Answered: Frequently asked questions about Fort Collins' new land development code

In early November, the Fort Collins City Council approved changes to its land use code, including a name change to "land development code."

The changes have led a group of residents to begin a referendum process to get council to repeal the decision and have stirred numerous questions from the community. The group, Preserve Fort Collins, is working to gain the required 4,223 signatures by its deadline of Dec. 19.

The Coloradoan is answering another round of frequently asked questions, compiled from comments on our latest stories, claims being made by people in support of and against the changes, and questions the city has been receiving.

More:What will Fort Collins' new land development code mean for your neighborhood? Here's a guide

Why aren't changes to Fort Collins' land use code voted on by the people?

Preserve Fort Collins is petitioning for council repeal of the land use changes, or in the absence of that, sending the decision to the voters. Some residents have said big changes like these should be approved by the city voters.

But do land use code changes usually go to the voters for approval?

No, and here's why: The code is very technical.

"This type of topic has never been on the ballot," Rebecca Everette, city planning manager, said. "Adoption of city plans is never something that goes through a referendum process, or hasn't in the past.

"How our local representative democracy works is people elect their City Council members, who then advance policy that reflects what they're hearing from their constituents. And then codes and capital improvement plans and the budget are then implementation tools for those policies."

It's not common for these types of things to go to the ballot in other communities, either.

And even though it's technical and not typically put to the voters, citizen engagement is still a crucial part of the process, according to Housing Manager Meaghan Overton.

"There's engagement throughout the whole process to try to make sure that things are headed in the right direction, and for this code in particular, that right direction is those guiding principles that we shared with city council and with the community," Overton said.

The guiding principles for this code were:

• increase overall housing capacity and “calibrate market-feasible incentive” for affordable housing

• enable more affordability near high-frequency and high-capacity transit and priority growth areas

• allow for more diverse housing choices

• make the code easier to use and understand

• improve predictability of the development permit review process

Still, many residents feel there wasn't enough public notice about the changes before they were implemented.

Learn more:5 things to know about Fort Collins' new land use code and what they might mean for you

Can every home in Fort Collins really have an accessory dwelling unit?

Accessory dwelling units, or ADUs, will now potentially be an option for anyone owning a single-family home or duplex in all residential and mixed-use zones in Fort Collins.

An ADU is an accessory build added to a duplex or detached house that can have full living amenities and is subordinate to the primary dwelling unit. Remodeled basements can also be ADUs; they don’t need to be detached from the main house, though they need to be “subordinate to and complement the primary dwelling” in terms of architecture and materials used. Utilities from the main house can be extended to accessory dwelling units, so they don’t need their own sourcing.

In the past, ADUs were not a defined building type or use in city code. Instead, carriage houses were allowed in the three Old Town zones on lots of more than 10,000 or 12,000 square feet, and adding them required a public hearing.

If you’re building a detached ADU from scratch and the primary building is smaller than or equal to 1,335 square feet, the ADU can be a maximum size of 600 square feet. If the primary building is bigger than 1,335 square feet, the ADU has a maximum size of 1,000 square feet or 45% of the primary dwelling unit, whichever is less.

Detached ADUs aren't a given for every property: They can't be placed on a lot if there isn't enough space to meet the standards for setbacks.

Deadlines and process for recall effort:Dueling citizen groups form over Fort Collins land development code update

If my neighbor plans an ADU – or any other type of structure – what kind of notification will I receive?

Although routine public neighborhood meetings or hearings have been removed in the new code for residential projects that receive a basic development review, the notification process for residential builds has not changed.

The yellow "Development Under Review" signs will still be placed, and mailed notices and email newsletters including development reviews will still be sent. For most developments, anyone within 800 feet will receive a notice. For single ADU additions, abutting property owners will receive a notice.

What about appeals? There are no changes to the current appeal process, so if a basic development review decision is appealed, a public hearing with the Planning & Zoning Commission would occur. After that, the Planning & Zoning decision could also be appealed to City Council.

Archive:Fort Collins' land use code is getting an update. Here are the key changes proposed.

Which neighborhoods will be allowed to have multiple units that couldn’t before?

Houses in all zones allowing residences will be allowed to have an ADU moving forward. However, not all neighborhoods will be allowed to have much more than that.

Basically, four zones will add only ADUs an option, and the other zones will see more options, ranging from duplexes to apartment buildings and rowhouses.

Just because your zone may now allow these housing types doesn't mean they'll meet all the requirements to be built. Lots still must be able to accommodate minimum size requirements for units and meet the code's requirements for setbacks, height limits and things of that nature.

For a full list of what will be able to be built in your zone type, see our guide here.

I live in a neighborhood with an HOA. Will these changes impact me?

Put simply, yes, the land development code will override homeowner association covenants.

But not completely: The code overrides only HOA covenant rules that directly contradict the code changes. For example, if a covenant restricted the building of ADUs for its members, the city code would override that, and homeowners in that neighborhood would be able to build an ADU.

But the code will not override or remove elements of HOA covenants that provide structure around aesthetics, like what color a house can be or yard requirements.

Some HOA representatives have "expressed disagreement regarding whether the city can legally supersede HOA covenants in furtherance of its important public policy goals," according to City Attorney Carrie Daggett. She said they were aware of the "potential for disagreement on this point, but believe the approach taken is within the city’s authority."

Everette told the Coloradoan the intent behind the code superseding covenants "was to ensure that the code can be applied consistently and equally across the community and that neighborhoods would not have the ability to opt out based on the presence of an HOA or not."

"In order to achieve our stated community goals for housing, we need the participation of our entire community."

How would the new code help boost affordable housing/housing affordability?

One of the concerns coming from Preserve Fort Collins, the group petitioning for the code changes to be repealed, is that the code doesn't actually require that affordable housing be built anywhere.

One argument in favor of the changes is that allowing increased density in the city and more ADUs could lead to more housing stock, including smaller and less expensive options, which could help address any shortage of housing options and lead to lower prices, or greater "housing affordability."

But when it comes to bona fide affordable housing, Preserve Fort Collins says: "The stated goal is to increase affordable housing but the code does not require most new multiunit housing in low-density zones to be affordable."

In the new code, zones that were previously single-unit low density now allow people to build a triplex if one of the units is affordable and deed restricted for 99 years. There are additional incentives that differ by zone and allow for things like greater height and less parking if units are affordable.

In the city's previous code, just two zones had affordable housing incentives. In the new code, incentives are expanded to all residential, commercial and mixed-use zones.

Ross Cunniff, one of the leaders of Preserve Fort Collins, told the Coloradoan that while there are bonus benefits in the code for having affordable units, he doesn't believe developers will add a unit to projects to receive the affordable housing incentives offered by the city because the profit wouldn't be big enough to justify it.

"Those are bonuses. Those are not requirements," he said. "I know that the profit motive will lead not to affordable units being built in the single family residential zones."

Overton told the Coloradoan that the city worked to essentially make affordable housing "more attractive" for developers and expand where it can be built.

Everette added that while the city is using incentives, not requiring units, to get affordable housing, the chosen incentives were selected through a "very data-driven approach."

"It was a market-calibrated approach to creating those incentives so that would increase the likelihood that we would see more market-rate developers in particular including affordable housing," she said.

"It doesn't guarantee (affordable housing); it just creates the right kind of ecosystem or that type of development to occur where it didn't exist before."

Will these changes lead to investors or developers having a “free-for-all” in the city?

Preserve Fort Collins' site contends that City Council chose "expediency and old fashioned cronyism over transparency and good governance (... to) quickly to turn most of Fort Collins into a free-for-all for housing developers and investors."

Everette and Overton maintain this isn't the case because the code changes do not "lessen our development requirements" in Fort Collins nor do they change the city's overall approach to development.

"This code, as it relates to the existing residential areas, seeks to remove barriers. It's not seeking to lessen our development requirements ... it allows for some streamlining of process, but it doesn't change any of the already high standards, the high bar we already have for development," Everette told the Coloradoan.

Overton said for many years the city has maintained that "the development pays its own way," meaning it has to pay for the infrastructure that's required to serve it and any services or fees needed. She added that in a way it's "an oversimplification to say that the code changes are somehow opening the door to developers."

"We need developers to build housing. That's how housing gets built. But we're not lowering our standards or changing the way that the city approaches development," Overton said.

Cunniff said it doesn't matter that the city still has high requirements. The concern, he said, stems from the city not considering profit motives for things like short-term rentals and high-end apartments.

Rather than addressing the need for affordability, he believes it's "quite likely" that developers will come in and build "a large number of high-end luxury apartments" because "that's where the money is," leading to what the group is calling a free-for-all.

Everette said widespread demolition of existing homes isn't a trend other communities that more broadly allowed ADUs or duplexes are seeing, and it's not a trend in the parts of Old Town that already allow duplexes and carriage houses.

"The economics of either adding an ADU or converting an existing house or scraping and rebuilding as a triplex, (there) has to be a really strong financial incentive in the form of a low, very low property value for it to make that worth it," she said.

Will the code changes diminish the charm of neighborhoods and decrease the quality of life in Fort Collins?

This was another concern brought by Preserve Fort Collins and others worried about the code changes who feel allowing different building types in various neighborhoods will lead to infill development in areas like Old Town that will in turn result in loss of neighborhood character.

Speakers at City Council meetings in the last month expressed concerns about Fort Collins and Old Town losing their charm and neighborhoods no longer providing good quality of life.

Cunniff has also said "Fort Collins’ quality of life is at risk" due to the code changes.

In response to that concern, Everette said the goal of the Housing Strategic Plan, which helped inform these code changes, is "healthy, stable housing for everyone in our community."

"The goal is not to diminish one person's quality of life in exchange for somebody else's, it's not a win-lose, zero-sum game," Everette said. "Quality of life is about building a community where people care about each other are connected to each other. They're proud of the neighborhoods that they live in or the community they live in, where people can access jobs and services close to where they live."

She added that they've generally heard concerns about quality of life "from people who generally already have healthy, stable housing and live in existing established neighborhoods, and really like where they live."

Staff contend, in response to this concern, that the design standards ensure that what is built is compatible with what's around it. There are also more clear building guidelines on what can and cannot be built where and what they can look like, which should help keep neighborhoods feel and look the same even if multiunit housing pops up.

Molly Bohannon covers Fort Collins government for the Coloradoan. Follow her on Twitter @molboha or contact her at mbohannon@coloradoan.com.

This article originally appeared on Fort Collins Coloradoan: Fort Collins land development code FAQs: What do the changes mean?