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Planning Commission <br />Meeting Minutes <br />July 14, 2016 <br />Page 8 of 33 <br />As you have heard from Staff, Balfour appears tonight to present our plan for our first new <br />assisted living community in Louisville in over 18 years. Our one and only assisted living <br />community is Balfour Retirement Community and is nearly 20 years old; it has floorplans and <br />common spaces that might have been leading edge when they were designed in 1996, but in <br />today's modern world, are more than a little anachronistic. We have been spending mightily to <br />renovate that building, but there are limits to what you can do, because once the bones of the <br />building have been set (small apartments, low ceiling heights, inadequate outdoor living <br />spaces). Yet we are still able to operate the assisted living wing of that BRC building with 61 <br />units at over 90%. In the meantime, new assisted living communities are being built, several in <br />the last year, such as the Morningstar project on South Boulder Road, the Landmark community <br />that will be opening up shortly, and the Affinity project in Lafayette. We feel we have a need to <br />stay competitive. We also believe that a certain number of units need to be built for the project <br />to be economically feasible. We have a significant number of fixed costs, not the least of which <br />stem from State of Colorado regulations which are appropriate and un-waivable. They are <br />necessary due to the frail nature of many of our assisted living residents. We feel, given market <br />rents and competition and the fixed costs of operating a quality assisted living community with <br />the amenities found in our other award winning communities, we need to have that number of <br />units. We have taken a lot of time, as you will see in a moment, to try to figure out how to <br />address that. We believe that we have accommodated many, if not all, of the concerns of the <br />neighbors while still designing a building that works functionally and financially. We understand <br />the concerns of the neighbors, most of who have been in their homes less than two years. They <br />should have been aware of a building coming onto this site given its long time PCZD zoning. <br />Their concerns arise out of a request for a waiver of the height standard. I will leave it to Dave <br />Williams of DTJ to discuss the design in more detail and address the building's heights, the <br />budget, and what we believe to be negligible impact on the views from Hecla and from most, if <br />not all, of the North End community. <br />Let me make a few points about heights and waivers in the Alvenus Park and North End <br />neighborhoods of Louisville. The BRC was approved in 1997, built in 1998, and opened in 1999, <br />and was granted a height waiver of 9.5'. The highest part of the building was 44.5'. For the <br />Lodge, approved in 2003 and opened in 2004, a height waiver of 20' was granted and the top of <br />that building was 55'. For the Residences, approved in 2007 and opened in late 2008, a height <br />waiver of 24' was granted and the highest point of that building is 59'. All of those buildings were <br />subject to the 35' height limitation that applied to Alvenus Park and to North End. We went <br />through this waiver process each time and always got approval, both from the PC and City <br />Council. In short, I submit that this entire neighborhood in Louisville has long had a history of <br />waivers from the height limitations originally imposed on it. In fact, one of the Markel projects to <br />the east sought and received a waiver to exceed the height limitation applicable to that project. <br />All of this should not be overly surprising given that this has been a neighborhood in some <br />transition, one whose purposes and uses has been transformed from mining to cowboy rodeos <br />to a shopping center that still operates to a new residential neighborhood made up of single <br />family duplexes, condominiums, and apartments for singles, empty nesters, and senior housing. <br />DTJ Design was our architect for the Lodge project which has garnered a great number of <br />awards and spawned a lot of imitations around the state. <br />David Williams, DTJ Design, 3101 Iris Street, Boulder, CO <br />I am a principal with DTJ Design. We are the architects and landscape architects for the new <br />proposed assisted living community. Some associates are with me who will be available to help <br />answer questions you may have. I will move through this presentation and try not repeat what <br />Michael and Lauren said. I will elaborate on previous questions. <br />SITE LOCATION: Regarding one of the taller buildings adjacent to single family residential, the <br />Lodge is at 55' and is adjacent to the south of a future phase of North End. Those residents do <br />