A lawsuit filed against the Montezuma County commissioners for canceling the transferable development rights (TDR) section of the land-use code has been dropped.<\/p>\n
Plaintiffs Protect Montezuma Water, Greg Kemp, and Monica Murphy filed papers on Dec. 8 to end the suit.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m heartbroken about it,\u201d Kemp said on Friday. \u201cI feel the county commission took away private property from landowners in the Dolores River Valley.\u201d<\/p>\n
Neither Kemp nor Rico attorney Erin Johnson would say why the suit was dropped.<\/p>\n
\u201cProtect Montezuma Water had heartfelt objections and did the best they could,\u201d Johnson said.<\/p>\n
The suit claimed that by extinguishing the TDRs, the county committed an unconstitutional \u201cproperty taking\u201d for those who had already filed for them.<\/p>\n
\u201cTDRs were private property that had real monetary value,\u201d Kemp said. \u201cThey were a way to sell development rights while keeping a farm or ranch in operation.\u201d<\/p>\n
But after a yearlong review and several public meetings, on July 7, commissioners voted 2-1 to end the program.<\/p>\n
\u201cConservation easements accomplish the same thing and are voluntary,\u201d commissioner Steve Chappell said at the time.<\/p>\n
TDRs were established by a different set of commissioners in 2003 after a 20-month, community-based collaboration.<\/p>\n
The market-based zoning plan put a cap on development, and was seen as long-term protection for a water source relied on by 27,000 people.<\/p>\n
A set number of building rights called TDRs could be bought and sold among property owners. One 10-acre parcel equaled one TDR, creating a development cap of 625 new homes in the valley. But none were ever recorded to be sold.<\/p>\n
Since it was canceled, the valley\u2019s land-use regulations reverted back to the accessory dwelling allowance for each 10-acre parcel, potentially doubling density.<\/p>\n
Opponents said the plan unfairly restricted private property rights and that TDRs were difficult to purchase, or were overly expensive.<\/p>\n
Fort Lewis College students in the Environmental Studies department analyzed the case, and gave a campus presentation Wednesday, Dec. 10.
\n \u2018In our interviews of landowners, we found varying awareness of TDRs, and confusion on how they worked,\u2019 said student Madison Rafferty.
\n The students also took 30 water samples from 10 sites on the Dolores River at Dolores and upstream. Tests for the e-coli bacteria were well within acceptable standards.
\n Student Cale Zimmerman compared the effect of TDRs to conservation easements.
\n \u2018TDRs don\u2019t stop development, they just control density,\u2019 he said.
\n The students studied abandoned Rico mines and said efforts to mitigate heavy-metal pollution there is key for protecting the Dolores. The primary contaminates of concern are elevated levels of cadmium and zinc, a health hazard for humans and wildlife.
\n The Cortez Journal<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
to restore Dolores River Valley plan<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6363],"tags":[188,13],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-115825","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ds-news","tag-dolores-star","tag-frontpage-lead"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115825","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=115825"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115825\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=115825"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=115825"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=115825"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=115825"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}