Fort Collins planning board to study CSU stadium impacts

FORT COLLINS – The Fort Collins city Planning and Zoning board on Friday will review a draft intergovernmental agreement between the city and Colorado State University regarding projected impacts of the school’s planned on-campus football stadium.

Total costs of “immediate” impacts range from $4.85 million to $8.35 million, said Karen Cumbo, the city’s director of planning, development and transportation. “The city doesn’t have any money in this,” she said. “Of the costs identified so far, CSU has committed to pay for them.”

Future off-campus needs related to the stadium have been estimated to be from $7.5 million to $12 million, Cumbo said.

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“That’s my problem with this,” said City Councilman Ross Cunniff, whose district includes the main campus and neighborhoods to the north and south of it. “The IGA was supposed to enumerate all the costs, but this looks like the biggest part is being punted down the road for somebody else to deal with. There’s not a lot of detail on actual dollar amounts.”

The Planning and Zoning discussion will take place from 2:30 to 5 p.m. in City Council chambers at 300 Laporte Ave. No public comment period is scheduled. The city will host an open house from 5 to 7 p.m. March 11 at the Drake Center, 802 W. Drake Road, at which updates on the draft agreement will be provided and the public can ask questions. The City Council will review the draft IGA at its regular meeting March 17; public comment will be accepted at that meeting, and the contentious issue also is likely to be raised by the public during tonight’s council meeting.

According to the draft agreement, CSU has agreed to cover the cost of several immediate off-campus infrastructure improvements related to transportation and utilities that will be needed immediately when the 36,000-seat stadium begins hosting football games in 2017.

Cumbo, Deputy City Manager Jeff Mihelich and city staffers have been meeting with CSU officials weekly to hash out the terms of the IGA.

A report from city staff in December estimated $24.2 million in off-campus stadium-related transportation impacts, although some city officials’ estimates ranged as high as $30 million to $50 million. “There were some things we didn’t have information on then,” she said, including plans by the university to add more on-campus parking.

“One of the challenges is the expectations that we can totally mitigate traffic congestion,” she said. “This is going to be a major pinch point. We can mitigate the impact and manage it, but that’s not going to make it disappear. We don’t want to add acres of asphalt just to try to alleviate it.”

As part of the agreement, CSU agreed not to hold “external events” – events other than football games and commencement exercises that would draw more than 12,000 people, such as concerts – for the first two years of the stadium’s operation, no more than one in the third year, two in the fourth and three in the fifth, so that impacts can be assessed and mitigated. The school also agreed to pay the city for extra public transit to move crowds to and from the events.

As part of the draft agreement, CSU and the city agreed to create and maintain a seven-member Stadium Advisory Group, made up of at least seven members, four of whom would have no affiliation either with the city or CSU. The university also agreed to raise money to establish a “Good Neighbor Fund” to lessen impacts on surrounding neighborhoods based on input from the advisory group.

After reading the draft agreement, Cunniff said he still wasn’t satisfied that it adequately addressed neighborhood concerns, which included potential effects on property values, insurance premiums, noise traffic and general quality of life – as well as the portion of the off-campus stadium-related infrastructure for which the city and its taxpayers would end up being responsible.

“It just doesn’t address much of what I’m hearing from my constituents,” he said. “It’ll be interesting to see what the Planning and Zoning board has to say on Friday.”

Friday’s Planning and Zoning agenda, including the full draft IGA, is available here.