Sprawl and Transportation Committee

Minutes

Committee Meeting - April 14th 2005

Action items are formatted like this.

Boulder Junior Academy Redevelopment

Tim Van Meter (architect) and Gil Million (developer) attended to give a presentation on the proposed redevelopment of the Boulder Junior Academy site in the Newlands neighborhood of west Boulder. History: Boulder Junior Academy was built in 1952, has been empty for a few years. Tim described current conditions of site and buildings: not viable for re-hab but plan to de-construct buildings and re-grade the site to more natural form.

Plans include extending street grid into the site, approximately 40 homes (attached and detached) ranging from 2000 to 4000 square feet (average 2800 sq ft); some 3-story buildings; some flat roofs due to height limits; density about 7 units per acre - surrounding neighborhood is about 6 units per acre. Small park on west side with new trailhead access to Mt Sanitas open space. On-street parking throughout; improved parking at existing trailhead; two-car garages for each unit with alley access. Improvements to 4th Street to blend it better with other streets in neighborhood. Route 201 runs along 4th Street. Going to Planning Board on 4/21 for concept review.

After presentation, committee discussions focused on transportation and parking (reduce # of garages, bike accessibility and accomodations, require car share and Ecopass), size of dwellings, building height and scale in relation to surrounding neighborhood. Committee decided that while there isn't enough time to draft a committee statement for Planning Board hearing next month, individual members can certainly speak to Planning Board and cite committee's Principles of Good Development (attached). We will have the ability to generate a formal statement for next milestone (site review) further down the process.

Baseline Bike Lanes

To follow up last month's meeting, Alan Streater researched the funding sources for this project: Total $531K of which $272K is federal funding, $259K is local transportation excise tax, $35K is local bike/ped budget. Since bike/ped money is funding only a small portion of the project, the committee decided we shouldn't formally object. But Alan agreed to document and distribute his ideas for a better solution to this project.

Boulder Breeze Economic analysis

Mark provided an update on status. New federal authorization will likely have separate streetcar funding called out, so this is a ripe opportunity to get a concept like the Breeze funded. Frank Bruno was negative on any city funding, even a few thousand dollars to jump start additional funding for the economic analysis. Mark will send additional information to Julie, including a brochure to be used for tabling events.

75th Street Widening

Mark indicated that this project is full steam ahead despite dubious need. He emphasized that the rail corridor going east to Erie offers a more sustainable way of addressing transportation needs.

Earth Day - Dianna distributed a brochure on the Earth Day 5K run and encouraged everyone's support.

BVCP Update

City Council and Planning Board will have a joint study session (with public comment) on five focus areas and study plans on Tuesday, April 26. S&T members are encouraged to attend and speak. I have attached the S&T committee's statement which has been previously submitted to the city, edited to include only the sections on the focus areas (annexation stuff has been edited out). Chamber of Commerce has submitted a 10-page document discussing BVCP update, including the need to fund more road projects. We will try to obtain a copy and perhaps offer comments/rebuttal.

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