The City has planned for future growth in the northeast section of the City over the past few decades.  There would be significant impacts to the Alta Vista and Andersonville neighborhoods if the City decided to improve existing Lemay (Ninth Street, Lindenmeier) and existing Vine Drive to meet our roadway and multi-modal standards.  In an effort to minimize these impacts, the long-term vision is to relocate the Vine and Lemay intersection to realigned Lemay and Suniga.  The alignment, or location, of these new roadways is set and more work will be done with the neighborhoods to incorporate feedback as the roadway plans move from conceptual level through final design.

With respect to the budget offers, if approved by City Council, Offer 1.6 will provide additional design and public outreach funding for realigned Lemay.  Offer 1.12 will provide design and construction funding of Suniga from College to Blondel, tying Suniga into the section built last year with the Aspen Heights development.

Suniga Road (formerly known as New Vine or Relocated Vine) was approved as a four-lane arterial street by City Council with the 2002 Master Street Plan update.  The Northside Neighborhoods Plan (NNP), adopted by City Council in 2005, shows Future Vine Drive (Suniga) in the plan.  Both the Master Street Plan update and the NNP went through public approval processes with open house and outreach events.

Shortly after the adoption of the NNP, the City began utility master planning and developing a conceptual design for Suniga Road.  The 30% conceptual design plans were completed in February, 2009.  I sent a couple of sheets to you from this plan set, highlighting the 100′ buffer between the north side of Alta Vista and the south right-of-way line of Suniga Road.  The 100′ buffer is substantially wider than what the City has in its current development standards.

The 30% design plans were critical to determining the location and depths of new underground utilities.  Within the last few years, a 60″ diameter waterline and a 42″ diameter waterline were constructed from the Suniga Road plans.  This will be followed by the City of Fort Collins Utility Department constructing a regional storm water system (Northeast College Corridor Outfall — NECCO) and a new 12″ waterline.  Construction of the first phase will begin in October of this year, with phase two completion in 2018.  Upon completion, the NECCO system will remove a majority of the Alta Vista neighborhood from the existing Dry Creek floodplain.  The NECCO project is another long-standing master plan effort and also went through a series of outreach events in order to seek public feedback.

In April of 2016, the City Council authorized the Engineering and Utility departments to acquire right-of-way and easements for:  the NECCO project, Suniga Road from Redwood to realigned Lemay, and realigned Lemay from Vine Drive to Conifer Street.  We are currently negotiating these purchases with three property owners in the area.

Suniga Road, adjacent to Alta Vista, will either be built by a developer as a part of the developing property or as a City capital project in the future.  Either way, the Suniga design and buffer area will go through a public process, as mandated by the City’s Land Use Code, and collect feedback from the Alta Vista residents.  The project team does not have a date set yet for the next outreach event.  We are currently working on addressing Council questions from the August Work Session for the remainder of this year.