Briefs, Mt. Crested Butte

Rezoning required for town land
The Crested Butte Town Council took up the first reading of an ordinance to rezone the lot surrounding the town hall, Scheske Park and the town maintenance building. The town applied for the rezoning to clear up a discrepancy between the single-family residential classification the property has now and what the land is actually being used for. 

According to a memo distributed by community development coordinator Carlos Velado the town bought two tracts from the ski area about three decades ago for $20, but the land was zoned for single-family residential use and no one ever changed it.
“In 2007, when we rewrote … the zoning ordinance, and when we cleaned up our maps and everything, we looked at each other and said, ‘Whoops, we’re not where we belong,’” town manager Joe Fitzpatrick said. “So we created this Public Use and Facilities District and that’s really the zoning that belongs on this land.”
The ordinance, discussed at a public hearing Tuesday, February 7, is just a housekeeping measure that would turn the parcel’s residential zoning classification into the classification meant specifically for government use.
Community development coordinator Carlos Velado wrote in a memo that the “conversion in zoning will not create additional zoning violations.”
Two neighboring landowners wrote the town to say they had no objection to the town’s application to rezone the property, as long as the new land use designation doesn’t lead to new construction or expansion on the property.
A letter from neighbor Dan Weiss says, “This area is directly adjacent to residential property and additional development would infringe on the residential neighborhood adjoined by Town Hall.”
Fitzpatrick told the council, “There are no plans for any expansion of buildings. The only possibility of anything like that could be a slight expansion to the pavilion and we’d basically continue the same roofline. We’re working our way through that but we’d like to improve it for wedding receptions and things like that.”
The council will take up a second reading of the ordinance at their regular meeting February 21.

Council election coming up
Petitions for hopeful Mt. Crested Butte Town Council members are available at the town hall. Three seats, currently held by Gary Keiser, Andrew Gitin and David Clayton, will be up for grabs, if anyone other than the incumbents steps up to take them.
So far all three incumbent councilmen have taken out petitions and are collecting the required signatures from 10 registered Mt. Crested Butte voters. As of publication, only Gary Keiser had turned his petition in. According to Mayor William Buck, Gitin and Clayton already have their required signatures and “are in high gear.”
Town election official Jill Lindros says the election could be called off if only three people step up for the three council positions. Otherwise, ballots will be mailed out no later than March 16. Petitions need to be turned into the town by March 2.
Mt. Crested Butte is sending out 327 ballots to active, eligible voters in the town’s first mail-in-only election. Judges will be able to start opening returned ballots as early as March 23 with the final tally taken on April 3.