continued<\/a> from March 18.<\/p>\nTom Jankovsky moved to approve the first proposal from Blue Mountain Garfield, LLC, which wanted to build a climate-controlled storage facility across from Catherine\u2019s Store on County Road 100 and Highway 82 because the applicant had followed the development code, and he thought the free market should decide what businesses would work at that location.<\/p>\n
\u201cI personally believe in the free enterprise system, and the market will win out on if there\u2019s additional need or not,\u201d Jankovsky said.<\/p>\n
Blue Mountain\u2019s attorney, Chad Lee of Balcomb & Green, pointed out that some of the opposition to the proposed self-storage facility came from other storage owners.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs far as we can tell, they even set up a nonprofit to oppose this,\u201d Lee said, apparently referring to the Down Valley Small Business Alliance, which sent out mailers to neighbors about the \u201cbig box\u201d development.<\/p>\n
Many members of the public spoke about the lack of a storage crisis and the actual housing crisis in the valley.<\/p>\n
Diana Alcantara, who lives near Catherine Store, said the land, especially on the eastern side of the county, should be preserved for housing and job-creating projects.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t see that either of those are being addressed here,\u201d Alcantara said. \u201cPeople who can afford to keep their belongings and their wine in a climate-controlled environment will be using it. I don\u2019t know that anybody in my neighborhood will be,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe lighting would be worse, the traffic would be worse, and everybody in this room would be here again saying, \u2018No, it needs to stay a pasture,\u2019\u201d Jankovsky said. \u201cAll I can say is, if somebody wants it to stay a pasture, they need to buy it, own it themselves and leave it a pasture.\u201d<\/p>\n
Commissioner Mike Samson said he was moved by the public opposition to the Blue Mountain proposal. \u201cI think, that people are desperately trying to say, \u2018We\u2019re trying to save our valley,\u2019\u201d Samson said. \u201cIt\u2019s going to be tougher and tougher to do that, because there\u2019s going to be more and more pressure.\u201d<\/p>\n
Samson added that western Garfield County would welcome the same project.<\/p>\n
For commission Chair John Martin, keeping the T.O. Ranch as a residential subdivision was critical.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am standing on a commitment that I also made, that I am not going to yield in reference to the needs of another county, and be their bedroom community, and be their storage place,\u201d Martin said in reference to neighboring Pitkin County..<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not that I\u2019m against storage. In fact, this is a beautifully designed facility. I just think that I need to stay with what I agreed \u2026 and that is to put housing in the eastern part (of Garfield County),\u201d Martin said.<\/p>\n
The commissioners were unanimous in opposing the GO Self Storage facility at the former location of Planted Earth for access concerns.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a great building, but not in the right location, due to access and compatibility,\u201d Martin said.<\/p>\n
Jankovsky said he was committed to not allowing projects that directed traffic across 82 without a traffic signal.<\/p>\n
via:: The Aspen Times<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Carbondale residents won a battle against encroaching development Monday as the Garfield County commissioners denied applications for two self-storage facilities along Highway 82. The two proposed storage buildings were of similar size \u2014 just under 100,000 square feet and nearly 40 feet high \u2014 and both were opposed by county staff. One facility, proposed by […]<\/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":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2442992","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 18:27:46","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":"KSPN The Valley's Quality Rock","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2442992","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2442992"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2442992\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2442992"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2442992"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2442992"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}