Ross Cunniff: Letter to City Council, August 22nd Land Use Work Session

Mayor Arndt, City Councilmembers,

I reviewed the presentation that Staff will be giving you tomorrow. Unfortunately, the biggest objection many of us have to the former LDC is still the same as it ever was - a fanatic obsession with increasing the size of Fort Collins. Your own slide 13 shows this - staff's recommendations are aiming for 130% of the 20-year housing need. Few Fort Collins residents want the city to be even 17% bigger than it is today (the "existing code" estimate of 30,480 housing units). You will be very hard-pressed to find a meaningful number of residents who want it to be 52% bigger than it is today (the "proposed code" estimate of 39,563 housing units).

Councilmembers who are pushing the extreme density narrative are out-of-touch with their constituents.

The detailed changes discussed in the remainder of the presentation mostly just nibble around the edges of the actual problem with the LDC. I believe you need to halt this ill-conceived march toward density and overpopulation and start fresh. Start by eliminating the overarching goal of increasing density for density's sake. And then focus on actual affordable workforce housing programs that will make a difference to the people you claim to want to help - the bus drivers, the groundskeepers, the service workers, and the paraprofessionals.

The current proposed code will continue to serve only the economic elite, further widening the divide between the haves and the have-nots. The best time to fix this is now.  Direct staff to stop what they are doing and reset. Don't wait for another land-use policy to crumble in your hands.

Ross Cunniff

Chair, Preserve Fort Collins