FORT COLLINS - A placid city with a thriving, century-old downtown and an agricultural tradition, Fort Collins isn't known as a haven for radicals.
But a raging development boom accompanied by cookie-cutter subdivisions and traffic snarls has so shaken up the city that it recently scrapped its zoning code in favor of an experimental one that some call revolutionary.
The new code, known as City Plan, has stirred up such a controversy that builders and developers are threatening to abandon Fort Collins in favor of nearby towns.
At its heart, City Plan is pro-urban and anti-suburban. No longer will garages be allowed to dominate streetscapes. New streets will be narrower than the wide, curvy roads of suburbia. Houses will be less uniform. Subdivisions will have stores and meeting places and will be located within walking distance of parks. Apartments will be sprinkled among homes to promote density and social equity. Development will be directed in concert with bus routes. And leap frog growth -- defined as a project that isn't at least one-sixth contiguous to another development -- has been declared illegal.
After March 28, when the city council voted 6-to-1 to adopt City Plan, no municipality in the United States had stricter laws to curb sprawl and designate the look of future neighborhoods than Fort Collins. Nobody can predict the outcome with any certainty.
But supporters believe City Plan will ease future traffic and pollution, enhance civic life and make Fort Collins more urbane. Opponents, led by homebuilders, argue that City Plan will undermine the free housing market, boost the cost of homes, intrude upon the lives of citizens and foster sprawl in surrounding towns -- all in pursuit of a questionable 21st-century utopia.
"We're aware of the risks," said City Councilman Mike Byrne. "but we also know the consequences of urban sprawl. That's predictable."
Fort Collins' population is growing by 4 percent per year. Since 1980, it has ballooned from 65,000 to 106,000. College Avenue traffic is so thick at noon that it takes 20 minutes to drive 3 miles from city hall to the Lone Star Steakhouse.
Complaints about traffic and growth reached such a crescendo two years ago that the city hired nationally known urban designer Peter Calthorpe to help draft a new comprehensive plan.
During his periodic visits, Calthorpe gave well-attended public lectures about transit-oriented design. Meanwhile, Fort Collins commissioned a Princeton, N.J., consulting firm to present a "visual preference survey" in which citizens responded in writing to pictures of different types of development.
Heavily criticized as biased, the survey revealed a dislike for the look of suburbia and a preference for old-fashioned neighborhoods with shady streets bordered by traditional homes and located near small stores.
What seems to have hardened the public's attitude was a new suburban development at the south edge of town called Harmony Crossing, where the houses look alike and nobody walks the streets. The homes have no front entry except for garage doors, which thrust toward the street and span the entire facades. In Fort Collins, Harmony Crossing has come to symbolize the sterility of suburban design.
"The rise in land prices has made the lots narrower until the garage has totally dominated the house," said city planner Ted Shepard.
Armed with projections showing a 50 percent population spurt within 20 years, officials sought ways to make growth more attractive.
Thus arose City Plan, which forces developers to embrace a philosophy known as "neo-traditional" or "new Urbanism." the document seeks to improve the look of neighborhoods while boosting density and giving people a choice to drive, walk, bike or take the bus.
New urbanists view post-world War II suburbia as a failed experiment. They advocate building new neighborhoods similar to classic ones such as Denver's Washington Park, Montclair or Park Hill. Despite the popularity of those places, homebuilders are reluctant to replicate them.
"Sure, everybody likes the look of those old 'Leave it to Beaver' neighborhoods," said Kimberly Mavers, a spokeswoman for the Homebuilders Association of Northern Colorado.
"The problem is we don't live the way we used to. We own a lot cars, and we need a three-car garage to store our snowmobiles, boots and bikes. We need workout rooms, computer rooms, game rooms. Naturally, the builder wants to meet those needs -- at a price the buyer can afford. But the city of Fort Collins doesn't like the look of what buyers are saying they need."
While leaving older neighborhoods intact, the comprehensive plan attempts to enliven future neighborhoods by zoning them for mixed-use. Corner stores could make a comeback. Cul-de-sacs will be rare. Neighborhood streets, once required to be 36 feet wide, will be as narrow as 24 feet with parking on only one side.
All new neighborhoods will have wide sidewalks with lawns between sidewalk and street. Two-thirds of all garages must be recessed, arranged sideways or detached. Rear alleys, banned for years, are now promoted as hiding places for garages. Any large new development must have a neighborhood center with an outdoor meeting area and a store.
Mavers argues that such niceties will inflate the cost of starter home by $5,000 to $10,000.
"If it means a $900-a-month payment instead of $800, what have we done?" she said. "We've sent the buyer elsewhere -- probably to a nearby town like Windsor. If more people commute to Fort Collins, have we done anything about the sprawl problem except make it worse?"
Briefly, the homebuilders association threatened to petition for a referendum on City Plan. In return, they faced the specter of a growth moratorium. As a compromise, builders and city officials formed a committee to discuss changes in the new zoning code.
While both side negotiate, Fort Collins officials insist they are committed to progress.
"We have the political will to prevent growth from happening randomly," Councilman Byrne said.
"We have an outcome we're shooting for. We believe the public sector has a strong role to play -- rather than letting developers and bankers make all the decisions. In the end, the homebuilders will come around. They'll be making too much money to keep arguing."
New Zoning Laws in Fort Collins
The times they are a-changing in Fort Collins, where a new zoning code is forcing developers and builders to alter their ways. Listed below are some features of the code:
- New subdivisions must have mixed housing types. The "cookie cutter" look is unlawful.
- New developments cannot have garage-dominated streets.
- New neighborhood streets can be as narrow as 24 feet, replacing the minimum 36-foot street width of the last 40 years.
- All new neighborhoods are zoned for "mixed-use," enabling stores and workplaces to be within walking distance of homes.
- Sidewalks must be detached from the street, making way for a strip of lawn and trees in between.
- Streets will be connected. Cul-de-sacs are discouraged.
- 90 percent of new houses in large developments must be located within one-third mile of a park.
- Large projects must include a neighborhood center with an outdoor gathering place and a convenience store, church or offices.
- Alleys, once prohibited, are now permitted -- even encouraged.
- Big-box stores must conform to design guidelines which eliminate blank walls and huge, uninterrupted parking lots.
