Dear Residents,
Our Mayor and 6 city council members are taking the steps to annex The Canyons into CPN. This decision will not come to a vote of the citizens and will soon be decided exclusively by our council members.
Their plan includes significant deviations from the original zoning that began in 1996 and was finally, after a long period of due diligence and participation from neighboring communities, approved in 2000.
These changes will urbanize CPN and permanently change the unique character of our community. 36 Neighboring communities and organizations have submitted letters to our city council pleading a rational course of action. They cite a unilateral approach to zoning with a lack of concern for regional impacts. They can be read in their entirety at on the Castle Pines Connection web site.
Some changes included in the proposed zoning plan are:
• Increasing residential density from 1500 to 2500 homes. (Language exists in the plan to exceed those numbers.)
• Increasing commercial development by nine times what we currently have or 60% of that existing today in the Town of Parker.
• Commercial Building heights are approved to the level you currently see in the DTC area.
• The 2000 original zoning predicted an increase in traffic on Monarch and Castle Pines Parkway of 55%, with this intensified land use the transient traffic impacts will be enormous.
• Wringing out water from our drying water supplies to serve these additional land uses.
It is important that each member of our community take a minute to urge our council members to not lose sight of the reasons our community voted to incorporate. Implore them to consider the long term negative impacts of this approval and that those impacts are not worth a quick fix to stabilize the city finances prior to campaigns for re-election.
Comprehensive Plan information Meeting
6 - 8 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 15, Community Center. The city asks that you review and comment on the proposed Comprehensive Plan and related elements by Friday, Sept. 18.
City of Castle Pines North
558 Castle Pines Parkway, Unit B4-208
Castle Rock, CO 80108
City manager – Alan Lanning, alan.lanning@cpngov.com
In a few weeks city council will hear public comment and vote on the annexation of The Canyons development. The annexation will create eleven new metro districts with property tax ceilings set nearly three times higher than CPN's existing 24 mills.
ReplyDeleteShul has often argued for "integration" of services in Castle Pines North. Claiming that integration will lead to substantial cost savings for CPN residents, city officials have sought the dissolution of the CPN Metro District and a corresponding transfer of budgets, money and operational oversight to the city's corporate service provider, CH2M Hill.
It seems ironic to me that the mayor and city council can advocate with a straight face the elimination of one district while passing legislation to create eleven more.
As Mayor, I would work to see that residents of CPN are provided accurate information on which to assess the viability of future projects.
www.JeffHuffForMayor.com
Mr. Huff's comment made me curious so I took a look at the agreement, which can be found on www.castlepinesconnection.com. The agreement spells out pretty clearly that the landowner wants to develop the Canyons property in phases, and the metro districts that the developer wants to create (some of which he has already created), are done to enable him to finance the phases of the project separately. This is a feature of pretty much any sizeable development plan, as it enables the developer to build infrastructure only when needed to serve the market.
ReplyDeleteSo that made me wonder something else: has Mr. Huff ever read a development plan before? Why is he surprised at something so common? This isn't making me feel confident that he is a serious candidate for Mayor.
Paul Thompson
HOA1 - Noble Ridge
Mr. Thompson: We both agree that it is quite common for a developer to create metro districts to finance a real estate development project. I have no objection to the creation of special districts for The Canyons property.
ReplyDeleteI do, however, disagree with the view that once a city comes into being that it makes a metro district redundant. Each institution has it's own specific function. The desire of The Canyons developer to create metro districts to service the property supports my argument that metro districts and city government should co-exist and are not mutually exclusive.
Jeffrey Huff
Candidate for Mayor