Loveland council wants staff to stop rezoning work in west end neighborhood

LOVELAND — The Loveland City Council has directed City Manager Steve Adams to “strongly consider” abandoning work on rezoning, overlay zoning or any other public process regarding properties in the area of Sixth Street and Douglas Avenue in west Loveland until a specific proposal is advanced by a property owner in the area.

Several members of the council, had they had their druthers, would have directed the manager to “cease and desist,” as one council member said. But upon advice of City Attorney Moses Garcia, who said the council cannot by law direct the manager on how to oversee city staff, settled on the “strongly consider” language.

The council has heard complaints for several weeks — residents of the so-called West Endies  neighborhood say it’s been a year — that city planning staff is meddling in their neighborhood and proceeding in a manner contrary to the wishes of residents. Several spoke to the council again Tuesday night.

The issue arose this year as a property at 914 W. Sixth St. owned by Barry Floyd lost its nonconforming use status because it had been vacant for 10 years. The building was a former medical clinic.

The city found three other properties that were out of compliance with the neighborhood zoning.

The city took it upon itself to fix the issues and encountered a neighborhood rebellion, with residents forming a group called the West Endies to fight changes. 

Faced with neighbor opposition, a negative vote from the Planning Commission, and pointed questions from the City Council, city staff withdrew its plans for rezoning in July. 

The neighborhood thought the issue was dead, only to learn that city planning staff was continuing to work on it. A survey was sent to the neighborhood to seek options for how to proceed.

Suzanne Dickens, who spoke during the public comment period at Tuesday’s council meeting, said the neighborhood objects to “the continuous push to rezone the neighborhood to help a developer get out of a bad investment. We oppose high-density zoning in our neighborhood. We will support a memory care unit,” she said in reviewing what the neighborhood has previously told city staff and the council.

The council sought an update from city staff, and Brett Limbaugh, development services director for the city, said the survey was an attempt to find out more information from neighbors. 

“We had heard that memory care may be an acceptable option for that district. We also heard other options. We wanted to be thorough and hear what options could be considered. We wanted to hear if an overlay district was appropriate — it may not be, but we wanted to hear what the community had to say.

“We made a promise to the neighborhood that we would be thorough, be conscious of the options they want us to consider. We could have done an amended ordinance but didn’t want to keep amending if we didn’t understand what the neighborhood wanted.”

The council didn’t understand why this was happening in the absence of a specific proposal from a property owner or developer.

“Why is this a city issue,” asked council member Andrea Samson. “Why isn’t this being driven by the property owner who wants a change. This pertains to one property. I wonder if this is necessary.”

Limbaugh responded that there are “at least four properties” with nonconforming uses, and under current zoning, a memory care unit can’t be established there.

“Is there a memory care provider waiting in the wings,” asked Councilman John Fogle. “I’m at a loss for why we’re chasing this when there isn’t a buyer or developer wanting to do something.”

Council member Richard Ball agreed. “Until there’s something brought to us by the property owner, we don’t do anything.”

Said Limbaugh, “We were looking at this as a city effort to see if we could fix several properties in that neighborhood.”

Council member Dana Foley moved to direct the city manager to “strongly consider the comments from the public and stop what we’re doing at Sixth and Douglas.”

Others wanted stronger language — to direct the city manager to stop the process, but the city attorney warned that under the charter the council can’t intervene in the manager’s supervision of staff.

Adams said he would investigate and “consider stopping the process.”

The council vote was unanimous on the motion.

“Without a deal in hand, we have no cart, no horse and no road to follow,” Fogle said.

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