City Council Minutes 1989 11 21 - Laserfiche WebLink

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COUNCIL COMMENTS: Sackett asked to address Council and the audience regarding a transportation issue. Sackett serves on DRCOG Board and feels that Louisville is at a crossroads because of the transportation plans now being developed by the State of Colorado, and would like a discussion regarding the issues at stake. "We have very little time to develop what needs to be a community consensus on how we believe that Louisville should interact with the rest of the Denver Metropolitan Area in the form of transportation." The State has been trying unsuccessfully to pass a transportation bill and DRCOG has developed a 2010 transportation needs assessment, and the needs far outweigh any possible ability to fund those needs. The one thing that was produced by the legislature was the authorization of a new commission -- the Metropolitan Transportation Development Commission to which the Governor appointed people who would try to develop a package of projects and a way to finance these projects that would be acceptable by enough of the people in the Metro area to pass first the State legislature and then the vote of the people. The MTDC has developed a 20-year plan of projects. Sackett is concerned that this has a 20-year life and if projects are not a part of this plan now, they won't be funded under the present financing plan for 20 years. There are some very positive things that they have done -- its a comprehensive regional plan that includes regional roadways and State highways and mass transit. A concerns of Sackett's is that the current plan does not adequately address the problem of connecting Louisville with the new airport. "If we do not have community consensus, we will not have a say in the process." Sackett stated that we need a single voice at a public hearing to be held by the MTDC on November 30th. Sackett talked about access to the airport stating that Louisville should improve its economic development through commercial growth. Residential growth is a high utilizer of all the services Louisville provides, and fees from development and from property tax is the major contributor to Louisville's revenue sources. We need commercial growth to provide a balance and more commercial land is not needed -- it is provided at the Tech Center, Centennial Valley, etc. But businesses need to be attracted to these areas and Louisville has a great deal of competition in Broomfield and other surrounding areas. "If we don't have a competitive edge, we aren't going to be able to experience the growth that we need to provide for the things that we 2