Lafayette church has its plate filled with arguments

The Flatirons Community Church held a required community input meeting Thursday night, September 3rd, at the Lafayette Public Library meeting room. Representatives from the church, the architectural firm, and the traffic engineering company were on hand to explain the plans for a new church on the corner of Emma St. and 120th St. on the eastern edge of the city. It will seat 3000 and could generate 1000 cars for each service.

Flatirons CFO, Michael Koehn, indicated that the church was led to this site by the city planners which want to keep the present South Boulder Rd. location available for retail development. That area is generally considered a blight by citizens as one big box after another has gone out of business or moved and left an "asphalt desert." This argument from the city, that was not represented at the meeting, did not seem to make much sense to the community members present. One questioned whether the city would not be losing sales tax revenue by locating "all those people" on the edge of town, away from any retail stores.

The community members that showed up for the meeting were primarily from Emma St. and Flagg Dr. Wendy Phillips, representing the Flagg Drive Community Association and others voiced concerns and basic opposition to the church's plans for development. "We welcome your church in the Lafayette area but the location is not going to work", Phillips said. Discussions were intense but polite and focused on the traffic problems resulting from thousands of vehicles being brought to a rural intersection with only two-lane roads for access. Residents present from Emma St. were very worried about the traffic on their road. There was also some consternation about the fact that the community had not heard about the planned project until just recently.

The project will come up for review later this fall by the Lafayette city planning group. Phillips promised to keep everyone informed about meeting times and details.

Some relevant Internet sites are:

Flatirons Community Church - www.flatironschurch.com
Lafayette Planning - www.cityoflafayette.com
Flagg Drive Community Association - flaggdrivecommunityassociation.org

Architect Dave Bishton explains the plan.

Church and community members listen to a strong response from John Dimenico.

The architectural drawing.

The site plan.