CB Parks and Rec keeps planning for more growth

Capacity shrinking as more people come to the valley

By Mark Reaman

The work to produce a new 10-year plan for the Crested Butte Parks, Recreation, Open Space and Trails (PROST) department continues. The town council provided some feedback on the developing plans at a meeting last month and emphasized the need to define future partnerships and provide solid numbers for future expenses.

PROST director Janna Hansen told the council at a work session that they were still in the community engagement phase of the process. In fact, on October 1 the town is holding a public event for people to provide feedback at the Town Ranch Gazebo starting at 3 o’clock..

The town has engaged consultant Scott Robson to help with the plan, and he said between stakeholder meetings and general public engagement at the town picnic and an Alpenglow, the theme rising to the top seemed to be the need for more indoor recreation facilities, especially in the winter. He said generally people understood the issues of building a big rec center or swimming pool so there didn’t seem to be much support for such major facility expansion. 

“I don’t think the town has the capacity to provide a swimming pool,” said Hansen. “That’s a partnership deal if we all take that direction.”

“Trail connectivity and safe transportation to places like trailheads were brought up a lot,” Robson said. 

“Youth and senior citizen programming came up as did maintenance needs for older facilities. Growth management was also a concern with new residential growth coming down the line.”

Hansen agreed a major challenge was the limited town resources and a growing population in the valley. The draft plan indicated that based on projects in the pipeline in the North Valley that the town was anticipating growth could drop the parkland ratio from the current estimated 14.68 acres per 1,000 people to 2.35 acres.

“I think saying the growth in the valley in the next five or 10 years will expand the population 7-X doesn’t pass the red face test,” said mayor Ian Billick.

Hansen said all the new projects like the Lower Verzuh, Whetstone and StarView developments could bring significant growth to the North Valley. Billick said such quick exponential growth was unlikely. 

“The PROST department today serves upward of 5,000 people. A significant increase of some sort is coming if what is on paper fills out. There is the combination of anticipated local growth and a high use of facilities by visitors,” Robson said, stating that there is not a lot of mandated mitigation for parks and recreation from Gunnison County in the review process for new developments.

“When it comes to capacity, we need to refine our understanding of where our critical points are,” said Billick. “For example, there is a .5% sales tax specifically for parks and recreation and sales tax keeps going up, so what is that connection to capacity?” 

“Where is the responsibility of government to provide all amenities people want?” asked councilmember Mallika Magner. “We had feedback from the gym community that will be losing their facility when the Elevation Hotel starts its renovations, but there are other private gyms in Riverland and CB South. Should town be competing with those private businesses?”

“A strong strategic plan shows what the town is uniquely positioned to do,” said Billick. 

“I’ll echo that,” agreed councilmember Beth Goldstone. “So far, this process seems so much bigger than it should be. There are so many recreational ‘wants’ (compared to needs). Is it our role to increase capacity because people around town and the valley desire more ‘wants?’ Or should we rely more on partnerships?”

“It seems early in the process to discount all these things,” countered councilmember John O’Neal. “It seems that as the plan evolves, all of these things will come out in the plan.”

Councilmember Anna Fenerty warned about the parks and rec trying to be all things to all people instead of focusing on what Crested Butte is known for. “The skatepark is an example of the town stepping up and we tried to please so many people. The skatepark is accessible to so many people but the old one had the reputation with the big drop that it was more extreme.”

“I do feel like our role is to make our amenities more accessible to more people,” said Hansen. “The skatepark still has that big drop but the expansion provided more easy access as well. Multi-use is my priority given the resources. Making something only a few people can access is hard to justify spending money on.”

“The extreme is a real identifier of Crested Butte,” said Fenerty. “The Pirate Park is another example of mellowing out a facility. It’s not as unique as the previous park was.”

“We hear having a strategy that is unique and remains rough around the edges is important and we can’t be everything for everyone around here,” said Robson. 

“I’d frame Anna’s points as the need to retain authenticity,” said Billick. “The challenge is what does that look like in Crested Butte. Can we provide both extreme and general access?”

“The five key focus areas in the draft are still valid,” said councilmember Kent Cowherd. 

Those include 1) overall navigating growing demands vs. capacity and funding; 2) solving the multi-use puzzle with parks; 3) solving capacity limitations in recreation; 4) creating a unified vision with open space acquisitions; and 5) creating a connected and accessible network of trails.

“The focus areas are spot on,” said councilmember Gabi Prochaska. “I do feel a lot of this is trying to be everything to everyone. Partnerships are important and for example the MetRec should be in on all these conversations.”

Hansen said Big Mine Ice Arena is another example of a potential multi-use facility. She said if the council wanted to enclose and refrigerate the ice, the town would have to pay back Great Outdoors Colorado for the grant it provided to help build the roof in 2011. GOCO only assists with outdoor recreation. Refunding that grant would total $700,000.

“There is value in optimizing use of the spaces we have. The turf field at the school will benefit more than soccer, for example,” said Billick. “The ice rink might be in the same category. It could be cheaper to repay GOCO if the capacity is expanded rather than build something new.”

“Resources and partnerships will determine where we end up,” said O’Neal. “There will have to be some hard decisions made.”

Billick said he would like to see better financial planning in the strategic plan. “I’d like the plan to be more aggressive to think regionally with partnerships,” he said.

“This plan is so important for our town,” concluded O’Neal. “Recreation is such an important part of the community.”

The PROST plan will come back to the town council later in the fall.