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Board supports Buttes open space
Also recommends seasonal closures of land for wildlife
Herald Staff Writer
Members of the city board, formerly the Parks and Open Space Board, said they want to be proactive and align their priorities before developers present preliminary and conceptual designs to the Durango Planning Commission in September. Board members also asked that the project's draft plan include seasonal closures of the open space to accommodate wildlife.
Right now we have no way of controlling the deer populations in town.
- Trevor Balzer, Colorado Division of Wildlife
Twin Buttes is a planned 597-acre development west of Durango, near Lightner Creek and along U.S. Highway 160, that will incorporate commercial and retail space and about 600 clustered housing units, some of which will be designated affordable housing by the city. A conceptual map provided at the board meeting showed six small parks at the center of house clusters, a network of trails, two recreation facilities and a meditation area, dubbed a "Zen center."
The project, headed by developer Eric Flora of Lightner Creek Ranch LLC, is expected to take 10 to 15 years to complete.
In November 2008, after a contentious 25 hours of debate in five public meetings, Durango City Councilors voted 4-1 to annex the property but attached 30 conditions to it. Former Mayor Renee Parsons voted against the project. The four councilors who voted in favor of the annexation said the project could help set a standard of responsible development for years to come. They also supported the annexation in part because the developers intended to dedicate about 80 percent of the total acreage as open space.
Currently, the 280.5 acres is held by the Pauls family. If the preliminary plans are approved, the land will become part of the city and the city will oversee that open-space acreage. Other sections of open-space land will be dedicated to the Twin Buttes homeowners association and other entities.
Much of the plan has yet to be worked out, but members of the advisory board outlined a few important issues they want addressed in the preliminary designs - soft-surface trails, hunting, stocking streams with fish and seasonally closing the open space land in winter for calving and fawning.
Also included in the recommendation was a request to make a proposed high-elevation trail complete a loop around the development. Right now, the map for the development shows the trail dead-ending.
Durango Parks, Open Space and Trails Development Manager Kevin Hall outlined two reasons for the request: first, hikers will likely connect the trail on their own anyway and second, a loop of human activity could be an effective barrier to keep large wildlife away from residences.
Board member Ed Zink and Colorado Division of Wildlife representative Trevor Balzer worried that a wildlife buildup outside of town might actually help push wildlife into the city.
Hall wondered if selective hunting or harvesting should be permitted in the open spaces to control deer, elk and possibly bear populations outside of town.
"Right now we have no way of controlling the deer populations in town," said Balzer, who called the seasonal-closures issue a "deal-breaker" for the division if the condition is not included in the final plans.
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