Buckingham Neighborhood Committee

Hello, my name is Jonathan Wainscott. I live in Asheville, North Carolina and New Belgium is about to begin building its East Coast brewery in my neighborhood. Many of my neighbors are concerned about traffic, noise, and odors coming from the brewery. Could some of you please tell me what it is like to live close to New Belgium's facility in Fort Collins?

 

Thanks for your feedback-

 

Jonathan

Hi Jonathan, I'm not sure what year your question was written, if it is a recent question or not. I live in the neighborhood right by New Belgium, basically 3 streets that make up Buckingham. We are in-between 3 breweries, actually, one is right across from my house. New Belgium is close to me, but not as close as O'Dell. Anyway, yes there is a smell in the air sometimes of beer making. I have never heard anyone ever complain about it, but it is noticeable. I actually like the smell. Sometimes it smells like coriander, sometimes it is malty. I can't really say which brewery it is from, but I'm sure there will be some oder, but not as much as we have here with 3 breweries. Sometimes you can hear the bottling going on, it is a distant clink clink noise. It hasn't ever bothered me, but I have noticed it before. We have a train that goes through town, and it makes a lot more noise than the Brewery. There are some tipsy people riding there bikes by my house a lot. I am not bothered by it, but some people are. The neighborhood has a fairly contentious relationship with New Belgium. They play outdoor movies during the summer, and the noise is noticeable, to the point where although I'm on 3rd St and the Brewery is by 1st St, I could tell what movie they were playing. I brought this issue up with them and they made changes. It seem quite a bit better this year, but I could still hear that they were playing movies, although not nearly as loud as before. Other people in the neighborhood get fights with them a lot. There have been issues with parking in the past when they have some sort of event. They now post guards by the streets to keep people from parking in our neighborhood. They use to start Tour de Fat in the field by 1st Street, that changed last year, but prior to the change, the people on 1st Street were very unhappy about that. Again, a lot of drunk people on bikes. The normal day to day traffic isn't too bad, as far as cars go, they have taken efforts to have the bulk of the traffic be routed away from the neighborhood. They also are allowing the city to take up some of their land so that when improvements are made on Buckingham St. the neighbors on the south side of the street won't lose any of their land. Normally they would, but New Belgium is planning on allowing the city to take more of their land so that the neighbors will be spared. When I asked for a meeting with their CEO, I go one. When I called to complain about the movie noise, I got a call back the next day and my suggestions were implemented. The main issue in our neighborhood is that some of the neighbors aren't so great at civil communication, so a bit of a rift has developed between the neighborhood and New Belgium. I think that if the neighborhood had a better working relationship with New Belgium, we'd have better results. Pretty much, if they can fix an issue, they will. Also, in my opinion, some of my neighbors will surely disagree, but to me, it is pretty fun to live by New Belgium. I don't mind the tipsy ,happy people riding between the breweries. They sometimes shout to me that my house is cute or say something similar about the neighborhood or say hi. I've never had anyone be rude or disorderly. They are mostly having fun and happy, albeit it a bit wobbly. So anyway, I hope that helps.

Hi Otter,

 

Is there a way for folks in Asheville to communicate with you directly?

 

Thanks!

Hi, I'm not comfortable posting my personal contact info online. If you want to post your email address, I'd be happy to email you directly. Thanks much.