Planning commission rejects Bingham Hill events center

By Ani S. Delmont
North Forty News

Larimer County Planning Commissioners on Dec. 16 denied a request by a Bingham Hill Road resident to operate a summer camp and events center on his property.

While acknowledging that the project met county technical codes, commissioners said they gave more weight to neighbors' concerns that the business would change the community's rural, residential character, adding traffic, noise and light.

"The fact that the map and initial limitation on the property was that it be residential raises expectations on the part of neighbors that it would remain residential; therefore, to change it to commercial use is inappropriate," said chairperson Nancy Wallace.

The project would have turned Randy Pope's home at 3924 Bingham Hill Road into a nonprofit basketball camp for "underserved youth" during six weeks in summer. The Preserve at Bingham Hill would have hosted up to 155 events during the rest of the year, including weddings, retreats, family reunions and corporate parties.

Pope said the project would fulfill his dream of providing a basketball camp for girls from diverse racial and socio-economic backgrounds while making a profit using his scenic property. While characterizing the camp as the primary use, he addressed neighbor's fears that the events center would attract loud music, drunken revelers and heavy traffic. He said he and his wife, Sheryl, were willing to undertake "significant and potentially costly steps to mitigate their concerns."

These steps included limiting the number of events to three or four per week, installing International Dark Sky Association-compliant lighting and playing music only indoors.

He emphasized that his proposal fell squarely under the land use code amendments that the county commissioners adopted early this year in response to requests for more diversity in land use in an FA Farming zoning district.

"We, like virtually all owners of real estate, believe in property rights, that is, to be able to do what you want with your property as long as it conforms to standards of the authority," Pope said. "But we also understand the NIMBY or 'not in my backyard' concept."

In addition to his wholesale nursery business, Pope has been holding family reunions and an unofficial youth basketball camp for several years at his home half a mile west of North Overland Trail. He denied that any of these functions produced noise or rowdiness.

"These are high-quality kids. They're not a bunch of hoodlums," he said. "In regards to noise, there is no noise. There's made-up stuff here."

Neighbors contend that Pope flouted the minor residential development process that restricts his property to a single-family home when he obtained from county commissioners in October the right to change his plat to accommodate a "seasonal camp and/or community hall."

"We have trouble accepting that the commissioners' action in October was even a legal one, given the odd process that was used and the lack of notice and input from neighbors," said Shelby Majors, who lives across the street at 3927 Bingham Hill Road.

She questioned whether Pope's nursery business is also in compliance with county codes that restrict his land to single-family residential use. "Mr. Pope is asking you not only to approve the illegal uses he's been conducting on his property, but also to allow additional ones."

Senior planner Matt Lafferty pointed out that Pope converted his land to commercial use under a pre-2000 law that allowed owners to divide land without going through a subdivision process.

"That process does not require notification of adjacent property owners," Lafferty said. "We were applying notes to plats that didn't go through a zoning process. We're dealing with a historic problem."

"We do have some disconnects out there," planning commissioner Roger Morgan conceded.

Other neighbors expressed concern over lighting of the proposed 80-space parking lot and the increased traffic the events would bring to a hilly, curving road already heavily used by motorists and cyclists.

John Schmidt, whose property borders Pope's on the west side, said he counted 40 to 50 vehicles every hour passing Pope's property on a recent afternoon.

"If he has an event that has 100 people and they use 2.5 people per vehicle, then you're talking about 40 to 50 vehicles," Schmidt said. This would total 90 to 100 vehicles per hour on a section of road without a right-turn lane, he said.

Mary Perina, a single mother who lives at the top of the hill, southeast of Pope's property, said in a letter read to the commissioners that her family's safety would be "greatly compromised by the increased traffic" from the proposed events center. "Because vehicles tend to speed over the hill and down as they head west, our chances of being hit by approaching vehicles is greater as we exit our driveway," the letter said.

Several commissioners indicated that they thought the basketball camp could work, and two voted in favor of the entire project. Commissioner Andrew Boucher said Pope followed the legal procedure and proposed many concessions to satisfy neighbors' concerns.

"What the applicant has come back with is something even further than a bending-over-backward to further mitigate what the team has come up with for recommendations," he said.

Commissioner Karen Weitkunat said she thought the proposal's client estimates were elevated for a new enterprise in a difficult industry.

"I don't think the intensity is as great as some perceive it to be," she said. "It takes years to build up a business to perform events. Anytime we mention special events, neighbors get upset and tend not to agree with the intensity. I think it's skewed. This area is getting closer to the communities. You need to provide services."

While praising Pope's presentation and concept as "outstanding," Morgan said the project was simply "in the wrong place."

"We're going to need to get some clarification as to how many uses we can put in these small acreages," he said. "I can see a developing problem in terms of intensity of use on properties in the rural-urban interface."

Morgan said he anticipated an "exponential impact" entailing the revision of outdated codes as more people seek to work from home and turn a profit from their property.

"I think this application tonight is a harbinger of what we're going to be dealing with," he said.