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Colorado levels a critical eye at ambitious
expansion plans
by Will Sands
photos by Ben Eng
Sidebar:
Expansion geared toward financial solvency
Durango Mountain Resort’s proposed expansion is returning
to the limelight, and it looks like it will continue to stir up
controversy. In spite of a victory at the polls in early August
and the perception that a deal had been struck with one of the
plan’s biggest adversaries, criticism of the resort’s
proposal for 1,649 units looks to be forthcoming as the planning
process enters its next stage.
“We will continue to scrutinize the
details of the project,” says Jeff Berman, executive director
of Colorado Wild. “That’s our role, and we’ll
continue to fill it.”
Last Friday, the resort unveiled two of its
village conceptual plans fresh on the heels of three recently
released master improvement plans, detailing the expansion’s
nuts and bolts. A public hearing on the expansion is set for Oct.
21.
A little recent history
On Aug. 13, the master plan overcame a major
hurdle when voters approved a referendum allowing the development
to go forward by a margin of 57 to 43 percent. The citizens’
referendum was on the ballot in the primary election to determine
if the electorate approved of the development agreement between
DMR and La Plata County.
Interestingly, Colorado Wild, one of the
development’s biggest critics, entered into an agreement
with DMR a few weeks prior to the vote. The agreement called for
continuous air-quality monitoring, a $1,000 fee for new wood-burning
fireplaces, mandatory water-conservation measures, creation of
an Alternative Transportation Plan to reduce total traffic and
the dedication of 1,351 acre-feet of surface water to protect
trout in Hermosa Creek. Immediately, numerous members of the public
cried foul, and suggestions that Colorado Wild had been bought
out were aired.
In his defense, Berman says: “We didn’t
just switch sides. We got an agreement that will give us some
enforcement authority.”
Bernard Fouke, a Colorado Wild member who
co-signed the referendum with Berman, says that the repercussions
of a “no” vote on the referendum would have been worse
than the existing master plan. “A no vote would have meant
one of two things: The county would have reopened the process
to another development, or the county would have used its old
land-use codes, and the plan would have been piecemealed,”
he says.
He adds that Colorado Wild never wanted to
kill DMR’s ability to expand.
“Our stated intent from the beginning
was to modify the existing development plan and move forward with
the planning process,” he says.
Playing with the plan
All the players will start moving forward
with the planning process next Monday at DMR during a public meeting
on the master infrastructure plans. Nancy Lauro, senior La Plata
County planner, notes that the development plan was approved by
county commissioners and the voting public. This agreement between
DMR and La Plata County set down standards considerably more stringent
than what the county’s land-use regulations require.
“The development agreement set some
fairly specific standards, and we want to guide the development
in a way that the county sees fit,” she says.
Fouke concurs that the county subjected DMR
to stringent standards, which the resort complied with.
“To DMR’s credit, I think they
ultimately recognized that it needed to be a quality development
and were open to lessening the impacts,” he says. “I
think they are sincere in supporting significant land-use code
modifications.”
However, a great deal about the expansion
remains uncertain. Lauro says the development plan and the referendum
established only two things: a maximum of 1,649 units in the development
and the regulations by which the development will be judged.
“The maximums are locked, and the regulations
are locked,” she says. “They could do better with
mitigation or they could do fewer units.”
In Berman and Fouke’s minds, doing
better will entail a reduction in numbers. “We have already
reviewed several of the master and conceptual plans and have a
few concerns,” says Berman. “There is increasing evidence
that the development is too dense.”
Fouke agrees, saying that the impact of 1,649
units would be excessive.
“Some of the issues have to do with
quantity,” he says. “Some have to do with proximity
to wetlands. Some deal with view corridors. Clustering is really
the major issue with us.”
When asked if criticism of the plan ran counter
to Colorado Wild and DMR’s agreement, Berman replied that
the agreement gives his group the ability to be critical. “We
don’t plan to come in hard,” he says. “We plan
to come in logically.”
As for Colorado Wild’s approach to
the upcoming planning process, Berman adds: “We’re
trying to keep this very large, second-home, real estate development
honest. We’re not seeking to stop this. We just want to
ensure that the environment and the people of southwest Colorado
are not harmed.”
(continued...)
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