{"id":1309998,"date":"2019-05-06T19:20:45","date_gmt":"2019-05-07T01:20:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.postindependent.com\/?p=977627"},"modified":"2019-05-06T19:20:45","modified_gmt":"2019-05-07T01:20:45","slug":"flying-m-ranch-housing-decision-postponed-as-traffic-concerns-being-weighed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/local-news\/flying-m-ranch-housing-decision-postponed-as-traffic-concerns-being-weighed\/","title":{"rendered":"Flying M Ranch housing decision postponed as traffic concerns being weighed"},"content":{"rendered":"
Looking northeast toward the Riverview School from the Ironbridge Golf Course and Westbank neighborhood.<\/strong>
Chelsea Self<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Traffic, lighting, density and urban disruption dominated a continued public hearing about a proposed mixed-use development south of Glenwood Springs Monday, pitting developers against the neighboring community.<\/p>\n

The Garfield County Board of County Commissioners continued a public hearing<\/a> on the proposed Flying M Ranch development near the Riverview School to May 20, to give staff time to review comments from the Colorado Department of Transportation about the traffic impacts.<\/p>\n

CDOT responded to an updated traffic study just hours before the Monday hearing, and staff did not have time to review it before the 1 p.m. hearing.<\/p>\n

The owners of the land, under the company Eastbank LLC, are pressing developer Robert Macgregor, who was a major player in the Glenwood Meadows project, to begin soon and take advantage of the 2019 construction season.<\/p>\n

The project includes affordable housing in the form of tiny homes and townhouses, plus several business spaces, improvements to a trail along the Roaring Fork River, and potentially a community center and a hospice\/elder care facility.<\/p>\n

The Westbank homeowners association has mixed feelings about the prospect of tiny home development, with some saying the traffic is a great concern, Steven Beattie, partner at the Glenwood law firm Beattie, Houpt and Jarvis, said at the hearing.<\/p>\n

But the townhome and condominium units that the developers propose are unacceptable, Beattie said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are unanimous in the proposition that, to put this kind of unit directly across the street, the river from Westbank is completely inappropriate,\u201d Beattie said.<\/p>\n

One major sticking point is the height. Westbank homeowners are limited to 25 feet, but at one point, Eastbank LLC sought a 35-foot height limit for the proposed multi-family units. Eastbank amended their application with a 30-foot limit for the condos, and a 25-foot height limit for single-family homes.<\/p>\n

\u201cRight now, you have people who are ready and willing to do something new here, and I ask that you\u2019d give them a chance,\u201d Macgregor told the commissioners Monday.<\/p>\n

Generally, neighbors see the development as too dense. The project would be far more dense than the surrounding rural-suburban area, proposing 228 living units on 33 acres.<\/p>\n

\u201cEverything in this part is zoned rural, and that\u2019s why many folks live here. We don\u2019t want to live in the city, so why change it?\u201d said John Haines, a Westbank resident.<\/p>\n

The project doesn\u2019t fit any more than the proposed storage unit near Catherine Store in Carbondale, Haines said.<\/p>\n

Commissioner Mike Samson commented that the storage unit projects, which the board rejected<\/a> in April, would be welcome developments in western Garfield County. Haines suggested that perhaps this development would be better suited to the western part of the county, as well.<\/p>\n

Macgregor said later in the hearing that, suggesting the development be sent west was \u201ca whistle call to the class system\u201d and a disservice to the workforce that teaches in area schools and works in restaurants and at golf courses.<\/p>\n

A housing needs survey presented in late April<\/a> found that just 19,000 out of 47,000 employed residents of the Roaring Fork and Colorado River valleys live where they work.<\/p>\n

tphippen@postindependent.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

via:: Post Independent<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Looking northeast toward the Riverview School from the Ironbridge Golf Course and Westbank neighborhood.Chelsea Self Traffic, lighting, density and urban disruption dominated a continued public hearing about a proposed mixed-use development south of Glenwood Springs Monday, pitting developers against the neighboring community. The Garfield County Board of County Commissioners continued a public hearing on the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[160],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1309998","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-16 21:10:25","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSKE Ski Country","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1309998","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1309998"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1309998\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1309998"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1309998"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1309998"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}