{"id":30571,"date":"2023-11-14T23:55:17","date_gmt":"2023-11-15T06:55:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/in-a-deadlocked-vote-montezuma-county-denies-application-for-mancos-event-venue\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T01:21:18","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T07:21:18","slug":"in-a-deadlocked-vote-montezuma-county-denies-application-for-mancos-event-venue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/in-a-deadlocked-vote-montezuma-county-denies-application-for-mancos-event-venue\/","title":{"rendered":"In a deadlocked vote, Montezuma County denies application for Mancos event venue"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Jeremy
Jeremy and Silvina Moore hope to overcome opposition and get approval for their proposed small events venue in Mancos. Joseph Williams\/The Journal<\/span>Joseph Williams<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

Amid a chorus of opposition from nearby residents, a deadlocked Montezuma Board of County Commissioners on Tuesday rejected plans for Weber Hall, a proposed small events venue minutes from downtown Mancos.<\/p>\n

Commissioner Kent Lindsay voted against the application from prospective owners Jeremy and Silvina Moore<\/a> over concerns that noise from events, specifically from portable toilets outside the hall, would disrupt the rural surroundings. Commissioner Gerald Koppenhafer, who owns property around the site, recused himself from the decision. With Commissioners James Candelaria and Lindsay at an impasse, the proposal failed.<\/p>\n

For the Moores, the decision dooms their dreams for Weber Hall, and deprives Mancos of a needed venue and economic engine that would have helped support other businesses.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery year, there\u2019s a new business that opens up and then closes down the next year,\u201d Jeremy Moore told The Journal<\/em>. \u201cA lot of people have said the only people whose voice should matter are the ones who live on that road. But that\u2019s just simply not the case when you have businesses that are shutting down.\u201d<\/p>\n

The decision also did little to address concerns from critics and supporters alike that county commissioners were taking a scattershot approach to interpreting Montezuma County\u2019s decades-old land use code. Several residents called for change.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s probably time to just revisit it \u2026 possibly to loosen up some things and possibly to clamp down some things,\u201d said Mountain Roots Produce co-owner Mike Nolan, who lives by the Moores and opposed the plans for Weber Hall.<\/p>\n

While the Moores offered numerous concessions to try to appease critics, including requiring a shuttle service if alcohol was served at events and adopting new noise mitigation efforts, it wasn\u2019t enough to overcome the stiff opposition from neighbors.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe do live in a rural area \u2026 but it\u2019s also hard when new businesses are trying to come in and they\u2019re trying to be creative on how they\u2019re going to be opening,\u201d said Susan Lisak, director of the Dolores Chamber of Commerce, who spoke at the meeting in support of the Moores\u2019 application. \u201cThe more successful businesses are the ones that are able to bring in outside money instead of recycling the existing money that just comes in. And weddings and retreats are one way that can bring in outside money,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Notably, the plans for Weber Hall were approved twice by the planning and zoning committee. While it\u2019s not uncommon for the commissioners to vote in opposition to the panel, according to Montezuma County Planning Director Don Haley, commissioners, including Lindsay, had previously shown deference<\/a> to the committee\u2019s decisions.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s the point of having a Planning and Zoning Commission if they\u2019re going to go against what they say?\u201d asked Jeremy Moore.<\/p>\n

Alongside concerns over the noise levels and increased traffic on rural roads, opponents lambasted the decision by the Moores to try to operate Weber Hall under a combination of high-impact and special use permits, the latter of which is intended to provide flexibility for temporary or interim events, like a music festival or political rally.<\/p>\n

The Moores argued that the venue classified as a \u201cretreat\/guest ranch,\u201d one of the permissible categories for such a permit under the county\u2019s land use code. However, critics countered that allowing weddings every weekend under a carve-out intended to make it easier to hold standalone events would set a precedent that future business owners could abuse.<\/p>\n

\u201cSpecial events are for one-time, they\u2019re not for two events every weekend, two events during the week, 52 weeks a year,\u201d Mancos resident Craig McClure said at Tuesday\u2019s meeting. \u201cAnd this isn\u2019t a guest ranch. This is clear. It\u2019s on less than 5 acres, has no ranching and farming, no overnight lodging, no installed facilities or waste or sanitation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Plans for Ramble Outdoors, a new campground located by Phil\u2019s World outside of Cortez, were approved earlier in Tuesday\u2019s meeting with same combination of permits the Moores were seeking, drawing similar opposition from critics who questioned whether the commission is welcoming potential legal challenges by continuing to approve businesses under those special carve outs.<\/p>\n

\"Dieter
Dieter Erdmann, director of land acquisition and management at Ramble Outdoors, defends the company's application in front of the county commissioners. (Joseph Williams\/The Journal)<\/span>Joseph Williams<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

\u201cWhy do we have land use code if our leaders won\u2019t follow it?,\u201d said Cortez resident Dave Dove, who opposed plans for both Ramble Outdoors and Weber Hall. \u201cWe have to be super-cautious about setting these precedents.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

intense, yearlong debate over Weber Hall has supporters and critics calling for an update to county\u2019s land use code <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":30572,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[28,193,29],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-30571","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-headlines","tag-land-use","tag-newsletter"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30571","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=30571"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30571\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":81120,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30571\/revisions\/81120"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30572"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30571"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30571"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30571"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=30571"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}