Here's what Fort Collins City Council members want to prioritize in the next 2 years

Fort Collins City Council is in the midst of setting its priorities for the next two years, and here's your chance to see how it's shaping up.

To kick it off, the council met on the last Saturday of January for a retreat at Canvas Stadium, and each council member brought about five of their own priorities to the table.

With help from consultant FountainWorks, the group categorized their ideas into larger buckets so they could better define their goals and the tasks that might fall under them.

By afternoon, about 30 orange, cantaloupe-sized sticky notes with council members' handwritten priorities were posted to the wall and grouped into categories. A corresponding grid showed 12 categories cascading into multiple tasks and strategies.

These priorities are not final and still could change.

Council will continue to solidify priorities at a Feb. 13 work session, and they'll talk about updates to the Strategic Plan at a Feb. 27 work session before voting to adopt it March 19.

That being said, here's what council's priorities are shaping up to look like so far:

Affordable housing

Mayor pro-tem Emily Francis was the only council member to explicitly name affordable housing as a priority. Her specific suggestion is to "operationalize city resources to build affordable housing."

The idea behind that is that every city department would have a role in how it can execute on the city's affordable housing strategies: "What barriers are we causing, what things aren't we leveraging, what things aren't we using to their full potential?" Francis said, "It's not one person, it's not one department. We are incorporating it as a philosophy that affordable housing is our priority."

Francis also suggested tools that could be used, like a sustainable funding source, the Urban Renewal Authority, a development review fund and an eviction legal fund.

Planning for the former Hughes Stadium site and also for a bike park

Community outreach regarding the plan for the former Colorado State University football stadium site was already on the city's list for 2024, but at least four council members cited developing a plan as one of their priorities for the next two years.

The site must be used as "property for parks, recreation, and open lands, natural areas, and wildlife rescue and restoration," according to the ballot measure voters overwhelmingly approved in 2021.

Council member Kelly Ohlson's priority is to make the site home to a wildlife and nature campus, specifically mentioning a potential partnership with the Rocky Mountain Raptor Center, the Northern Colorado Wildlife Center, the Bird Conservancy, Audubon Rockies, Colorado State University, Poudre School District and Larimer County.

Council member Susan Gutowsky said it should be retained as a natural area, wildlife and nature campus with low-impact recreation. Council member Melanie Potyondy cited foot, bike and ski uses in her sticky note.

Francis said she wasn't taking a position on any specific use but believes the priority should be simply to form a master plan.

However, making a plan for a youth-led bike park was also one of her priorities, whether that's at Hughes or elsewhere.

There has been interest from some in the bicycling community to build a recreational bike park for nonmotorized bikes on the site, but others say that goes against the spirit of the campaign to make it open space.

Whatever it becomes, council members said a successful plan for the former Hughes site would be based on broad community involvement and buy-in.

Electrification and greenhouse gas reduction

Making substantial progress toward climate action goals is a priority for Potyondy, and advancing the city's Our Climate Future plan through electrification and decarbonization of buildings is a priority for council member Tricia Canonico.

Canonico and Potyondy listed potential tools, including using URAs, business improvement districts, educational outreach, public-private partnerships and funding consolidation.

Canonico said the city can put calculators on its website so residents can see what rebates or other incentives are available to them.

Tackling air quality issues caused by oil and gas wells is a priority for Gutowsky, but the method she suggested for doing that wasn't something everyone agreed on. She said the city should consider purchasing active gas wells so they can be capped, an idea Mayor Jeni Arndt has floated in the past.

However, Ohlson said he strongly disagreed with the idea because in the end it lets polluters off the hook after the damage has already been done.

Arndt countered that another way of looking at it is that goal is simply to mitigate the problem to increase health and safety.

Ohlson said his priority is to implement best practices for air quality monitoring and action and to go beyond ozone.

The city's new half-cent sales tax could be used in this area because that tax funds, in part, efforts to reduce greenhouse gases.

Active modes

Active modes is the term the city uses to describe transportation on foot, bicycles, scooters and the like.

For Arndt, children should be a priority, and one of her desires is to create more safe routes to schools.

Potyondy wants to prioritize looking at ways to reduce car travel by boosting clean transit and active modes.

Some things in this arena could also get funding help from the city's new sales tax because active modes helps reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

The 15-minute city

The 15-minute-city concept is the idea that residents should be able to access whatever they need for their daily life — like shopping, work, school and leisure — by taking only a 15-minute walk, bike ride or public transit ride.

Canonico, Pignataro and Potyondy all cited removing obstacles to implementation of the 15-minute city as a priority.

Francis got more specific, wanting "easier and faster adaptive reuse" by removing barriers to neighborhood commercial redevelopment, box stores and temporary uses.

She said the 15-minute-city concept won't work if there aren't destinations that attract the community.

This was an idea Francis talked about before she was reelected, saying in an interview with the Coloradoan that existing community hubs like shopping centers could be redeveloped to create community the way Old Town's redevelopment did.

Again, transit projects are eligible for funding from the city's new sales tax.

Economic health

Arndt wants to focus on attracting businesses that align with Fort Collins' values. She said this could lead to an industry hub that Fort Collins could be known for, like clean energy, for example, and that would then build even more synergy.

Tasks could also include creating a navigator tool to assist businesses through city processes, Arndt said, and resources to assist with retention, Canonico added.

Canonico's priority is to attract young families and innovative green tech/biotech to Fort Collins and remove barriers to a healthy, balanced workforce, she said.

Community engagement and communication

Six of the seven people who serve on council said they want to improve community engagement and outreach.

"Make Fort Collins FUN," read one of the sticky notes.

Arndt said she would like to see more community events in the same spirit as the Pooch Plunge, which the city ceased due to a variety of reasons.

That includes making it easier to have fun, organic things in the community, Francis said, by looking at changing city processes that create barriers.

This creates an avenue for the city to engage with residents in a positive way that shows how it's advancing its priorities, Francis said.

Canonico said more in-depth storytelling by the city could help people get more excited about what the city is doing, and it needs to use methods that engage young people.

"No one should ever wonder or be surprised by things going on in our community," Pignataro wrote on her sticky note. Her ideas: accelerate city website updates, use bus kiosks for messaging, find ways to reach communities that are not online and find tools to increase the number of media outlets.

A general reimagining of how to connect with the public was another part of this discussion.

Potyondy said neighborhood ambassadors could go directly to residents who are unlikely to engage with the city on their own because they don't feel comfortable doing so or don't have the means to do it in the traditional ways.

Gutowsky said after the division over changing the city's land use code, it is important for the city to create and foster a collaborative relationship with the community.

"What I'm hearing you all want to accomplish is to make government more accessible, more approachable and fun," City Manager Kelly DiMartino said.

Also mentioned in this area:

• Address voter turnout and accessibility, including education on ranked-choice voting coming in 2025.

• Promote intergenerational relationships to energize inclusion of seniors in our community. Gutowsky said a program like Rams Against Hunger is an existing program that could unite them.

Water resources and water quality

The city should provide creative ways to encourage water conservation, Pignataro said, like classes on how to install a rain barrel or irrigate your yard. It could also look into how to leverage raw water wells.

Ohlson wants to "accelerate actions to protect and enhance the Poudre River." Tools to do this could include monitoring river health, restoring habitat, increasing flows, acquiring properties from willing sellers and preventing above-ground infrastructure on public lands along the river.

He also wants to develop an informational document on irrigation ditches, "these little gems throughout the city," including those in the the city's growth management area. This could show how much ownership the city or other governments have in the ditch companies as issues have arisen around tree removal, wildlife, recreational use and fencing going up near the ditches.

Related to that: Residents complain about 'prison-style' fence behind their homes. Here's what we know

Waste reduction and recycling

At least three council members want to prioritize addressing food waste by accelerating compost initiatives.

Ohlson called for "real progress on the road to Zero Waste," including food waste, construction and demolition waste, plastic waste and rare metals in electronics that may be lurking in residents' drawers.

Human and social health

Like with her affordable housing priority, Francis wants to operationalize diversity, equity and inclusion across the city organization so every department is asking itself how it is removing barriers to access. This could include things like removing income verification for city programs, and recruiting and retaining diverse talent, she wrote on her sticky note.

On Pignataro's list: addressing food insecurity and removing barriers to access to city programs by getting rid of those checks for economically challenged participants, perhaps as a pilot program.

"It should be easy and seamless for those who desire to donate to do so and easy and seamless for those that need it to access funds and services," Pignataro's sticky note said.

Francis wants to see work done on creating a local mobile home park enforcement program to protect residents when park owners are violating the law.

City Charter review

Arndt wants to do a complete review of City Charter to modernize it and "clean it up."

Prior to her reelection, Arndt talked in an interview with the Coloradoan about wanting to take on charter housekeeping. She said at the time: "We found a lot of things just this year that need modernizing, but we find them in a one-off way, like when we have problem. I'd like to be more intentional about that."

"It's the unsexy work of governance that's important to do to make sure it runs smoothly in the future," she said.

Animal welfare

This priority was identified by Pignataro.

"Fort Collins is a place that loves its animals — both wild and domesticated — and its policies should reflect that," her sticky note said.

She said the city could look into:

• Enforcement of or education about leash laws. She cited the example of cats roaming outdoors, which has negative effects on both the bird population and the cats' health and safety.

• Helping to end puppy mills. She said she wanted to find out what could be done locally to end commercial breeding facilities. In their discussion, council members said before acting on anything, they would like to get objective information on puppy mills and their impact on Fort Collins pet stores.

Editor's note: This story has been updated to clarify that proponents of a future bike park want it to be for nonmotorized bikes.

This article originally appeared on Fort Collins Coloradoan: Fort Collins City Council begins to set priorities for 2024-2025