Monument board upholds director on road-width standard, denies appeal to place retaining wall in Higbee Road right of way

The Monument Board of Adjustment on Wednesday considered an appeal from developer Zeal for Living over two issues tied to the Zeal at Jackson Creek project: whether the planning director applied the correct roadway-width standard and whether a retaining wall may be built in the Higbee Road public right of way.

Chair Trujillo opened the hearing and staff planning director Dan Ungerleider told the board the appeal concerned two discrete requests: an appeal of his decision to prohibit a retaining wall in the public right of way and a variance to reduce minimum pavement width for private drives from the technical standard (described in the staff report as 28 feet asphalt / 32 feet flow-line) to 24 feet. "Staff is recommending denial of the applicant's appeal," Ungerleider said, arguing the Board of Adjustment lacks authority to approve structures in the public right of way and that reducing the pavement standard could impair emergency-services response.

The applicant, project manager David Duncan of Zeal for Living, said the development is a 162-unit, single-family-attached community on about 19.11 acres and that the internal roads are private drive aisles configured like other multifamily projects in town. "The variance will not be injurious to the adjacent properties or improvements," Duncan said, adding the design meets the town's parking and fire-department turning-radius requirements and that TriView Metropolitan District (the local improvement district) had offered to maintain the wall if it were located in the right of way.

A member of the public who spoke in support of the development urged the board to treat the applicant the same as prior projects and warned that denying the variances could lead to denser, less-desirable alternatives. "Zeal for Living is a very nice project by a first class developer," the commenter said.

Commissioners debated whether the planning director had correctly applied the roadway standard for private drive aisles versus publicly dedicated streets, and whether past approvals of 24-foot internal aisles constituted precedent. Several commissioners said the appropriate remedy for changing standards would be a text amendment at the council level rather than variances decided by the board.

On a motion that the planning director had erred in applying the roadway standard, the motion failed 2–5. Later, the board considered the retaining-wall issue; after discussion and legal guidance from the town attorney about the board's authority, the board voted to deny the appeal regarding placing the retaining wall in the Higbee Road right of way (the board announced the motion passed with a 6-0 roll call result and one abstention recorded during the vote sequence). Those actions mean the director's restrictions on the retaining wall stand and that any change to allow a wall in the public right of way would need to proceed through the separate processes the director and staff identified.

The board concluded its business and adjourned; staff said right-of-way improvements and final roadway approvals will be handled through the town council and the town's engineering and permitting processes.

What happens next: denial of the appeals leaves the developer to pursue design changes or to seek council-level action for any right-of-way exceptions. The planning commission was scheduled to convene after a short break to continue other items on the evening's agenda.