet.

But our but our goal, and I don't know, I can't.

I don't want to speak for previous previous, you know, staff.

I'm not sure why it was treated in such an iterative process where they were going back and forth about sketch plan so many times.

Uh but it clearly says in the code one review, and uh we're trying to uphold that with recommendation if there's something that's really you know, really not in line with the comprehensive plan or something that they might want to revise that, but that's ultimately up to the applicant's discretion.

And there's also a world because it doesn't require as much engineering docs.

An applicant theoretically could come with two visions because it's just review and comment.

They could say, hey, I have you know, idea A, that's kind of more bare bones meets the code, doesn't shoot for the sky, and then there's version B that says based off of prior PC staff and council comment, I feel like there's a reach here, and they could bring both and we can talk about both, and we can get into the nitty-gritty weeds without feeling like we're either leading them, you know, down a path that council's gonna deny, or we're hesitating to put a condition because we don't think it's a requirement, but we want to we want to feel the need to communicate it to at least have the discussion and daylight it.

The review and comment seems like in the hearings, you know, to your guys' point we'll we get stuck in the discussion component, and then we just see an applicant in the back kind of nod or shake their head or like we're saying how we're thinking, and then they're not responding, but we can see them versus they get to stay up there the whole time and have like a longer dialogue and conversation, and also oh, we're we're past staff comment, but we asked a question that they can't answer, maybe staff can like it.

It lets that be more getting into the weeds, but not you know, it is just a discussion.

I I see it more as it gives us more of room to talk, and it gives council, you know, they're not superseding us, but they are the review, they are the final review body, and we do you know, they appointed us on planning commission, so ultimately it makes sense that we are beneath them in the org chart, even though we have the comp plan and the code, but they're citywide.

Yeah, well, they and they have to follow those things too, and hopefully those pieces will be improved.

Um, the land use code, especially, so that we are getting submittals that are more consistent and representative of what we want to see.

Um, does sketch plan still quasi judicial since we're not I yeah, that was asking that question before as well.

Like since um, yeah, is sketch plan still quasi judicial?

Now we've got I would not think so if I had a planary lineway in on that for the final decision.

Are sketch plans quasi-judicial moving forward on under the old new new language?

They are still quasi-judicial.

Yes, they're just not a binding decision, but you still need to treat them fairly.

You need to consider them fairly and impartionally and based on what's presented to you during a public hearing.

I believe what I don't know is whether they will have a public hearing where the public can also comment at that stage, but for sure you will continue to consider them as a quasi-judicial application based on a record that is created at the meeting.

I would assume that we would keep this a neighbor or uh uh we've kept the public hearing language in there, yes.

Okay.

And I don't remember where we landed at the last meeting on the specific component.

Did we talk about intentionally removing the intent to develop and just going to the neighborhood meeting?

We talked about it.

I don't know that there's consensus, but uh this was kind of staff's staff's uh recommendation.

Okay, uh we definitely talked about it.

But they could go, they could go back and forth a couple times.

They could come to us with a sketch plan and they could provide more information.

They could always provide more and and test the waters.

We don't have anything like that.

Yeah so yeah they could definitely do that.

It feels really heavy for a sketch plan.

Yeah yeah I I I don't know I don't know how I we haven't really contemplated that you know um but that's there I don't see there's why any reason why they couldn't it's just what is the process for doing that.

You know our fees are already pretty dramatically low fees in my experience and so like you know don't get me wrong no development review or building departments is a it's an enterprise fund where they fund completely fund themselves but uh we're not funding even a portion of our time so it might be worth worth considering that but that's that's a discussion we have to have so are you still concerned yeah what you said I think is real concern it becomes a political discussion instead of a goes to council it's true that's yeah but I mean it's it's so but in our view it's better to have that political discussion early than later after they've invested all that money how many how many and they turned down the we've sent in I don't have an it can't really speak to that other than what I've heard from like Frank and and stuff but I I can tell you from my limited amount of experience here in my experience in other jurisdictions there's always councils that give more or less deference to planning commission's opinions and this city council seems to do a pretty good job of of uh kind of giving deference to planning commission so I think in my experience you guys uh your voices is taken into account more so than some other jurisdictions I've worked in it's interesting because we had a um a meeting with the heads of the chairs and boards or the chairs with with the chairs of boards of commissions um a few weeks ago there's gonna be another tomorrow talking about the work plan the city work plan I'll get to this more in in commission commissioner comments but one of the comments was the reason to have a work plan was to align with city council priorities and it struck me as a little like a city council turns over at what every somewhat every two years and then every four years or I I'm not even sure the terms but it should our our reviews and and we should align with the comp plan and we should align with a land use code and we should and so to your point I don't want it to become a a thing where um so and so is on city council and he's gonna make sure his buddy gets to build his project and so he's gonna yeah um so that's that is a good so I I don't know how you weigh that because um it would really be good to have buy-in and in an ideal world we we have city council saying yeah this is a great idea and also have we thought about this and everybody's like yay rah-rah um man are we moving away from an ideal world rapidly in this country I don't know I won't say anything um I think there's only been one that they've turned back we have right I just want to make sure we're distinguishing between I mean the sketch plan really is intended to be high level kind of conceptual review so like when we start you know feeling like uh it's taking away from planning commission's review planning commission's review and when you really start chewing on an application comes through the preliminary plan phase and the application that the the two well the commission and the council were sideways on was a preliminary plan application where would it advance the final they didn't approve it right even though planning commission recommended approval so I don't I don't see it the same way like in terms of I I see it as more of a and like Jake said like it's a it's a better reassurance to uh applicant to know that like hey we're gonna I mean and and that's not terribly development friendly to be like yeah come in go through sketch plan here from planning commission know that city council's the ultimate approval but you don't get to hear from them until the end and you've invested kind of everything so um that's that's why we're making or making a recommendation for the change um and again like I think as we move through the land use code process we're ideally moving away from having a lot of PUDs too so that's gonna be a little bit different but big subdivision applications on a subdivision scale still follow the same like we've we've lumped and I don't know if we're gonna parse that out or not but we've lumped subdivision review and PUD review through the same kind of process so a subdivision would still need sketch before preliminary and final.

But in order for things not to be so heavy on the like we've gotten applications in recent history where they've had full construction drawings, initials the middle, and that's what we're trying to move away from so that we get to a preliminary plan that's whatever, you know, uh mostly baked on on a design level, but not fully designed, like with construction drawings and civil drawings and all that, like totally like horizontal uh and and vertical, like uh utility design, which like if you're gonna make a change uh um you know to that that that's when things start getting really frustrating for applicant.

But if you ask for that from the from the jump, you're bound to make a request for a change, and so that the process has just gotten super frustrating for applicants, probably because of what we're asking for at what time.

So some of that stuff's gonna change, and that's probably a little bit more information than you're asking for now.

But I I do think that all we're trying to do is make sure the sketch plan is conceptual and that it actually gets to both bodies.

So I understand your point.

And I also don't, I mean, that's also like a little bit of faith in in council.

They don't get into the level of reviews and detail and comments that you guys do.

They have a full agenda, like they don't have the time to do it either.

So they do really do rely on you guys.

And so hearing, like well, staff said this and climbing commission said this.

Do you have anything more to add?

Do you agree?

Do you not agree?

Is it's gonna be that level of discussion?

So this would give also the public would technically have three opportunities.

Right.

That doesn't change, right?

That doesn't change, yeah.

So yeah, okay.

Any other discussion on this one?

Are we ready to make a motion?

Or yeah, if this can save a little bit of time, I think that's yeah, I was looking at it.

Just put all the days for all these steps.

Um there's a lot of things.

It's uh um, we just like to put the motion language up.

Thank you.

I'll make the motion.

I move to approve resolution 2025-09, a resolution of the planning commission of the city of Lafayette, Colorado recommending the city council to prove an ordinance amending section 26-16-4 of the code of ordinances regarding sketch plan and preliminary plan review procedures.

I'll second.

All right, we have a motion and a second.

Any further discussion?

Seeing none, all those in favor?

Aye, aye.

Any opposed?

Motion carries.

Um moving on to commission comments and um committee reports.

Oh, first of all, quick question is there a sundar in our future or are we talking about the city or commission?

Project it couldn't get built.

I'll defer he's way more involved in that one than I am, thankfully.

So I don't I don't have a resplot, so staff is looking to me.

Um so I I uh am in relatively regular contact with the attorneys for the developer milestone.

Uh who's the developer of Sundar, and um they within the last two months.

I can't give you an exact date because there's not a lot going on in the last two months, but um with the city in general, but in terms of that development, uh within the last two months they received approval of revised building permits to bring the phase one of the project uh almost entirely up to our current code, except in and when I say almost entirely, um, they are entitled to certain exceptions because of the time that they were platted, and so uh through um uh development agreement amendment process we did work with the developer and negotiated uh that they revised their building plans to to bring things um up to code.

So that has been done.

Um those permits are active.

Uh they recently and this is within the last couple of weeks received uh certificate of initial acceptance for all of their public improvements for phase one, um, which uh they've been working on for a while, so that's done.

So public improvements are done, um, building permits are active, and um uh I think they have a deadline to commence construction of their public improvements, or I'm sorry, their of their vertical construction of their of their buildings within uh about it's 270 days from when their building permit plans were recently approved.

So somewhere in the next nine months, let me just put it that way.

So we expect to see some construction out there within the next nine months with winter coming and just the timing of when all that happened.

It's uh possible that they could start putting in foundations now, or they might wait till next year.

Um but they do have time to do that under the building permit related agreements that we worked out with them earlier this year.

So phase one is on track to continue and to commence construction.

Phase two is undergoing a review of their public improvement drawings.

Um so that would be their civil construction drawings for things like utilities, streets, um, anything in the ground and on the ground that the city would need to maintain.

We are asking them to um make revisions to phase two plans, and I don't believe there is a site plan for phase two yet.

So that will be the vertical improvements, the buildings.

Um I don't think that is set yet.

Um does that mean phase two is going to come back to us like silo did.

I I believe so.

I don't want to misspeak, but I I I'm thinking about phase two.

We have a development agreement for phase two.

Um they don't have building permits.

There's no building permits for phase two.

I'm certain of that.

Um with phase one, building permits were issued quite early because of our growth management charter provisions, and so that um is why they got building permits so long ago, and also why we took advantage of a recent opportunity to have them update their building plans because our building code had changed since they initially received their building permits.

Um but on phase two, I I don't believe building permits were ever issued.

So that's still blank slate on the surface, but we're working on the public improvements piece right now with our public works department and their engineers.

So phase one, uh, expect to see some activity in the next 200 or so days.

I'm very involved in the details, so sorry to be so specific, but that's uh that's an overall that's an overview of where we're at on that project.

Sounds optimistic, anyway.

Yeah, bro.

Something's happening.

Um, so NRAL has a um energy executive leadership program that they do, I think every year, and once you've been through that, they have an alumni event uh annually.

And so I I uh went through their program back in 2009, and the alumni event this year, and the reason I'm bringing this up is because the discussion was talking about this you know, new push all of a sudden out of nowhere for these massive data centers.

And they were talking, you know, about the different aspects of it, how they're how they're powered, this, that, whatever.

But the piece I came out of it, and I don't know whether you guys are looking at this, so that's why I'm mentioning it, was number one.

Is that something that's even on our use table?

Or would that just be lumped in with commercial?

And the other thing is that um a lot of places were did not have any standards or anything in place and caught shorthanded.

So they mentioned that Ashray 90.4 would be the standards to look at if you want to get up to speed on what's best to ask them for when they come in and say, Oh, we want a data center, because they can do things like, for example, um for heater water.

Well, that too, but for heat for heat dissipation, they if it's built next to commercial area, you can do some kind of deal with them where they actually provide heat for buildings and it helps them.

So there's various different aspects of it that are more than just the building itself.

So yeah, FYI.

Yeah, no, it's funny they mentioned that the American Planning Association does like a zoning practice uh pamphlet.

I think they do it monthly.

Uh but the one that we just received is on the data centers, and it talks about a lot of communities they sneak in under like a warehousing land use or or a or light industrial.

So they're they put out a little kind of pamphlet, you know, five, six pages about kind of what to do to your code.

So yeah, we've definitely uh after reading that of have put that on the on the land use code update to look into that.

Okay.

So I had never heard of like kind of using it as like a central heating district, kind of like they used to do back in the day, like they would do heating for a whole block, you know, with the with the centralized.

Well, if you're if you're prepared for them, assuming they would actually manage to get in here, then what do you know what you can do with them?

So yeah, that's uh again, it's it's funny that you brought that up because yeah, we just started talking about that a week and a half, two weeks ago, too.

Um I uh, as I mentioned, went to this meeting of of all of the board chairs, uh, board and committee chairs, and the discussion.

Um, would you mind?

I don't know if you have access to the work plan, City Council's work plan.

I think it's gonna work.

So basically they were wanting to get all the chairs together and um talk about what the opportunities are for input from us from PC to CC, um, how we can kind of better liaise between the the various boards and commissions and city council.

Um and they talked about this work plan.

Um I don't know if this is gonna be the most current looks like um work plan dashboard, yeah.

All right, where am I where are you seeing?

Right there down the bottom one.

Is it oh this one dashboard?

Yeah, okay.

Thank you.

I think that's a display.

And I just wasn't as familiar with this.

So this is something from what I understand, they're kind of trying to enact, they're trying to um get this um so that people can really clearly see in one place.

Here's what um city council's priorities are, here's what we're trying to do.

Um here's the if you scroll down a little bit, you can see some of the um yeah, projects by strategic outcomes, how they specifically relate to um the things in the comp plan.

Um keep scrolling down a little bit.

And so, yeah, here you can see if you keep scrolling.

There's the legend, you can see um the completed projects, and then you can see active or planned projects.

So it's just kind of an interesting way to see what's happening, what's the level of effort, what's the cost, um, and get a better sense of some of these things happening for council.

Um so what they're from from what I understand, and I apologize if I'm um it was a little um it was a little new, everything that they threw at us.

Um what they're trying to to do is tune this process and make sure that they are getting the feedback from boards and commissions to city council so that the work plan can reflect kind of what people are on the commissions and on the committees are wanting to wanting to happen.

It's part of the advice, you know, how and so the question that we were left with is you know, when you're not on your board anymore, what do you want them to still be doing?

How how do you how should they be advised how what do we think our role is as as um planning commission?

Um, you know, and and it was interesting because there's various obviously boards um from public arts to to planning commission, and so we've got the quasi-judicial role, and they're much more of a we've got our budget and we select artists and we um so there's all all sorts of different commissions and and committees doing different things.

Um so the the upshot is how can we kind of get a little bit more cohesive um from the boards up through city council to the work plan and and getting that um all working and and getting things accomplished through that.

So I guess I would advise people to kind of take a look at this.

And um, it's interesting to see what projects are happening.

I hope that there's no quasi-judicial issues with us reviewing some of these things because it was certainly helpful for me to see some of the things that do dovetail with with what we do, and um, you know, for instance, the fact that we didn't know about what was happening on South Public Road and that alley that was adjacent to the last review project, you know, it's like um this begins to get to some of those things.

Um this is going to be updated every two years, from what I understand.

Um it's informed by several things the annual budget, federal or state mandates, um key uh organizational or staff council work plan projects, um, approved strategic plans and budgeted or opportunistic funding.

Um so they're looking for opportunities to work with boards and commissions.

Obviously, we work, you know, week all of our stuff kind of funnels up to them.

Um but I've always felt like there was something missing with kind of a more direct line of communication between planning commission and city council, and it's sometimes it's by necessity, but I can remember doing workshops with city council.

We've done those in the past, we haven't done that for a long time, and that would be really helpful so that you we can discuss things at a higher level and um you know where are the missing links, um take a look back at at um comprehensive plan, how what things have are working, what what still needs to be all sorts of things.

So I guess that was one of the things that I um that came to mind when we were sitting there.

It's like we we need to have more interface directly with city council.

And how do you navigate?

How do you navigate to this to this?

Um where did you where did you find how did you find it?

It's on the website.

Yeah, I just googled it and I typed in City of Lafayette in a really weird text format.

You have to do it just like that.

Yeah, exactly.

No, so I went there.

I just came to strategic outcomes and work plans is the first thing that showed up on the Google search.

And then scrolled down to see there's our dashboard right there.

Thank you.

Um so yeah.

So you're proposing that we should have a workshop with them.

I I suggested that at the um at this workshop, and then I'm just yeah, I think it would be great to just get something like that scheduled.

You know, there was a couple city council persons there.

Um and they agreed, and so I think that's probably just something too, you know.

Hopefully, we can get that to happen in the next six months or so.

Um maybe it's maybe it's looking at the land use code, and maybe it's I think there's just a lot of topics that that could be discussed um at a high level that are not pertaining to one or two pieces of property.

So and like I said, we've done that in the past, and it was just really helpful to gel a little bit.

So um other than that, um, I do want to just say a few words on um just a reminder to everyone on on our commission.

We are all citizens of Lafayette.

We are all professionals, or um, we all bring something to this commission.

We all have an expertise in a field, we all have uh uh expertise in being a citizen of Lafayette.

Um I would ask that we think about the level of respect that we bring to this to this commission, um and and make sure that we're respecting the other commissioners to the level that we that we possibly can.

Um I'll go back to the Ted Lasso be curious, not judgmental.

So if somebody is is coming up with an opinion that you're that you might think is just ridiculous, be curious first and then and ask the questions um and let's listen to each other.

Because like I said, there's a lot of that missing in the world right now, and it's pretty.

I don't want to see that happen here.

So um, I just wanted to say that.

Are there any other commissioner comments or um thoughts?

Thank you.

Um and do I have a motion for adjournment?

Let's go.

Oh, do we need sorry?

Do we need side reports to start?

You want to click on it?

All out, yes.

Sorry, all out.

So we we have a uh a site plan PUD uh amendment?

Site plan amendment.

I don't know.

We don't our code isn't clear how you define them, uh along with a a rezoning on a on a portion of the property in question uh that we will be bringing forward to the November 12th yes, meeting.

And um I think that's all we'll have for you at that meeting.

I'm I'm looking at this here, and you know, in the in an effort to kind of keep planning commission aware of what's going on.

We do believe Willoughby phase two will be coming in shortly.

Great.

So we're we've been having some conversations with them.

So we're they are modifying some unit counts.

I think the the the unit types are staying the same.

So we're asking them to show us kind of what they're proposing to see if we'll need to amend the PUD or if we can just move right to the spar.

Uh so that's still a determination we have to make, but we we do expect that soon.

Yeah.

So I have we're never having the coffee shop that was in the old pizza hut.

So it's still where's the brothers, bro?

So close.

Dutch pros.

I can't say brothers.

It's the bros.

Oh, so that's what it they're not an abbreviation, it's Dutch Bros.

That's what I've been told, yes.

Okay, thank you for clarifying that first.

Yes, that's what I know.

Uh yes, they're very close.

I think I think we've got everything we need from them.

Kind of almost, okay.

Is it just the easement?

No, okay.

I will speak to that because I know there's community interest that they are very close.

There are some administrative items that we are wrapping up with them.

Uh it's just a matter of going back and forth on the form of some documents and uh but everything is signed.

Uh we have um I have originals of the development agreement, an easement, a right-of-way warranty deed.

I mean, truly we have everything in hand.

So we've got other classes.

Yeah, on that level, yeah.

So administrative items.

But there should be indicative.

So if they want things turned around faster, can we get a commitment that they build faster if we turn it around fast?

They once they start, then mostly if you build slow, you lose money every day.

So that's true.