The Crested Butte News Serving the Gunnison Valley since 1999
“This is colossal.”
by Mark Reaman
One of the largest, most significant open space preservation opportunities in the state is taking place in the valley and the facilitators plan to ask the Crested Butte Town Council for financial assistance to help make it happen.
The entire Trampe Ranch property is being proposed for a conservation easement and it would then be maintained in perpetuity as a working ranch.
Justin Spring of the Trust for Public Land (TPL) and open space consultant Susan Lohr came to the council Monday to provide some background on the idea to preserve the ranch’s 6,000 acres that stretch between Gunnison and Gothic in several high-profile parcels. They will return in August with a formal financial request.
“We believe at the TPL that this is the most ambitious working lands project in the state,” Spring told the Town Council at the July 20 meeting. “It has a huge impact on Crested Butte, Gunnison and the county. We are looking at an $18 million to $20 million project and we predict we can raise 60 percent of the funding through public money and the other 40 percent through private donations. We are talking to a lot of different people from a lot of different places over their interest in this project. We are reaching out to everyone we can think of.”
Susan Lohr has been involved with open space projects for 20 years. She and Bill Trampe were part of the founding group that organized the Gunnison Ranchland Conservation Legacy organization that works with local ranchers for land preservation.
“Bill [Trampe] was thinking about his ranch even then when he was founding Legacy,” Lohr said. “This is a major deal for this area. With Bill’s ranch and the other waiting ranch projects, the county could preserve 50 percent of its ag land.”
Under the deal there would be an appraisal of the ranch property and a value placed on the easement. That is expected to come in at about $23.5 million. Trampe ranches would donate 25 percent, or about $5 million. The rest would be raised through fundraising efforts. The goal is to get the deal finalized by December 2016.
“We have been discussing this with Great Outdoors Colorado [GOCO] and we hope they will be a large player on the public side,” explained Spring. “The new GOCO Protect Initiative is being announced soon and it could fit perfectly with this project.”
Lohr said they hope GOCO provides half of the cash for the project.
“This is colossal,” said councilman Skip Berkshire. “It is great. Who’d a thunk it?”
Town planner Michael Yerman said the council should expect a formal request to help with funding at a council meeting in August.
