Pitchfork wants the public to stop parking in their neighborhood

Asking the town of Mt. CB for parking amendment 

By Kendra Walker

Residents of the Pitchfork neighborhood are hoping to take control of their parking situation and have requested an amendment to the subdivision’s plat that would allow them to better regulate parking and snow removal.

During their June 3 meeting, the Mt. Crested Butte town council heard from Pitchfork HOA representatives and neighbors requesting the town amend the Pitchfork plat to reassign its public access parking to HOA parking use only.

In a staff report to the council, community development coordinator Todd Carroll explained that the Pitchfork subdivision is a dense neighborhood with small lots and tight setbacks that make snow removal and parking challenging. “There have been complaints of people coming into Pitchfork, parking, catching the bus and then skiing for the day, and other complaints of people parking vehicles for longer periods of time during the summer. Pitchfork HOA would like to avoid confusion by reassigning the easement from public to association parking. This would allow Pitchfork to install signs stating that all parking in Pitchfork is for residents and their guests only. Pitchfork would also like to be able to regulate and enforce the parking in Pitchfork with regards to who is allowed to park in certain locations and to enforce that parking in Pitchfork is only for the residents and guests of Pitchfork.” 

Carroll explained that during the Pitchfork PUD approval process in 2000, there was much discussion regarding the snow removal and parking issues that this dense subdivision was going to incur. A plat note was added to the plat, stating, “With great deliberation, Town officials have approved this configuration to help accommodate a significant affordable housing commitment offered by the developer. Mt. Crested Butte has imposed development standards that are of a minimum necessary to maintain the health, safety and welfare of the Pitchfork residents. However, homeowners and/or occupants of the Pitchfork will be subjected to difficult living situations during periods of significant snow fall. For example, cars parked adjacent to the road will be plowed-in, and driveways will be blocked by snow furrows caused by plowing.”

Carroll said that some of the parking spaces are specifically designated, such as private driveways for single family homes and on-site parking of multi-family dwellings. However, other parking that is not specifically designated includes public easement parking on private property and parking on town right-of-way (ROW). While parking is not typically allowed in Mt. Crested Butte ROW, the town did approve seasonal parking in selected areas. 

“Staff believes that all the parking in Pitchfork, whether designated for specific properties, in easements or seasonally in town ROW, was intended for the use of Pitchfork residents,” he said.  

Staff also recommended that the town develop an operational agreement on snow management with the association, as the parking situation is closely tied with snow removal. Town manger Carlos Velado said the town’s maintenance department meets with the Pitchfork association every fall to talk through a joint snow management plan for the upcoming winter. “It’s all verbal. It doesn’t work as well as the town would like,” he said. “If nothing changes (with parking), we would still like to work with the association on the snow management agreement.”

During the June 3 meeting, Pitchfork HOA attorney Beth Appleton and HOA president Scott Winget explained that the proposed amendment was overwhelmingly approved by the Pitchfork homeowners in a 73-3 vote.

“In short, all we want to do is change it so the public can no longer park in Pitchfork,” said Winget. “People come from outside of Pitchfork and park on the street to take the bus to the resort. Sometimes people park cars on our streets for months at a time. That hinders the already problematic parking and makes it problematic for snow removal. If the public cannot park in Pitchfork, that does a benefit both for ourselves in the neighborhood and for the town with snow management because there are less cars and opening up some additional spaces for snow storage.”

Many neighbors attended the meeting and shared their frustrating parking experiences in Pitchfork. 

“People don’t want to pay to park at the base area. They block our driveways,” said Wayne Kearney, recounting an instance when his pipes burst last January and they couldn’t get a truck in to remediate the house because there was an unknown car blocking the way and parked there for two months. 

“They are speeding up our streets at incredible speed and endangering our kids who play in our street and our animals that are out with us,” said Lilavati Eberle. “It is a safety issue for our community. People are constantly going down the wrong way on the one-way streets because they don’t know any better and that is causing safety issues for our community.” 

“There are issues with emergency response vehicles getting through the tight turns in the neighborhood,” said Alex Summerfelt, who works for Toad Property Management to manage snow removal in the neighborhood. “In order for us to effectively manage the snow, we need the ability to ask a car to move for the day.”

The council had questions regarding how the new parking regulations would be managed and enforced, and which entity it would fall on given the combination of Pitchfork easement parking and town ROW parking in the neighborhood. 

“We’re hearing that the association wants its own ability to regulate parking in Pitchfork. How is that defined?” asked council member Steve Morris. “Should people expect a cost increase associated with that?”

“Is the HOA proposing any changes to how the association and town split the costs of snow removal?” asked mayor Nicholas Kempin. 

“Is Pitchfork going to complain to the police department that somebody is violating the town’s right-of-way that Pitchfork is creating rules for,” said council member Roman Kolodziej. 

“We haven’t gotten that far,” said Appleton. “We would have to confer with the town in terms of what do you do and what do we do.”

“Our hope is that putting up signs that say, ‘no public parking’ will get rid of 90% of the problem,” said Winget. “We don’t want to have to enforce or tow or go around and put tickets on cars.”

“All of these questions need to be answered,” said town attorney Gerald Dahl. “For that unique situation we’re going to have to have a unique management agreement that addresses those questions.” He recommended the council continue the conversation to another meeting and direct staff to work with the Pitchfork association to produce an operations agreement to address not only snow storage and management issues, but the parking enforcement issues identified.

“Is this the right way to do this?” asked council member Bruce Nation. “Or should we just put something in our own code that regulates parking in certain streets and areas? I don’t think it was ever intended to be a public parking lot, so I think we should start enforcing it.”

Dahl confirmed that the town could establish an ordinance regulating parking in certain areas. 

“Is this something that we could turn over to them in total?” asked Kempin. “They would have control of the neighborhood and everything that happens in it and town is out of the mix.”

“Yes, there are plenty of developments that do their own roads,” said Dahl. “If you want them to really have full control, vacate the roads and they don’t have to show up here at all because they’re in full control.”

“Pitchfork is a really unique community,” said council member Bobbie Sferra, noting the 23 deed-restricted community housing units in the neighborhood. “There would be significant increases in HOA fees if you turn it over to the HOA. That would be a significant hit to the people who live in affordable housing.”

The council voted to continue the conversation and directed town staff to work with the Pitchfork association to bring forward an outline of shared roles and responsibilities for managing parking and snow removal, as well as a summary of regulations the town could adopt to address the same issues. “Then you’ve got things to compare and contrast,” said Dahl.