The Crested Butte News Serving the Gunnison Valley since 1999
Hoping to make the property more sellable
By Alissa Johnson
Last month, the Mt. Crested Butte Town Council approved a one-year extension of a Planned Unit Development (PUD) for Nevada Ridge subdivision, despite objections from neighbors. A request for a two-year extension came from LSC Summit Colorado, LLC, which took ownership of the property after Nevada Ridge went into foreclosure. The extension was intended to make the property more sellable.
“To me it’s almost crucial that it remains in place,” said listing agent Channing Boucher, who attended the meeting on behalf of LSC Summit Colorado. “We just reduced the price by about $900,000 a month ago… I had an offer on it two weeks ago and one of the contingencies is PUD approval going forward. Anybody that’s looking at it to buy and to develop looks at it as a serious advantage to have the PUD in place.”
The property is zoned for up to 15 units but requires significant work, including shoring up existing retaining walls, dewatering the property, and complying with wetlands mitigation requirements from the Army Core of Engineers. The price reduction came in recognition of that work.
“Everybody knows what needs to be done to shore up the hillside and it goes beyond retaining walls,” Boucher said.
Neighboring Summit Residential Homeowners Association, however, opposed the extension of the PUD. Representative Reed Meredith cited poor relations between Summit and the previous owners of Nevada Ridge, including costs incurred but never recouped by Summit, and the existing state of the property.
“I don’t think you can dispute that it is a difficult piece of property to develop,” Meredith said. “The properties that are left are hard ones to develop and it’s the town’s responsibility to make sure they are maintained in a safe manner.”
Meredith suggested that extending the PUD put the town at risk for having to repair the retaining walls, the cost of which would far exceed the remaining funds in a performance bond from the original owner. Community development director Carlos Velado had explained the town used a $169,000 letter of credit from the previous owner to scrape the property, remove dead trees and plant new ones, of which $28,225 remained.
“That’s not going to make a dent in repairing those retaining walls. I think the town would be remiss in continuing to extend the PUD knowing the future costs coming, certainly without requiring an additional performance bond,” Meredith said.
“So failing rock walls and all, to let the property go is better than trying to get future development out of it?” D’Aquila asked.
“The town has a responsibility. You inherited that rock wall, and that’s the issue you’ll potentially have to deal with,” Meredith said.
“For the record, the retaining walls are not the town’s responsibility… to be clear, it’s the responsibility of the property owner. The problem was that the prior owner did not do any of that,” Velado said.
Listing agent Boucher explained that as the new owner, his client was not ducking any responsibility. “My understanding all along is that the buyer is responsible for it. That includes the rock walls, it includes dewatering, it includes the wetlands… The company I represent is now prepared to do the work or at least get an estimate for the cost so we can properly represent it to a buyer,” he said.
“Do we have the ability to ask for an additional performance bond with a renewal on the PUD?” councilmember John Sale asked.
Town attorney Kathy Fogo said, “It would be hard at this point to know what that number should look like, or what kind of timeframe is appropriate.”
“Most of the discussion we have heard is irrelevant to the decision. What the prior owner did or didn’t do doesn’t have any affect on the PUD. It makes it more sellable if there’s a PUD, as we’ve been told, and that’s about the only factor,” said councilmember Gary Keiser, suggesting a one-year extension.
“If the property has less value it’s less likely to be sold, therefore it’s less likely to get fixed. If it just sits, it’s going to deteriorate and be more of a problem, which the town might not have the responsibility to monetarily fix but would have to try to get the owner to do what had to be done,” mayor David Clayton said, agreeing with the one-year extension.
The council voted to extend the PUD by one year, with Chris Morgan absent and John Sale voting against it. Service fees for a sprinkler system were transferred from the town to LSC Summit Colorado as part of the decision.
