Hughes Stadium: Negotiations for the land to begin next month

FORT COLLINS — The city of Fort Collins and the Colorado State University System appear ready to return to the negotiating table over the Hughes Stadium property after voters in overwhelming numbers this week directed the city to try to acquire the land for open space.

Now comes the hard part: Finding a solution to the question of whether the 161-acre parcel will be developed into a neighborhood with some open space or transformed entirely into open land, that stalemated the City Council last summer.

In its comments after the results, the CSU System said that while it respects the will of the voters, it reasserted its position that it can use the Site Plan Advisory Review in state law to develop the Hughes Stadium land without approval from city officials.

That process, also known as SPAR, allows some state entities to develop land they own and supersede local zoning and development rules under certain conditions.

“As we have discussed all along with city leadership, this ballot measure does not bind the state to sell the Hughes property — that decision and authority rests with the Board of Governors of the CSU System,” the system said early Wednesday morning. “We look forward to future conversations with the city to determine if there is a path forward.”

The system declined to make Chancellor Tony Frank available for an interview Friday.

Optimism on negotiations

Fort Collins City Manager Darin Atteberry said the City Council will start taking up rezoning of the property as soon as May 4, after its newly-elected members are sworn in.

After that, city staff will begin speaking with CSU System staff on acquiring the property, a process that will include independent valuations of what that land would fetch on the market. Lennar Corp. (NYSE: LEN) had previously offered $10 million to take the property under contract, and CSU has previously rejected earlier offers from the city to buy it at a lower price.

Atteberry said he’s already had conversations this week with Frank about the timeline for negotiations but said those talks didn’t touch on the substantive issues of the price for the land, or some other arrangement.

“In talking with Tony Frank, I think we have a very open relationship, and I believe that CSU, at least at this point, has expressed an openness to continue the dialogue as well,” he said.

Atteberry also said a landowner in town has offered a property that could be used as part of a land swap, allowing CSU to build the housing that it believes will help relieve high living costs in the area while keeping the Hughes Stadium land vacant. It’s unclear if that property would fit CSU’s desires.

The main driving force behind the ballot initiative also thinks the two sides can find an agreement.

Elena Lopez, one of the co-organizers of Planning Action to Transform Hughes Sustainably (PATHS), said the outcome of the election provides a mandate for the city and an incentive for CSU to return to negotiations.

“It’s in everyone’s best interest, I think, to work together and to come up with a fair market value for CSU,” she said.

However, a strong possibility remains that the courts may become involved if the two parties can’t come to an agreement.

A question of federalism

The non-binding nature of the ballot initiative and CSU’s use of SPAR would make any litigation on the future of the property complex, said Sarah Schindler, a professor and land-use expert at the University of Denver Sturm College of Law.

Disputes between universities and cities of this nature are fairly common, particularly in California, where the city of Irvine sued the University of California Regents in February. In that suit, Irvine claimed that the higher education authority incorrectly claimed immunity from the city’s oversight when it green-lit construction for a new $1 billion medical center.

Schindler said these suits tend to draw up broad questions of federalism, and what type of powers each level of government has at its disposal when deciding what can be built and where.

“That’s one of the reasons land-use scholars tend to not like ballot box zoning, because trying to do land-use through the ballot, it’s such a complex process that you often wind up with,” she said.

Trying to avoid the courts

Lopez said PATHS has requested the city review the SPAR that CSU submitted, claiming that the system can’t use that process to approve development of buildings that aren’t for public use.

However, she hopes it won’t go any further on the legal front.

“We’re quite confident and hopeful that CSU will do the right thing and listen to the community’s voice, because this really could be a win-win,” she said.

Atteberry declined to say what he’d do if CSU invoked state law to develop the property against the city’s wishes, but he hopes that the two sides can find an agreement that would keep the fate of Hughes Stadium away from litigation.

“Will it end up in the courts? I mean, it certainly could,” he said. “But I don’t believe that that’s in the best interest of any of the parties involved.”

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