The Steamboat Pilot & Today

The developers of two projects that seek to amend the urban growth boundary are honing in on their projects’ public benefits after Steamboat 700 and two other projects lost their bids to extend the boundary Tuesday.

“We’re just going to keep going forward,” Tony Connell, a partner in the proposed 360 Village project west of Steamboat Springs, said Thursday. “We have a different story than (Steamboat 700). So we just hope everybody hears it and sees our public benefit.”

Lyman Orton also stressed the advantages associated with his proposed Emerald Mountain neighborhood and said city and county officials must ask themselves whether there is any level of public benefit high enough to overcome their reluctance to extend the boundary.

“We really feel like we offer a significantly higher amount of public benefit than any other project out there,” Orton said Thursday.

The UGB is a provision of the Steamboat Springs Area Community Plan that delineates land appropriate and not appropriate for urban development. It is a precursor to annexation. The Routt County Board of Commissioners voted, 3-0, against Steamboat 700’s request to extend the urban growth boundary by 185 acres at a joint meeting with the Steamboat Springs City Council on Tuesday. Although council approved the application, 4-2, amendments to the community plan must receive joint approval. Two smaller projects also failed after being turned down by both elected bodies.

Neither 360 Village nor the Emerald Mountain neighborhood proposals were heard Tuesday. Orton has changed his application and requested it be remanded to the city and county planning commissions. The developers of 360 Village requested a postponement to the next joint meeting of council members and commissioners, Sept. 16.

One of the major stumbling blocks for Steamboat 700 and any application to extend the growth boundary is that there are about 1,000 acres of yet-to-be-developed land within the existing UGB. A provision of the Steamboat Springs Area Community Plan states areas within the UGB should be “largely built-out before the community expands the boundary.”

“It’s key,” Routt County Commissioner Diane Mitsch Bush said Wednesday while explaining her votes against UGB expansion. “It’s the whole notion of how do you keep sprawl from occurring. There’s a much larger issue here that goes beyond Steamboat 700. … The community has stated again and again that we don’t want sprawl.”

Developers and some council members who favored expansion have expressed frustration with a strict adherence to the policies governing the UGB.

“While that theory seems to make sense, in our case, most of the 1,000 as yet undeveloped acres inside the UGB belong to two property owners,” City Council President Loui Antonucci wrote in a letter read in his absence from Tuesday’s meeting. “I am concerned that by refusing to include additional properties we may create a situation in which the market may be controlled by a few developers.”

On Wednesday, Councilman Jon Quinn said it’s not the role of the city’s and county’s elected officials to strictly interpret the plan as it is written, like planning commissioners. He said conditions have changed since the plan was written and that elected officials should consider current circumstances and all the information at hand to make a decision that is in the best interests of the community.

Councilman Scott Myller agreed. Referring to Steamboat 700, Myller said it would have been a good gesture to extend the UGB in light of the public benefits associated with the project. It would have given Steamboat 700 “more room to be generous,” Myller said.

“I think that the two boards — the county commissioners and the City Council — as well as the planning commissions, need to ask the questions of themselves, is there any amount of public benefit to a project that outweighs their concern of building out the existing urban growth boundary?” Orton said.

If the county commissioners are unwilling to take Quinn’s “broader view,” Myller, Orton and others said it is a complete waste of time and money to take UGB amendment applications in the first place.

Mitsch Bush agreed that the process is a tough one, but she said it is unfair to call the process pointless.

“Until we see some build-out in areas that are already within the urban growth boundary, it’s going to be very difficult,” Mitsch Bush said. “I wouldn’t say impossible.”

While the developers of 360 Village and the Emerald Mountain neighborhood intend to press on, they also intend to polish their messages.

“Clearly there’s a reality check,” Towny Anderson, who is representing Orton, said Thursday. “Clearly the commissioners are very concerned about the policy compatibility.”

Connell said 360 Village must make a “stronger play” than it has in previous meetings with the city’s and county’s planning commissions and stress the project’s proposed affordable housing component, playing fields, trail connections and other amenities.

“The community needs are not being met with housing,” Connell said. “I’m just hoping everybody looks at it and sees how behind we are on these unmet needs.”