Plans for an 80-acre, $37 million "new-town" development designed by influential Miami architects Andres Duany and Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk have met some resistance in Longmont's planning department.

The new-town concept, which really is a return to the way towns were designed in the pre-World War II era, calls for residential, retail and other businesses built on a grid pattern with smaller streets and easy pedestrian access to corner grocery stores, diners and the post office.

Duany and Plater-Zyberk, a husb-and-wife team running DPZ Architects and Town Planners, led the new-town revolution in 1982 by planning Seaside, a resort town on the Florida panhandle. They since have designed dozens of other East Coast new-towns.

The Longmont project, called Burlington Village, is the only Colorado development in which DPZ has been involved.

In what appears to be a typical conflict with new-town projects, however, the old-fashioned design does not meet modern code requirements. The Longmont version, planned on land owned by local resident John "Kiki" Wallace at the southwest corner of Pike Road and U.S. Highway 287, is no exception.

"We need 30 percent of the entire site as green space," said Brian Binge], a planner for Longmont. "Preliminary reviews show a significant lack of open space."

Other issues include a return to narrower streets - a concern to city planners who worry about access for fire, police and emergency vehicles.

"The site design needs dramatic changes," Bingel said.

What's more, there are too many curb cuts on U.S. 287 under the design to please the Colorado Department of Transportation, he said.

Longmont officials also wonder if some of the project's studio-retail areas can be converted to residential uses if a retail business vacates or goes out of business. The call for light industrial businesses is an issue, too.

DPZ has helped cities rewrite and draft new codes that will work with new-town concepts. It's not clear if the firm will try to do that in Longmont.

The city has until mid-November to complete its initial review of the project. At that point, planning department concerns will be returned to the developers, who then have up to six months to revise and negotiate with planning staff before facing the planning commission and city council.

Landowner Wallace appears edgy about how the city may react. However, one of his partners, Longmont developer Dale Bruns, has worked with the city staff before and seems confident.

"Their comments aren't all that unreasonable," Bruns said. "They contribute to the quality of projects. I think it's a concept that's going to go. You can find this sort of thing in pockets around Boulder County."

The third partner in Burlington Village is architect Duany. It's the only new=town Duany's designed in which he's agreed to become a partner.

The trio is close to hiring Rocky Mountain Institute, a Snowmass-based think-tank that advises developers on ecological and efficient design of buildings and on the use of ecological building materials.

Even though city planners have identified some concerns, Bingel said the project could work. "It probably would truly meet the intent of our PUD regulations," he said.