Sprawl and Transportation Committee

Minutes

Committee Meeting - Aug 11th 2005

Action items are formatted like this.

Please send corrections and clarifications to Bill Roettker.

Members present: Julie Caron, Dianna Shannon, Steve Nicholoff, Bill Roettker

28th and Jay

Guests Terry Palmos and Nolan Rosall discussed latest on 28th and Jay development (proposed mixed use/big box requiring annexation of Area III planning reserve). City of Boulder will release retail strategy report (produced by EPS) on Monday August 15. There will be a joint Planning Board/City Council meeting on August 25 to discuss the report; PB will then vote about proceeding with annexation study; then Council convenes on 9/20 to vote on annexation study. If both bodies vote against, then issue is likely dead. If one body OKs, then the issue moves on to County planning commission and county commission. If they give the go-ahead, then city departments/consultants will proceed with more detailed studies of costs and benefits of annexation.

Nolan discussed the benefits of their proposed development:

1) community need: substantial amount of retail sales leakage in general merchandise to neighboring cities.

2) sustainability: this will contribute a steady stream of city revenue from sales taxes.

3) environmental issues: some estimate that Boulder residents cumulatively travel several million miles each year to shop in Broomfield and Superior - higher fuel consumption and air pollution than if they shopped in Boulder.

4) social equity: affordable housing and shopping in Boulder.

We discussed other viable sites for this type of development. MacKenzie Junction (intersection of Foothills Pkwy and Diagonal Highway) may be only viable site. Diagonal Plaza has many owners and may be difficult to "make numbers work" (land acquisition and re-location costs may be prohibitively expensive). Diagonal Plaza may be too small for big box; perhaps the western end could be developed with medium-box.

Revenues from 28th/Jay could provide city funding for other projects like Boulder Transit Village or Diagonal Plaza redevelopment, which will require significant city investments in infrastructure. For 28th/Jay, water, police, fire, school services already in place; only significant infrastructure improvements would be roadways.
Terry discussed some of the retail opportunities possible for 28th/Jay.

Nolan also discussed some general BVCP thoughts: Area I/II/III concept was developed in 1970s; Area II is nearly gone - is it time to re-consider the assumptions used to develop this concept? In his opinion, BVCP has too many details - should be vision document. Five-year plan and four-body review process makes it too cumbersome if an opportunity presents itself (something like IBM or national labs).

Retail site bus tour: on 8/17, contact Brad Power of city staff to RSVP (see earlier announcements).

Bill Roettker will represent S&T committee at IPG summer picnic (Sunday, Aug 21 at 4:30pm North Boulder Park).

We discussed the series of important meeting upcoming for the Boulder Transit Village; S&T needs to be deeply involved in this planning process, encourage ALL committee members to participate. What can we do to educate committee members about input that they can provide?

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