Beyond the Boom

The Rocky Mountain News did a series on the energy boom rocking parts of Colorado and how communities are enjoying, coping, and mitigating the impacts (or at least trying to). The series offers a a number of perspectives and the challenges involved in local-state-federal policy making and planning.

The day 1 article in the series, entitled "The billion dollar question: What if?", is particularly interesting because two state legislators have taken seemingly opposite positions from the ones you would think they would take given their respective political ties. Their perspective is likely influenced by their location place in the state and the energy boom.

Representative Josh Penry, a Mesa County Republican, is witnessing the energy boom first hand and is a big supporter of creating a permanent trust fund from oil and gas severance taxes - similar to what Wyoming did a decade ago. Chris Romer, a Democratic Senator from the Denver Metro area, favors the more measured approach of analyzing how taxes are currently collected and allocated before the state tries to set up a permanent fund.

Who's the conservative in this debate?

Read the entire series

Economies collide with nature

The natural resource based economy that dominated the Western Slope of Colorado for so many years is making a come back.

As Jason Blevins writes in the Sunday Denver Post, mining is coming back to a number of communities due to increasing demand and prices for precious minerals like molybdenum.

If the recent natural gas boom in Garfield County offers any crystal ball, more Western Slope communities are due increasing revenues, stressed infrastructure, a quick disappearance of affordable housing, and a shortage of workers.

The natural amenity and natural resource economy are colliding and the only thing they have in common is a reliance on nature.

Garfield County sees explosive growth

Garfield County received front page space in the Sunday Denver Post due to the energy boom driving the county's economy.

Jason Blevins story captures the essence of life in Garfield County since the boom began five years ago. As New Castle Mayor Frank Breslin says, “It's just all happening so fast out here. I just dart around like a bumblebee.”

The economic growth has been a boon to a county mired in a slump cause by the overnight departure of Exxon (Black Sunday) in 1982 and the county now has more jobs than it has workers. The challenge for the public sector is to try tokeep up and pay for the infrastructure to support the increases in traffic, homes, and wastewater while competing with the gas companies for workers.

Blevins quotes Christy Hamrick, the finance director for Garfield County's 4,500-student school district, “We pay drivers $14 an hour, and they pay $22 an hour. We have to compete with that, and we've seen lots of turnover. ”

EnCana wins approval to house nearly 750 workers at well pads in GarCo

EnCana USA has won Garfield County approval to operate up to 31 temporary facilities housing nearly 750 natural gas development workers north of Parachute.

Each of the facilities, known informally as man camps, is allowed to hold up to 24 employees and contractors. None would be operated more than one year under the county permits.

Energy companies have used temporary housing facilities under the permission of the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, but the county learned it had authority to regulate them and instituted its permitting process last November.

Parachute Mayor Roy McClung wrote to the county that while the onsite housing will help, the town still will see traffic impacts related to EnCana's drilling plans and is worried about overloaded intersections and the lack of funding to improve them.

He suggested in the letter that the county needs to be collecting impact fees from such developments to meet highway improvement needs.

Read Dennis Webb's full article . . .

TOD can save the planet

Transit oriented development is gaining traction around the U.S. (it's already popular in many other countries) because it can address many community issues -- provide affordable housing, increase transit service, prevent loss of open space, create public places -- at the same time.

And now, in case you needed another reason to support TOD, it can also save the planet. As San Mateo County Supervisior Adrienne Tissier writes,

The solutions to global warming are found in modern urban planning and zoning and three little words: Transit Oriented Development. Build well-designed, affordable housing within walking distance of efficient mass transit, and the air-fouling traffic jams will unclog themselves. Better yet, build well-designed, affordable housing within walking distance of jobs, schools and retail, and car use will plummet.

It is nice to know that something good for a community has a global benefit as well.

Basalt wrestles growth

When you are the first town downvalley from Aspen and Snowmass Village, and stradle the boundary between Pitkin and Eagle Counties, you would expect some challenging planning and community development situations.

Nowadays, just about every where the Town of Basalt turns presents another significant challenge. For example:

• Last month, one Basalt's two downtown affordable hotels, The Green Drake Inn, sold for $4.4 million to an investment group that could repeat the trend in Aspen of converting small lodge and hotel rooms to fractional ownership luxury units;


• The town is working to connect the older part of town to the newer south side with an underpass, since the 6-lanes of State Highway 82 presents a formidable barrier between two parts of town;


• The booming second-home market is creating a shortage of affordable housing and every undevelopmed parcel in Basalt's urban growth boundary has a development proposal in the review process; and,


• The town hopes to complete the update its of 1999 urban growth boundary and master plan by this summer.

No wonder a recent Aspen Times Weekly article by Scott Condon asked 'What's happening to my small, quirky town?'

Basalt rejects Roaring Fork Club plan

The Basalt Town Council's decision (5-1) to instruct its staff to prepare denial documents on the Roaring Fork Club golf club's expansion proposal is the most significant decision for the board since the election of three new board members in April. The board members Amy Capon, Gary Tennenbaum, and Chris Seldin were elected, in large part, due to concerns over the proposed expansion and its relationship the the Town's Master Plan. All three ran voicing their support of the current Master Plan. As Scott Condon writes on the decision,

The council majority said they didn't believe the application by developer Jim Light and his partners complied with the Basalt land-use master plan, a blueprint for where and how the town wants to grow.

Council members cited the application's request that the town annex property outside an "urban growth boundary."

The Roaring Fork Club is east of the Elk Run subdivision. It has an 18-hole golf course and 48 luxury cabins. It applied to add 32 cabins, 18 single-family homes and 36 affordable residences.

To a large degree, the Roaring Fork Club was victimized by a changing of the guard on the council and a poor decision by the council in June 2005. Here's the sequence of events that led to Tuesday night's denial:

• The project is submitted in August 2004.

• After months of debate and opposition from a citizens group, Light suggests on June 21, 2005, that the town place the Roaring Fork Club application on a shelf for up to eight weeks. That would give the town time to work on an update to the master plan in the area where the club wants to expand. The council and the town planning commission decline the offer. They say the review of the application and the update of the master plan can occur concurrently.

• The council's decision motivates a citizens group to oppose the project on grounds that the master plan is being ignored. That group stayed engaged in the process throughout the next 17 months.

• In April 2006, three new council members are voted into office. Tennenbaum, Seldin and Capron pledged in the campaign to the uphold the master plan.

• The Roaring Fork Club clears its first hurdle. The town planning commission grants first-round approval. However, the commission doesn't debate whether the plan complies with the master plan. That left the threshold issue to the council, and on Tuesday night the hammer fell.

Rappaport and Dows acknowledged, to some degree, that they voted to let the review go concurrently with the update of the master plan back in June 2005. That process "failed," Rappaport said. He and Dows also said they have heard from numerous residents in public hearings since then that the master plan must be upheld or changed via a process that allows all citizens to participate.

Public hearings on the master plan update are expected later this year or in early 2007.

Read the full article by Scott Condon . . .

Trees for the urban environment and community equity

Trees in an arid environment such as Denver cannot be taken for granted. But it is not only rain fall that determines the type and number of trees - commuity income plays a factor as well.

A 2003 Denver park study showed lower-income neighborhoods have less than 5 percent canopy cover while higher-income neighborhoods had more than 15 percent cover.

"It's pretty remarkable when you see the disparity," said Patrick Hayes, director of the Park People, which plants more than 1,000 trees a year in poorer neighborhoods.

Adding trees to a semi-arid steppe ecosystem isn't natural, but neither are concrete, asphalt or Kentucky bluegrass, said Dan Binkley, a professor in Colorado State University's department of forestry, rangeland and watershed stewardship.

"The trees will use water," he said. "It's similar to the amount of water on lawns. But there is more of a cooling effect and more noise abatement."

Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper wants to raise the metro area's shade coverage to 18 percent in 20 years by planting 1 million trees over the next 20 years.

That comes to 137 trees being planted every day - 50,000 new trees every year.

"It's a question, like anything, of who, where and when," Hickenlooper said about the proposal announced in July as part of his Greenprint Denver plan.

Read the full article in the Denver Post . . .

Crested Butte tries 'horizontal zoning'

The Crested Butte Town Council passed an ordinance that restricts the types of businesses that can operate along Elk Avenue, the main drag, but some think it’s too much, too soon. About 60 people showed up at last week’s council meeting, and many of them were opposed to the new ordinance.

The goal of the new “horizontal” zoning ordinance is to add more sales tax to town coffers by encouraging retail businesses, while discouraging businesses on the street that collect no sales tax.

The ordinance would only affect ground-floor businesses and those below street level with display windows on the street, but would not affect businesses on upper floors. Existing businesses would not be affected until they change hands and businesses set back from Elk Avenue more than 40 feet are exempt.

Mayor Alan Bernholtz, said the ordinance is needed because the ski town has a tourist-based economy.

“It’s not a unique issue. Every resort town is dealing with it, and many have enacted similar regulations,” he said. “When a town like ours runs off sales tax, that money is what we need for our services. We are just trying to stimulate that, and this is just one piece of the puzzle we’re working on.”

Read the full article in the Daily Sentinel . . .

New Castle is booming

Another small town on the Western Slope is booming.

The town of New Castle, 10 miles west of Glenwood Springs along the I-70 corridor, is growing and it's expected to more than double in size when all of the current platted land is developed. The town currently has around 1,300 residential units within town limits. With four subdivisions now in development, that number will increase to approximately 3,740 if it reaches full build-out.

The subdivisions include:

• Castle Valley - 1,400 total units, 620 built or currently under construction.


• Lakota Canyon - 827 total units, approximately 90 built or currently under construction, half of the land is already platted.


• River Park - Approximately 150 units when complete


• Castle Ridge - 67 total units, 12 currently built or under construction.

According to Steve Rippy, former town administrator and current community development consultant for New Castle, the town is experiencing little strain on the water and waste water facilities because the town began expanding the facilities to accommodate the anticipated growth in 1999 and 2001.

The $1.2 million final phase is scheduled to begin around mid-September. This upgrade is an efficiency upgrade to the clarification system that returns solids back into the aerobic system for further breakdown. The addition of an automated grit removal system will increase the efficiency of the filtration system by mechanically removing solids before they reach the plant.

Expansions of the water plant started in 2001 with the addition of three water filtration units. Another filtration unit will be added to the plant this winter - the third upgrade in a six-year plan is scheduled to conclude in 2007.

Read the full article in the Post Independent . . .

Mining Gypsum: Developers see gold in tiny town west of Vail

Eagle County has exploded in recent years, doubling in population from 1990 to 2000, and reaching an estimated 47,530 people in 2005, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Gypsum has mirrored that trend, growing from 1,750 residents in 1990 to more than 5,200 today - and its not finished yet.

The old mining town, 35 miles west of Vail, is home to several major new projects, including:

• The Brightwater Club, which soon will hold 535 single-family homes, a Robert Trent Jones Jr. golf course, 27 acres of lakes and a village that will offer restaurants, a gourmet market, and a fitness center and spa. With homesites starting at $300,000, more than 120 lots have sold to date and 45 more are under contract, totaling more than $80 million in sales. The average Brightwater home ranges from $1.1 million to $2.1 million.


• A 155,000-square-foot Costco store, scheduled to open Oct. 20, expects to draw shoppers from as far as Vail, Aspen and Steamboat Springs. The store will employ 160 people and is expected to generate more than $3 million in annual sales-tax revenues.


• The Tower Center, which includes 475,000 square feet of retail, including at least two big-box stores, 330 housing units and at least one hotel. Tower Center is expected to generate at least $5 million in annual sales-tax revenue for Gypsum.

The town's coffers have been swelling for several years. Gypsum's real estate transfer tax grew from $704,800 in 2004 to $1.48 million last year. Sales-tax revenues grew from $1.46 million in 2004 to $2.33 million last year.

Sales-tax revenue from the new projects will help Gypsum pay off its new $12.2 million recreation center - scheduled to open in November - in less than 10 years.
Read the full article in the Denver Post . . .

Optimism about Cdale's Marketplace after design charrette

Citizens reviewing new conceptual plans for the controversial 22 acre Crystal River Marketplace development site were a lot more positive than they have been in a long time.

The "draft conceptual program" has yet to receive the blessing of the town's board of trustees, but even opponents of the development proposals were upbeat about the current planning effort.

The new plan calls for a total of between 160,000 and 175,000 square feet of retail space, including a 60,000-square-foot space for the "anchor" store; between 150 and 175 housing units (15 percent of which must be "affordable" under town codes); three "junior anchors" at about 20,000 square feet apiece, and a mix of commercial and office space scattered around the site.

An earlier proposal, defeated in a referendum in 2003, called for 252,000 square feet of commercial space, anchored by a 125,000-square-foot site for a big-box retailer.

The next public meetings about the Marketplace plans will be a Community Open House, with "completed drawings and economic information," from 6-9 p.m. on July 5. Town trustees and the planning and zoning commission have scheduled a joint meeting to take a first formal look at the plans at 6:30 p.m. on July 19.

The design charrette idea grew out of Carbondale's Economic Road Map process, which has focused on better understanding and directing the town's future toward a more "diverse and sustainable economy."

Read the full article in the Post Independent . . .

Costco in Gypsum?

Costco recently filed a building permit application with the Town of Gypsum for a 159,000-square-foot retail center in the Airport Gateway Commercial Park.

The big-box retailer has been able to slip relatively quietly into Gypsum is because the zoning is already in place at the Airport Gateway Commercial Park. The location is also not right in someone's neighborhood or in an open space entrance to town.

The economic development agreement calls for the town to rebate 38 percent of the sales tax that Costco generates for three years; or until a $4.2 million cap is reached - whichever comes first. If the revenue cap isn't met in three years, the town will rebate 15 percent of the sales tax for an additional two years.

The Town estimated that in Costco's first years of operation, Eagle would get about $230,000 annually in sales tax, and Gypsum would get $350,000 in addition to the sales tax revenues that are committed or rebated.

Costco will pay for traffic lights at Highway 6 and Cooley Mesa Road - estimated cost is $500,000 - and for several hundred linear feet of improvements to Highway 6. Costco will hire 200-300 employees, which will make it the second largest employer in Gypsum. The school district is the biggest employer in the town.

This is the first time Costco has come to a community with less than 150,000 residents. Currently, the closest Costco is in Denver.

Read the full article in the Post Independent . . .
Photo from NY Times article on Costco

Be a ski mogul for only $50 million

Sunlight Mountain Resort, just southwest of Glenwood Springs, is for sale and the potential for change to the small ski area and the surrounding area is enormous. Sunlight sits up a windy, close to capacity, two-lane road outside of town . It is one of Colorado's most affordable ski areas, with daily lift tickets that cost $39 this winter, compared with $78 at nearby resorts like Aspen. Although a narrow, rural valley, the land at Sunlight's base is zoned for up to 780 residential units and a retail village (small Snowmass Village anyone?). An adjacent 1,317-acre parcel is also for sale, along with water rights for substantial development.

Sunlight also holds U.S. Forest Service permits that would allow it to add 2,000-plus acres of skiable terrain.The ski area has been owned by a group of 32 investors since 1992. They decided last fall to sell the property instead of investing the more than $10 million needed to update its infrastructure. The listing price is $50 million.

Read the full article

To annex or not to annex? That is the question

More than 1,000 Telluridians(?) took their flowers and chocolate to the polls on Valentine's Day and voted 603-439 not annex but to move toward condemnation and purchase of the Valley Floor at the entrance to town.

The annexation option was to continue into further annexation proceedings with the San Miguel Valley Corporation, the current owner of the 793 acre property. The Telluride Town Council, had unanimously supported a "Yes" vote to continuing negotiations since the preliminary annexation agreement would have preserved 91% of the property in a conservation easement ensuring public access.But the proposal also included development of a parcel along the highway into town and the large meadow would be split in two by 22 multi-million dollars homes - a sore spot with many voters. The community now faces a fundraising effort to purchase the property (recently valued at $48 million) after a valuation trial . Telluride has already raised about half that amount.

Read the full article . . .

Next developer please?

The Bair Chase golf development south of Glenwood Springs has gone belly up again and this time it took a historic barn and elk winter haunt with it. PlainsCapital Bank of Austin, Texas, which holds the deed of trust to the land, has filed for foreclosure and sale of the property.The 280-acre property has been mired incontroversy since it come before the Garfield County Planning Commission as a 500 houses / 18-hole golf course / 700,000 square feet of commercial development PUD. That plan was eventualy denied by the County Commissioners at a late meeting after dozens of citizens had spoken against the project. The property then changed hands to a company the eventually filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

The most recent approval for the property included 62 single-family lots and 168 multifamily units surrounding an 18-hole golf course. Earthwork began on the ranch last summer, leveling the historic barn and tearing up the hay field that a couple hundred elk used during the winter, apparently before the permanent financing became permanent. Recently a Bull elk was a seen standing on top of a man-made hill on the property, apperently wondering what is going on.

Read the full article in the Post Independent

Just exactly are we going?

With the economy returning to flex its muscle like it did during the mid-1990s, many of Colorado' mountain communities are concerned about where grwoth is taking them and want more clarity of vision. To wit, Our Future Summit is hosting a forum on "Creating a Common Vision: What Is Your Preferred Future for Summit County?" from 7-9 p.m. Thursday, February 9th at the Summit County Community and Senior Center near Frisco.In preparation for the forum, the group seeks viewpoints from a broad spectrum of the community and would appreciate the benefit of your perspective. You can submit your vision for the future of Summit County by logging on to http://www.ourfuturesummit.org/Misson%20Survey.html

Read the full article in the Summit Daily News

Melbourne plans to "drive" cars from city centre

Under Melbourne City Council's draft strategy, cars will be "driven" out of the city in favour of public transport and bicycles under a radical new council strategy that abandons plans for a multibillion-dollar cross-city tunnel and suggests slashing speed limits in the central business district.The strategy calls on the State Government to invest heavily in improved train, tram and bus routes, as well as lobbying for off-peak tolls on major roads to spread peak-hour demand.

An average of 640,000 people visit the city each weekday, with that number forecast to rise to 1 million by 2014. Almost half of those commuters travel into the city by car.

Read the full article . . .

Steamboat close to adopting inclusionary zoning

At their Jan. 24 meeting, the Steamboat Springs City Council unanimously approved the first reading of an inclusionary zoning ordinance.

If it receives final approval on second reading, the ordinance would require that most types of new residential developments include 15 percent affordable housing. Half of that housing would be for those who make 80 percent or less of the county's annual median income, or AMI, and the other half would be for households that make 120 percent or less. The annual median income for a family of four is about $72,700.

If adopted Steamboat, will join several other Colorado jurisdictions (Aspen, Boulder, Basalt, Carbondale, Crested Butte, Glenwood Springs, Longmont, Snowmass Village, and Pitkin County) and a growing number of cities across the U.S. using inclusionary zoning to require a new developments to include a certain percentage of affordable housing.

Further south and over a few mountain passes, Gunnison County is having a heated discussion on a inclusionary zoing ordinance that would require 30% of the home in a new development to be affordable and deed-restricted to residents meeting area median income levels.

Oil and gas planning from the ground up

Frustrated with current state oil and gas regulations and tired of the lack of planning at either the state or county level, a number of citizens directly impacted by the oil and gas boom in Garfield County have taken a different approach - they have negotiated directly with the industry. Their efforts over the last several months are on the cutting edge of ways to plan for natural-gas development in the Intermountain West

The Rifle/Silt/New Castle Community Development Project began earlier this year when residents in and around these communities realized that drilling in their neighborhoods was inevitable given the gas reserves in the county, current state regulations, and the nation's insatiable demand for natural gas.

Organized under the auspices of the Grand Valley Citizens Alliance, community members began talking with Antero Resources, which has purchased leases in the area, to encourage them to work with neighborhoods and communities in crafting their drilling plans, not just surface and mineral owners.

The resulting plan recommends clustering drilling on pads spaced from 640 to 160 acres apart. Clustering would minimize construction of roads, pipelines and other accouterments of drilling and thereby lessen impacts. The plan would also include best management practices for natural-gas drilling such as placing pipelines alongside or in existing roads, piping water to wells rather than trucking it in, and installing equipment to reduce toxic emissions, reduce noise and light. Drilling rigs would also be at least 500 feet from the nearest homes.

Antero Resources has adopted this collaboratively created plan, and citizens are beginning talks with other gas operators as well as local governments.

You can view a PDF version of the document, which is still a working draft, at www.hmccolorado.org/GVCAPLAN-11-2005.pdf