Climate change and development

The City of Louisville recognized the importance of Climate Change in the 2020 Sustainability Action Plan by setting an external goal to "Reduce core community greenhouse gas emissions annually below the 2016 baseline through 2030." Commercial and industrial business owners' commitments  will be essential  to  achieve this goal.  This proposed development, like all developments, will add greenhouse gasses (GHG) and increase pollution on the front range. 

As the last large development in Louisville, Redtail Ridge needs a 21st century planning effort to reduce emissions from traffic, buildings, and on-going operations.

This project will generate 20,000 daily vehicle trips per day

According to the Traffic and Mobility Study, "The full build out of the project includes a total of 15,000 square feet of general retail space, 1,380,000 square feet of industrial park, and 1,720,000 square feet of general office building space. Accounting for anticipated non-single occupancy vehicle (non-SOV) trips and internal capture trip reduction, the full build out of the project site is estimated to generate approximately 20,104 daily, 1,923 AM peak hour, and 2,010 PM peak hour trips ."  (The anticipated non-SOV assumption for this analysis was 12%. ) While down from the previous proposal, this still represents a 62% increase in daily trips over the former StorageTek facility.  

The traffic study doesn't project vehicle miles traveled (VMT), an important factor for greenhouse gas accounting. Assuming the average vehicle trip is 10 miles, then this project will add 80 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent to the atmosphere per day. [i] 

Non-SOV goals should be addressed in the GDP

According to the traffic study, "The non-SOV goals for this project are to have 25 percent or more non-SOV trips."

This is a very low bar considering that 28% of people who currently work in Louisville travel to work by non‐SOV modes [ii] 

Rather than include an aggressive plan to reduce non-SOV trips at the master design level BB is passing the responsibility on to those who purchase the parcels. According to the traffic study, "the vertical developers in the project will be required to submit a customized TDM for their building identifying what programs will be implemented to meet the non-SOV goals of the project. Periodic surveys will be conducted to evaluate the TDM program effectiveness and adjustments will be made, if needed, to reach the project non-SOV goals."  The GDP should not be approved unless it includes the recommendations from Boulder County to reduce the number of daily trips that result from the development.  Notably, reduced parking, paid parking, and Ecopasses for all employees.