Hope’s Journey Rehabilitation Center Takes a Step Forward
by Christopher PikeSep 23, 2008 | 45 views | 0 | 0 | | Planning Commission Recommends Approval of LUC Amendment
RIDGWAY – A movement to create a rehabilitation center for burn victims in Ouray County took a step forward last week. On Sept. 16 the Ouray County Planning Commission recommended approval of an amendment to the county land use code that would make “assisted living residence” a conditional use for lands in the Valley Zone. The application for the amendment, made by Solid Rock Foundation Ministries, prevailed with a 3-2 vote, with commissioners Ken Lipton and Bob Luttrell in opposition.
Solid Rock, operated by David and Kathleen Tabor, disclosed that the amendment would enable them to open a rehabilitation center for children or adults with severe burns. The foundation intends to purchase a parcel on Cutler Creek Drive in Ridgway, formerly the Ponderosa Care Home. The Ponderosa facility was approved as an assisted living center decades ago under a less stringent permit process that expired when the facility was closed, according to Interim County Planner Marc Castrodale.
The Tabors said their rehabilitation facility would have an emphasis on providing transitional service for patients, including psychological attention. “We’re not a hospital but an opportunity to help kids regain their identity,” said Kathleen Tabor.
Charity Freeland, Montrose resident, spoke in favor of the proposal. In 1993, at the age of 17, Freeland was in a horrific car accident that left second and third degree burns over 75 percent of her body. A visit to Colorado during the healing process sparked her dream of opening a home where burn victims could transition back into life outside the hospital. Freeland’s dream, now known as Hope’s Journey International, was the spark for the effort to create such a home in Ouray County.
The proposed amendment would also enable other facilities, such as a senior assisted living residence, to be considered by the county on a case-by-case basis. Supporters of that point included Ouray residents Roger and Angie Henn, who said they might need such a facility in the future.
Neighbors of the proposed facility, including the Lane and Wenande families, lodged their objections to the amendment. They maintained that the proposed center would bring noise, from traffic and recreational activities close to their homes. The Lanes also claimed their property values would be negatively impacted.
Commissioner Lipton expressed reservations due to the potential size and scope of future facilities. “You’re asking to change the entire land use code, not just one property,” he said. “I’m concerned about a mega-facility that might come in.” He suggested that these facilities only be permitted in new planned unit developments or subdivisions, not in or near existing developments that might have their values impacted.
A provision to require appropriate licensing by applicants was attached to the motion by Commissioner Linda Ingo, who voted in favor.
The next stage for the proposal will be consideration by the Ouray County Board of Commissioners.
Posted by Erin Eddy - Ridgway Land
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Thursday, September 11, 2008
New Housing Authority in Ridgway Colorado
RIDGWAY – Ouray County and the towns of Ridgway and Ouray are gearing up for discussions about what tasks to assign to the newly created Multi-jurisdictional Housing Authority. The authority’s first meeting will take place Thursday, Sept. 11 at 5:30 p.m. at Ridgway Town Hall.
“Every one [of the three governments] has different rules and regulations and different needs, so let's select the ones we think we can get done,” said Ouray County Commissioner Don Batchelder. Batchelder chaired an unofficial meeting at the Ridgway Town Hall on Aug. 21 to set the agenda and framework for the first meeting in the lengthy process of making housing affordable in Ouray County.
The effort is expected to begin with an authority-issued Request for Performance to the three participating entities based on a list of their expectations and the estimated funding that might be needed. “We formed this entity to look for funding; this is our task only,” commented Mike Fedel, City of Ouray Land Use Coordinator. Fedel, along with Jen Coates, assistant town planner for the Town of Ridgway, are expected to assume the role of staff to the authority.
The City of Ouray will be asking that the interagency agreement, or memorandum of understanding, be better defined. “We don't know where it'll evolve into the future. The language is pretty broad,” said Ouray City Administrator Patrick Rondinelli at the Sept. 2 city council meeting.
The authority will take on tasks as requested by the town, city and county, according to City Councilmember Sandra Stuller, who helped draft the memorandum of understanding. “The authority will serve the three governments that formed it. The costs are to be assumed by the requesting government and the budgeting to reflect the proper allocation of costs as services are provided,” Stuller told the council on Sept. 2.
The board will be made up of five members. It is expected that Ouray City Councilmember Betty Wolfe, Ridgway Town Councilmember Paul Hebert and Ouray County Commissioner Don Batchelder will serve on the board from one to two years.
Start-up funding will come from a $12,000 grant from the Colorado Department of Local Affairs and $3,000 in matching funds from each of the three governments.
Written by Christopher Pike and posted by Erin Eddy
“Every one [of the three governments] has different rules and regulations and different needs, so let's select the ones we think we can get done,” said Ouray County Commissioner Don Batchelder. Batchelder chaired an unofficial meeting at the Ridgway Town Hall on Aug. 21 to set the agenda and framework for the first meeting in the lengthy process of making housing affordable in Ouray County.
The effort is expected to begin with an authority-issued Request for Performance to the three participating entities based on a list of their expectations and the estimated funding that might be needed. “We formed this entity to look for funding; this is our task only,” commented Mike Fedel, City of Ouray Land Use Coordinator. Fedel, along with Jen Coates, assistant town planner for the Town of Ridgway, are expected to assume the role of staff to the authority.
The City of Ouray will be asking that the interagency agreement, or memorandum of understanding, be better defined. “We don't know where it'll evolve into the future. The language is pretty broad,” said Ouray City Administrator Patrick Rondinelli at the Sept. 2 city council meeting.
The authority will take on tasks as requested by the town, city and county, according to City Councilmember Sandra Stuller, who helped draft the memorandum of understanding. “The authority will serve the three governments that formed it. The costs are to be assumed by the requesting government and the budgeting to reflect the proper allocation of costs as services are provided,” Stuller told the council on Sept. 2.
The board will be made up of five members. It is expected that Ouray City Councilmember Betty Wolfe, Ridgway Town Councilmember Paul Hebert and Ouray County Commissioner Don Batchelder will serve on the board from one to two years.
Start-up funding will come from a $12,000 grant from the Colorado Department of Local Affairs and $3,000 in matching funds from each of the three governments.
Written by Christopher Pike and posted by Erin Eddy
Monday, September 1, 2008
BOCC to mull over mesa comm tower
By Douglas McDaniel
The Ouray County Commissioners have just a few days to meditate on what to do about a proposal for an 80-foot communications tower on Log Hill Mesa.
When they reconvene for deliberations at 9:30 a.m. Tuesday, Sept. 2, again in Ridgway at the 4-H Event Center, they will have to decide on whether to approve, deny or find some other solution for communications "dead zones" within the region, or, abide by residential concerns over "visual impacts" a structure the approximate height of a gas drilling rig might create.
This week every branch of the region's law enforcement and emergency personnel appeared before the commissioners Monday, during a lively hearing on a controversial communications tower on Log Hill Mesa near Ridgway to sound off like coyotes to the mutual chorus: Can you hear me now?
"When radios don't work it's hard for deputies to do their jobs," said Ouray County Sheriff Dominic Mattivi. "We've had calls where our deputies are out their and nobody can hear their cells."
Added Norm Rooker, chief of emergency services for Ouray County: "This is (about saving) lives. These are your lives. This system is costing you, the citizens, nothing."
By teaming up for a governmental/corporate partnership to pay for the 80-foot tower, to be built by Black & Veatch for the communications giant, Verizon, on land occupied by the Dallas Creek Water Company within Unit 1 of the Log Hill Village subdivision, a partnership has been created to build a $720,000 that the county could never, otherwise, afford.
"We have somebody willing to pony up at zero cost to the taxpayers," Rooker said.
On the other side of the more than two-hour debate Monday was the not-in-my-backyard crowd, mostly residents of the pricey community living on the mesa that is afforded breathtaking vistas of the San Juans, Mount Sneffels, and therefore, the rigid cascades serving as a backdrop for the Ralph Lauren Ranch.
Their broadcast before the commissioners: Most people are in favor of improving communications for the region, but why does it have to be in this neighborhood, especially one with such a picturesque setting?
"We are concerned about the current proposed tower's visual impacts," said Jane Nash of the Ridgway/Ouray Community Council. "We are in support of the tower, but not in a residential area."
Indeed, the specter of the possibility of an 80-foot communications tower on the mesa has now become a lightning rod for a baffling question over the wireless, highly microwaveable settlement of this high-profile corner of the New West.
While an attorney for the Log Hill Village Home & Property Owners' Association, Bob Thomas, argued that if it had been a simple development proposal before the commissioners, it ever would have been been considered for approval, the president of the HOA, Reggie Kajer, plead for the entire process to be slowed down so all viewpoints can be considered.
"The proposal for this 80-foot tower ... that we have to approve it now or everybody is going to die is wrong," he said. "I think we all should have been talking about this a year ago, and I think that's the problem."
It generated so much commentary during Monday's meeting in Ridgway, the commissioners didn't even have time to deliberate on what they heard. Instead, it moved to continue the decision on what had originally appeared to have been a slam dunk for a special meeting on Tuesday, Sept. 2, again in Ridgway at the 4-H Event Center.
"I don't want to open up Pandora's box, but Pandora may be already out and about," Commissioner Heidi Albritton predicted before the public hearing portion of the meeting attended by approximately 60 people. The delay was necessary considering the fact that, at the center of the debate, a mushy center had arisen in the form of a bit of a somewhat baffling administrative oversight. Included in the debate now is the question about what exactly the commissioners should base their ruling on regarding the nature of the "structure" versus "edifice" in terms of how it was to be interpreted in county's land use code.
At the end of the public hearing, Commissioner Keith Meinert told those in attendance that the semantics over the official "definition of structure" would be reviewed.
Prior to the meeting, the commissioners simply had to rubber stamp a recommendation for approval, by a 5-2 vote, of the Ridgway Area Joint Planning Board. But now the commissioners find themselves looking at a complex question of values in which public safety and issues of visual impact would have to be weighed, and, quite possibly vivisected.
"I assure you, you have given us something to think about," Meinert said.
The Ouray County Commissioners have just a few days to meditate on what to do about a proposal for an 80-foot communications tower on Log Hill Mesa.
When they reconvene for deliberations at 9:30 a.m. Tuesday, Sept. 2, again in Ridgway at the 4-H Event Center, they will have to decide on whether to approve, deny or find some other solution for communications "dead zones" within the region, or, abide by residential concerns over "visual impacts" a structure the approximate height of a gas drilling rig might create.
This week every branch of the region's law enforcement and emergency personnel appeared before the commissioners Monday, during a lively hearing on a controversial communications tower on Log Hill Mesa near Ridgway to sound off like coyotes to the mutual chorus: Can you hear me now?
"When radios don't work it's hard for deputies to do their jobs," said Ouray County Sheriff Dominic Mattivi. "We've had calls where our deputies are out their and nobody can hear their cells."
Added Norm Rooker, chief of emergency services for Ouray County: "This is (about saving) lives. These are your lives. This system is costing you, the citizens, nothing."
By teaming up for a governmental/corporate partnership to pay for the 80-foot tower, to be built by Black & Veatch for the communications giant, Verizon, on land occupied by the Dallas Creek Water Company within Unit 1 of the Log Hill Village subdivision, a partnership has been created to build a $720,000 that the county could never, otherwise, afford.
"We have somebody willing to pony up at zero cost to the taxpayers," Rooker said.
On the other side of the more than two-hour debate Monday was the not-in-my-backyard crowd, mostly residents of the pricey community living on the mesa that is afforded breathtaking vistas of the San Juans, Mount Sneffels, and therefore, the rigid cascades serving as a backdrop for the Ralph Lauren Ranch.
Their broadcast before the commissioners: Most people are in favor of improving communications for the region, but why does it have to be in this neighborhood, especially one with such a picturesque setting?
"We are concerned about the current proposed tower's visual impacts," said Jane Nash of the Ridgway/Ouray Community Council. "We are in support of the tower, but not in a residential area."
Indeed, the specter of the possibility of an 80-foot communications tower on the mesa has now become a lightning rod for a baffling question over the wireless, highly microwaveable settlement of this high-profile corner of the New West.
While an attorney for the Log Hill Village Home & Property Owners' Association, Bob Thomas, argued that if it had been a simple development proposal before the commissioners, it ever would have been been considered for approval, the president of the HOA, Reggie Kajer, plead for the entire process to be slowed down so all viewpoints can be considered.
"The proposal for this 80-foot tower ... that we have to approve it now or everybody is going to die is wrong," he said. "I think we all should have been talking about this a year ago, and I think that's the problem."
It generated so much commentary during Monday's meeting in Ridgway, the commissioners didn't even have time to deliberate on what they heard. Instead, it moved to continue the decision on what had originally appeared to have been a slam dunk for a special meeting on Tuesday, Sept. 2, again in Ridgway at the 4-H Event Center.
"I don't want to open up Pandora's box, but Pandora may be already out and about," Commissioner Heidi Albritton predicted before the public hearing portion of the meeting attended by approximately 60 people. The delay was necessary considering the fact that, at the center of the debate, a mushy center had arisen in the form of a bit of a somewhat baffling administrative oversight. Included in the debate now is the question about what exactly the commissioners should base their ruling on regarding the nature of the "structure" versus "edifice" in terms of how it was to be interpreted in county's land use code.
At the end of the public hearing, Commissioner Keith Meinert told those in attendance that the semantics over the official "definition of structure" would be reviewed.
Prior to the meeting, the commissioners simply had to rubber stamp a recommendation for approval, by a 5-2 vote, of the Ridgway Area Joint Planning Board. But now the commissioners find themselves looking at a complex question of values in which public safety and issues of visual impact would have to be weighed, and, quite possibly vivisected.
"I assure you, you have given us something to think about," Meinert said.
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