A push by city officials last year to address a rash of new development in Lafayette’s Old Town neighborhoods could soon usher in updated regulations for the area’s growth.
Amendments to the district’s zoning could allow officials “an enhanced set of tools” as they preserve the area’s character, a report drafted by Denver’s Clarion Associates, a consulting firm responsible for the project’s public outreach, suggested.
Calls to preserve the character of Old Town’s vintage feel — the funky, often-eclectic home styles harken back to the city’s agricultural and mining roots, according to homeowners surveyed — have persisted for decades.
Community workshops began this spring to gauge key character-defining features for Old Town neighborhoods that residents want protected, according to Darcie White of Clarion, as well as to questions of compatibility, boundary lines and the demolition process.
Such plans could guide future development in the region, according to White, and would address certain infill on vacant lots, redevelopment, or additions to existing buildings.
“Their biggest concern for Old Town is related to scale and mass of infill development that they think is out of character,” White said Friday. “The proposed recommendations are looking at potential requirements that would help mitigate some of these impacts.”
About 53 percent of respondents to the city survey cited lot coverage as a top compatibility concern with respect to site design in Old Town, according to the report.
The minimum lot size in the zoning districts (R1, R2, OTR) is 7,000 square feet, according to the city code. A lot coverage of 30 percent would have a maximum footprint of 2,100 square feet. This is greater than the average footprint (1,628 square feet including primary dwelling, garages, porches, patios, and other accessory buildings) calculated from a sample of 181 parcels in Old Town.
“The overarching (proposal) is meant to maintain some of the current feelings of Old Town,” Lafayette’s Historical Preservation Chairwoman Rebecca Schwendler said. “Everyone always says that it feels like a small town, with the trees and diverse houses.
“I think it’s really seen some dramatic changes,” Schwendler added. “Especially in the last three years, so many of the additions and new buildings that have been constructed are so much larger and denser than what was there before.”
When asked to identify their top three compatibility issues with respect to building mass and form in Old Town, nearly 80 percent of respondents indicated “overall scale and massing,” more than 52 percent indicated height, and 42 percent indicated attention to shading of neighboring properties.
The Historic Preservation Board has reviewed 18 demolition applications since 2012; however, questions have been raised as to whether the current definition is too flexible in terms of its percentages and whether the 90-day stay on the demolition permit is sufficient.
In recent months, an accelerated effort has occurred to protect the district from what some residents in the neighboring southern reaches of the city have called the advent of “urban sprawl” in the area.
It is one that comes as echoes of Boulder County’s building boom reverberates outward.
“Lafayette is really growing very quickly,” Seth White, a member of the city’s Historic Preservation Board, said Friday. “This is a bigger issue than just in Old Town. Building and infill and traffic — it’s a general feeling that our pace of growth is a little accelerated. In terms of Old Town itself, there’s a sense that things are changing and we are losing parts of it.
“Outside development interests are taking priority over the interests of people in Old Town,” he added.
The region has added more housing units in the past five years than at any time since the late ’90s. Households are forming faster, however, with 7,736 added — well ahead of the 7,203 homes built during that time.
Lafayette built 1,362 dwellings and grew by 1,174 households from 2009 to 2016.
“I do think that Lafayette has a unique position to preserve the city’s heritage,” White said. “Not all front range communities have the cool little downtown area to build on and work from.”
Anthony Hahn: 303-473-1422, hahna@dailycamera.com or twitter.com/_anthonyhahn
