The Crested Butte News Serving the Gunnison Valley since 1999
It feels sometimes like we are living in plan-a-paloozaville. As tidal waves of change descend on the North Valley, it is certainly better to be prepared than not, but the number of words coming out of CB planning documents that started with Crested Butte’s Community Compass a couple years ago is setting tsunami records.
The Crested Butte town council packets put together for their meetings held every two weeks are not light and airy reading. Jam-packed with words, graphics and information, I am not sure anyone (okay, besides the mayor) can read and absorb every piece of info in those packets. I used to, but it’s getting harder and harder.
Just last Monday the council approved a couple of five-year strategic plans on housing and community spaces, touched on the Red Lady roundabout and marshal’s office expansion plans, went deep into updating the zoning code plan, appointed councilmembers to a community outreach and education committee dealing with the budget and potential second homeowner tax plan, commented on the proposed Lower Verzuh subdivision plan, learned about the delay in the county’s Brush Creek roundabout plan, saw the plan for testing the water line from town to the 252-unit Whetstone housing project and lamented the lack of a North Valley Corridor plan.
I’m not saying all these things aren’t important — most are — but when the flood of information gets overwhelming, it is hard to prioritize and balance what matters most. Should the council focus on digital signs by the school, when to mandate turning off holiday lights or plan for a future parking hellscape in Crested Butte after hundreds of new housing units are built two miles south of town? I have no idea…
One quick thing I took away from Monday’s zoning code update and five-year strategic plans is that the council might want to slow down and think deeply about the consequences of their direction, unintended and purposeful, when it comes to doing whatever they can to get as much housing as possible into every nook and cranny of town. Two things stuck out to me. If the town isn’t careful, it could easily lose the commercial district and the character of the CB mobile home park. If that happens, you start losing some of the things that make this town a real small town.
Incentivizing developers to include some deed restricted community spaces in the town’s Belleview Avenue commercial district is interesting and could be a good move. Doing it by allowing more free market housing seems at odds with a commercial district.
It’s been touched upon before but seemed glossed over Monday that putting more residences in a commercial district ultimately leads to gentrification of the zone. People and commercial uses don’t mix well. A family living above a welding garage or kids playing in the tires by the auto shop doesn’t make sense. Eventually something has to give and when developers can make money building housing, it’s likely the commercial uses get sacrificed. And that might be okay for some people. Riverland provides some commercial space as does Gunnison and maybe it’s best to push those uses out of the shiny town proper and plant trees and feature showrooms along Belleview with modern apartments located above them. Instead of mobile parts truck blocking traffic, there can be a line at the cappuccino truck.
Ever since I was on the council decades ago, I’ve believed part of what makes Crested Butte a real small town is to have a place for blue collar working people to do business. It’s harder now given real estate prices, but if the town speeds up the transformation from Belleview being a place you can get a muffler replaced to a spot where more people can buy free market crash pads for weekend ski trips, I think that’s a loss.
It’s the same in the trailer park. The council heard from residents of the trailer park that they too feel new planning decisions being discussed could ruin the uniqueness and beauty of their neighborhood. While some thought perhaps that deed restrictions were going to be mandatorily imposed on their homes, that’s not the case. But even if a few trailer lots take advantage of the town’s incentives to get deed restricted units there by allowing taller structures that could be stick-built, it changes everyone’s experience.
I like having a trailer park in town near multi-million-dollar homes. It smells real to me. And while prices for a mobile home are skyrocketing and people will inevitably cash in, I would think the council would want to preserve the feel of the trailer court. They are right to be looking at helping “the next generation of owners” afford that area. But instead of allowing bigger buildings and homes on foundations, go back to the town’s “Good Deed” program that hasn’t been used in a while. Yeah, it will cost real money, but it would be money well spent and in the tradition of incrementally adding to local housing in town. Pay the current owners a good portion of the homes’ value to put a working person deed restriction on the unit. Pay those folks upfront and pay them healthily for their equity but keep the trailer park a small unit trailer park filled with working people.
Look, I haven’t minded some of the gentrification that’s occurred since I arrived here many years ago. I like some of the conveniences. I understand the free market is changing this place. It is what it is — and it’s nothing like what I’ve seen in similar mountain resort communities. I think town has done a pretty good job over the years keeping full-time residents living in and around town. Working people being able to make a life in the North Valley is still the foundation of our small-town community — but the retention of other small-town qualities — like a trailer park, like a real working commercial district — matter as well. That’s where balance comes in. Sometimes when trying to digest a million words in a dozen planning documents, it is easy to lose your balance. Yes, you want to be prepared, but don’t be afraid to slow down and make decisions that don’t result in losing the essence of what you are trying to preserve.
—Mark Reaman
