Larimer County planner Matt Lafferty told the LaPorte Area Planning Advisory Committee on Aug. 20 that Bellvue Bean will not re-open with the current owners Darren and Azarie Wurtzburg. Following a county investigation resulting from complaints from adjacent neighbors about parking and trespassing, the county discovered several problems with the physical location of the retail building. Lafferty said part of the commercial building sits on someone’s else’s property and another part intrudes into right-of-way.
After a long history that dates back to the 1920s, when Larimer County approved special exceptions allowing for a small commercial operation, in 2010 the county agreed to allow the Bellvue Bean to operate with the assumption that it would remain small, with restricted hours and only a few people in the shop at a time. “Technically we should have required a special exception (and the associated review process),” Lafferty said. Instead an informal agreement assumed that the shop would be small and create minimal traffic.
“The Bellvue Bean is the victim of its own success,” Lafferty said.
No access agreement could be reached with adjacent neighbor and property owner Les Sunde said Lafferty, so the county required the Bean to operate within the former restrictive limits. The Wurtzburgs, who leased the property, decided they could not operate their business under those conditions. The coffee shop has been closed for several months.
It remains for Fort Collins resident Bev Perina, owner of the commercial building that housed the Bean, and Les Sunde to address the issue of property lines. Until then, time any business operating in the building would have to abide by a set of conditions restricting hours, number of customers and number of vehicles that could be parked in the area.