Timnath group revises petition as neighbors prep to view Ladera plan

TIMNATH – A citizens’ group opposed to the height of netting proposed for a golf entertainment center adjacent to the planned Ladera development has narrowed the scope of a petition drive that it launched in December to stop the project.

Some opponents also say they will attend a neighborhood meeting on Thursday night at which sketch plans for Ladera will be reviewed.

Prompted by a “site plan for conceptual review” for the facility, widely believed to be a Topgolf location similar to the one along Interstate 25 in Thornton, a group called Guide Our Growth Timnath launched a petition drive that would amend the town charter to put proposals for structures more than 60 feet high to a public vote instead of having them decided by the town’s elected officials.

However, after the Timnath Town Council unanimously passed a resolution opposing the amendment, Guide Our Growth Timnath stopped collecting signatures, withdrew its petition and revised its proposal. The revised petition was certified this week by Timnath Town Clerk Milissa Peters-Garcia.

“We’re not collecting signatures any more on the old one,” said Bill Jenkins, a spokesman for Guide Our Growth Timnath. “Starting Monday, we will be collecting signatures for the new one.

“We greatly simplified it,” he said, “and are simply requesting that no fencing poles or material of any kind exceed 65 feet. One and done.” 

The issue would be put before Timnath voters in a special election, he said, and “if this were to pass, there would be no further need for subsequent special elections. We’re just saying no poles or fencing above 65 feet. That eliminates complications with special elections and their associated costs. It’s not going to interfere with the established development-review processes.”

The group has 90 days to collect 651 verified signatures of Timnath registered voters to get its initiative placed on a ballot.

The site plan for conceptual review seeks a height variance from the town’s 57.5-foot structure-height limits. That site plan was provided to Timnath planners by applicant TB Group on behalf of property owner Sheri Welch and Connell LLC for a project described only as an “outdoor recreation and golf entertainment center.” The concept sketch shows plans for a roughly 38,000-square-foot facility on nearly 12 acres including a 40-foot-high building and netting poles 156 feet high.

If voters were to pass the initiative, Jenkins said, a variety of fencing materials would be prohibited, including wood, chain link and netting of any kind. The group’s petition cites reasons including danger to wildlife, 20-year-old promises that the proposed site of a new Topgolf location would remain open space, and what Guide Our Growth Timnath calls the “Timnath Town Board’s drastic deviation from the original master plan.”

“We can’t trust the Town Council with decisions about our growth any longer, and it is time to use the voice of all the voters to show the council their direction of growth is not what their constituents want,” Jenkins said. “Guide our Growth is thrilled the clerk approved the petitions. Now we can get to work sharing how detrimental the Topgolf proposal is to our community. Timnath has a master plan; Town Council needs to stick to it.

“It is clear that council has no interest in slowing down and listening to the citizens as they fast-track this project, hoping to circumvent the voters and the town,” Jenkins said. “We are calling on Town Council to table any Topgolf matters until the voters have spoken. That is the appropriate thing to do.”

He added: “It is long overdue that the voters have more of a voice in this town, and Guide our Growth has already pulled hundreds of folks together to say we don’t want Topgolf; we want the open space promised to Larimer County nearly 20 years ago.”

The group was referring to applications made to the state and county between 1999 and 2007 for a mining operation and the plan for reclamation that would follow. 

On the site today is a working gravel pit and asphalt plant, operated by Connell Resources.  When consultant Tuttle Applegate Inc., on behalf of Connell Resources, originally applied to the Larimer County Planning Division for a Use by Special Review permit, according to a 1999 letter obtained by BizWest, it predicted that “the 10- to 12-year duration of this project is relatively short” and that “the final reclamation plan will create a water-storage reservoir … preserve open space and be appealing to passersby as well as wildlife.”

However, the gravel pit remains in what Connell says is “the final mining phases, with plans to become a lake after reclamation.”

In a request for amendment sent by Tuttle Applegate on July 21, 2003, to Geniphyr Ponce-Pore in Larimer County’s planning department, it wrote that “the I-25 Corridor Plan focuses on development results in a 10- to 20-year timeframe. In that timeframe, final reclamation of the proposed amendment area will provide an open land area, preserving the rural pattern of land use, a distinct transition between urban and rural areas, and the visual and physical separation of different communities. The final reclamation plan for the site will remain water storage. … Final reclamation for the site, including the proposed amendment area, remains water storage. … The final land use of water storage was approved as a compatible land use with the existing permit. … 

“Final reclamation of the site and removal of the facilities will provide an open, non-urban land use consistent with the surrounding rural land uses,” Tuttle Applegate wrote. “When mining operations are complete, final reclamation will create open lands consistent with open, non-urban land use. … Upon the completion of mining operations, the temporary facilities associated with the area will become part of vacant shoreline adjacent to the final reclamation reservoir. The reservoir shoreline will provide visually open views consistent with the important agricultural landscape between Loveland and Fort Collins.”

In a statement to BizWest last week, Connell Resources explained that “the Connell Family has owned the property since April 2000 and has transferred it into Connell LLC to develop 133 acres while leaving 107 acres as lakes and open space.

“From the inception of the Timnath Connell Pit, Connell Resources mining and asphalt plant operations have operated under permits from Larimer County and the Division of Reclamation, Mining and Safety division. Mining permit limits never encompassed the entire property. Connell Resources has substantially mined within the mining limits in the permitted area and, at this time, the mining operations are substantially complete. It is very common for reclamation plans to evolve from the initial approval.”

Fort Collins-based developer Connell LLC recently filed a bevy of applications with the town of Timnath, highlighted by a request for annexation of approximately 184 acres for “future commercial and residential development.” That will be part of the 240 acres that Connell sees as “reinvention” of a working gravel pit and asphalt plant on the east side of Interstate 25 south of Harmony Road and the Costco store.

The developers describe their vision for Ladera — the name comes from the Spanish word for the slope of a hill or lakeside bank — as “an economically invigorating commercial, residential and recreational development at Timnath’s front door” with homes, office space, retail stores and entertainment venues.”

One neighbor whose focus is on the golf facility, Harry Devereaux, served in several economic-development roles including as former chairman and CEO of Home State Bank. He’ll be attending the sketch-plan meeting, he told BizWest on Thursday, because “I do not want to see Topgolf ruin our views, our environment. I’m a retiree who built a house and moved out there. It’s just not appropriate there.

“It would be very detrimental and doesn’t fit in with the 2020 comprehensive plan,” Devereaux said. “That document should apply with what the council and others do.”

He added: “I want to find out what the process is, which nobody understands, especially with the history of what was represented when it was just mining.”

Thursday’s meeting will begin at 6 p.m. in the first-floor community room of the Timnath Town Hall, 4750 Signal Tree Drive. Then a public meeting for Timnath residents will be held from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. Monday at Colorado Youth Outdoors, 4927 E. County Road 36 in Fort Collins.

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