Everything you ever wanted to know about the proposed development at 287 and Arapahoe
Let's just get all this out of the way
I pondered how to handle getting all this information here on Substack. Should I do a couple of posts or one big one? I went for the one big one. Here’s what I have been reporting on for months on Nextdoor. I have taken a variety of posts from there and combined them to give you the background of this area which plays an important role in what happens, and what is being proposed. I hope it brings you up to date and illustrates some of the issues surrounding this project.
BACKGROUND
This property is currently owned by Steven Tebo of Tebo Properties, a familiar name in this area.
It is in Boulder County, not Lafayette, and would require annexation to develop. It’s about 40 acres.
Tebo no longer wants to develop the property. A company out of Illinois called Kensington Development Partners is currently interested in purchasing and developing the land. They held their first meet and greet neighborhood meeting on November 7th 2022. I was there.
ERIE AND LAFAYETTE WORKING TOGETHER - THE GLOBAL AGREEMENT
I am trying to figure out how to briefly explain this! ( you know me, queen of wordiness)
Some of you might recall Lafayette and Erie haven’t exactly gotten along in the past. A large part of the conflict revolved around what is now Nine Mile Corner located directly across 287 from the Tebo property at the south east corner of this intersection.
It was extremely contentious with Lafayette trying to keep the property undeveloped as open space, while Erie had big development plans. Lawsuits were launched. I’m skipping over lots of info here, but the end result was what is often called our Global Agreement (GA) with Erie. It’s an Intergovernmental Agreement (IGA) between the two communities.
Among other things the GA put in place was a boundary starting near these two properties, going east down Arapahoe, then south along 119th to Baseline and then east on Baseline to County Line Rd. Lafayette stays on one side of that boundary and Erie on the other.
On the western end the Tebo property is within Lafayette’s border, Nine Mile within Erie’s. On the eastern end the Waneka properties on both sides of Baseline are within Lafayette’s border. Currently the Tebo and Waneka properties are in Boulder County and can only be annexed to Lafayette because of this agreement.
The GA is in effect for 10 years with an automatic renewal for another 10 years unless one of the parties wants to end the agreement. It was signed on June 4th 2019.
Also within the agreement:
Lafayette gave permission to allow Erie access to Nine Mile from 287.
Lafayette gave permission to allow Erie access to their new development Parkdale, from Baseline.
Here’s a signed copy of the agreement
REVENUE SHARING
The GA also put in place something that is valuable to communities that border each other in areas of prime commercial interest. It established revenue sharing between Lafayette and Erie.
Revenue sharing takes away the leverage that large corporations use to get extra goodies from communities. It goes something like this, give us a whole bunch of breaks on fees, or we will go to Happyville right across the street and you won’t get all the sales taxes you need to run your city. It’s a nasty business practice.
If neighboring communities agree to revenue share in these locations that leverage disappears. They agree to some sort of split on the sales and use taxes that are collected and both communities benefit because they are not competing for the same businesses. This is good.
LAFAYETTE AND ERIE’S REVENUE SHARING AGREEMENT
Revenue and expenses shared at 50% for each community for the Nine Mile Corner project and whatever is built on the Tebo property.
Erie’s Nine Mile financial revenue sharing forecast through 2040 is:
Lafayette’s share is $28 million
Erie’s share is $36 million
As part of the agreement we will be splitting costs that Erie has already covered, that’s why our portion is less.
KAREN, KAREN, WHAT ABOUT THAT WETLAND ON THE LAFAYETTE SIDE?
Here’s another twist. (Nothing is simple right) At some point Erie annexed the corner where the wetland is. It’s an old storm water detention basin about 3.5 acres. Long timers here will remember that Nine Mile used to be a beautiful reservoir full of water fowl that would pop over to the wetland on the other side of 287, this storm water basin.
So Erie owns that land. However, again as part of the GA, Lafayette has agreed to let them build a water tank on the Tebo property if they can come to an agreement with whoever develops the land. This would most likely be done as a land swap. Erie trades the corner 3.5 acres for a similar sized parcel on the south west corner of the Tebo property. That would have the right elevation they need for the water tank which they would connect under 287 to tie into their water system.
Erie will de-annex that corner if the land swap happens and then it can be annexed into Lafayette along with the rest of the parcel. Erie has been working with Tebo for years trying to make this happen. Now a new developer has entered the picture.
WHAT ABOUT OUR NEW COMPREHENSIVE PLAN?
The comp plan, as I have said a zillion times, is the community’s vision document. We now have new land use categories. This property is considered adaptable commercial.
ADAPTABLE COMMERCIAL? WHAT THE HECK IS THIS?
City staff describes it as highly walkable, transit forward, mixed use neighborhoods with streets and public spaces as organizing elements as opposed to parking lots. Image below from our comp plan to illustrate the land use.
This land use was created as a way to deal with the possibility (as we have seen in the past) of big box stores moving on and leaving a large building with a sea of parking. It sets up a phased process of converting the big boxes and associated smaller retail buildings into what is described above.
City staff is committed to seeing if this design can be achieved in new developments. Right now there is a three story height maximum but that could be changed based on the development.
PUBLIC LAND DEDICATION
All new developments must either dedicate a portion of the land for public use such as open space, parks or a public amenity such as a school. If there is no suitable land (as decided by the city not the developer) they must pay cash-in-lieu.
Residential – 15% of the site
Commercial/Industrial – 12% of the site
Cash in Lieu – market value
TO ANNEX OR NOT TO ANNEX THAT IS THE QUESTION
Alas poor Yorick it’s not so simple. Something to think about.
Without the GA developers can approach Erie and try to get annexed. Lafayette then has no say at all over what does or does not get built on land that is currently in our jursidication due to that GA.
Before an annexation moves forward the city wants to know what will go there. It makes no sense to annex land and then find out what the developer wants to do. Once annexed the commitment is made to develop at some point. If the city knows what is to go there before saying yes to annexation then there is a much greater degree of control over the parcel in question. That’s why all the work on planning a development, to show the city ahead of annexation, is important.
THE FIRST DEVELOPMENT PLANS
WHAT WAS PROPOSED
Description: The Lafayette Marketplace project proposes to annex 36.31 acres of unincorporated land in Boulder County for a mixed-used residential and retail development.
The project includes 677 multi-family units, 148,000 square feet of ground-level retail services, a park, and a rapid bus transit station.
Kensington Development Partners is the applicant.
The applicant’s narrative
The applicant’s statement of planning objectives
REACTIONS WITHIN THE COMMUNITY - MOSTLY NO THANKS
Public comments submitted to the city planning department and shared with the developer.
THE PETITION
Preston and Barbara Padden created a petition urging the City Council to refuse to annex the land for this development.
MY THOUGHTS ON THIS DEVELOPMENT?
A VIDEO OF THE LAST NEIGHBORHOOD MEETING
You might find this helpful. It’s on YouTube. City planning staff were in attendance and provided some background on how the city process works.
WHERE WE ARE NOW
CITY STAFF
Staff members in the planning department are having discussions with the developer about the design.
CITY COUNCIL
There have been two executive sessions regarding this property. Executive sessions are done when the topic requires council to discuss a topic in private. This allows the council to get legal advice that would not be prudent to discuss in public. Land purchases, personnel issues and lawsuits are the types of topics that would be discussed in these sessions.
ADJOURN TO EXECUTIVE SESSION
Q. Pursuant to Colorado Revised Statutes sections 24-6-402(4)(b) and 24-6- 402(4)(e)(I) to confer with the City Attorney for the purposes of receiving legal advice on specific legal questions regarding annexation and development review procedures, and to determine positions relative to matters that may be subject to negotiations, developing strategy for negotiations, and instructing negotiators, regarding potential annexation-related agreements, all pertaining to real propertylocated at the southwest corner of Hwy 287 and Arapahoe Road.
THE DEVELOPER HAS A NEW PLAN
I have not studied these plans, I have been focused on getting this report put together and out to you all.
Revised Site Plan was submitted on May 10, 2023
Sketch Plan and PUD will be reviewed by the Planning Commission (public hearing) with optional call-up to City Council (This is interesting and although a council call-up can be done for every development I can’t recall seeing it mentioned like this)
The new plan is described this way:
The Lafayette Marketplace project proposes to annex 36.31 acres of unincorporated land in Boulder County to develop a mixed-use residential and retail development. The project proposes integration of residential and commercial uses within a multi-modal planned community. Approximately 601 rental apartments in 3 and 4 story buildings, 175,000 square feet of commercial space, and a BRT Super Station along US Highway 287.
Here’s the whole site plan
NEXT NEIGHBORHOOD MEETING
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Question for you, Karen, and perhaps you'd prefer to discuss this in person. If the City is unwilling or unable to annex this land as open space, what should our course of action be? I think we can fairly assume that once the GA expires in 2039, Erie will do what they can to develop the land, and we will have no say in it. I'm not trying to suggest we support this current development proposal; I definitely feel it's still too much. Rather, what should we pressure the City to do (knowing that they're obviously limited in what they can do)?