Driveway standards have long been a hot issue in rural La Plata County. County staff held a community meeting on the issue on Sept. 17.
Upper Pine Fire Marshal Tom Kaufman was among those who commented, as reported to the Upper Pine district board the next day. Deputy Chief Roy Vreeland said, "There are (county) standards, but they haven't been enforced. The impression Tom got was, the commissioners don't want to enforce driveway standards." They would apply to new construction.
Vreeland cited driveways with grades above 10 percent, even up to 18 percent. "The attitude is, 'It's my land and I'll do what I want,'" he said.
Chief Bruce Evans commented by phone conference call, "It's a battle between Butch Knowlton's office and (Durango Fire District Chief) Noonan. They don't want to do the work. Their attitude is it's the homeowner's responsibility."
But if the house catches fire and firefighters don't respond because of the driveway, it can catch the neighbor's house on fire too, he said. "It's community risk, not just responsibility of the individual homeowners. We are ramping up with more rhetoric to try to convince the (county) planning commission to do the right thing."
Evans told the Times, "We won't commit equipment on a driveway that's not safe or that we can't get out of, an escape route if the fire blows up. We have driveways that have put our people at risk already."
He gave the example of trying to get an ambulance up a driveway in winter, even with chains and four wheel drive.
It's a risk for people with health emergencies too. Some older subdivisions have very steep roads. "We had a cardiac arrest at the top of Tween Lakes. We couldn't get the ambulance up there," Evans said.
"What the argument has come down to is a fundamental difference in what the fire departments believe, that we are all a community, that if your area burns, the neighbors may be at risk too, even if they are properly prepared," Evans said.
"The other camp is saying it's an over-reach of government, and people should do whatever they want with their driveway and pay the consequences if they don't do the right thing," he said.
The driveway standards would apply only to new construction, he said. "We aren't saying your existing driveway has to be modified. Some of the strongest opposition is coming from people who want to subdivide on a cul de sac and don't want to upgrade. They say it will be cost prohibitive to develop."
The Sept. 17 meeting was a prelude to taking the standards to the County Planning Commission.
The proposed standards say a driveway can provide access to two legally created lots or three dwelling units with a maximum 24 average vehicle trips per day (ADT). Beyond that the driveway has to meet additional road design standards.
The standards require the applicant to get a driveway permit from the County Public Works Department before they can get a building permit or administrative class I or II land use permit.
The proposed general standard driveway width is 12 feet wide with 2 foot clear zones on either side for straight road sections, and 16 feet with 2 foot clear on either side for curved sections. Curves must have a minimum 35 foot turning radius on the center line.
The driveway surface must have a minimum 4 inches of 3/4 inch minus aggregate on a compacted sub-grade. The proposal says, "The public works director may require that a Colorado-licensed engineer certify the design and construction of a driveway to ensure that it can support a 60,000 pound vehicle."
The maximum grade is an average 10 percent, with a maximum 12 percent in any part of the driveway.
Driveways longer than 400 feet would have to have turnarounds for 35-foot-long emergency vehicles. Driveways longer than 800 feet would have to have turnouts every 400 feet.
The standards require visible address signs where the driveway connects with the road.
The standards list situations where waivers might be granted.
In his presentation at the Sept. 17 meeting, Durango Fire Chief Noonan said the International Fire Code is updated every three years, but the county didn't adopt an update through the 1990s and 2000s. In 2010 the county adopted the 2003 code, which doesn't cover driveways.
Noonan said 62 percent of the top four requested emergency services in a community survey require adequate roads and driveways. He showed a picture of fire truck sitting on its top from an October 2007 call on a driveway less than 12 feet wide.
Evans said the county is behind on the fire code it has adopted. "Some of this is in the modern fire code," he said.
Driveway standards or not, he said, "The 800-pound gorilla will be the insurance industry. If the driveway isn't up to snuff, it's not insurable. So it can't get financing... We have to make sure these homes can be insurable."
