The recommendation for denial was based on numerous factors, according to the staff report, including concerns and noncompliance issues related to the developer’s proposed housing density and plans for commercial usages, water, wildlife, affordable housing, public transportation access, and impacts to traffic and other public infrastructure, among others.
Author Archives: Kari Dequine
Kari Dequine is a freelance journalist and mother of two. Born and raised in the Roaring Fork Valley, she spent the past 20 years working as a staff writer for newspapers in New Orleans, Colorado and Idaho. As a freelance reporter she has written for The Guardian, Salon and The Colorado Sun, among others.
Posted inEnvironment
Developers are selling the Harvest project as a boon for workforce housing. Others see a burden.
One project skeptic said he doesn’t doubt the developer is genuine about wanting to help address the valley’s housing needs. “I think he believes he can make money and solve a social problem, I’m not going to bet the farm on that.”
Posted inEnvironment
The Western Slope’s nuclear fracking legacy
Observers remain concerned that modern horizontal drilling and fracking technologies have increased the risk that the entombed radioactive material may be disturbed, and skepticism persists that the flaring of contaminated natural gas after the Rulison test had harmful effects.
Posted inEnvironment
Private ski area proposal near Steamboat divides community
As Routt County awaits the first public hearing on a proposal to develop a private ski resort and elite enclave 20 miles south of Steamboat Springs, there is widespread anxiety and divisions across the community are deepening. Reanna Sullivan, whose hillside home faces the prospective ski area, ticks off concerns associated with many new high-end […]
Posted inEnvironment
When the insurance company sends a fire crew
“The fire department’s job is to put the fire out. We come in with a different mandate — to protect the home or commercial building. We apply our skills appropriately, adding to what the fire department is doing.”
Posted inEnvironment
Exceptional drought and a ring of fire for northwest Colorado
Firefighter helicopter Steve Cohen said that in his 25-year career, he has seen firsthand fires steadily increasing in size. It wasn’t that long ago, he said, that “we’d never heard of a 100,000-acre fire.”