Ten years have passed since the first Mirador Townhomes appeared on the ridgeline along Rockpoint Drive, and now phase two may begin as early as spring.
The ridge, which has a long history of residential, commercial and industrial use, rises above the Greenmount Cemetery, and development from the high point is visible from downtown.
Colloquially known as “Box on the Rocks,” the three structures of the first phase received the moniker because they were built with flat roofs to comply with city height restrictions.
The Mirador proposal first came to the city in 2006 and was granted a conditional special-use permit exempt from a public hearing or council review; the project only needed administrative approval.
Road, water and sewer infrastructure for the entire project – nine phases – was built along with phase one, with the intention of building more phases as the properties sold.
The existing homes are all owned and occupied and sold in the realm of $1 million each.
Phase two, postponed years because of the Great Recession, will entail an additional three developments along Rockpoint Drive, near the Durango Tech Center. The new construction will stick with the design of the original units.
A year ago, the development’s primary owner approached the city with a new design concept. It included metallic colors and glass in lieu of the initial, approved proposal’s stone and earth tones.
But if the concept is changed, the project would be opened up to a public review process as well as become subject to guidelines adopted since the project was first approved, including the city’s Fair Share Ordinance mandating that at least 16 percent of new housing developments must be affordable to households earning less than $85,000 a year.
And dwellers in the existing “Box on the Rocks” were adamantly opposed to an aesthetic change.
Instead, the developer returned with the initial designs, only slightly smaller units and larger setbacks. Therefore, phase two will be exempt from public review.
Developer John Wessman deferred all questions to the project’s attorney, Denny Ehlers.
“There will be more room for better visibility, less amassing on the ridgeline, a breakup of the buildings a little bit and more landscaping than the original three buildings,” Ehlers said of phase two.
The site has attracted a sequence of never-realized commercial projects over the past 30 years, including a restaurant and Hilton hotel. The latter was approved in 1984 on the parcel where the existing Mirador units sit, but the cost to build an access put a terminal number of roadblocks before the hotel’s construction.
“That area has never been a pristine, unused place,” Durango Planning Director Greg Hoch said.
In 1994, the Durango Tech Center was approved, where La Plata County building, planning and human services departments now have office space. Ten years later, City Council approved an amendment to the annexation agreement to allow residential uses on a portion of the parcel, which was supported by the Tech Center owners.
There was little reaction from the public when the proposal for Mirador was approved in 2006, though later in 2010, staff met with residents and agreed the city’s next land-use code should dissuade similar developments.
Planning staff at the time used words like “offensive” to describe the project.
But the position of planning staff in the 1990s was that residential development at least trumped the bright lights and big signs of commercial development.
Hoch said he anticipates some pushback against the new phase, despite the relative quiet surrounding the development of the first ridgeline units. He attributes that to a philosophical shift in regard to development.
“The more the town grows, the more people want to just stop it,” he said.
“It’s not easy to just stop development, stop the world, without a tremendous amount of lawsuits.”
jpace@durangoherald.com
