Steamboat Pilot & Today

Steamboat Springs — The developers of the First National Bank of Steamboat Springs will return to City Council Tuesday night with a smaller building and a revised site plan.

The proposal for the new bank building on U.S. 40 at Hilltop Parkway was tabled by City Council on June 13 after a majority of council members expressed concerns about the site plan. The plan showed virtually all of the parking fronting on the highway. Council members also expressed reluctance to approve an extension of a large, boulder retaining wall needed to create adequate developable land for the bank building and parking lot. In both cases, visual impacts from the highway were the source of concern.

The U.S. 40 Design Guidelines call for parking lots to be situated behind new buildings, rather than fronting the highway.

In a memo to City Council, planner Scott Woodford wrote that changes to the bank project since June 13 have resulted in cutting the number of parking spaces along the highway from 51 to 40. And the addition to the boulder wall will be 60 to 70 feet shorter than was previously proposed.

Architect Don Brinkmann, with Eric Smith Associates, told Woodford he accomplished the changes in two ways. First, the overall size of the building was reduced by 1,200 square feet, changing the parking requirements. The eliminated square footage was space the bank would have rented to outside tenants. It was located over the drive-up canopy.

Second, Brinkmann said the bank is proposing to develop 16 employee parking spaces on a triangular parcel of land it owns across Hilltop Parkway from the bank building itself. The parcel is off the highway and roughly behind the Sinclair station.

Bennett replat on the agenda

City Council meets at 5 p.m. today in the Public Safety Building at 840 Yampa St. The Kevin and Jane Bennett re-plat hearing is the final item on the agenda. City Council President Kevin Bennett and his wife are seeking a minor development permit to re-plat lots 5, 6 and 7 of their property in Old Town's Princeton Heights into a total of two lots. They are being vigorously opposed by their neighbor, Kay Sieverding. Sieverding has corresponded with city staff several times a week since Planning Commission recommended approval of the re-plat by an 8-1 vote on June 22. She contends that a garage under construction on the Bennett property and improvements to an existing shed are in violation of the city development code, and are grounds for denying the re-plat. She also cites parking and vehicle turning issues on Princeton Street, a dead end. City planning staff and a majority of planning commissioners took the position that those issues are not pertinent to the re-plat petition.

To reach Tom Ross call 871-4210 or e-mail tomross@amigo.ne