Boulder County Planning Commission members voted 5-4 Wednesday night to reject any changes to the Boulder Valley Comprehensive Plan’s current land-use designations for 20 acres of now-vacant government-owned land along Twin Lakes Road in unincorporated Gunbarrel.
The county planning panel’s action likely halts — or may at least stall, possibly for several years — the Boulder County Housing Authority’s and Boulder Valley School District’s proposals to develop an affordable housing project on their properties.
The Housing Authority and the school district had sought a medium-density residential comprehensive-plan designation for most of those 20 acres as a step toward seeking annexation and zoning by the city of Boulder in order to proceed with that project.
For the time being, however, the 10 acres owned by the Housing Authority at 6655 Twin Lakes Road will remain in a low-density residential category. The school district’s 10 acres at 6500 Twin Lakes Road and 0 Kalua Road will continue to be designated for such public uses as a school, although the district has said it doesn’t intend to put one there.
Frank Alexander, director of the county Housing Authority and Boulder County’s Department of Housing and Human Services, refused to comment about the commission majority’s action after the planning panel concluded its meeting.
But Dave Rechberger, chairman of the Twin Lakes Action Group — a neighborhood organization opposing the medium-density housing proposal sought by the Housing Authority and the school district — welcomed the result.
“We’re very excited about the outcome,” said Rechberger, whose organization had submitted a competing comprehensive-plan request — one that proposed designating the entire 20 acres as open space, essentially preventing any density of residential development on the land.
While the Planning Commission did not vote on the Twin Lakes Action Group’s open-space designation proposal, Rechberger said it will limit possible future development of the properties to the low-density residential and public-use possibilities permitted under the comp plan’s current map labels for those lands.
Any changes in the Boulder Valley Comprehensive Plan’s current land-use designations for the 20 acres must be approved by four separate government bodies — the county Planning Commission, the Board of County Commissioners, the Boulder Planning Board and the Boulder City Council.
Four of the county’s planning panel members indicated in their Wednesday night discussions of the land-use options that they’d support changing the entire 20 acres to a medium-density category, with parts of the overall site to be set aside for wildlife corridors and buffers while allowing that higher-density housing to be built on the rest.
“I don’t believe this (medium-density) proposal would be out of context with the surrounding area,” said Planning Commissioner Daniel Hilton.
Planning Commissioner Lieschen Gargano said the approximately 200 residential units that would have resulted from the proposal wouldn’t solve all of the county’s affordable housing needs, but “there are quite a few people this would be a wonderful opportunity for.”
Two others on the planning panel, Doug Young and Leah Martinsson, also supported the medium-density category.
Planning Commissioner Ann Goldfarb, however, said that while “I believe that affordable housing is obviously very important,” she didn’t think the Twin Lakes properties were an appropriate location for such a project.
“I think we have some better options” elsewhere “than what we’re looking at here,” Goldfarb said.
Planning Commission Chairwoman Natalie Feinberg Lopez said many residents of the Gunbarrel neighborhoods adjacent to or near the Twin Lakes properties bought their own properties thinking that the lane would someday be the site of a school and a local park, and she said the possibility of a school shouldn’t be ruled out.
The county planning panel is a government board whose responsibilities should include speaking for an otherwise “voiceless community, and that is Gunbarrel,” Feinberg Lopez said.
Planning Commissioner Michael Baker suggested the school district build housing for the district’s teachers and staff on some of the vacant land on Boulder Valley school campuses.
Planning Commissioner Pat Shanks criticized the adequacy of the 70-foot-wide corridor the Housing Authority and school district had proposed be preserved along the eastern edge of the properties. He said it should be as wide as 150 feet.
Shanks, Feinberg Lopez, Baker and Goldfarb joined Planning Commissioner Ben Blaugrund in voting for Blaugrund’s motion to reject any changes from the comprehensive plan’s current land-use designations for the 20 acres.
Procedures for amending the comprehensive plan’s land-use designations for certain properties adjacent to the city of Boulder would still allow the Board of County Commissioners, the Boulder Planning Board or the Boulder City Council to ask the county Planning Commission to reconsider its Wednesday night decision.
But at least one of the county planning panel members in Wednesday night’s majority vote would have to agree to do so — and all four of those government bodies would have to agree on any final changes.
John Fryar: 303-684-5211, jfryar@times-call.com or twitter.com/jfryartc
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