{"id":797241,"date":"2019-06-30T15:08:24","date_gmt":"2019-06-30T21:08:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.summitdaily.com\/?p=368023"},"modified":"2019-07-01T07:51:53","modified_gmt":"2019-07-01T13:51:53","slug":"frisco-considers-new-wetlands-preservation-project-in-response-to-homeowner-concerns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/local-news\/frisco-considers-new-wetlands-preservation-project-in-response-to-homeowner-concerns\/","title":{"rendered":"Frisco considers new wetlands preservation project in response to homeowner concerns"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
A stream flows through the Frisco wetlands Thursday, June 27, in Frisco.<\/strong>
Hugh Carey \/ hcarey@summitdaily.com<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

FRISCO \u2014 Frisco has some new plans for the required wetlands mitigation project west of Meadow Creek Park following pushback from homeowners who feared a water diversion would hit their property values.<\/p>\n

The town is considering efforts to preserve an almost 11-acre parcel north of Hawn Drive in perpetuity \u2014 a move officials hope will return the wetlands to their natural state and satisfy concerns from nearby residents.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re not necessarily doing additional mitigation work, but we would protect this whole wetlands area in perpetuity, giving the neighbors some assurances that there will never be additional development between them and the Whole Foods and that area,\u201d said Chris Guarino, a consultant with NV5. \u201cIt protects far more wetlands \u2026 and that\u2019s what led us here today.\u201d<\/p>\n

Earlier this year, Frisco launched into the Big Dig project<\/a> as part of the Frisco Bay Marina Master Plan, a major excavation of 85,000 cubic yards of dirt from the reservoir\u2019s lakebed. As part of the project, the town disturbed about 1.03 acres of wetlands and is required by the Army Corps of Engineers to replace the wetlands via restoration projects at a two-to-one ratio, or about 2.1 acres.<\/p>\n

In May, representatives with AlpineEco Consulting proposed two sites for the mitigation, including 0.41 acres north of Hawn Drive and 1.7 acres at the Willow Preserve Open Space. The proposal would have diverted water from a privately owned channel running along the north side of Hawn Drive, rallying some homeowners to speak out against the plans<\/a> because they believe losing the water feature would negatively impact their property values.<\/p>\n

Some residents, like Bastiaan Pot, who\u2019s lived along the creek for more than a decade, said the proposal might be more tolerable if there were an effort to protect the area from further development in the future. In response, town staff and consultants reached back out to the Army Corps with the new idea.<\/p>\n

The new proposal, which town staff said the Army Corps responded to positively, calls for the originally planned restoration of 0.41 acres north of Hawn Drive along with the preservation of 10.9 acres between Basecamp and Hawn Drive. The 1.7 acres in the Willow Preserve no longer would be part of the project. Of note, the switch in plans would end up shaving more than $200,000 off the original $360,500 price tag for the project.<\/p>\n

\n
\n
An outline of the proposed wetlands preservation project, which includes 10.9 acres west of Meadow Creek Park.<\/strong>
Town of Frisco via AlpineEco Consulting<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s a really great gesture on behalf of the town,\u201d said Pot, who said the new proposal helped to ease his mind. \u201cIt shows their willingness to expand conservation efforts as well as listen to the feedback of homeowners. Many of our concerns were with the potential loss of property value, and losing the creek could adversely affect that. But there\u2019s also the aspect of conservation, and if they\u2019re going to do all that work, then why not protect the whole area? It\u2019s really great they heard us out and listened to our ideas and put that into practice.\u201d<\/p>\n

Other residents still wanted additional assurances that the town would work to protect their property values.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t want to be obstructionists, but we don\u2019t want our property values going down,\u201d said Nancy Partyka, another Hawn Drive resident. \u201cI would like to see something in writing \u2026 that says, \u2018We will try to work with you as best we can to keep that creek going, and not just dump dirt in it and dump plants in it.\u2019 I want something in writing that says what your intention is, that you will work with homeowners, and that you will actually try to do stuff so we have a flow.\u201d<\/p>\n

Guarino said the ultimate goal of the project is to return the wetlands to their natural state, turning the clock back to before a diversion was placed in the floodplain in the 1970s. Guarino continued to say that in an ideal scenario, the move would naturally encourage water to flow to the privately held channel, though it wasn\u2019t a guarantee.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is truly to continue the flow and natural functions of the wetlands, which is beneficial to the flora and fauna that love this area so much,\u201d Guarino said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe goal is to encourage as much of this water to go towards the south and exit the town property as much as possible towards those private lands, and hopefully have a win-win scenario,\u201d he said. \u201cThe non-guarantee, of course, is nature doing what it wants. Wetlands tend to shift over time.\u201d <\/p>\n

Ultimately, town officials directed staff to move forward with the new proposal. The land is owned by the town and zoned as an open space district, meaning the Town Charter already restricts the land from being leased or sold without a public vote but doesn\u2019t limit the council\u2019s ability to grant licenses, permits or easements on the land. In addition to final approval from the Army Corps, the project also would require the town council to pass an ordinance dedicating the conservation easement to a land trust, which would protect the area in perpetuity.<\/p>\n

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

A stream flows through the Frisco wetlands Thursday, June 27, in Frisco.Hugh Carey \/ hcarey@summitdaily.com FRISCO \u2014 Frisco has some new plans for the required wetlands mitigation project west of Meadow Creek Park following pushback from homeowners who feared a water diversion would hit their property values. The town is considering efforts to preserve an […]<\/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":[99],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-797241","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-17 09:56:31","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":"KSMT The Mountain","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/797241","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=797241"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/797241\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":797245,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/797241\/revisions\/797245"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=797241"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=797241"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=797241"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}