Town and county wrestle over 201 facilities plan with Foxtrot

Same end goal, but a really difficult journey

By Mark Reaman

In what appears to be a somewhat contentious ping-pong dialogue between the town of Crested Butte and Gunnison County about how to handle wastewater requirements with the proposed Foxtrot subdivision, the ball is back on the county’s side of the table.

While both the town and county staffs have agreed that the homes in the subdivision will have to connect to the town’s wastewater system if and when a central sewer line comes within 400 feet of the new property line, they have vigorously debated what conditions must be met before county consideration and approval of the proposed four-home development.

The town contends that under the “201 IGA” [intergovernmental agreement] signed in 1996 by the county, town, and the four wastewater treatment districts in the Upper East River Valley, Foxtrot falls into Crested Butte’s Wastewater Service Area. And because of that, the town staff feels an application to eventually connect to the town’s wastewater system from the developer must be submitted to the town before going through the county review process.

The county does not believe that the application is a necessary requirement in the current review process and has taken the stand that it cannot force an applicant to do something that is not definitively spelled out in regulations.

Crested Butte interim town manager Bill Crank told the council this week he has been spending an “inordinate amount of time” with “county matters” that partially centered on this debate.

Correspondence battles

A May 9 letter to Gunnison County Community Development director Russ Forrest from Crested Butte town planner Michael Yerman states, “The Town maintains that an application must be completed and submitted to the Town first, since the Town has established its intent to provide wastewater service to this development located in the Town’s WWSA [Wastewater Service Area].”

The letter states that the town is not willing to allow the county to conduct the required engineering review for easements that will be dedicated to the town for future infrastructure and be maintained by the town as the service provider of the extended utility.

In his letter, Yerman explains that the town is expanding the wastewater treatment plant in part based on projections of service in its service area and not just inside town. It says that under the IGA each sanitation district has adopted regulations for developments applying for service in their respective service areas. And it says the county is party to those agreements that come under the umbrella of the IGA.

The town’s letter went so far as to suggest that continued processing of the application by the county would violate the IGA, the 201 Plan, the county’s Land Use Resolution and Crested Butte town code.

At the end of the letter, Yerman, on behalf of the town, states, “Failure to require the applicant to apply to the service provider and comply with the IGA and 201 Plan first may result in the Town seeking immediate relief through judicial means.”

That tweaked county staff members, who perceived a threat of court action. Gunnison County manager Matthew Birnie responded to Yerman, “Threatening litigation before you’ve even sat down for a meeting is an unfortunate approach that is very unlikely to yield desirable results for the Town on a number of fronts.”

Yerman responded that he hoped to clear up the stance at a scheduled May 10 meeting. Birnie said the town’s position was clear and it was clearly a threat.

“You seem to see clarity of process in the IGA that isn’t actually there,” Birnie wrote. “It is entirely possible that reasonable people interpret the same language differently…. The County is unlikely to remain a party to an agreement that one of our ‘partners’ intends to use as a cudgel.”

Meetings not much better

The town and county staffs did meet May 10 but were unable to work out their differences. On May 12, they met again, this time with the developer’s attorney, David Leinsdorf, in attendance. On May 13, Crank wrote Forrest that he and Yerman thought a proposal by the county staff to approve the application with conditions was acceptable.

Crank also wrote that the town staff had “discussed the need to make changes to the ‘201’ IGA to facilitate future applications and the handling of wastewater issues and the connection to our treatment system. Obviously your board and our town council need to approve your suggested compromise in this matter…”

Forrest responded on May 16 and made it clear to Crank that it is the Board of County Commissioners that will make the final decision on the development application and not the town staff. Forrest also told Crank that the county’s processing of the Foxtrot application and the staff’s recommendations “are consistent with the IGA as currently written” with the intention to protect water quality.

Forrest, in his letter, makes the point there has been no “compromise” by the county with the 201 IGA “or its analysis of this application.”

Forrest then detailed two possible conditions of approval in regard to this issue that could be made by the Gunnison County Planning Commission. The first would require that “when a central sewer line is built to within 400 feet of the applicant’s property line of this project, the Town of Crested Butte shall have the authority to require the owner to hook onto the sewer line based on 1) then existing and 2) legal, Town requirements.”

The second condition would require that the applicant execute either a covenant or deed restriction that “runs with the land” and requires hookup when the central line comes to within 400 feet of the applicant’s property line of the project …and the “covenant and/or deed restriction expressly authorizes enforcement of this requirement by either or both the County and Town of Crested Butte.”

Council willing to go with county concept

At the May 16 Town Council meeting, the council held a 45-minute closed-door executive session about the issue. When completed, the council voted unanimously to have Crank write a letter to the BOCC accepting the county’s general proposal set forth in Forrest’s email but with a couple of conditions: The town wants to review and approve the final language prior to approval, and wants to work with the county to develop a written process for handling similar applications in the future.

That letter was sent to the BOCC Tuesday. There is a scheduled public hearing on the Foxtrot application set for Friday, May 20 at 2 p.m. in Crested Butte.

And so the ping pong ball is on the county’s side of the table—for now.