Foothills moving toward sketch plan

Rankin wants more public comment meetings

Proponents of the Foothills of Crested Butte annexation have done the math and want to begin the formal process of getting 44 acres annexed into town. Looking at the legal timeline, they want to get a plan approved before a new Town Council is sworn in, in November. That means submitting a formal annexation petition and sketch plan by the middle of July. That will allow the plan to go through the requisite public hearing and planning stages by election day in November.

“We’ve been talking to you for over a year now,” Foothills attorney Aaron Huckstep explained to the Crested Butte Planning Commission at a public work session held on July 1. That commission is made of members of the Town Council. “We feel like we have all refined the plan enough to submit the necessary documents.”
The lead attorney for the development, Jim Starr, agreed. “We have made significant progress with the town on this plan,” he said. “One concern is that we’ve come this far and we don’t want to start over when the council turns over in the fall.”
Huckstep hoped that the sketch plan process would confirm the foundations of the development, tentatively agreed to between the developers and town. “We want to pin down the boundaries of the plan. We want everyone to be okay with the densities proposed (somewhere between 150 and 161 total units). We want to pin down the road layout and the general layout of the lots themselves. We hope to submit plans by the end of the week. For us, we’ve been at it so long and we feel we have a lot of areas of agreement.”
If the proponents get a plan officially submitted by the end of the week, a formal public hearing on the sketch plan proposal must be held within 30 days, or early August.
Crested Butte resident Sue Navy asked if a public site tour of the property could be conducted before a public meeting was held. Huckstep said that hadn’t been requested in the past but the developers would consider the request.
Planning Commissioner Billy Rankin was very concerned that the public had been lulled to sleep over the year-long process. “Very few public attend these meetings,” he said at the July 1 meeting. “I think that the majority of the town is not clued in and I feel part of our responsibility is to bring them up to speed.”
Rankin suggested the town hold an informational meeting and public comment period before the official sketch plan public hearing.
“I would hate for you to put all the work in and get shut down by the public,” he said. “But frankly I am only hearing negative comments on this project. I really don’t know what the public is thinking. I think before the sketch plan, more public input is needed.”
Town planner John Hess disagreed. “We have been talking about this for a year,” he said. “If we do what you say, it could take us back to square one.”
“The public hearing at the sketch plan is supposed to allow for that input,” added Huckstep.
“This is a huge deal and I don’t have a problem with two public hearings,” countered Rankin.
“The sketch plan hearing won’t be the only one,” said Huckstep. “Every step of the process requires a public hearing. We are looking for the approval of a general concept at this step. Then we get into the details and dot the i’s and cross the t’s.”
Hess suggested that once the application is received, a public meeting could be scheduled two weeks later, since a formal public hearing is required within 30 days of receiving the application.
“If we have a public hearing and the public tears it apart, that will mean a lot to me,” said Rankin. “I just want to save everyone a lot of time and work.”
Huckstep understood the concept. “If the public tears the plan apart then we have all failed,” he said. “If we are that far off the mark after all this, then we have a real problem.”
“I hear you,” said Rankin, “but I hear mostly negative comments at these meetings and we are prohibited from talking about it in public.”
Former Gunnison County Planning Commission chairman and Crested Butte resident John Banker also thought the general public had lost some interest in the process. “I think Billy’s idea is great,” he said. “I’d suggest putting red flags around the whole property so they know something is happening. The scarcity of the people at these meetings is a reason to do it.”
Starr countered that the reason a large number of people from the public aren’t attending the meetings is because the general public likes the plan. “We’ve made significant progress to the project and we have accommodated a lot of the concerns that were voiced at the start. If we can have the public input without throwing us off schedule, then let’s do it.”
Rankin again said he wanted to give the public an “adequate opportunity” to comment on the plan. “I still see a lot of big things that aren’t settled,” he said. “There is the water issue and how to get it to the right place. There is the old town dump situation and the traffic on Gothic Road.”
Hess explained that those concerns would be better detailed during the preliminary plan process. “At this stage, the big picture issues need to be addressed,” he explained to the Planning Commission. “Is this the appropriate place for a development? Is this an appropriate density? What is the general traffic pattern?”
The proponents will begin the process of putting together the necessary elements of a formal application. They anticipate having it in the hands of the town staff by July 10.