November 24, 2020
TO: Members of Fort Collins City Council
FROM: Planning Action to Transform Hughes Sustainably
RE: Urgent legal questions related to the SPAR process – Please respond
In the days following your last regular meeting on November 17, 2020, several important meetings and discussions have taken place and it’s important that you be informed of them. We respectfully request that you respond to our concerns about comments made by participants.
In two public meetings, the legality of proceeding with a Site Plan Advisory Review (SPAR) process for Colorado State University System’s Board of Governors’ (BOG) development of the Hughes property has been questioned.
Thursday, November 19, 2020 a Conceptual Review of the BOG development proposal was conducted by members of City staff. Conceptual Review is the first requirement of the SPAR process as codified in Land Use Code §2.16.2. City Planning Department staff member Cameron Gloss and City Attorney Brad Yatabe both questioned the legal basis for reviewing this project under SPAR. Please see sections of the transcript at the end of this message.
Also on Thursday, the Planning and Zoning Board met for its regularly scheduled hearing. The Board responded to a citizen’s question about the application of SPAR and its effect on local control over development. Several members spoke to the lack of sufficient background knowledge on their part regarding when SPAR applies and when it does not.
We urgently request that you direct the City Attorney to research the legality of the BOG’s position and we ask that this matter be discussed publicly once the Council receives the City Attorney’s advice.
It’s imperative that the City Council become informed about this subject and then direct their employees, the City Manager and the City Attorney, to take appropriate action. This matter needs our elected officials acting as fiduciaries of the public’s trust in the laws governing activities within our city.
Respectfully submitted,
Planning Action to Transform Hughes Sustainably (PATHS)
Partial transcript of 11/19/2020 Conceptual Review of BOG Hughes development proposal
Cameron Gloss states:
“Several questions that are more legal and procedural that I’ll start with.
The first relates to the application of the state statute, and what we call locally the SPAR process. When you look at the statute, it basically states that this process is to be used for public buildings and facilities, things like utilities.
And it’s a little unclear to us whether there will be anything constructed privately on this site. And that would be a point of clarification we would need from you, because if [the housing units and other structures are] not then essentially we’d be following the City’s standard land-use code requirements, and there are other City code standards as well that would apply.”
Brad Yatabe comments:
“Some of the threshold question is whether this is, all of this project, is appropriate for SPAR review. And what I would ask, and I think part of the analysis really is going to be a question of how—I believe you have a Lennar representative on this call—how Lennar or any other private developer is involved in this, at what stage are they going to be purchasing property, are they going to develop part of the purchase of the property, all the timing, and really the purposes of what’s being built out there.
I know there’s a description of the number of units and the proposed purposes, but I think a lot of those details are really going to go into some of this threshold discussion as to the appropriateness of the SPAR review for the entire site or whether that applies to all portions of the proposed development.”
A video recording of the Conceptual Review is available online: https://youtu.be/AZnDDAdJV4o
Potential timeline of the SPAR process should it be unchallenged as to legality
☑ Conceptual Review – occurred on 11/19/2020
❏ Neighborhood Meeting – city staff is planning for the week of January11, 2020
❏ Formal SPAR submittal (minimum of 10 days later) with Director’s discretion to waive or modify submittal requirements - as early as January 21, 2020 – starts the 60 day review deadline
❏ Public notice of Planning and Zoning Board hearing (14 days prior to hearing) - as early as March 4, 2021
❏ Planning and Zoning Board Hearing (within 60 days of formal SPAR submittal) - as early as March 18, 2021
❏ If Planning and Zoning Board votes to disapprove, BOG meets to override this decision
❏ Municipal election April 6, 2021 – citizen initiative on the ballot to zone Hughes as Public Open Lands