{"id":2456321,"date":"2020-03-25T23:20:00","date_gmt":"2020-03-26T05:20:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/news\/pitkin-county-board-oks-5m-thompson-divide-purchase\/"},"modified":"2020-03-25T23:20:00","modified_gmt":"2020-03-26T05:20:00","slug":"pitkin-county-board-oks-5m-thompson-divide-purchase","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/local-news\/pitkin-county-board-oks-5m-thompson-divide-purchase\/","title":{"rendered":"Pitkin County board OKs $5M Thompson Divide purchase"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\n

The Thompson Divide appeared on the agenda for Wednesday\u2019s Pitkin County commissioner meeting, but the topic had nothing to do with oil and gas exploration.<\/p>\n

Instead the county board voted unanimously to give preliminary approval to Pitkin County\u2019s Open Space and Trails program to spend up to $5 million to buy more than 400 acres in the Divide south of Sunlight Ski Area.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s right in the heart of the Thompson Divide,\u201d said Dale Will, acquisitions director for the open space program. \u201cThis (purchase) will prevent the wrong sort of owner from subdividing it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The money for the purchase will come from the open space program \u2014 which is funded by a Pitkin County property tax \u00ad\u2014 as well as an $854,000 grant from Great Outdoors Colorado, which invests state lottery profits in outdoor amenities.<\/p>\n

A preliminary appraisal of the 406-acre property \u2014 which Will on Wednesday called \u201cThompson Divide Ranch\u201d \u2014 came in at $4.5 million. Pitkin County will pay up to $5 million for the property based on a final appraisal yet to be completed, Will said.<\/p>\n

If the final appraisal is higher than $5 million, the family that owns the three contiguous parcels will be able to take a charitable tax deduction on the difference. Will said he\u2019s grateful the family, which has owned the property for decades and wants to remain anonymous, came to the open space program first when they decided to sell.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a lot like Owl Creek up there,\u201d Will said, referring to the picturesque valley between Aspen and Snowmass Village. \u201cIt\u2019s a big aspen grove around an open meadow.\u201d<\/p>\n

The area also represents valuable elk calving habitat, and the Colorado Department of Parks and Wildlife is interested in co-managing it for that reason, he said.<\/p>\n

If the property sold on the open market, current zoning would allow subdivision of up to 13 lots for luxury home development, according to Will\u2019s memo about the property to commissioners.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd there\u2019s no limit to house size up there,\u201d he said Wednesday.<\/p>\n

County open space officials don\u2019t expect an uptick in visitation to the property once the sale goes through, Will said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019d like to keep that backcountry as quiet as possible for the wildlife that live back there,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The Thompson Divide stretches from Sunlight Ski Area outside Glenwood Springs to McClure Pass and encompasses 221,500 acres of federal land in the White River and Gunnison national forests. The Divide includes portions of Pitkin County, Garfield County, Gunnison County, Mesa County and Delta County, though the purchase approved Wednesday includes only areas within Pitkin County.<\/p>\n

The Thompson Divide, located southwest of Carbondale, was in the news in recent years because of a fight over oil and gas exploration leases on Bureau of Land Management property in the area. The leases were later canceled by the agency.<\/p>\n

Commissioners will vote on final approval for the sale April 8.<\/p>\n

jauslander@aspentimes.com<\/a><\/p>\n

via:: The Aspen Times<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Thompson Divide appeared on the agenda for Wednesday\u2019s Pitkin County commissioner meeting, but the topic had nothing to do with oil and gas exploration. Instead the county board voted unanimously to give preliminary approval to Pitkin County\u2019s Open Space and Trails program to spend up to $5 million to buy more than 400 acres […]<\/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-2456321","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-30 00:08:01","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\/2456321","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=2456321"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2456321\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2456321"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2456321"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2456321"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}