Members of the Code Rights Project are anonymous no longer.
The founders of the citizen group dedicated to examining inefficiencies in the county’s planning and building department came forward at the La Plata County Board of County Commissioners’ business meeting on Tuesday.
Over a dozen members of the group gave public comments that outlined their critiques, challenges and disappointments with the county’s planning process and land-use code.
They included property and business owners, as well as representatives from Purgatory Resort, Glacier Club and Table-to-Farm Composting.
However, no distinction was made between the founders and the financial backers and general supporters of the group.
Since its inception in 2025, the Code Rights’ founders and financial backers chose to remain anonymous out of a fear of retribution that could impact their ongoing development projects, although the county has said there has been only a single complaint of retribution in recent memory.
At the “coming out” on Tuesday, Code Rights members shared myriad critiques of the planning processing and land-use code they described as overly burdensome and costly, and driving investment, housing, and business activity elsewhere.
Code Rights director Jack Turner, who was hired to represent the group publicly, went first and provided unofficial opening remarks.
“How much each person contributed to support this effort is not the story,” he said.
Code Rights has spent at least $56,177 on records requests, consultants and promotional materials – including 29,000 mailers and social media ads since 2025, Turner told The Durango Herald in May. That number does not include Turner’s salary.
“The real story is why so many people felt compelled to dedicate their time, resources, and voices to confront a problem they believe is so serious that it must be addressed,” Turner said.
In recent years, commissioners and county staff members have undertaken a significant overhaul of the planning department. Processing times have decreased, and several redundant, time-consuming requirements have been removed following recommendations from the recently established Code Improvement Advisory Board.
Commissioner Marsha Porter-Norton said by identifying themselves as Code Rights members, that helps the county meet its goals to better serve its constituents.
“It’s always good to know who the people are, so we can hear your stories and we can hear your frustrations,” she said.
Purgatory Resort’s General Manager Dave Rathbun said the installation of the long-planned ski lift at the Gelande parking lot on the north side of the ski mountain was delayed a year because the county required the project to receive a major land-use permit despite clear ski area use in the voter approved plats.
Because of what Rathbun seemed to infer as redundant, unnecessary permitting, the resort incurred storage and delay costs and the public lost a season of lift use, he said.
Purgatory has previously said that in addition to county permits, the construction delay was due to the need for updated U.S Forest Service permits, which took longer than expected.
Both Rathbun and a Glacier Club representative expressed concern regarding the legal unpredictability around vested development agreements.
Others expressed frustration at what they viewed as arbitrary and expensive additions needed to receive permits, as well as La Plata County’s interpretation of “ex-parte communications” being too strict.
A representative of Table-to-Farm said that the process leading up to final approval and permit was “very much an uphill battle,” with “bizarre requirements that were not based in the real world.”
One example she gave: A requirement that a handicapped parking spot be built in the middle of a warehouse located on a dirt road at a farm.
Porter-Norton interject at certain points, and clarified that the county will never “willy-nilly go decide on properties.”
“We don’t decide we’re going to allow this oil and gas facility here, and this home here, and this subdivision here. … That would be horrible governance.”
Additionally, local stakeholders of the Mancos shale deposit – a potentially lucrative natural gas reserve – called for a need to overhaul the county’s overly stringent natural resource regulations.
The state’s Energy and Carbon Management Commission already has extensive, stringent regulations and the county rules are duplicative, complex, time-consuming and expensive, said Laurel Waller, whose family owns mineral rights in the deposit.
They functionally drive out energy development and devalue resident mineral rights, which she compared to an illegal “taking.”
The shared the desire of Code Rights members that came through on Tuesday: A planning department that feels less like a hostile gatekeeper and more like a partner.
“We’d like to approach (the planning department) and be able to say, ‘This is the idea. How can we work together to make this happen?” one speaker said.
Paul Black, owner of L-J Bar and Ranch, spoke of his recent decision to annex his family’s 100-acre working ranch into the town of Bayfield.
Because municipalities typically have higher levels of restrictions, regulations and hoops to jump through, Black said the decision was a “foreign concept” to agriculturists. But it made sense to Black, because he felt like the county’s planning and building departments were always focused on telling him all the ways he couldn’t do it, not how to make it work.
By comparison, the Bayfield staff admitted it didn’t fully understand agriculture, solicited his expertise to help them learn, and designed a new zone to meet the needs of property and business.
The commissioners expressed gratitude for the community feedback, and Commissioner Matt Salka emphasized they “have never once said the code is working.”
“Government is slow. Government’s frustrating,” Porter-Norton said. “… I don’t exactly know what the next step is here, but I will give all of you a commitment – and I am hearing it from my fellow commissioners – that we will have an action step here.”
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