The Crested Butte News Serving the Gunnison Valley since 1999
Do you need that much space?
[ By Mark Reaman ]
In his presentation to the Crested Butte town council on Monday, October 4, Crested Butte Fire Protection District CEO Sean Caffrey emphasized the inadequacy of the station in Crested Butte. “It is too small and not a good location given the traffic in town and lack of ability to house personnel overnight,” he said. He said the proposed station for the Slate River subdivision would be good for 50 years.
While agreeing with the location issues, some council members expressed concern over the size of the proposed building. Caffrey said the district currently uses about 4,500 square feet of space in town for vehicles and offices. The outlying stations in Mt. Crested Butte, CB South and Buckhorn add another 18,000 to 20,000 square feet and Caffrey said the goal is to consolidate space in the proposed 31,000 square foot building.
Caffrey compared the proposal to the stations in Carbondale and the one being proposed for Gunnison. “We’re big but we are comfortable that we are in the correct range,” he told the council.
Councilmember Ian Billick asked if the district was accounting for higher maintenance costs in the future since it was adding about 24,000 square feet of space. Caffrey said he did not have exact numbers but was confident the district could absorb the costs as part of the process. He said he hoped to include as many solar panels on the building as possible but did not have those specific numbers either. He said the proposed search and rescue building would be about 9,000 square feet and housing for some employees that will be built would be between 4,000 and 5,000 square feet.
“The chief concern I hear is why does the district need something six times as large as it has now,” said mayor Jim Schmidt. “Plus it will be near the 10,000 square foot house up the Slate River that has caused so much controversy recently because of its size.”
“That’s a reasonable concern but this is not a 10,000 square foot house, it is a 30,000 square foot fire station,” responded Caffrey. “Those are very different buildings and purposes. It is a big building but like the public works buildings.”
Crested Butte public works director Shea Earley said the largest building in the town’s public works yard is 7,400 square feet. He did say there are two buildings right next to one another with no setbacks that could appear to be one building and the combined square footage is 11,000 square feet. Other size comparisons could be the Big Mine Ice Arena that is 27,000 square feet or the Center for the Arts, which is 19,000 square feet.
“Have you considered a more modular approach?” asked councilmember Jason MacMillan. “Increasing to five or six times from what you have now seems excessive. It is a lot at the beginning. Can you phase it more? And comparing it to the Carbondale services seems like it’s not the right comparison since they have a lot more than the 5,000 people in that valley.”
“We expect to see what other mountain communities have already seen,” said Caffrey. “The low cost of financing and spreading it over 20 or 30 years is driving us to do it all now.”
Councilmember Jasmine Whelan expressed concern over the environmental impact given its close location to wetlands. Caffrey said the wetlands played a part in making the design of the building long and flat along Gothic Road in order to stay out of the wetlands.
As far as additional cost, Caffrey followed up that the expected cost on every $100,000 of property valuation would be about $75 total for the fire district. “We are projecting our operating mill rate will be 7.320 mills next year so adding the projected 3.20 mills for the bonds will yield a combined total of 10.52 mills or about $75.22 per $100,000 of assessed value,” he wrote in an email. “That number will change from year to year and will actually decrease if the assessed valuation of the district increases as the fixed repayment costs gets spread out over a larger tax base. As a basis of comparison, the Town of CB is currently 10.372 mills, Mt. CB is 10.378 mills, the school is 28.711 mills, Carbondale Fire is 12.796 mills. Mt. CB Water and San is 10.415 mills and CB South Metro is 11.270 mills. Overall, we are comfortable that we are staying in the proper range for a taxing entity of our type and size.”
