Council signals support to continue redevelopment incentive; staff to draft resolution with implementation details

City staff recommended council consider formally continuing a redevelopment policy the city has used in various forms since 2004 and which staff said had an expiration date of Dec. 18, 2022 that the city continued to apply in good faith. Tamara Allen, the Community Development Director, described how the program reduces transportation capacity fees (a 50% reduction for most areas, plus an additional multiplier for vertical construction in a smaller core) and said recent projects have benefited, with staff estimating roughly $2.5 million in city investment tied to selected projects.

Allen told the council the city did not track the policy’s expiration closely and recommended a renewal mechanism with monitoring. “The redevelopment policy that we will be talking about tonight is largely nested in work back to 2013,” she said, adding staff’s recommendation that if continued the council consider a four‑year sunset so the policy is periodically reassessed.

Council members asked for clearer effectiveness data before committing to wide changes. One councilor urged caution about eminent domain concerns and asked that the plan be explicitly non‑prescriptive; Robert (a council member who spoke during the discussion) warned residents would resist any city‑directed plans that could lead to eminent‑domain conflicts. Staff also asked whether attached single‑family products such as townhomes should be eligible for the story‑multiplier and proposed a threshold of about 16 units per acre as a minimum density that would qualify.

After debate about the boundary and whether to expand incentive geography (including whether to include areas near Colorado Mesa University and Orchard Mesa), staff said they would prepare a resolution reflecting council feedback, including clarifications on single‑family attached eligibility, the proposed sunset, and monitoring/tracking provisions, and return the measure for formal consideration.