Citizen Input

November 1, 2022

From: Margit Hentschel, Capitol Neighborhood

To: Fort Collins Citizens and Councilmembers

Thank you, City Staff, Mayor and Councilmembers for the opportunity to speak. I worked for the City of Fort Collins as a Senior Planner for 9 years and am a founding mother of the City’s Action Plan for Sustainability. A cornerstone of that Plan is to ensure healthy neighborhoods now and into our future. I consider myself an active, highly engaged citizen of Fort Collins and teach civic engagement and democracy building. Until yesterday, I was unaware of the details of these substantive changes to our Land Use Code. The public involvement process for these changes was not inclusive, not transparent, and not equitable. A definition from Krane & Marshall: Fundamental to democracy is the notion that citizens have the ability and the means to shape decisions made by public officials.

The land use changes you’ve voted in favor of disproportionately reflect developer’s interests. They had the ability and means to shape these decisions. Most other interest groups did not, especially underrepresented populations.

From 2015-2017, I served on the Stakeholder Group to inform the Old Town Neighborhoods Plan, which took almost three years of public engagement before its adoption – not months, especially not COVID months, years.

I’ll read from page 9 of that document as an example of the robust public outreach efforts taken for a City planning process: “Outreach by the numbers:

  • 21 Public Workshops, Meetings, and Events

  • 33 Stakeholder Group Members

  • 10 Stakeholder Group Meetings

  • 1000’s of Interactions, Comments, & Survey Responses

The process for your key outcome of affordable housing missed the mark. And based on research from benchmark cities, these land use changes will not realize affordable housing. I understand you’ve heard similar, well-documented concerns from other key community experts in this area.

I don’t have all the answers, none of us do. That’s why we invite as many “others” to the conversation, especially when we’re accountable for representing them. That’s how we sustain democracy. Which voices are missing in this process? I do have that answer. Too many. Too many voices are missing.

Finally, your change of language from Land Use Code to Land Development Code is disheartening. Our Land is not here to solely develop it, and this change sends a discordant message for the overwhelming majority of Fort Collins citizens you represent. Please reconsider your votes and extend the time for a legitimate, diverse, and inclusive public process to inform decisions that impact our whole community.

A society is defined not only by what it creates, but by what it refuses to destroy. ~John Sawhill

Thank you,

Margit Hentschel