Estes Park Town Trustees will revisit Ordinance 17-24 regarding Planned Unit Development revisions at 7 p.m. on Tuesday at the Town Board meeting. There were many questions and criticisms about the revisions raised by both Trustee and members of the public at the first public hearing on Oct. 22.
Those revisions were presented by Paul Hornbeck, the Town’s senior planner.
“This PUD amendment seeks to address two particular goals in the Estes Forward Comprehensive Plan, adopted in December of 2022, by encouraging a balanced mix of uses and creating new housing opportunities,” said Hornbeck.
However, as most of the multi-family residential zoned properties in Estes Park have already been developed, new opportunities were identified and developed by staff. “Under the current EPDC, the density and height bonus could be applied to a PUD overlay (even on plots that are not RM zoned), and the proposed amendment is clarifying that point,” Hornbeck explained.
At the initial public meeting, several of the Trustees and members of the public had a problem with raising the building height limit from 30 to 42 feet, which is consistent to heights allowed in the downtown corridor but in no other area of the town. Hornbeck went back to the drawing board in advance of the hearing continuation scheduled for Tuesday.
Based on this input, “the proposal has been reduced to 38 feet,” he said, “the proposed amendment allows the Town Board, as the decision-maker on PUD overlays, to require studies on shadows cast by taller buildings and impacts on line-of-sight so they can understand potential impacts and weigh those impacts with the community benefits provided by a project.”
Included in the comprehensive plan is a map of proposed future land use for development and conservation in the Estes Valley which included a new category, mixed-use centers and corridors, located along major highways, “particularly along S. St. Vrain Ave. and Big Thompson Ave,” he said.
At this time the Estes Park Development Code does not have a mixed-use centers and corridors zoning district, “meaning the plan’s vision for mixed-use corridors cannot be implemented,” said Hornbeck.
The comprehensive plan serves as a high-level guide, but it is up to Town staff to figure out how to implement its strategies under the current development code.
Over the next 18 to 24 months, EPDC will be overhauled, Hornbeck said, but in the meantime Town staff are “proposing an interim fix to provide a potential path to landowners that might want to develop a mixed-use project by using a PUD zoning overlay. The proposed amendment removes some of the barriers to utilizing a PUD overlay while also adding more stringent review criteria to ensure projects provide benefits to the community.”
The public can comment in advance of Tuesday’s public hearing, held at 7 p.m. at Town Hall, by using a form or commenting at the meeting itself.
If approved, the ordinance will take effect 30 days thereafter. “Any applicant wishing to pursue a PUD under the amended code would need to submit an application to be reviewed by staff and referral agencies for consistency with the code,” said Hornbeck. “It would then go to the Planning Commission for a recommendation, and then to the Town Board as the ultimate decision-making body.”
It needs to be pointed out more clearly to the public that if you don’t create a solid base for any market, it will eventually collapse under its own weight. If we don’t provide starter homes then there’s nowhere for people to enter the market. You can’t move up if you can’t move in. If you don’t provide affordable housing for new young talent and entrepreneurs, your existing businesses will suffer the consequences and not be able to thrive. It’s actively happening everywhere along the front range. We’re going to create a recession by doing nothing.