Potential development at 119th and Baseline, part two: update on the meeting and the plans

Plus other information

Part two of my report on Gateway Lafayette, the potential development on both sides of Baseline west of 119th. In part one, I gave you details about the surrounding open space, Kairoi, the Texas company that wants to develop the land, and the annexation petition process. Now let’s get to the neighborhood meeting.

But a couple of items before I do.

A PETITION IN SUPPORT OF OPEN SPACE

Here’s an online petition “Preserve Lafayette’s Eastern Gateway as Open Space” that begins “We, the residents of Lafayette, Erie, and Boulder County, ask our leaders to work as partners to preserve the 78 acres at the northwest and southwest corners of 119th and Baseline as open space.” I hope you will add your name and share it with friends and neighbors. Heads up, after signing the petition there is an ask for money. That money does not come to us, it goes to Change.org.

APRIL 1 THE FIRST STEP FOR ANNEXATION

The first step of the annexation process starts with a request for the city council to determine that the language in the petition is correct. That happens at the April 1st council meeting. Council must also set a date and time for an eligibility public hearing 30 to 60 days after the first vote. THIS IS NOT A VOTE TO ANNEX THE PROPERTY, THAT COMES LATER.

THE DEVELOPER’S NEIGHBORHOOD MEETING -GATEWAY LAFAYETTE

On February 27th, as required by city code, Kairoi’s representative Tyler Sibley held a meeting with the community.

Running the show was Marcus Pachner of the Pachner Company whose name some of you might recognize. His company is hired as the friendly face telling you about the development, why it’s good, and fielding questions. He represented the Boulder County Housing Authority for the Willoughby Corner project at Emma and 120th. He also represented Kensington during their first try at developing the Tebo property at 287 and Arapahoe. He is not along for their second go-round.

WHAT PRESERVE LAFAYETTE DID

With clipboards and signup sheets at the ready, we spoke to people as they entered the meeting. We had these awesome stickers designed for us by Claudia Carle of Good Coffee Media and asked people to wear them so that when Tyler looked out at the audience, he would hopefully get the message.

INFORMATION ABOUT THE PROJECT

The city has a page for this development called Gateway Lafayette. On the page for 60 days you can find the slide deck from the presentation and a link to the video of the meeting. The video is also included below for your viewing pleasure.

Kairoi’s own website for Gateway Lafayette.

Kairoi’s narrative about the project

Gateway Lafayette Annexation Narrative C

333KB ∙ PDF file

Download

Download

Some tidbits from the narrative (hint, it’s umm really something, they have big plans):

Increased demand for city services

Here the developer specifically points out this development will require an “increased demand” for city services and they want to build in phases to “allow” the services to “gradually adjust”. You know what that means? More money from the rest of us to pay for these services. As I continue to say, rooftops don’t pay for themselves and the developer is letting us know that’s true. Keep reading, that’s the general idea behind this project. The city (us) shoulders the associated costs. I can’t recall ever seeing such a blunt declaration from a developer before.

Also note the odd comment about slowly enmeshing the new residents into the community. Why? Because there will be so many?

“Kairoi plans to construct the Project in multiple phases over a period of several years, allowing City services to gradually adjust to the increased demand created by the Project and to slowly enmesh Project residents into the greater Lafayette community.”

Commercial and high-density zoning

C-1 zoning is regional commercial, such as along 287, where Walmart and Kohl’s are. R-4 is high-density residential, three stories in our current code. This is at the end of our Old Town.

“In order to thoughtfully address the specific nuances of the Project, Kairoi intends to apply for Project-specific zoning of the Property that is consistent with the Comp Plan through a P.U.D. that is planned to be generally consistent with the C-1 and R-4 zone districts”

Development provides open space connectivity

I can’t overlook that they claim the project will enhance “connectivity between the City and surrounding open space”. That’s what trails do, not development.

City doesn’t have enough water

This is what the narrative says about water. Here again the developer is expecting the community to provide more services so they can build.

“Kairoi has secured rights to water resources that are planned to serve a large portion of the Project. Although the City does not at present have all of the water resources necessary to serve the full buildout of the Project, Kairoi will continue to collaborate with the City to procure additional water resources necessary to serve the Project based on Kairoi’s phased development of the Project.”

Increased demand for police and fire services

Once more we see the plan to make the city pony up money for this project in perpetuity. Don’t forget we already have a public safety property tax. In 2021 the city asked us to increase our sales tax by adding a public safety sales tax to cover police and fire services. We now have the highest sales tax in the region.

“Kairoi will collaborate with City and the Fire and Police Departments on access and protection plans so that the Project can be properly served. The phased nature of the Project’s development will allow the City’s fire and police protection services to gradually adjust to increased demand created by the Project.”

“A more efficient use of City resources.”

I have never seen a narrative with an attitude like this before, so pointedly speaking about using the city’s resources.

The word “thoughtfully” appears thirteen times in the narrative, four times on one page and twice in one paragraph.

“The Project’s holistic development design will also allow for a more efficient use of City resources. Kairoi looks forward to working hand-in-hand with the City, including the Fire and Police Departments, to thoughtfully design the Project’s utility systems, streets, and buildings.”

Sidewalks

They are promising sidewalks.

“To encourage pedestrian activity, Kairoi is committed to delivering sidewalks in compliance with the City Code”

AUDIENCE PARTICIPATION

Questions from the audience followed the presentation. Yours truly was picked first and I read the following statement.

“I’m Karen Norback of Preserve Lafayette.org. These properties are a top priority on the city’s open space wish list and the missing piece to complete the incredible ecosystem at our eastern gateway. We support open space and if this land is annexed for development we will challenge the annexation at the ballot box.”

There was an enthusiastic response from the audience!

I’m not proficient with YouTube, but I was able to create a clip of that section of the meeting, weirdly if I try to add a text link, it doesn’t work, so here is a very low-tech method.

https://youtube.com/clip/UgkxLA3scEqWSVLQordfVTPJh9WF0XPEYdOR?feature=shared

The entire meeting video.

SOME COMMENTS AND QUESTIONS FROM THE AUDIENCE

Early on in the presentation, Tyler called this an infill project. Of course, it is not, infill happens within a city, this property is in Boulder County. A woman in the back of the room called him out immediately.

Questions about water were prevalent as were comments about the wildlife and traffic.

Someone asked how many housing units are needed for this to go forward. No information was supplied.

We were told there would be a mix of for sale and for rent, with a property management company.

Someone said it’s presumptive for out-of-state developers to come in and tell us what we need.

Someone else said every time we hear mixed-use, it becomes a strip mall with luxury condos behind it.

Marcus talked about coming into town at this location and it should be a special place. That caused the audience to raise their voices saying it already is.

The sales pitch is that this development will create a gateway for Lafayette and the audience response was we already have one and we like it.

The oil and gas wells on the southern parcel were mentioned, there are three. Tyler said those wells would be abandoned and capped if the development went forward.

OIL AND GAS WELLS

In November 2023 at the request of Marcus, the hobbyists met with him and Tyler to discuss the plans for the site. Tyler mentioned Red McComb of San Antonio and told us Kairoi had a relationship with the company, McComb Enterprises. He said they had been talking about accessing a pad in Weld County to do offsite drilling, running laterally underground to access the wells on the property. He did not mention this at the neighborhood meeting.

The day after that 2023 meeting I called Marcus and informed him that we would be challenging the annexation via a vote of the people. We heard nothing further about the project until notification about the neighborhood meeting this year.

During the neighborhood meeting Tyler said they have been talking to the city for the last year.

COMPREHENSIVE PLAN - THE WHEEL

The developer presentation mainly focused on the Legacy Lafayette Comprehensive Plan.

I served on the Community Advisory Committee (CAC) for the 2021 comp plan update. Here’s a little glimpse inside that update.

While I say the comp plan is the closest thing we have to the community’s vision document, the community did not write it. Consultants were hired to develop the format and they asked for input from the CAC, and from the community as the rewrite progressed via surveys and meetings.

The land use plan and any plans for specific properties also came from the consultants and staff. They might ask the community questions, but land uses are determined by city staff and the consultants, or you know we would have a green map!

Here’s an example of what I mean about the way the consultants drove the plan, but asked for input. Early on in discussions, they showed the CAC a wheel intended to visually illustrate items of importance to the community.

The first wheel needed tweaking, so we asked for some changes in wording, for instance, the only reference to anything open space related was “natural systems”. What was that? We didn’t know. Due to our discussion that became “Parks, recreation, open space, and, wildlife”. Much better eh?

As we looked at the four frameworks that were to be the guide for the comp plan, connected community, strong economy, community character, and environmental stewardship it became clear that parks, recreation, open space, and wildlife habitat belonged not only in environmental stewardship but in community character as well.

The outer ring on the wheel was rearranged to put community character and environmental stewardship together and parks, recreation, open space, and wildlife habitat became the only wedge in the wheel to span two of the frameworks. It’s even called out at the beginning of the comp plan right next to the wheel.

Here’s how it looks in the comp plan on page 10 in the executive summary.

THE WHEEL THE DEVELOPER USED

Notice anything missing? During the comment period at the neighborhood meeting I asked Marcus to bring up the slide they used and pointed out that one wedge that spans two of the frameworks.

A CALL TO ACTION FROM A MEMBER OF THE AUDIENCE

An attendee said these gentlemen are here because they are paid to be here, they are developers, they make money doing this. Nothing anyone has said tonight is going to change their mind, who you need to be talking to is the city of Lafayette. The city of Lafayette needs to understand how we feel about this and how we value open space. Nothing we say tonight is going to change the developer’s mind. Talk to the city and tell them how you feel.

Good advice! I agree.

TALK TO THE CITY

Here’s a quick and easy way to let the council and city staff know your thoughts about this property. This form on the city website lets you send one message by checking a few boxes. I would suggest checking the council, city administrator, planning and building, and open space boxes.

Want to offer more support? Awesome!