GVCA Journal for 03/28/05
Summary:

Really, I'm not sure about the number at all, but perhaps if I can't
remember, you can't either.

Topics this week:

1) Design standards
    City council heard from Diane Lothamer about the PUD aspect, and the
slog through the standards continued onThursday.

2) Our Fund-raiser
    Don't forget to buy your ticket/encourage your friends to buy theirs for
the chili benefit dinner next Saturday. If you wanted to go to the MAA crab
feed instead, too late -- it's sold out. Spend your money with us instead!

3) Council candidates
    If you read your newspaper last week, you know there were 12 people who
had taken out petitions as of last Wednesday. How many have turned theirs
back in is not confirmed, although it was only at 4 last week.

4) County Comprehensive Plan
    We finally got a representative to one of the county's master plan
meetings, the one on recreation and tourism.

5) The Three-Mile Joint Meeting
    Not a meeting about a very long illegal cigarette, but last week's
gathering between city and county planning commissions, attended by a few of
us as well.

6) Request for an Audience
    Potential city council candidate (or maybe he already turned his
petition in and is a full-fledged candidate) Jim Pike has asked to attend
one of our GVCA meetings.

7)  Farmers' Market Update
    Karen went to a scheduled meeting a couple of weeks ago, and waited with
three other potential volunteers, but none of the organizers showed up.  We
are still waiting to hear if our offer to do PR will be acted on.

8) Town Meeting with our State Rep
    Kathleen Curry will be at the Gunnison Arts Center at 1p.m. Sunday
(April 3). The event is sponsored by the League of Women Voters, and I
believe Kathleen is planning to accept questions from her constituents.

Details:

All the gory details:

1) Design Standards
    Following a planning meeting in which the planning commission recognized
the sad state of the existing PUD ordinance and Thomas Smits figured out --
finally -- that a PUD wasn't what he wanted all along, even though he
managed to hold things up for at least a month with his demand that one be
added, the commission sent Diane Lothamer to council to tell them that.

Backed by several of her colleagues, also in attendance, Diane explained to
the council that the commission wasn't ignoring the PUD out of spite or
anything else, but that it feels the PUD (Planned Unit Development) needs to
be reworked as part of the Land Development Code (LDC) discussion that's
supposed to spring from the master plan process, assuming we ever get back
to that.

Thomas did not mention to council, as he did to commission, that he doesn't
share Stu Ferguson's vision of offering flexibility that will result in
something better than design standards. His stated goal, as it turned out,
was to give Wal-Mart and presumably other big boxes a means of avoiding the
design requirements. Now there's a surprise. At least his resignation was
accepted unanimously by council.

On our behalf, Richard Karas presented to the council a memo listing
Wal-Mart's documented concerns with the standards as they appeared in
November, and the response in subsequent versions of the standards. As Diane
noted, it's a much different document now.

So, without the concern of adding PUD language, the planning commission
started in on yet another version of design standards. We got through a
record 13 or 14 pages! However, we have that many and one or two more to get
through this week (Wednesday, starting at 5:30). That leaves absolutely no
time to review the corrections, adjustments and changes before the scheduled
public hearing, which takes place the following Wednesday.

On Tuesday night, Jesse Stone stated his preference: that the sitting
council conduct the first reading of the ordinance, but the new council
conducts the second. Whether he views this as an opportunity for a good
transition or  just wants to be relieved of responsibility isn't clear. We
need to find out if the second reading has to take plaec a set number of
days from the first reading, since the moratorium has been extended to June
30 for the express purpose of allowing a new council to come up to speed on
the issue.

We did note at our Sunday GVCA meeting that the only council candidate in
attendance at these meetings last week was Ellen Harriman. Jonathan Houck,
who is not yet an official candidate, was also present for both council and
for commission, of which he is a member.


2) Our Fund-raiser
    Chili supper at Farrells' Restaurant Saturday, 5-7:30 p.m.!  ALL --
every last bit -- of the money brought in will go to the 9 Health Fair to be
used for vouchers for locals who can't afford to pay for the blood
screenings at the Fair on April 9. Patrick and Judith are donating their
food costs as well as the use of their restaurant.

Several people have volunteered to assist, but Patrick is still working out
logistics. Too much help often ends up becoming a hindrance instead, but we
would love to see everyone's shining face there as a chili consumer. You can
buy your ticket from some of us GVCA members (I still have four that need
good homes), or from either Farrells' or at the Firebrand.

The cost is $10 for chili (meat or vegetarian), corn bread and a brownie.
Libations are extra, and additional donations will be gratefully accepted.

Hopefully the paper will run something about it this week, and did anyone
put reader ads in the Shopper?


3)  Council candidates

    In addition to an excellent candidate in Ellen Harriman, we are excited
to hear that Jonathan Houck, John Taliaferro (he pronounces it "Tollifer")
and Jarral Ryter are contemplating throwing their hats into the ring.  We
will be aiming for another candidates' meeting hosted by Narcissa Channell
sometime the week after next (the first full week of April). Anyone
interested in volunteering to help with a candidate's (or two) campaign
might want to attend as well.

Ellen already has several activities lined up and strategies planned, and
she said there will be a candidates' forum on April 18, time and location
TBA. You can make a donation to her campaign through her treasurer, Pat
Venturo.


4) County Comprehensive Plan
    While it seems that design standards for large-format retail are
on-going and endless, the county planning commission is tackling its own
huge project: the county's vision for our future. For the third consecutive
month the commission held two public hearings (one on a weeknight in Mt. CB,
and one on a Friday morning in Gunnison) on an aspect of the plan.

The focus this month was recreation and tourism, and I attended along with
representatives from the USFS, BLM, NPS, TA, Scenic By-ways (not sure what
their acronym is), CB Town Council and a member of the ranching community. I
did speak and introduced myself as a member of the GVCA, so we've at last
made a little blip on the county's radar.

The commission met with several members of its focus group, charged with
looking at this facet of the comp plan. State statutue for some reason
mandates the 10 aspects of recreation the county HAS to look at, so
"shooting" (not hunting) was reviewed while hockey was not.

Recreation got a lot more of a look than tourism, although three audience
members (including me) suggested conferences/conventions ought to be
considered here as well as in the economic development section (which
they've already had their hearings on).

A lot of the discussion, fomented by Arden Anderson, focused on attempting
to identify historic access through private lands to public lands/venues and
to perhaps acquire an easement from the current landowner, before a sale
occurs and that historic access ends up being denied.

So much of the planning discussions I've been witness to center on the need
for proaction rather than reaction.  Whether any of it gets implemented --
at any governmental level -- remains to be seen.

The comprehensive plan, which ought to be fairly lengthy, since they're on
page 100-something with something like seven more sections to look at, is
available for free on CD from the county's long-range planning office, or
you can pay cash (I don't know how much) and get a bound hard copy from the
Paper Clip. We need, even though several of us are up to our ears in
meetings, to make sure we start tracking this process far more closely than
we have been.


5)  Joint Planning Meeting
    Two weeks ago the city and county planning commissions met, with four
GVCA members in attendance as well.  They were talking about the city's
three-mile plan, and Diane noted that the city is waiting for the county to
finish its plan, so that perhaps the two plans regarding the same area will
be in agreement.  It kind of sounded like the county is waiting for the
city, so if nothing else, the meeting was good to get the players introduced
and look at some of the issues.

And there are lots of them. Some day I'm going to type up my notes for a
couple of people who have requested them; if anyone else wants even more
gory details, I'd be happy to include them.

A couple of the points I found interesting:

Countywide, about 35% of the houses are owned by second homeowners. Of the
remaining 65%, about half are occupied by the owner (the remainder are
rented or leased, or at least occupied by someone other than the owner).
The county planning commission is struggling with means of hanging onto
those percentages, particularly up north, although Fred Peck noted a
national trend by second homeowners to make their purchases in
municipalities so that they can enjoy the services and amenities.

Although county planner Joanne Williams didn't discount it completely, she
said the chances of a large format retailer utilizing a septic system are
"slim," which means that even if a big box wants to locate in the county (if
the city for some reason says 'no'), the big box has to get approval for a
sewer tap from the city, which isn't likely to approve one in exchange for a
loss of sales tax revenues.

The issue looming very large on the planning horizon in this valley is
affordable housing.  We did hear on Sunday that some highly reputable
national investment firm is predicting an extreme drop, if not a crash, in
the real estate market within the next six months -- whether the market
itself will then help make housing more affordable is speculative at best.

According to Diane, and apparently it has something to do with septic or
sewer, Dos Rios will "never" be annexed by the City of Gunnison, so the
possibilities of the city expanding westward are limited -- or the city
would end up leapfrogging over that development.

It was also noted, as you legal readers might have already noticed, that the
Tenderfoot Apartments (the sub-par construction just north of the college on
Colorado) are in foreclosure to the tune of $6 million.

Fred Peck went on record as saying that while you don't want to punish a
commercial enterprise for being successful (and thus wanting to expand), you
also don't want to give them carte-blanche.

Both commissions expressed satisfaction with the get-together. Hopefully,
there will be more of those, although the county did note that it has other
municipalities with their own three-mile plans that also need attention.



6)  Request for an Audience
    In a conversation with Vikki, Jim Pike asked if he could attend one of
our meetings.  Vikki told him we meet every week. She asked if he'd read the
design standards; he hadn't. He asked if she would get him a copy; she told
him they're available to anyone who asks from the city.  She also suggested
he read the fiscal impact study, with which he was also not familiar.

He, like Rick Miller, has expressed interest in requiring the current
Wal-Mart building, but he also told Vikki he spent 13 years working for
Safeway (I may have that number wrong), and he would hate to see anything
happen to "his" store.

Presumably, Vikki will pass along the word that he's welcome to attend next
week.  Or any other week, I assume -- we are a community group.

Everyone reading this is welcome to attend as well. We meet every Sunday at
4 p.m. -- although perhaps that time will change as summer approaches -- at
Vikki's office. I think the address is 322 N. Wisconsin.

Thanks for reading.

TL