{"id":71544,"date":"2017-02-10T22:14:12","date_gmt":"2017-02-11T05:14:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/city-makes-progress-on-plans-for-new-cortez-fire-station\/"},"modified":"2017-02-11T05:14:12","modified_gmt":"2017-02-11T05:14:12","slug":"city-makes-progress-on-plans-for-new-cortez-fire-station","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/city-makes-progress-on-plans-for-new-cortez-fire-station\/","title":{"rendered":"City makes progress on plans for new Cortez fire station"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"An
An artist\u2019s rendering of early plans for the new Cortez fire station.<\/span>Cortez Fire Protection District<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

The Cortez Planning and Zoning Commission approved a conditional-use permit and site plan for the new Cortez Fire District station during a public hearing on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

The new station will replace the current one at 31 N. Washington St., but it will be much bigger, at 13,400 square feet, which will include living quarters for seven firefighters. The board\u2019s approval of the permit and site plan is the next step in a project that will take from nine months to a year to complete, according to engineer Tom Engel of Goff Engineering, the contractor for the project. But although the planning and zoning board was in favor of the new building, they did ask for a few changes to the current site plan.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s going to be a great thing for the neighborhood,\u201d Engel said while presenting the application for the permit. \u201cIt\u2019s going to be such a beautiful building.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said the project will include improvements to the sidewalk and gutters on the adjoining streets, and when the building is finished, firefighters will do landscaping work to maintain the look of the neighborhood.<\/p>\n

The conditional-use permit, which allows the fire district to use the lot on Washington Street for a new headquarters, passed unanimously.<\/p>\n

But the application for a site plan came with a few cautions from other agencies. City Manager Shane Hale wrote that he was concerned that the plan\u2019s lack of an irrigation system might cause them to die off and become unsightly. City engineer Ken Torres wrote that the plan, which calls for emergency vehicles to exit the station on Washington and then turn onto Main Street, could cause traffic problems if the district doesn\u2019t add a traffic signal at the intersection.<\/p>\n

Associate city planner Neva Connolly said the concerns weren\u2019t enough to keep the board from approving the fire station.<\/p>\n

\u201cMost of these comments, while important \u2026 are not going to affect the actual site plan,\u201d she said. \u201cI don\u2019t see that anything\u2019s going to have to be removed from the plan because of these comments.\u201d<\/p>\n

Engel said the plan doesn\u2019t include an irritation system because the district hopes to get a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design certification, which has strict requirements about water usage. He and board member Tom Butler agreed that a traffic signal might be a good addition to the plan, but Engel said a light might not fit in the budget. Chairman Danny Giannone encouraged him to find a way to clear traffic for firetrucks, even if it has to be a cheaper option, since the alternative is to have them circle the block before turning onto Main Street.<\/p>\n

\u201cA minute to somebody in trouble \u2013 that can make all the difference in the world,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Cortez resident Keith Evans spoke during the public comment section on behalf of one of his friends who lives near the site of the proposed fire station. He asked whether the district would consider planting trees or plants to help screen neighbors from the noise of Main Street. But he added that he was excited about the new station.<\/p>\n

The board unanimously approved the site plan, but added a strong recommendation that the district include a traffic control strategy for jobs when trucks have to exit onto Main Street. They did not make any final decisions about what it would look like.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Planning and zoning board approves permits<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":71545,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[21,318,350,13],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-71544","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-cortez","tag-cortez-municipal-government","tag-fire","tag-frontpage-lead"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71544","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=71544"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71544\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/71545"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71544"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71544"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71544"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=71544"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}