Mountain Town News
By Allen Best
Pigs okay, not goats
CRESTED BUTTE, Colo. – Pigs, chicken and rabbits? Yes, they will be permissible in Crested Butte going forward.
Goats? No, not yet. “We wanted to start out from the narrowest point,” explained Mayor Leah Williams, who said that the town feared goats would get loose.
Whether all that many people will take advantage of the liberalized restrictions is not clear. The Crested Butte News notes that the town already has a community garden and there is sentiment for a communal livestock pen.
Breck talks with hotel developers
BRECKENRIDGE, Colo. – The Town of Breckenridge owns a prime piece of property in the middle of town and last winter got a proposal from a Maryland developer called Trinity to build a major hotel with the intent of attracting a brand name like Marriott.
Town officials didn’t say yes – but they didn’t say no. Instead, they put out a request for ideas from other developers. They now have two more proposals – for even larger hotels.
One proposal, reports the Summit Daily News, comes from a consortium of Ascent Resort Partners, Hunn Consulting Group and O’Bryan Partnership for a 253-room hotel plus 328 public parking spaces. Jackson Wolfe & Co. calls for a five-story, 150-room luxury hotel.
Whistler headed wrong way?
WHISTLER, B.C. – For whatever reason, Whistler – the community, as opposed to the ski area – seems to be headed in the wrong direction. A list of environmental barometers shows the community consuming more per capita in water, energy and materials, rather than less.
Overall, the core indicators are trending away from the community’s vision for the future, said Erin Romanchuk, sustainability planning assistant for the Whistler Centre for Sustainability. She offered no hypothesis that might explain rising per-capita resource use.
The sustainability report also has an economic component, which shows mixed results. A barometer called “heads in beds,” reflecting the tourism activity, showed a decline over the last three years. However, the summer economy seems to be doing better, notes Pique Newsmagazine.
Third grizzly dies in Banff
BANFF, Alberta – The latest grizzly bear to die in the Bow River Valley was a 5 1/2-year-old female, who wildlife biologists believed was likely to have her first set of cubs next spring.
She was killed after crawling under a wildlife fence being erected along the Trans-Canada Highway.
She is the third grizzly to die this year in the valley. Another died on the highway, and a third was hit by a train, orphaning two yearling cubs.
Banff National Park has an estimated 60 grizzly bears, and wildlife biologists believe the population can lose no more than 1.2 percent of females in any given year, based on a rolling four-year average. This death puts Banff over that target.
Squaw outlines upgrade plans
TRUCKEE, Calif. – When buying Squaw Valley last year, Denver-based KSL Capital pledged $50 million in upgrades. The Sierra Sun reports some of the specifics, including a new high-speed quad by 2012 plus increased grooming, thanks to $2.5 million for two new groomers plus a winch cat.
The ski area has also contracted with a Chicago-based firm, Levy Restaurants, to upgrade all the eateries and bars. And the existing ticket portals, described by Squaw Valley chief executive Andy Wirth as “an eyesore,” will be scrapped.
Finally, Squaw has contracted with a company that specializes in developing information systems for public transportation networks. Using LED screens, the company hopes to better figure out how to inform Squaw’s customers when terrain will open.
“I’ve worked with a lot of airlines, and if Delta can tell its customers that a flight scheduled to take off at 9 a.m. is now leaving at 9:28, why can’t we do the same for our customers,” Wirth said.
A rare retreat
BRECKENRIDGE, Colo. – Vail Resorts appears to have retreated in a standoff with the Breckenridge Town Council and other local jurisdictions over a ski area expansion. Vail, the operator of the Breckenridge ski area, wanted to expand sufficiently to accommodate an additional 1,100 skiers per day.
Local governments had negotiated a memorandum of understanding with Vail Resorts to address parking, housing and other impacts. Vail at first refused to sign it, but backed off.
The Forest Service, which ultimately decides what is allowed on the national forest, is still taking public comment. The agency has long conceptually approved of the Breckenridge ski area expansion, through its land allocation process, but does not normally approve of ski area expansions when a significant portion of the local community has heartburn over such plans, as was the case at Crested Butte.
Come on, (don’t) hear the noise
STEAMBOAT SPRINGS, Colo. – Mixed-use development – businesses on the ground-floor and residences on upper floors – has been all the rage among smart-growth advocates. It’s also been standard practice at ski towns, in base area lodges.
But what about when the band plays to midnight, imbibers revel, and upstairs somebody is trying to sleep?
Steamboat Springs city councilors have had to address that delicate balance with regulations governing its base area as well as the older downtown district, which has recently been outfitted with new residential complexes.
The new limit for noise is 60 decibels between 11 p.m. and 7 a.m. This new limit meets or exceeds what is allowed in Vail, Aspen and Telluride.
According to the Steamboat Today, bar owners said they believe it will be hard to stay below that limit. However, improved buildings may help. The new building codes specify more insulation and fire-resistant walls. These also have the consequence of blocking noise, said Carl Dunham, a building code official.
Tyler Gibbs, the city planning director, said he expects to see more mixed-use development in Steamboat, but the issue has not necessarily been resolved.
“We’ll make sure this is accomplishing what we want it to accomplish,” he said. “With mixed-use, the nightlife, the retail, the restaurants being part of the same walkable area is really key to our success.”
Backyard cottages scuttled
JACKSON, Wyo. – In a split vote, the Jackson Town Council has rejected a proposal to allow homeowners to slice off their lots for smaller cottages.
Mayor Mark Barron, who has been pushing the idea since 2004, said the move would create more affordable housing. “A ‘no’ vote conscripts renters to a life of rental and denies them an opportunity for affordable-home ownership,” he said.
Many towns and cities have been moving to allow denser housing through addition of what is often called a mother-in-law unit, more formally called an accessory dwelling unit. Currently, property owners in Jackson can do the same – building up to three units on one lot. They may retain ownership.
But the proposal in Jackson would have also allowed homeowners to then sell the new accessory unit, which there is called a cottage house.
The Jackson Hole News&Guide says the concept had been approved by a 3-2 vote in prior meetings, but this time one councilman swung to opposition. “I just wasn’t comfortable with it,” said Bob Lenz. He believes the new cottage house and lots would have been sold for prices that he doesn’t consider affordable to Jackson’s rank and file.
Mine to resume operations
LEADVILLE, Colo. – The Climax Mine, once the single largest supplier of molybdenum in the world, now looks to reopen by 2013. The mine closed in 1981 and has been open only briefly since then. Meaning, Leadville was reduced from a bustling community to a bedroom community for construction and service workers in Summit County and the Vail resort valley.
Freeport-McMoran Copper & Gold had planned to reopen the mine sooner, but those plans were interrupted by the Great Recession. With the recession, the price of molybdenum plummeted. The company said it plans to take a measured approach to resume production, starting somewhat low and then expanding if the price of molybdenum increases.
The Leadville Herald-Democrat explains that the cost of producing molybdenum is $6 at Climax and $7 at the Henderson mine, located just north of the Eisenhower Tunnel in Colorado. Molybdenum is currently selling for about $15 a pound.
The open-pit mine has been retooled to increase efficiencies. That construction is about 75 percent complete.
Pace of building a trickle
VAIL, Colo. – Even after the Great Recession descended on the United States like a dark theater curtain, multiple cranes continued to dominate the skyline over Vail, carpenters, electricians and all the rest of the fully employed.
But those big hotels are now finished, and there’s not much going on in Vail or more broadly in the Eagle Valley. The Vail Daily reports about 1,400 building inspections for the first half of the year, compared to nearly 5,700 in 2008.
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