Planning Commission Minutes 2015 08 13

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Planning Commission Meeting Minutes August 13, 2015 Page 5 of 22 groups like Denver Urban Gardens that helps citizens manage 150 different gardens. We worked with Growing Gardens in Boulder that manages a lot of the Boulder gardens. We went to farmer markets. We went to the Labor Day Festivals. We went to the Taste of Louisville. We had people sign petitions. Rather rapidly, we got close to 200 to 250 names from people interested in a community garden and there were a couple of reasons why. If you are familiar with Harney Lastoka, it is owned by the County and Lafayette and Louisville participate in it. Every year, there was a waiting list for Louisville gardeners and sometimes the list had as many as 35-40 people. There were issues with the location of the garden. It is not really a community garden in the true sense of the word because it is isolated on the east side of Highway 42. It is a very nice garden with a lot of amenities. We had a different vision to start a community garden that hopefully is successful. We can use it as a sounding board or spring board for other small gardens in other neighborhoods in Louisville. People can walk or ride their bike down to the garden, foster a sense of community, work with their neighbors, and grow organic vegetables. We worked closely with Parks and Recreation initially who located this plot of land for us. We looked at a few others but this one looked like the best. We worked really closely with the Planning Department and Public Works to make sure we went through the right avenues to get it up and going. We met with the Horticulture and Forestry Advisory Board (HFAB) a couple of times and the Open Space Board a couple of times. We visited every single house that backed to the garden and asked them if they had any problems. We did quite a bit of work before we actually started the submittal with the City which was about two years ago. The way this garden is organized is that LSAB helps the citizens submit the paperwork to the City. It will be managed and organized by the gardeners through a license agreement with the City in the 501 c3 entity that will hold the legally binging agreement. Any conditions will probably end up in the document. At this point, we have worked most of them out. The biggest issue seems to be traffic. In working closely with Denver Urban Gardens, they strongly suggest we have at least 20-25 plots because otherwise, gardeners will not see each other. The gardeners will want to socialize while gardening. They estimate for every 20-25 plots, there may be three people in the garden at one time. Commissioner Moline's comments bear that out. There are 43 plots at Harney Lastoka and when I drive by, I seldom see more than one or two cars. Harney Lastoka is a location you have to drive to. At this garden location, you could send your 8 year -old down to get zucchini for dinner and they can walk safely there. We talked to some citizens in the area. I currently live about four blocks from that section. Traffic is a concern and it has increased in the last couple of years and the speeds appear to have increased. I think a lot of the concern has to do with this, and not that there may be a couple more cars parked there occasionally. We are very sensitive to the traffic concern and this is one of the reasons for garden sheds. People can leave their tools there and not need to drive their car back and forth with tools and equipment. Besides the initial set-up time in the spring, we do not expect too many cars in that area. We envision this as a community project. We worked closely with the Boy Scouts in Louisville. They helped us design, as part of their Eagle Scout project (one Boy Scout is here tonight), the garden shed and the raised beds. They both worked with the engineer on the floodplain permit to make sure their design was consistent with what is needed in the floodplain. I think it was a real learning experience for them. I think they will be involved in the BOA meeting next week. Commission Questions of Applicant: Tengler asks about the timing of the east side since the west side will be open first. Is there a reason for not going forward with both at the same time? Heaney says there is a definite reason. We want to make sure that this system works smoothly before we expand too large and have glitches. For economic reasons, we want to make sure we have enough resources before expanding to the second side. We got the grant from Boulder