Longmont City Council votes against development near Vance Brand Airport

The Longmont City Council voted in the early hours of Wednesday morning not to pursue a plan to build homes and businesses near Vance Brand Airport after numerous residents expressed strong opposition to the plan.

The concept plan under consideration for ModernWest 2 called for a mix of “high-density residential and commercial/industrial uses,” according to a staff memo. ModernWest 2’s 27.25-acre site lies essentially south of Rogers Road and east of Airport Road, directly southeast of Vance Brand Airport.

ModernWest 2 developer Derek Guarascio said he is committed to building all-electric housing units.

“Designing a true mixed-use community increases sustainability by allowing residents to work in the same community in which they live,” Guarascio said.

The Longmont Planning and Zoning Commission recommended approval of the proposed ModernWest 2 Concept Plan Amendment by a vote of 6-1 at a public hearing on June 26.

However, the Longmont Airport Advisory Board recommended in a letter to the City Council that it “strongly” vote against the amendment to the ModernWest 2 Concept Plan.

“I personally support more housing in Longmont. However, I believe it needs to be located in places where it doesn’t conflict with existing land use,” said Longmont resident Harrison Earl during Tuesday’s regular meeting. Earl is chairman of the airport advisory board, but clarified that he was speaking in his private capacity on Tuesday.

“You’ve heard time and time again tonight that this is an incompatible land use by the FAA and CDOT,” Earl said.

The FAA also declared in 2023 that the proposed ModernWest 2 development was an incompatible land use.

“As a recipient of over $6.2 million in Federal Airport Improvement Program (AIP) funding since 1988, the City of Longmont is required to honor certain commitments related to federal grants,” said the FAA letter to Levi Brown, manager of Vance Brand Airport, from John Sweeney, community planner in the FAA’s Denver Airports District Office.

When asked whether Longmont was still at risk of losing its funding for Vance Brand Airport if the ModernWest 2 construction project went ahead, the FAA said earlier this month that its position on the matter had “not changed.”

CDOT’s aviation division also stated in a July 25 letter to Jennifer Hewett-Aperson, Longmont’s chief planner, that it views the ModernWest 2 construction project as “incompatible with the Longmont/Vance Brand Municipal Airport.”

“We simply view a new residential development less than a half-mile from the end of a runway at a major and busy general aviation airport as an incompatible land use,” CDOT aviation director David Ulane said in an email.

Given the large number of speakers who came to talk about ModernWest 2, Longmont City Council members did far more listening than talking during Tuesday’s regular meeting. Almost every speaker spoke out against the development.

In response, the council asked its staff to draft a formal resolution rejecting the ModernWest 2 Concept Plan Amendment. A specific date for the meeting has not yet been set.