The Crested Butte News Serving the Gunnison Valley since 1999
Applicant hoping to build new units on site
By Kendra Walker
A new high-end development project that will trigger accompanying community housing units for the town of Mt. Crested Butte is in the works but will take longer than originally presented.
Last month, the Mt. Crested Butte Town Council considered a community housing plan from Honey Rock Ridge, which is located at 33 Marcellina Lane and includes 19 undeveloped lots. It was previously the Villas Phase V, and the new ownership entity J4:15 LP is proposing a three-phase development. Phase 1 includes four two-family residences on four of the lots.
Phase 1 triggers a required community housing component of 1.45 units or payment of cash in lieu, and the applicant instead proposed the acquisition of two Crest House units that would house workers during construction and then be deed restricted. After discussing the proposal, the Mt. CB Town Council made it clear that the units didn’t quite meet the requirements, but their preference was to come to an arrangement other than payment in lieu. Councilmember Michael Bacani expressed a strong desire that the applicant find a way to build new units rather than take away current housing stock that Mt. CB residents might already be able to afford.
The council directed town staff to work with the applicant to provide more options for the town council to consider at their August 15 meeting. However, since the previous meeting, Honey Rock Ridge has had to amend their timeline for getting building permits and breaking ground. As a result, they want to take more time to investigate options for meeting the community housing requirements.
A letter to the town from Honey Rock Group representative Mason Schubert said, “Our timeline to permit has been adjusted and now allows additional time to vet and present options that are hopefully favorable to both the Town and Honey Rock. Given this allowance for additional time, we do not currently have specific identified options for community housing. However, we look forward to continuing the conversation with council to determine the best path forward.”
“We’re all in agreement that payment in lieu is not what any of us wanted,” general partner of J4:15 Nathan Sheets told the council on August 15. “I appreciate Michael’s (Bacani) encouragement to try to build. It made us go back to our team and reevaluate the original effort to try to build our affordable housing on site, especially since we’ve got more time to work through a lot of the engineering aspects of this,” he said. “The need to be able to provide high-quality, new affordable housing was really motivating this.” He noted the challenges with building on the hill, “We’re putting our college best effort into this thing and if we can’t figure it out, it’s going to be the blight of Mt. Crested Butte forever. But we’re going to be here until the end.”
The council agreed to table the Honey Rock Ridge affordable housing discussion until the applicant is ready to present a new plan.
