The Crested Butte News Serving the Gunnison Valley since 1999
Eventually 3.7 acres will go on the market
A portion of one of the East River Valley’s historic properties could soon go up for sale, after the Crested Butte Land Trust got a recommendation for approval to subdivide the Niccoli property near Cement Creek Road south of Crested Butte.
The Land Trust started the process over a year ago to carve 3.7 acres out of the 36.77-acre parcel bought from the Niccoli family in 2006. All but five acres of the property are protected by a conservation easement held by the town of Crested Butte.
Before defining the proposed boundary of the subdivision, the Land Trust had considered subdividing the entire unprotected piece of the parcel. But Land Trust executive director Ann Johnston said the plan was modified “to make it more complementary to the agricultural uses on the neighboring parcel of land.”
Johnston says the Land Trust plans on keeping the Niccoli parcel in agricultural use and said there will continue to be grazing cattle and few horses on the property seasonally.
After the proposal to subdivide passed through the first phase of Planning Commission review, “There were a lot of moving parts,” according to Johnston, that needed to align before the recommendation for approval could go forward.
Now that the recommendation for approval has been made, the Land Trust only needs approval from the Gunnison Board of County Commissioners before the Niccoli parcel can go up for sale.
The nearly 4-acre parcel that will go up for sale has a collection of restrictive covenants that will go along with it. The covenants restrict any future development on the site to the 5,020 square feet of space that is currently on the ground. If the property’s future owner decides to do away with the historic house on the parcel, the size of the allowable developed footprint will drop to 3,920 square feet.
Any new construction on the property will be limited to 20 feet in height, to help preserve the area as a view corridor, which was one of the justifications the Land Trust gave when purchasing the property.
And according to Johnston, the parcel will go up for sale, eventually. Even though the debt the Land Trust has taken on to buy the $2.6 million property and other open space in the Gunnison Valley has already been settled, Johnston says there are still a lot of ongoing expenses for the Land Trust that the money will help cover.
“We have paid the project off,” she said. “We’ll be able to use the money from this [sale] for other programs for the Land Trust.”
Although the county commissioners have not set a date to review the proposal, Johnston expects a final vote on the subdivision by the end of January.
