PATHS Open Letter to City Council
Citizens’ Initiative to Zone the Hughes Parcel as Public Open Lands November 17, 2020
Dear City Council Members,
The members and volunteers of Planning Action to Transform Hughes Sustainably (PATHS) are writing to you today to request that you move to adopt our Citizen-Initiated Ordinance to zone the Hughes stadium parcel Public Open Lands (P-O-L) at tonight’s City Council meeting.
By now it should be clear to you how deeply Fort Collins’ residents care about protecting and preserving Hughes for our community, for future generations, and for our local wildlife that are faced with shrinking habitat in our city. We strongly believe that no other parcel of land in Fort Collins has as much conservation value as the Hughes parcel. Hughes’ legacy and history before CSU controlled the land is as native tribal land, and more recently the Maxwell family property and farmland, and it deserves to be protected for posterity. Furthermore, Hughes is situated between two of our most popular and most visited Natural Areas in the Fort Collins Natural Areas system: Pineridge and Maxwell Natural Areas. On any given day, the parking lots, trail heads, and trails of these two designated Natural Areas are crowded and packed with recreators. We are loving our natural areas to death. We should be doing all we can to EXPAND and EXTEND and CONNECT our open spaces. It is extremely rare that a parcel like Hughes becomes available to do just that, EXTEND, EXPAND, and CONNECT currently-existing Natural Areas and open space. We cannot think of a better use of our voter-approved open space sales tax revenue, and our fellow Fort Collins residents have said as much over and over again. We will lose this once in a lifetime opportunity forever if YOU do not take courageous action tonight to zone Hughes open space within 30 days by adopting the citizen-initiated zoning ordinance that will zone Hughes Public Open Lands.
The task of undertaking and organizing a citizens initiative is not easy at any given time, or by any stretch of the imagination. It’s a full time operation. But one thing is for certain: you should never doubt the dedication that exists when it comes to protecting this special and unique parcel. PATHS members and volunteers persevered through a COVID-19 pandemic, unpredictable weather, and exposure to the ever-present hazardous smoke and ash pouring from the largest wildfires in Colorado’s history. The keys to our success were the tidal wave of support we experienced from our fellow Fort Collins residents, so many of whom indisputably want to see this land conserved, and the indefatigable energy from our amazing and powerful army of volunteers. Our volunteers worked tirelessly to collect THOUSANDS of signatures from Fort Collins voters, and voters went out of their way to find us at our locations which were announced daily on social media and our website.
Despite the elements and challenges we faced, we collected well over 8,300 sufficient signatures; That’s more than 25% of the total number of voters in the last Fort Collins city election (32,800), when we only needed 10%! We turned in more than enough signatures to reach the magic number of 3,280 VALIDATED voter signatures to get the Hughes open space ballot measure on the April 2021 ballot. No more can Hughes open space advocates be dismissed as “Paper Tigers” or be made to feel diminutive by being called “just a vocal minority”. If this citizens’ petition shows you anything, it’s that Fort Collins voters value open space, they want Hughes to be conserved as such, and they want YOU to step up NOW and represent them.
There is another more time-sensitive and alarming reason you need to vote YES today to adopt our Hughes open space ordinance. Almost immediately after our petition was certified by the City Clerk, we learned that CSU applied for a Conceptual Review hearing which will take place Thursday morning 11/19/2020, at 10:15 am. CSU intends to abuse the Site Plan Advisory Review (SPAR) process to sell the property to Lennar Homes, an out of state builder with a questionable reputation, to build private structures which do not fall under the appropriate uses of SPAR. CSU leaders are clearly doing this to circumvent the community’s clear wishes about the future of Hughes, despite announcing how proud they are to be “Good Neighbors” and patting themselves on the back for their “Citizen Engagement”. Even more dangerous, the SPAR process entirely usurps and circumvents the authority of the only two entities that are allowed to zone property in Fort Collins: the City Council AND the citizens of Fort Collins by citizens initiative. It is unclear why our own City would adopt code into the land use code that removes the City Council and the citizens of Fort Collins from self-determination and participation in important land use decisions, but alas, in 2014 major changes were made to SPAR that have allowed developments like the on-campus stadium and many other unpopular planning decisions to be rubber stamped, rendering City Council and the Fort Collins electors powerless in SPAR’s land use decisions. While we feel SPAR is an unnecessary and ill-conceived section in our land use code, at least we can point to the examples where it’s application by CSU is appropriate under the code as written.
Here are just a few of the problems with SPAR as CSU intends to apply it for the Hughes parcel:
SPAR is intended for public entities and improvements to public structures or parcels that are to be owned and operated by a public entity. CSU has entered into a purchase agreement with Lennar Homes, a private developer who will profit off the sale of private homes on this parcel, if CSU gets its development approval via SPAR. This is NOT an applicable use of the SPAR process.
Proposed developments that are reviewed under SPAR must align with current zoning of the property in question. Hughes is NOT zoned for any type of development, or for anything else for that matter. By having their proposal reviewed under SPAR, CSU is violating one of the fundamental requirements of permitted uses for this property.
SPAR usurps the authority of the City Council, an elected body of representatives, and transfers the power of final approval/disapproval for land use decisions to an unelected body, the Planning and Zoning Board (P&Z Board). Furthermore, SPAR intentionally accelerates the review process and eliminates the right of appeal.
Even if the proposal in question is rejected by the P&Z Board, the governing body of the public entity (the CSU BOG in this case) can entirely overrule the P&Z Board’s development review decision by a two-thirds vote. To be clear, this means an external, unelected, non-municipal body can assume full authority for land use decisions in our own City, entirely circumventing our Council, P&Z Board, and developmental review procedures. Council members, this sets such a dangerous precedent, we don’t even know where to begin.
Whereas most developmental review processes of the size proposed by CSU for the Hughes parcel generally take on the order of 6 months to complete, SPAR shrinks that timeline to only 60 days.
The right to an appeal is an essential democratic right afforded to the citizens in all matters related to land use and other quasi-judicial decisions. However, SPAR strips away that right from the citizens of Fort Collins and OUR governing body (the City Council). This is unacceptable.
Fort Collins is a home-rule municipality under which Fort Collins citizens are granted the right to decide how our local government is organized and how land use is decided and implemented. Where home-rule municipal law generally increases control of the local government for land use decisions, SPAR does quite the opposite. Fundamentally, It is a loophole that turns over full authority to an external entity that, under normal circumstances, would have to proceed under the local regulations and developmental review processes, and answer to the local government and citizens of the municipality. Again, SPAR strips these rights from us. We can’t allow this to happen.
SPAR must be amended so it does not undermine the authority of our City Council and Fort Collins citizens, sooner rather than later. But, tonight, you can ensure that SPAR does not render us powerless by adopting our citizens-initiated ordinance to zone Hughes public open lands. This Ordinance is a lifeline, if you will, and it needs to be adopted before the 60-day SPAR process for the Hughes parcel commences on this Thursday, November 19th, 2020.
In conclusion, we implore you to vote to adopt the Citizens’ Ordinance to zone Hughes as public open lands. Let us begin the process of earnest acquisition negotiations with CSU so that we can begin to heal and move forward from this, at times, tumultuous process. CSU would go a long way in mending and reversing so much of the contempt and animosity it has shown toward the people of Fort Collins around Hughes, as well as the Canvas Stadium development, a wound which is still raw and oozing with bitterness and resentment.
And, one last thing about negotiations. If CSU values that parcel at $14 million dollars ($4 million of that due to CSU leadership’s extremely poor decision to pay for up front demolition costs), we want you to know that we are willing to pay that $14 million with a combination of partnerships, certificates of participation, GoCo grants, or even a temporary and small sales tax referred to voters as a last resort. The voters have said this time and time again. Whatever it takes. There is no way we can let this opportunity slip away. And PATHS members and volunteers will continue to fight with every last bit of recourse and strength we can muster to ensure that we conserve Hughes as public open lands for our community now, for future generations, and as unobstructed habitat for our local wildlife.
Thank you for listening and representing us, your constituents, in tonight’s deliberations.
Sincerely,
PATHS Members and Volunteers