Developers of Hunt Ranch on Missouri heights above Carbondale to ask for delay

Want time to address county’s concerns

By Phillip Yates
Post Independent Staff
Glenwood Springs, CO Colorado
March 12, 2008

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MISSOURI HEIGHTS — The developers behind Hunt Ranch, a proposed 561-acre subdivision on historic ranchland in Missouri Heights, will ask the Garfield County Planning Commission to delay consideration of their preliminary plan for the development until another meeting.

The county’s Planning Commission is scheduled to consider the plan today, but since county building and planning staff had concerns with it, the developers behind the project want to address those before they present it to planning commissioners, said Bill Jacobson, a managing partner of Hunt Ranch LLC, the company behind the development.

At least one member of the development team will be at the meeting to ask the Planning Commission for a continuance of the matter, Jacobson said.

When the planning commissioners formally consider the plan for Hunt Ranch, they will vote on a recommendation to the county commissioners, who will make the final call on the subdivision,

Hunt Ranch LLC, which lists an address in Vail, submitted the preliminary plan to the county in December. The Hunt Ranch subdivision calls for 93 lots on 204 acres of the 561-acre parcel — or one unit per six acres in the planned development north of Highway 82 above Carbondale and Basalt.

Each lot in the proposed subdivision would be at least 2 acres in size, which complies with the agricultural, residential and rural density zoning designation in the area, according to the plan.

Jacobson said he and the other partners behind the project received a letter from the county about the preliminary plan last week. However, they haven’t yet been able to meet with county officials “to go through the many comments they had,” Jacobson said.

A copy of the letter that stated the county’s concerns about the project wasn’t immediately available late Tuesday.

“Some of the comments are very, very minimal in nature,” Jacobson said. “But we have to answer them. We appreciate and fully respect what (the county’s) comments are.”

A rough sketch of the development was presented to the planning commission in May 2006. That meeting drew several area residents, who said they were concerned about the density of the project, the traffic it will create and its potential impacts on the area’s already taxed water resources.

Contact Phillip Yates: 384-9117
pyates@postindependent.com