City again postpones Southwest Annexation

By Dan MacArthur
Fossil Creek Current

Fort Collins once again is postponing plans to annex the Southwest Enclave in an effort to first resolve the individual concerns of property owners and residents.

But opponents insist that they will never be satisfied until the council takes seriously their challenge to what they believe is flawed and biased information provided by a staff determined to accomplish the annexation at any cost.

Located generally south and east of the intersection of Harmony and Taft Hill roads, the 1,800-acre enclave would become the city's largest single annexation. Home to some 3,100 people and nearly 100 businesses, the area became an enclave when it was surrounded by Fort Collins with its annexation of the Coyote Ridge Natural Area in 2001.

Reinforced by a letter from the Larimer County Commissioners "wholeheartedly" supporting annexation, the city council recently affirmed its intention to eventually annex the unincorporated enclave.

"I think it is inevitable over some period of time," council member Ben Manvel said in a November work session.

Rather than starting the first phase of the annexation on Jan. 3 as planned, however, the council agreed to wait for up to six months until the city could complete the outreach effort. Initiation of the annexation process similarly was delayed in July when opponents demanded direct meetings with the council.

"We don't need more time to decide," Mayor Doug Hutchinson maintained. He, however, agreed that more time was merited to meet one-on-one with those affected by the annexation. Hutchinson insisted that "Fort Collins is not the dictatorial bad guy."

But the city's kinder and gentler persistence still will be met with resistance by opponents who refuse to accept the inevitability of annexation, which they regard as a threat to their lifestyles and livelihoods.

"I'll tell you this, we're not quitting," said Lynn Colter, chair of Citizens Against Forced Annexation.

She said the city's "divide and conquer" strategy will fail and the battle will continue until the council acknowledges the group's legitimate challenge to the tainted information it's being fed. "They need to meet with CAFA leaders and know what's going on. But that won't happen because they'll hear some things they don't want to hear," said Colter.

"The staff is running the show. The council needs to lead, not follow," she said, contending that the council is being led blindly by its staff into a needlessly costly and contentious conflict. "All they're doing is following the information the staff is funneling to them," she added.

Surrounded by opponents bearing neon-colored protest signs, the council sounded a conciliatory tone in the work session. "It's not us against them. We're all in this together," said council member Diggs Brown. In a similar vein, the director of current planning, Cameron Gloss, insisted that the basis for the annexation was "the larger community of interest" among residents who share the same values and public facilities.

Colter remained unmoved, however, contending that it was quite different from Gloss' aggressive approach with opponents that only further fueled their furor. "That's what got this started, the heavy-handed manner," she said, noting she was further angered by the council's apparent condescension toward critics.

"They act as if we don't understand," she said. "We are not stupid people and they continue to treat us as if we are."

At that work session, the council generally agreed that the city had an obligation to annex the enclave under the terms of a 1980 intergovernmental agreement with Larimer County.

In its October letter signed by chair Kathay Rennels, the commissioners expressed their support for annexing the enclave in stages. They suggested that the Kel-Mar strip of commercial properties along South College Avenue come first, with the rest of the enclave annexed within five to 10 years.

For more than two decades, the commissioners stated, the foundation for county land-use planning "has been to encourage urban-level development, with its associated demand for urban-level services, to take place within the corporate boundaries of the county's municipalities."

"Larimer County is not funded for nor prepared to provide urban-level services for subdivision road maintenance, land use planning or police services," the letter continues. While the current level of services was adequate when the area was predominantly rural, the commissioners contended, "the character of this area is rapidly changing to an urban environment virtually indistinguishable from other urban areas within the city of Fort Collins."

Colter is disturbed with the "buck-passing" by the commissioners, the only elected officials residents and property owners in the enclave could count on to represent their interests. She also disputes their contention that the enclave requires a greater level of services than the county can provide.

"We don't want their urban-level of services," she said.

Besides that, she said, the only real additional service the city would provide is police protection, and critics have received conflicting accounts of how many additional police would be hired to serve the enclave. Instead of advantages, she said, annexation would only create multiple millions of dollars in financial burdens for the city and small businesses alike.

Gloss suggested to the council that annexation occur as quickly as possible to recover part of its costs with revenue from fees and revenues generated by new development and redevelopment. Waiting 10 years, he estimated, would result in lost sales, use and property taxes of nearly $12 million to $29 million.

Colter said she understands why the city would want to start capturing those hefty redevelopment revenues, but is concerned about the implications. "What does that mean? Does it mean they want big-box stores?" she asked. "If you want redevelopment, you have to get rid of what's there."

She said small business owners fear that redevelopment would come at their expense as increased costs accompanying annexation force them to close or relocate. "It's going to be a painful, bloody process driving those small businesses out," she said.

"I think the people of this area need to realize it's going to develop. It's going to develop either in the county or in the city," Manvel said at the work session. "My perception is if they're controlled by the county, they're not very well controlled."

"We don't want to be managed," Colter countered. "That's the whole point. They haven't done a good job managing."

Karen Rose, a CAFA member and consultant to the group, said their next step will be drafting a letter to the city seeking details about how it intends to conduct the outreach effort.

Despite the intensity of the conflict, Colter said, CAFA wants to avoid an adversarial relationship with the city and hopes for a productive forum in which the conflicts can be reconciled.

Still, she said opponents are keeping all options open if the city proves to be the bully it now appears to be. "Just because you can do something doesn't make it right to do it," she said.