The Crested Butte News Serving the Gunnison Valley since 1999
Action starts 14-day clock to fix what’s broken
Developer Dick Landy is running out of time. The Gunnison Board of County Commissioners (BOCC) voted on Tuesday, October 6 to send a notice of default to Landy to inform him that his million-dollar security bond being held by the county could be in jeopardy if necessary improvements aren’t made to the Buckhorn Ranch subdivision soon.
The county has a laundry list of items that still need work at Buckhorn Ranch and the security being held for the county expires at the end of October. So County Attorney David Baumgarten told the commissioners the time had come for action.
“The question before you today is whether you want staff to give notice of default to Dr. Landy. If so, that would give him 14 days in which to cure the problems or come back and ask for an extension,” Baumgarten said. “Do we send the developer a notice of default? It is the staff’s suggestion that yes, we do.”
Buckhorn Ranch, a fly-in, fly-out community that will have nearly 400 homes at build-out, has been in the works since the late 1970s and has been fraught with failing infrastructure.
The items left on the original Development Improvement Agreement (DIA) between Landy and the county were divided into amenity needs, like road work, completion of the ball field and walking path, and the unfinished portion of the Stallion Park affordable housing units.
The BOCC in August approved a delay in constructing the Stallion Park affordable housing units, citing saturation in the affordable housing market.
But there won’t be much grace given in finishing the amenities in the subdivision, since the commissioners have been in heated talks with Landy about the projects since last summer.
Items from the DIA that still need to be completed include the ball field, drainage at the tennis courts, reestablishment of a trail, removal of piles of rock and dirt, repair of damaged roads throughout the subdivision, and coverage of the open foundations, left from unrealized buildings in Stallion Park.
Jerry Burgess, an engineer working to address the issues at the subdivision for Landy, stepped up at the meeting to defend the progress that has already been made and asked the commissioners to make a determination about the responsibilities of the developer and those of the Home Owners’ Association (HOA).
“On most of these items, there was no quality specification we could turn to and say ‘Oh, this is how it should look.’ We didn’t have that,” Burgess said. “Lacy [Construction] still has in their contract to rake the outfield and seed it. The recommendation was not to seed that until as late in the fall as possible. The backstop is being installed today, as we speak.”
County assistant director of Public Works Allen Moores has been inspecting the roads in the Buckhorn Ranch subdivision for several years and has repeatedly found damage caused by excessive or unusual traffic, like tracked vehicles that tear up the road surface.
In his report to the commissioners, Moores also noted, “At places throughout the subdivision, there are campers, trailers, horse trailers parked randomly along the roads.”
Burgess pointed out that at some point, the roads would have to become the HOA’s responsibility, since the developer has fulfilled his obligations as they are defined in the DIA.
“The DIA says chip seal the roads and that’s what we did. Then we patched the roads and chip sealed them again,” he said. “Chip sealed roads are maintenance-intensive, especially in a subdivision that gets the kind of abuse that Allen talked about. That’s abuse that we can’t control. The HOA needs to step up and control that.”
Baumgarten told the commissioners, “You are holding security. You make a decision to accept certain improvements as being accomplished or not. If the roads have been finished to the county standard, then you can walk away.”
The county’s next task is to determine which of the improvements at the subdivision meet the standard established in the DIA and then extend the length of the security. The commissioners will revisit the DIA checklist at a regular meeting on Tuesday, October 20 to determine which of the requirements have been met.
