The La Plata County Board of Adjustments on Wednesday rejected an unprecedented appeal brought by local residents questioning a neighbor’s dumping activities on his Animas Valley property.
For the past 16 years, longtime Animas Valley resident Larry Simmons has allowed commercial trucks to dump various types of fill on his 35-acre property to elevate the land in compliance with floodplain regulations to build a single-family residence. But over the years, the fill has risen, but no house has been built.
If Simmons intends to build only a single-family residence as he asserts, he does not need a land-use permit from the county. But his neighbors Anne Markward and Jane Gerstenburger maintain the amount and nature of dumping by approximately 15 commercial trucks on the property warrants such authorization. Moreover, they claimed the proposed house was a pretense and Simmons might be profiting from the trucks that haul to his property.
After hearing testimony from both sides, the Board of Adjustments, a quasi-judicial entity, rejected the appeal by a 2-2 vote, which means Simmons can continue operating without a land-use permit. The appeal needed a unanimous vote to be successful.
Board members Steve Barkley and Jack Cassidy voted to deny the appeal; Frank Lockwood and Ashley Ager voted to grant it.
Based on estimates provided by local engineer Cap Allen, who has lived and worked on houses in the area since the 1970s, the fill on the Simmons property has expanded to 5 acres, 20 feet high, or 80,000 cubic yards, according to the appellants. Simmons contends the fill covers just less than three acres presently and will cover 3.79 when all is said and done. But from a legal standpoint, the amount is irrelevant. County code limits neither how much fill can be hauled onto a property nor the size of the house built.
Allen estimated that Simmons would have to pay at least $900,000 to haul the fill in himself to build his house, which convinced some board members that while Simmons’ circumstances are unusual, the cost savings make sense.
But those for the appeal were skeptical about the potential for economic gain for Simmons and the lack of a house after 16 years.
“It stretches my imagination that someone would allow people to dump for 16 years out of the goodness of their heart,” Lockwood said. “And I don’t know how many people dream about building a single-family residence without doing much about it.”
The appellants said he could be receiving payment from trucks hauling there, including his son’s company Tuf 2 Top. Factoring in tipping fees for dumping and the money firms save by not having to haul to the dump site in Bondad, Simmons could be saving millions of dollars, they said.
Simmons denied taking money from any of the companies that haul to his property. The county and city have also dumped at the property in the past, but have ceased doing so in recent months pending the results of the appeal.
He added that he only dumps soil, concrete, asphalt and rock – no illegal materials. But he admitted he had no procedure for monitoring that only legal fill is dumped.
Simmons’ attorney, Tom Dugan, said there was “absolutely no evidence” to contradict Simmons’ intent to build a house, asserting that the neighbors simply don’t like the dumping in their backyards. But the appellants maintained Simmons has exceeded the necessary amount of fill by far if he really means to build a house.
“This filling for 17 years is not for a single-family residence; it far exceeds that,” said Amy Huff, who represented the appellants. “By claiming it’s for elevating property, he is exploiting a loophole in county code, and the county is looking the other way as he uses (his property) as an unregulated dumping ground.”
jpace@durangoherald.com
