Workforce housing continued to dominate the Estes Park Town Board’s agenda Tuesday night as trustees spent more than an hour debating legal questions, financing plans, and development standards before postponing action on a planned unit development application for the Estes Park Housing Authority’s Fall River Village project.
With Trustee Frank Lancaster absent from the meeting, trustees tied 3-3 on a substitute motion to accept the PUD for Fall River Village under certain conditions addressing parking, lighting, and landscaping concerns raised by local residents.
Prior to the Fall River Village discussion, Mayor Gary Hall kicked off the town board meeting by welcoming six Estes Park School students to the front of the town hall to recognize their artwork and environmental consciousness.
Hall celebrated the children and members of the Estes Park School Environmental Resilience Team, whose artwork will be showcased throughout town in honor of Estes Park Recycles Day Aug. 8, before reading a proclamation celebrating Estes Park Recycles Day.
Hall also read a proclamation designating August as Estes Arts Month and gathered with representatives of the arts community for a photo.
Fall River Village planned unit development
The Fall River Village complex consists of two parcels totaling eight acres and 88 units. The upper, 3.8-acre parcel with 24 housing units and an adjacent event facility was the main subject of discussion at Tuesday’s board meeting.
The EPHA seeks to divide this portion of the property into 17 lots, including 14 townhome lots, and amend the PUD to accommodate the subdivision. They also seek to modify the permitted uses to include general office space and storage, allowing EPHA staff to move their offices from the US Bank on Elkhorn Avenue to the adjacent event center.
During the presentations by Senior Planner Paul Hornbeck and EPHA Director of Real Estate Development Pete Levine, Levine echoed prior comments that the EPHA’s mission is to provide and preserve affordable workforce housing rental units.
At Fall River Village, EPHA plans to sell 14 of the townhomes to reduce the debt incurred upon the property’s purchase and rent out the remaining units, including those on the lower parcel, as affordable workforce housing in accordance with its mission.
This proposal did not come without pushback from community members and trustees. Estes Park resident David Shirk argued that the conversion from tourist accommodations to year-round residential use is a significant change of use for the property and has raised concerns about the landscaping and buffering along Farview Drive.
Kristine Poppitz, who lives outside of the Town of Estes Park in unincorporated Larimer County and is a leader of Preserve Estes Park, argued that given the proposal is a new PUD application, it is subject to Ordinance 11-25 and should require two-thirds of neighboring property owners’ approval before the town board can consider the application.
Hornbeck said the planning commission did not find Ordinance 11-25 applicable to the Fall River Village PUD, because the application was submitted before the voters’ approval of the ordinance in November. Citing Colorado statutes, Hornbeck said that applications for site-specific development plans “shall be governed only by the duly adopted laws and regulations in effect at the time the application is submitted.”
Trustee Mark Igel raised concerns about whether the application was truly a new PUD and whether it should be subject to Ordinance 11-25. This concern was echoed with confusion and debate from other trustees. Town Attorney Dan Kramer clarified that the application was processed under standards of a new PUD, freeing it from the guardrails of Ordinance 11-25.
The trustees also echoed Shirk’s concerns regarding lighting and landscaping along Farview Drive, and the EPHA agreed to upgrade and replace the lighting to meet dark-sky standards.
Other trustee concerns included reduced setbacks, shared parking and parking enforcement, sidewalks and pedestrian areas, and the property’s future use.
After lengthy debate, Trustee Bill Brown made a substitute motion to approve the application on the additional conditions discussed by trustees.
After the motion tied and would have failed, the board agreed to continue consideration at its next meeting Aug. 11 to allow additional review and a vote with all trustees present before making a final decision on the application.