County to take over Buckhorn projects if developer doesn’t act by Friday

72-hour clock is ticking

The Gunnison Board of County Commissioners gave Buckhorn Ranch developer Dick Landy 72 hours—until this Friday—to sign a contract saying he’ll fix the last items on a list of improvements that need to be made at the subdivision south of Crested Butte. If contracts to finish the work aren’t tied up when the time runs out, the county will take matters, and Dr. Landy’s money, into its own hands.

In the ninth amendment to the Development Improvement Agreement the county has with Landy’s company, Brush Creek Airport LLC, county staff detailed the remaining work that needs to be done, the standard the work would have to meet and a June 1 deadline to get the projects moving.
“We ran the list by the Buckhorn [home owners’ association] and they basically agreed with the specificity of the items on the punchlist and the standard for that work to be done,” county attorney David Baumgarten told the commissioners on Tuesday, May 18. “Then we went to Dr. Landy and he has not executed the agreement.”
Landy said he wouldn’t sign the amendment because of a requirement to chip seal the roads in part of the Buckhorn development, which he said was never part of the DIA. Baumgarten disagreed.
“The only reason I didn’t sign that ninth addendum is because there is a dispute about the chip sealing of [Buckhorn Filing] 1 and 2A,” Landy said, adding that two people from the HOA had read through the DIA and its amendments (the first amendment was added in 2004) and made two different interpretations about who should have to chip seal the road.
Baumgarten wasn’t having any of it and pointed out that the county still has control of nearly $1.7 million in security to get the work done. He put his hands up and said, “You guys have instructed me to get this across the finish line… I suggest you pull the money from the security and get it done… You ought to be tired of dealing with this.”
With a unanimous vote, the commissioners gave Landy 72 hours to execute the contracts necessary to get the work done and authorized the county attorney’s office to send out a letter of default if he failed to do so.