The Crested Butte News Serving the Gunnison Valley since 1999
Funding up in the air
The Mt. Crested Butte Town Council agreed to consider a partnership with the Crested Butte Land Trust and take ownership of property the organization is trying to acquire on the edge of town.
The land trust is gathering support for its acquisition of the 93 acres in Parcel 1 of Promontory that sits on the flank of Snodgrass Mountain and straddles the popular Snodgrass Trail at the far northern boundary of Mt. Crested Butte.
If the purchase is successful, CBLT executive director Ann Johnston said, the land would be protected from future development and preserved as open space with public access.
After requesting $700,000 in grants from both Great Outdoors Colorado and the town of Crested Butte, Johnston asked the Mt. Crested Butte Town Council if the town would consider supporting the project as the entity that owns the property.
By the terms of the state grant, which is available just twice a year, the 93 acres would have to be used as open space, which is different from a town park where there could be development of amenities.
Also, by the terms of the state grant, the entity that holds the conservation easement must be independent from the entity that holds the deed to the property.
“There’s a couple of different ways we could go about this,” Johnston told the council. “The land trust has a lot of experience owning land … so we feel very comfortable being the land owner. But we also recognize that we are the only entity in the valley that has [the credentials] to administer the conservation easement.”
If the town of Mt. Crested Butte takes ownership of the property, Johnston said, the land trust would work with the town on a management plan for the property and would perform most of the administrative work associated with the partnership.
Johnston explained that the land is now platted with 30 lots that could potentially be developed into a sizeable subdivision and could endanger public access to the Snodgrass Trail as well as the view of Snodgrass Mountain.
Councilman David O’Reilly pointed out, “It would be a challenge to figure out how to get up to that piece of land,” since it sits on a relatively steep hillside.
Several members of the council expressed relief that the deal would secure public access to the Snodgrass Trail, which they all agreed was an important amenity for locals and tourists. Mayor David Clayton said when the possibility of a sale was discussed in the past, the council discussed rerouting the trail so it would not be susceptible to the whims of a landowner.
Typically, the town of Crested Butte partners with the land trust in these situations, since the town is one of the land trust’s two biggest funders. But with the Promontory parcel within the Mt. Crested Butte town boundary, Johnston told the council it was a good opportunity to build a partnership with the town of Mt. Crested Butte.
Although the council was cautious about committing money to the project, they agreed unanimously to continue the discussion about partnering with the land trust in acquiring the Promontory parcel.
The land trust will hear about the fate of their grant request from GOCO next month.
