Meeting set for controversial development

BOULDER – The controversial and long-delayed Boulder Creek Commons development will be the subject of an open house Wednesday, Jan. 30, to be hosted by staff of the Boulder Planning Department.

The Boulder Creek Commons project would build 121 units on land known as the Hogan-Pancost site, which is next to East Boulder Community Park. The development would include 63 single-family homes, six affordable duplex units and 50 senior-housing units, according to planning department documents.

Boulder-based developer Mike Boyers owns the land and is the developer behind the project. The parcel is in unincorporated Boulder County, and Boyers is asking the city to annex it.

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The open house will be from 5 to 8 p.m. at Manhattan Middle School, 290 Manhattan Drive. Boyers said the developers will send the project’s engineering consultants to answer questions. He is not planning to attend.

Boyers said the timetable at this point remains provisional and highly dependent on how and whether the city approves the development plan. It will go before the planning board in late February, and then the plan must be approved by the City Council because it requires an annexation, Boyers said.

Boyers hopes the approval process can be completed this summer, with infrastructure work taking place in the fall and construction of the first houses beginning in late fall 2013. The build-out schedule is to be determined, but it could take two-and-a-half years, he said.

After the project’s various stops and starts, Boyers knows it could change. He bought the property in 2002 and has been trying to get it started ever since.

“We care certainly hopeful that’s the timetable, but there’s no guarantee of that,” he said.

The project has garnered controversy over the years, with opponents saying it would increase sprawl and traffic while reducing wetlands, according to their website, http://www.hoganpancost.org.

Representatives of the group could not be reached Tuesday.

The current site development plan is Boyer’s third shot at getting the project approved. The first plan was submitted in 2006 and withdrawn in 2007. A second concept plan was submitted in late 2011, according to city documents.