County pulls $169k to pay for Buckhorn Ranch work and repairs

More could be coming out soon

Gunnison County attorney David Baumgarten likened the list of items that still need to be completed at the Buckhorn Ranch subdivision to the problem mathematicians have in approaching zero. Continuously dividing the whole only brings them closer to the end, but they can never quite get there.

 At a meeting on September 9, the Gunnison Board of County Commissioners was ready to finish the repairs at the Buckhorn Ranch subdivision south of Crested Butte. They had money being held as security, they had a list of unfinished work. But the advice of their attorney was to wait two weeks to see if developer Dick Landy would complete the list on his own.
At the time of the meeting, attorney Baumgarten was able to report that the chip seal surface had been finished in filings 1 and 2a of the subdivision, which had involved a struggle between Landy and the homeowners association (HOA) over who should be responsible for funding the improvements.
In a letter to the county dated September 8, Landy said he had spoken with Bill Lacy, owner of Lacy Construction Company, who said the work on the roads in filings 1 and 2a had been finished.
Landy goes on to say, “The fact of the matter is that Brush Creek [Airport] does not have the funds to pay for the chip sealing of the roads, even if it gets reimbursed by the HOA later… The only source of money to pay Mr. Lacy his fair agreed-upon contract price is to look to Community Banks [of Colorado] to either fund this voluntarily or to have the county call the Letter of Credit in place for such a purpose.”
Along with the money for the road surfacing, Landy has asked the county to pull additional money to fix about 37,000 square feet of road repairs, where potholes have sprung up on the existing roads, and $6,000 to pay engineering fees.
The letter of credit Landy wants the county to draw from is worth about $427,245 and the county will need $169,500 to get the work done. But Landy doesn’t “see the bank voluntarily stepping up to the plate and funding [the chip sealing],” and urged the county to call the letter of credit.
So at a meeting on September 21, the county commissioners did just that, and ordered the money to be taken from the security. The deadline for the road repairs had been July 6 and the deadline for the chip sealing was July 31.
Some of the other things on the list of improvements that still need to be done at Buckhorn concern the ballfield, the walking path that has a stone surface that makes stroller access difficult, weed control and the installation of street signs. At the meeting, the commissioners were told that those items would be done soon.
But the commissioners aren’t taking any chances and authorized the county attorney to go get the money if the work isn’t done in a week and a group of stakeholders in the project think that’s the appropriate course of action to get the work done this year.
The commissioners also voted to allow Landy to push off the construction of more affordable housing units in Stallion Park for another year, to see if the housing market warrants more units.
The commissioners will review the progress at the subdivision at an upcoming meeting.