Twin Lakes discussed at open house

On Monday, Aug. 8, Boulder County and the City of Boulder held an open house to discuss land use change requests for three properties in Boulder County.

The open house, which was held at Mt. Calvary Bible Church in Boulder, discussed requests concerning 6655 and 6500 Twin Lakes Road and 0 Kalua Road; 2801 Jay Road; and 3261 3rd Street. Staff planners had their draft land use change recommendations displayed for the public to see and ask questions about, for each request.

Members of the Twin Lakes Action Group (TLAG), Boulder County Housing Authority (BCHA), Boulder Valley School District (BVSD) and the Great Horned Owl Preserve were all present to speak with community members and share the staff’s recommendation. Attendants could submit comments for consideration before the next commissioners meeting on Aug. 30.

County staff is recommending that the “sites’ Land Use Designation be changed to Medium Density Residential (MR), with environmental preservation on the wetland and a 50-foot buffer around the wetland and along the irrigation canal.”

The staff stated in its recommendation that diversity of housing type and cost is a core value of the Comprehensive Plan. It described a “growing concern” for the availability of housing that is affordable to both the low and moderate income population.

Dave Rechberger, TLAG chair, said the staff’s recommendation would allow anywhere from 2-14 units per acre to be built, and said TLAG has always recommended none.

“We’ve always tried to say zero would be a better number for open space,” Rechberger said of the land parcels.

To build on the land, the City of Boulder would have to annex the properties, which is a main challenge, and the only way for it to do that is through the open space. Rechberger is worried about what this would mean for future parcels of open space.

“Annexing open space for the sole purpose of contiguity is setting first precedence—it’s never been done before,” Rechberger said. “What that does is set first precedent that if they annex this open space just to create contiguity, any open space that they feel like annexing to get another parcel will be done.”

TLAG stated that the city and county are starting to create enclaves by annexing around county residents, which would allow them to automatically annex the land, without a vote of the residents, after three years.

“We do not support this,” Rechberger stated. “What we support is leaving it alone, don’t change it, which limits the number you can build. Or moving forward, our proposal was to make it all one big open space.”

The BCHA and BVSD originally requested Mixed Density Residential (MXR), which would have allowed a total of 120-360 dwelling units to be built. With TLAG’s request being zero, they still aren’t satisfied with the staff’s recommendation of MR.

“It’s just too high of a density for what we believe exists in a neighborhood,” Rechberger said. “In our stakeholder’s meetings, we said two to six is what exists today and is what we would step back and say they have a right to build.”

TLAG plans to continue to meet with its representatives and community members to convince them that the land should remain open space. Rechberger hopes they can keep the same atmosphere of the neighborhood and prevent future annexation.

“Our mission is to maintain the rural residential look and feel of our neighborhood,” he said. “We’ve also added to our mission to prevent annexation through open space.”

A final decision on this issue by county commissioners and the city will take until November.

Dale Case, director of Boulder County Land Use, said the Land Use Department has taken the information from the stakeholders group meetings and incorporated it into its recommendation.

“It was helpful for that relationship [to form] between the neighborhood, the school district and housing authority,” Case said of the group meetings. “We were able to take the information that came out of those discussions and hear the concerns that came from the community.”

Case said the need throughout the wider Boulder County community for more affordable housing, but also the concerns of the Gunbarrel community members, is making this a difficult situation.

“I think anytime you have two requests that are fundamentally different, it’s going to be difficult,” he stated.

Ken Beitel, spokesperson for the Great Horned Owl Preserve, said the county and city have not taken the actions he hoped they would, and feels they have not listened to the voices of the community.

“The staff recommendation is an affront to the process,” Beitel said. “There’s a lot of anger and upset that the county is planning to proceed with bulldozing the hunting meadow.”

Beitel, who advocates for the great horned owls in the Twin Lakes open space, said the owls are a rare gem for the community, which attracts more than 100,000 visitors each year. His hope is that the county will find a more suitable location for the proposed affordable housing.

“There are other alternative locations that the development could be located on that would better serve affordable housing residents, [and be] closer to transportation and services,” Beitel explained. “Boulder County is actually proposing to violate its own guidelines in having a large scale development built right beside open space.”

Beitel hopes the commissioners will ask themselves what will benefit the community more in 20 years, “another dense-urban development, or a beautiful owl preserve where children laugh and play? I don’t believe I’ve met a single resident of Gunbarrel who supports the development,” Beitel said. “And the Boulder County Commissioners really need to listen to that.”

The Planning Commission and Board of County Commissioners public hearing is scheduled for Tuesday, Aug. 30 at 4 p.m. at the Boulder County Courthouse.