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HomeMy WebLinkAboutCity of Glenwood Springs CommentsCity of Glenwood Springs 101 West 8th Street Glenwood Springs, CO 81601 TO: John Leybourne, Planner III FROM: Hannah Klausman, Director of Community and Economic Development DATE: April 16, 2025 RE: Harvest Roaring Fork PUD Referral Thank you for the opportunity to provide input on the proposed Harvest Roaring Fork PUD. The City of Glenwood Springs Community Development Department reviewed the application materials provided and coordinated with various departments within the City to provide the comments that follow. Staff is aware that Garfield County Staff has requested additional information from the applicant that may clarify areas mentioned below. Glenwood Springs City staff would welcome the opportunity to update comments based on any new submittals from the applicant. Harvest Roaring Fork PUD representatives did contact the City of Glenwood Springs and gave a brief concept overview of the intended application in November 2024. The City appreciates the applicant’s efforts in reaching out with initial discussions. 1. Conformance to the Glenwood Springs Comprehensive Plan The proposed PUD is outside of Glenwood Springs Urban Growth Area identified in the future land use map and therefore the property does not include a zoning designation or density guide. 2. Traffic, Access and Connectivity Additional Transit Stop The applicant points to two existing bus stops to service the development which are half a mile and one mile or more away. Standard Planning practice points to ¼ mile being the optimum distance that people will walk as part of a commute. Glenwood Springs strongly encourages the addition of a transit stop that will provide better access to this community. A development this size would benefit greatly from connection to RFTA’s trunk line, which would help to reduce traffic volumes at the access points and on the highway. Rio Grand Trail The Rio Grande Trail bisects this property, yet little discussion of bike and pedestrian traffic was provided. RFTA’s regional trail presents another opportunity for the development to claim a reduction in traffic volumes to and from the site if they provide several internal trail access points. Glenwood Springs would be very interested to know RFTA’s thoughts on service/access opportunities and constraints related to the project proposal. Turn Lane Buildout The Traffic report on Page 123 states that the full turn intersection would be built in phases. Glenwood Springs suggests that Garfield County consider requiring the intersection be built completely at one time and not phased. Signalized Intersection Thresholds The Traffic study indicates that a signalized intersection may be warranted in the future but does not specify metrics for determining when that should occur. Glenwood Springs encourages Garfield County to specify parameters for when a signalized intersection is required. Additional comments from the City Traffic Engineer are included as an attachment to this letter. 3. Housing The City of Glenwood Springs is pleased to see the applicant has included plans to possibly exceed Garfield County’s affordable housing requirements. The City would encourage the County to consider requiring the affordable housing units to be developed onsite, rather than utilizing the non-profit partner option detailed in Article 8 for the following reasons. a. Local affordable housing non-profits in the area such as Habitat for Humanity, or Arch Diocese have not historically developed units at this scale. b. Acquiring the land and entitlements to build 450 affordable housing units could take much longer, if at all, then if the housing units were built along with the development phases. c. Units built by a non-profit in a different part of the County may not have the same traffic reduction benefits as the proposed development location. If units are proposed off site, providing flexibility to the developer, one suggestion would be to require additional requirements beyond what Article 8 requires, ie affordability level, percentage, etc. Resident Occupancy The City of Glenwood Springs encourages Garfield County to explore the possibility of increasing the percentage of the development that is deed restricted for resident occupancy. This would help prevent a large portion of the development from becoming second homes, vacation rentals, or other types of fractional ownership or short-term lodging uses. Resident occupancy would include the requirement of being employed within a certain geographic area beyond what is identified in Garfield County’s Inclusionary Zoning requirement of “County-based employment”. If the project is aimed at reducing traffic on Hwy 82, the City would suggest that geographic area be reduced to a 30-mile radius to truly ensure the resident commutes are shorter, with a minimum of 20% of the total units being deed restricted for resident occupancy. 4. Fire District Comments The following comments were submitted on behalf of the Glenwood Springs Fire District. Automatic Aid Agreement Area The application states that the property is within the Carbondale Fire District. Glenwood Springs Fire District (GSFD) has not yet had any discussions with Carbondale Fire on the impact that this development would pose on services. GSFD is currently in an automatic aid agreement to share resource response to this area of Hwy 82 for both Fire and EMS. • GSFD Station 73 responds to these incidents. There will be an additional response time for apparatus to navigate off Hwy 82 and into this new development. • GSFD administration are looking at current call volume and projected growth within the district. This project will need to be reviewed for potential impacts to emergency service. Fire Truck Access There is a mention of Appendix D of the International Fire Code for the turning dimensions for turnarounds. Garfield County has adopted 2015 IFC along with Appendix D and some other amendments. Those requirements include: • All roads need a minimum of 20ft with overhead clearance of 13’6. • Both Carbondale and Glenwood are using ‘quints’ for front line apparatus. This is combination of a ladder truck with an engine to accomplish both tasks. The foot print to set up outriggers on these trucks are 20ft- hence the need for adequate road widths • Turning movements of ladder trucks from both depts need to be applied to street design. Wildfire risk The State Wildfire Resiliency Code Board map shows this area to be moderate risk. This project will be subject to the new wildfire resiliency codes and will need to have home hardening and vegetation setbacks as required. (970) 384 - 6435 101 West 8th Street www.cogs.us Glenwood Springs, CO 81601 Memorandum TO: HANNAH KLAUSMAN FROM: LEE BARGER SUBJECT: HARVEST ROARING FORK TRAFFIC IMPACT ANALYSIS COMMENTS DATE: 4/16/2025 CC: GLENN HARTMANN This memo addresses the City of Glenwood’s Engineering Department’s concerns for the Harvest Roaring Fork (HRF) property along SH 82 at Cattle Creek Road in Garfield County. We appreciate the opportunity to comment on this proposed development located about 5 miles south of the City Limits. 1. In the Trip Generation Section 4.1, the premise of the discussion on Page 18 assumes that residents of this proposed development would otherwise live west of Glenwood Springs, so this will achieve a redistribution or volume reduction of traffic in Glenwood Springs. Although this may be partially true and some redistribution of trips may occur, it cannot be relied on, forecast, or verified. This project is considered “Valley Infill” and will still be attractive to existing and new residents to the valley. The realized volume reduction, redistribution of traffic, and reduction of vehicle miles traveled are based on too many other variables (affordability, job and housing market conditions, population growth, etc.) to be able to claim this will reduce traffic volumes in Glenwood Springs. 2. How were RCUT intersections determined to be the preferred alternatives for the SH 82 intersections? Was a fully signalized intersection considered at Cattle Creek that provides access to HRF? Given the improvements to the Cattle Creek intersection including a 65mph eastbound merge lane for Cattle Creek traffic in 2016, it seems like a waste to close this to Right-in/Right- out (RIRO). Were roundabouts considered? It’s counter-intuitive to add two more intersections to SH 82 where existing access could be improved without adding multiple conflict points. 3. The distance between the RCUT intersections is about 0.8 mile. Vehicles using the RCUT will add about a mile to their trip. This out-of-direction traffic should be quantified in the analysis. 4. No transit service is considered in this traffic impact analysis. A development this size would benefit greatly from connection to RFTA’s trunk line, which would help to reduce traffic volumes at the access points and on the highway. 5. The Rio Grande Trail bisects this property, yet no discussion of bike and pedestrian traffic was provided. RFTA’s regional trail presents another opportunity for the development to claim a reduction in traffic volumes to and from the site if they provide several internal trail access points.