Is your residential neighborhood always going to be residential?

When we buy our homes we want to have some certainty that the neighborhood around us won’t be converted to incompatible uses. Since 1997 the City of Fort Collins has preserved neighborhood quality of life and residential property values through zoning rules which allow specific uses on properties within defined zone districts.

It seems straightforward enough that if the zoning is residential, your home won’t soon be surrounded by offices, bed-and-breakfast inns or other uses. But in Fort Collins there is a little-known clause in the Land Use Code which erases this certainty. The Addition of a Permitted Use (APU) was originally enacted to allow the Director of Community Development & Neighborhood Services to add appropriate new uses to entire zone districts if such uses were not already explicitly included in the Land Use Code. Examples where it was used include "non-alcoholic nightclubs", "wildlife rehabilitation centers" and most recently "music facilities."

But, in 2008 as part of the "routine" Land Use Code updates, this clause was modified to allow the Planning and Zoning Board to apply the APU to individual properties and to add land uses which are already accommodated in other zone districts. This was done without any public input but it has the potential to have profound effects on our residential neighborhoods, especially given the recent increase in development we have been seeing here in Fort Collins.

All of the recent cases (since the 2008 change) have been to add uses which are already allowed elsewhere in other zone districts and about 44% of these have been in residential zones. Two-thirds of the City’s twenty-six zone districts already allow uses such as commercial, retail and high density housing – this is mixed use development. It is not necessary to allow commercial and other non-residential uses to creep into residential neighborhoods. Nor is it necessary to allow high-density housing to infiltrate single-family neighborhoods.

No other city has a clause anything like this. It essentially enables a property owner who no longer wishes to use their home as a home to add some other use – an unearned windfall that comes at the expense of the rest of the neighborhood. Changing residential properties to commercial uses erodes the residential character of a neighborhood, it reduces the number of houses available for residential use, thus driving up housing costs and it violates the principle of equal protection under the law by granting different rights to a single property owner.

Several city residents have been working to have this clause removed from nine zone districts in order to protect neighborhoods. This proposition is a reasonable solution which would balance the protection of residential neighborhoods with the flexibility to add new uses on individual properties in non-residential zones.

We feel that the APU should be eliminated from these zone districts because they are primarily residential, are adjacent to primarily residential zones (and already allow compatible non-residential uses) or are explicitly defined as buffer zones which serve to protect residential zones from incompatible uses (and which again allow some non-residential uses):

• Neighborhood Conservation, Low Density (N-C-L)
• Neighborhood Conservation, Medium Density (N-C-M)
• Low Density Residential (R-L)
• Rural Land Use (R-U-L)
• Urban Estate (U-E)
• Residential Foothills Development (R-F)
• Low Density Mixed –Use Neighborhood (L-M-N)
• Medium Density Mixed-Use Neighborhood (M-M-N)
• Neighborhood Conservation Buffer (N-C-B).

This proposed change will come before City Council soon (it is listed on the 6-month calendar for June 2). Please plan to attend and help show support for neighborhoods and for strong protection of residential character and uses.

We will post and update when the date for the Council hearing is set.

Additional Permitted Use (APU) - an open letter to City Council

RE: Agenda Item 13 Re: Land Use Code Change Section 1.3.4 Addition of Permitted Uses

Dear Mayor Weitkunat and Council Members,

We are writing to comment on the June 3rd suggested changes to the Land Use Code.  A committee of our members reviewed the proposed changes to the Code and our comments are below.  We also sent comments on this issue to the Planning and Zoning Board in May concerning needed changes.

Problem

Protect Our Old Town homes supports the zoning of residential neighborhoods that allows for fewer land uses and more restrictions than other zones.  Residential zoning protects our homes from incompatible uses and provides predictability for changes in neighboring properties. We believe the Addition of Permitted Use (APU) rules, especially when applied in residential zoning districts, have the effect of spot re-zoning in that it allows a single property to increase its market value by upzoning to additional land uses, while likely lowering the adjacent and nearby residential market values. 

Homeowners put their life savings into purchasing their homes, which are the biggest investment most families make, and they expect their investment to be protected from incompatible uses by zoning. They also expect that new uses in their residential zone will be residential uses similar to their own (e.g. single-family homes).  The adoption of zoning regulations by local governments is intended to protect residential property values, among other purposes, and to make land use changes more predictable for land owners and developers alike.   The APU current and proposed rules allow residential properties to be upzoned to a “higher and better use”, which in turn increases the property value of that single property, and in many cases, lowers or caps the property values of adjacent or nearby homes for residential use.  In other words, a single family home next to a commercial or multi-family land use, loses value as a single family home as a secondary impact of the upzoning allowed by the APU. The APU process also causes homeowners and neighborhoods to have to maintain an undesired level of vigilance for every new development, redevelopment, and infill proposal or change of property ownership in their neighborhood.  We believe the APU negates the underlying purposes and goals of residential zoning and is unfair to residential neighborhoods. 

Protect Our Old Town Homes also believes the elimination of the applicability of the APU in residential zones would better protect our historic homes in Old Town by maintaining the residential character of the neighborhoods and by decreasing the  market pressures to upzone residential lots for higher density residential or commercial uses. Finally, this issue is not just an Old Town issue. Eliminating the applicability of Additional Permitted Uses for all residential zones would also greatly benefit other residential neighborhoods across the city.

Allowing for Additional Permitted Uses as is stated in the current and proposed amendments to the Land Use Code (LUC) negates the underlying zoning, removes the predictability of future, compatible residential land use developments, infill or redevelopment, and we believe should be removed from applicability in the residential zoning districts. 

Suggested Changes

POOTH recommends that Land Use Code Section 1.3.4. be amended to remove the following nine Districts from applicability, i.e. to apply the Addition of Permitted Uses to all zones except the following Districts:

·       Neighborhood Conservation, Low Density (N-C-L)

·       Neighborhood Conservation, Medium Density (N-C-M)

·       Low Density Residential (R-L)

·       Rural Land Use (R-U-L)

·       Urban Estate (U-E)

·       Residential Foothills Development (R-F)

·       Low Density Mixed –Use Neighborhood (L-M-N)

·       Medium Density Mixed-Use Neighborhood (M-M-N)

·       Neighborhood Conservation Buffer (N-C-B).

Finally, Protect Our Old Town Homes believes that if the Addition of Permitted Uses section is amended to remove applicability for these residential zones, that this change will protect residential property values, reduce neighborhood conflict and delays to appropriate development/redevelopment proposals, and provide more predictability for both neighborhoods and prospective property owners seeking to use a property for a particular use.

We ask that the City Council remove the Additional Permitted Uses applicability from residential districts as part of the proposed Land Use Code amendments and update.

Sincerely,

Gina C. Janett

Co-Chair 

Better solution needed for Old Town parking garage plan

Meg's soapbox on the proposed parking garage is in the Thursday Coloradoan. We're including the article here as well as we believe that part of protecting our Old Town homes involves keeping neighborhoods safe and not having large buildings looming over smaller single family homes.

The photo included with this article was not shown in the Coloradoan post, but was an image on display at the neighborhood meeting regarding the parking garage. It shows residential houses with the parking garage across the alley. Note that you can see the garage not just down the sidewalk, but also above the houses on the left. The garage would be even more visible in the winter when the leaves are off of the trees.

Here's the soapbox article from the Coloradoan:

Blue Ocean, a part of the OtterBox family, has proposed to build a six-story office building, commercial and retail space, and a five-level parking garage on Meldrum Street between Mountain Avenue and West Oak Street. The parking garage, as currently planned, would have entrances and exits on both Meldrum and Oak.

I recognize the need for additional parking on the west side of commercial Old Town. The block under question is zoned for downtown commercial on the east half and residential on the west half. The city doesn’t have a buffer zone between the residences and the commercial zone, despite the fact that the City Plan is quite clear that there should be one. In fact, this block is the only one downtown where commercial zoning butts up right next to single-family homes, in this case, historic homes that have been there for more than a century. I have two chief safety concerns regarding the construction of a parking garage on a residential block and on an important pedestrian and bicycle corridor between downtown and residential Old Town.

This proposal is an aesthetic affront (can you imagine the back side of a five-level parking garage being the view from your backyard?), but it also poses a very serious safety concern to construct a parking garage so close to residential housing. Families with small children not only use this route to walk to the library and other downtown amenities, but some families with small children live only a house or two away from where this proposed parking garage would stand. We also have neighbors here who have lived in their houses 50, 60, some even more than 70 years. They’re not as nimble as they used to be. And sometimes walking past a parking garage requires jumping out of the way if a motorist doesn’t see you as they enter or exit the garage.

In addition, West Oak is a quiet street because it deadends at the baseball fields to the west and at College to the east, and it is a slower, quieter street than Mountain with its higher speed bicycle commuters and higher traffic load. But putting a parking garage entrance/exit onto West Oak will encourage traffic to approach the garage along Oak from Shields Street, greatly increasing the amount of cut-through traffic in the neighborhood.

This isn’t a NIMBY issue. It’s bad planning and it shouldn’t happen. Tall commercial buildings and a five-level parking garage should not be allowed in the same block as family homes, especially historic homes that have been there since the early 1900s. In any other part of town, such a juxtaposition would not be allowed by the city, neighbors or adjacent homeowner associations.

There are other solutions. I ask the city of Fort Collins and Downtown Development Authority to work with Blue Ocean and nearby commercial land owners and large employers to collectively develop a parking garage in an arrangement that would be safer for the families living in the neighborhood just to the west of this proposed project. The big employers in this area include those in the Key Bank building, 1st National Bank, Larimer County and the Lincoln Center as well as OtterBox. A better solution would help us all.

Meg Dunn is a resident of Old Town Fort Collins.

Westside Supporters of Ordinance 033

These Old Town residents have shown their support of the Good Neighbor Ordinance by putting a sign in their door or window. This set of photos only includes just over 1/2 of the westside neighborhoods. The rest of the Westside and Eastside coming soon!

Survey says!

In November of 2012, a neighborhood meeting was held in which residents were asked to give their opinions on several concerns within residential Old Town. Of those polled, 79% lived within the Eastside or Westside neighborhoods.

When asked, "How beneficial do you think expanding the notification of variances would be in addressing concerns within the neighborhoods?" 78% of respondents felt it would be beneficial. Ordinance 033 expands the notification circle when there has been a call for a variance on a new building project in the neighborhoods. 

New building that fits in well with its neighbors

When asked, "How beneficial do you think pattern books or guidelines for building styles would be in addressing concerns within the neighborhoods?" 69% of respondents felt it would be beneficial. And when asked, "How beneficial do you think a menu of front facade options would be in addressing perceived mass and scale issues?" 58% of respondents felt it would be beneficial. Ordinance 033 gives a menu of design options for builders to choose from that help new buildings stylistically fit in better with surrounding older houses. 

New building that doesn't fit in as well with its neighbors

When asked, "How beneficial do you think adjusting the measurement method for building height at the side yard setback would be for addressing concerns within the neighborhoods?" 72% of respondents felt it would be beneficial. And when asked, "How beneficial do you think addressing solar concerns would be in promoting compatible building massing?" 70% of respondents felt it would be beneficial. Ordinance 033 changes the starting point for measuring sidewall height of a new building so that whether ground was raised up several feet before the house was built or the house was built at the original grade, all house heights will be measured from the original grade. The ordinance also changes the house height and set backs for houses on north-south streets that could affect a neighbor's solar access. 

Eclectic grouping of houses that maintain similar size and scale

When asked, "How beneficial do you think adjusting the measurement method for Floor Area Ratio (FAR) would be in addressing concerns within the neighborhoods?" 58% of respondents felt it would be beneficial. Ordinance 033 leaves FAR measurements the same for lot sizes under 5000 square feet in the low density zone and for lot sizes under 4000 square feet in the medium density zone. Above those points, it reduces the percentage of building square footage on lots from the 50% in the medium density zone to 45% (on a 5000 square foot lot), then 43% (on a 7000 square foot lot), gradually down to 37% by the time the house size has reached 5500 square feet (on a 15,000 square foot lot). And in the low density zone it reduces the percentage of building square footage on lots above 5000 square feet from 40% to 38% on a 7000 square foot lot, to 34% on a 9000 square foot lot, gradually down to 32% on a 15000 square foot lot, at which point the house could have a total square footage of 4750 square feet. 

Source:
Turning Results by Question, Session Name: eastsidewestside Created: 11/6/2012 by Winter & Company.

Citizens Speak Up in Favor of Ordinance 033

This video is made up of two and a half minutes of input from supporters of Option A, which after being passed by the city council in March is now called Ordinance 033. To watch the full video, go to the Fort Collins city clerk agenda page and scroll down to the video link on February 19, 2013. (Once there, click on the "topics" link to the right and skip to item #27... unless you're interested in watching several hours of fracking input and discussion first.)

Topics addressed in the video include the overall look and character of the Old Town neighborhoods, solar access (getting sunshine after a large house has been built next door), and specific negative effects that residents have experienced due to neighboring additions and new building.