Developers wanting to build large-scale, commercial developments in the Animas Valley must now go through the major-land use permitting process.
La Plata County commissioners officially approved the addition of major land-use permitting for project planning in the Animas Valley on Tuesday, after the Planning Commission recommended the change last month.
“It’s been a long, long trip,” said Animas Valley Residential Development Advisory Committee leader Anita Rancatti. “… We were very happy that it’s been approved finally. So it was a great morning.”
The Animas Valley RDAC and the Animas Valley Action Coalition, a citizen group dedicated to advocacy and communication regarding Animas Valley development issues, have lobbied for the change for years.
“I would say they had all of the impact. It was, for lack of a better term, a grassroots proposed amendment,” said Community Development Director Lynn Hyde.
The county has no formal process for residents to submit code amendment requests, so the Animas Valley groups brought their suggestions directly to staff, the planning commission, or the board of county commissioners, Hyde said.
The groups circulated a petition in December that received 275 signatures in favor of applying the same major-use permitting requirements in the Animas Valley as in the rest of the county.
Projects in the valley have had to meet only minor-level review for the past few years, which many residents found inadequate.
Minor-use permits apply to lower-intensity development and are reviewed and approved by the Planning Commission. Major-use permits, which apply to high-density residential or larger commercial developments, are subject to a more rigorous review by the Board of County Commissioners.
Advocates for the code change said it was unfair that their neighborhoods and communities had less oversight than the rest of the county and left them more exposed to disruptive development projects like the proposed 275-stall luxury RV park on Trimble Lane (County Road 252) by Arizona-based developer Scott Roberts.
The RV park – which is in the process of its third compliance review – has found few friends among Animas Valley community members and acted as a catalyst for the citizen-led code change initiative.
Residents argued that the county code allowed large, high-impact developments like the RV park to undergo less scrutiny simply because they were located in the Animas Valley.
Even with the change, the proposed RV park won’t be subject to the major-permit review, because projects already under review were grandfathered in.
Staff do not expect many projects to meet the new “major” threshold. Only a handful in recent years would have qualified, Hyde said, as there is limited land in the valley that is ripe for commercial uses and that carried the appropriate commercial zoning designation.
Still, many Animas Valley residents say they are chalking a win.
“It took a village, and we didn’t give up, and that’s the important part,” Rancatti said.
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