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Mayor's Column: A regional opportunity

Contributed by: Mayor Andrew Moore on 2/2/2007

Over the last few months Erie and Lafayette have been working on potential revenue sharing opportunities on land north the new Super WalMart and South of Arapahoe on 287. This land is covered by an Intergovernmental Agreement (IGA) between Erie, Lafayette, and BoulderCounty which will require regional cooperation to revise.

As I've written previously, Erie and Lafayette have also been cooperating on what a reroute of Highway 7 would look like to take traffic away from Peak to Peak Charter school and Pioneer elementary while giving Erie a new quality entrance to town east of the Lafayette sewer plant.

Both of these items may be in the mutual benefit off our communities.

Recently, Lowes completed its market research and determined that the SE corner of Highway 7 (Baseline) and 119th would be the best place to put a new retail store. From a corporate view, it makes good profitability sense to put a Lowes at this site as it is the only intersection on Highway 7 that connects Broomfield, Erie, and Lafayette in one 4-corner place. Although Erie and Broomfield both have attractive commercial land available on Highway 7 further to the East, none of our parcels connect our communities like the corner of 119th and Baseline.

Lafayette City Council has chosen to let their citizens decide if the Lowes should be annexed to Lafayette. This of course makes the discussion more challenging as Lafayette's Council is no longer the clear decision maker.

In forming my view it became clear that locating a Big Box at the intersection of Baseline and 19th was not in the best interest of our mutual goal to reduce traffic on Baseline.

It also became clear that working together with Lafayette we could, perhaps, seize an opportunity to think regionally, preserve buffers between our towns, and reduce traffic while increasing safety near our shared schools. That can be accomplished by placing big box development on Highway 287 where revenue sharing is a possibility and roads already exist to handle the traffic. This is the Erie Board of Trustee proposal sitting with Lafayette now.

Of course this will not be an easy discussion or road to follow for any leader in the region. There are competing pressures.

In the long term, after the emotions of the short term are gone, we'll all be judged by how well we've planned in a sustainable way. Either a new commercial area will be erected at 119th and Baseline removing a wonderful buffer between Erie and Lafayette, or we will sit down and find a way to preserve our buffers, reduce traffic, increase safety, and share revenue in our bordering areas.

It is hard to say what will happen next. The Lafayette City Council would have preferred Erie kept this private. I understand that. I may have complicated things for some, but maybe, just maybe, we'll make something happen for the good of the region.


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