WILDLIFE, WANTS AND WON’TS

Western Developments Produce Changing Shades of Gray Zones

By Headwaters News, 3-01-07

Affordable housing, wildlife habitat and open space – all are issues of concern to communities in the Rocky Mountain West.  But unintended consequences of a buildling moratorium in one Colorado city are hobbling affordable housing efforts there.  Concerns about wildlife habitat compelled the Idaho Fish and Game Department to issue an uncommon protest against a proposed development in Blaine County.  And a desire to keep a cluster of new homes from cluttering up open space at the confluence of a Montana river and a prized blue-ribbon trout stream led to the creation of a zoning tool known as a citizen-initiated zoning proposal – a zoning district created at the behest of a group of concerned residents who opposed an Oregon developer’s plan to build 36 homes on 505 acres on Rock Creek.

The Aspen Times reports that the Aspen City Council, which had enacted a 10-month moratorium on building projects last April — voted on Wednesday to extend that deadline to May 31, 2007.  That decision also denied the request by proponents of an affordable housing project that the project be exempted from the moratorium.  Citing the resort town’s obvious need for affordable housing, members of the Aspen/Pitkin County Housing Authority urged the City Council to exempt projects that would allow the demolition of 25 low-cost rental apartments, 14 at the private Park Avenue complex and 11 at the city’s Smuggler Mountain, and replace them with 22 units of affordable housing on the two sites.

But the Council denied the exemption, putting the projects on hold until after the moratorium expires on May 31.

In Idaho, the Cove Springs development in Blaine County garnered a rare thumbs-down from the Idaho Department of Fish and Game.  The Idaho Mountain Express reports that wildlife agency officials criticized the developers for their unwillingness to work with the agency to alleviate concerns about the effect of the proposed 338 housing units on 600 acres of a 4,630-acre ranch five miles south of Bellevue. 

The developers argued that their plan to concentrate the homes on approximately an eighth of the total available acres, and to protect more than half of the 4,360 acres permanently as wildlife, shows the developers’ commitment to protect wildlife.

But wildlife officials said the location of the housing, along with the introduction of more than 1,000 new residents, would impact elk, deer and sage grouse populations.  The Blaine County Planning and Zoning Commission also heard concerns about the development’s impact on area groundwater and surface water supplies.  The zoning board continued its review of the Cove Springs development to March 8.

In Montana, where an Oregon developer’s plan to develop a 505-acre parcel of land that lies at the confluence of Rock Creek and the Clark Fork River in Missoula County, led to nearly a year of legal wrangling, a petition drive by concerned citizens to establish a zoning district and a decision by the county’s three commissioners, sitting as the planning and zoning commission, that a citizen initiated zoning district could be created.

The Missoulian today reports that the Deputy Missoula County Attorney says no zoning rules were created by the commissioners as they could not agree on a housing density for the site.

Members of the Rock Creek Protective Association, the citizens’ group formed in protest of the planned subdivision, said they’ll try to buy the land from the developer, although he has reportedly turned down an offer that essentially doubled what he originally paid for the property.

Meanwhile, the developer said work will continue on the subdivision – and Missoula County Commissioners promised to continue to work on the zoning district that, for now, has no rules.

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