Hello again, Louisville!
The Redtail Ridge development is back on the table, with a new development plan and a hearing before the city’s Planning Commission on Thursday, May 13.
The new General Development Plan (GDP) calls for a mix of industrial and commercial uses and has no residential component. The overall square footage proposed has been reduced by half, to 3.1 million square feet (not including parking lots), the size allowed by the city’s Comprehensive Plan.
Despite the reduction in square footage, the amount of undeveloped open space at Redtail remains the same as last year: about 40 acres. This number, in addition to several acres of land developed for city-owned sports fields, is consistent with the Louisville Municipal Code’s stipulation that 12% of the land in a non-residential subdivision be donated to the city. (It’s called a public dedication.) But 40 acres out of the site’s 400 acres is not enough – for wildlife, for the climate, or for the community.
Luckily, there are provisions in Louisville’s Municipal Code that allow the city to demand more than the bare minimum of open space at a development. We believe that this beautiful place, the last major undeveloped property between here and Denver and the gateway to Louisville, deserves more than edge-to-edge buildings and parking lots. If there must be development here, let the natural world continue to play a starring role alongside it.
More open space at Redtail Ridge will:
▪ respect the healthy biodiversity of the site created by its traditional low-density development;
▪ maintain the rural feel of the city’s southeastern gateway as described in the Comprehensive Plan;
▪ mitigate the environmental impacts of the buildings, parking lots, and roads at the site;
▪ respond to the growing demand for open space driven by increased population throughout the area and an expanding regional trail system.
None of Louisville’s open spaces have come to us easily. Residents, boards, and city councils have had to fight for every one of them, sometimes in the courts or through referenda, sometimes through intergovernmental agreements, and sometimes through tough negotiations with developers. Passive acceptance of developer plans would never have brought us the open spaces we all regard as Louisville’s crown jewels today. With a little backbone, and the will of the people behind them, Louisville’s planning commission can continue this tradition.
Please write to the Louisville planning commission before the May 13 meeting and ask for more open space at Redtail Ridge – for residents, for wildlife, for the climate, and for the intrinsically rural character of our southeastern gateway: planningcommission@louisvilleco.gov.
For the Boulder County Commissioners’ assessment of the GDP, and their support for a smaller footprint at Redtail Ridge, see their letter from March 3.
Thank you!
The Team at Louisville Southeast Gateway
