Hundreds of people arrived at Colorado Mountain College’s Spring Valley Campus Wednesday night for a public meeting about a proposed housing development west of Carbondale.
Many of the attendees had strong opinions about the development.
Mandy Kotzman, a Carbondale resident wearing a down vest with her hair in two braids, had come to voice her opposition.
“Personally,” she said, “I think we need more open space than houses.”
More than 10 minutes before the meeting’s 6 p.m. start time, the main room had filled to capacity, forcing people into overflow rooms or the lobby.
Many of the people who came were older, including a group of women wearing bowler-style hats bedecked with flowers and carrying instruments. They were hoping to play a song.
But public commenters waited for hours to speak, to no avail.
The meeting was a chance for the project developer, Harvest Roaring Fork LLC, to respond to concerns from Garfield County’s Planning Commission — and for community members to give a public comment.
On Feb. 19, the commission recommended that Garfield County commissioners deny the developer’s rezoning application to build the 1,500-unit development on a 283-acre swath of land between the Roaring Fork River and Highway 82 across from Cattle Creek Road.
The project, known as Harvest Roaring Fork — or just “Harvest” — has sparked a contentious community-wide debate. For some, it offers a much-needed boost to the valley’s housing stock, particularly its emphasis on smaller, more affordable homes. For others, it represents the demise of the valley’s “rural character” — the suburbanization of one of its last remaining open spaces.
Richard Myers is a managing partner of Texas-based Realty Capital, the real estate development firm behind Harvest. He appealed to the emotions surrounding the region’s housing crisis.
“Everyone here has probably seen headlines like this,” he said, before showing a series of sobering statistics. The Roaring Fork Valley will need about 7,200 affordable housing units in the next 10 years to meet demand. Workers are being pushed farther and farther west, resulting in longer and longer commutes.
In Basalt, Myers pointed out a demographic shift. The number of children under the age of five has declined by 42% in the past 12 years, while the number of people 65-plus more than doubled.
“Something's going on here,” he said. “The valley is losing its ability to attract families.”
Myers believes Harvest Roaring Fork can help reverse that trend.
He emphasized the development would not be another River Valley Ranch, Aspen Glen or Iron Bridge with expansive luxury homes on large lots. Instead, he showed an artist’s rendering of tree-lined streets filled with smaller, townhome-style housing that prioritizes walkability.
There would be a mix of market-rate, deed-restricted or “resident-occupied” affordable units.
Crucially, for Myers, there won’t be a golf course. He said golf courses attract second homeowners, whereas Harvest is geared toward local workers.
He presented a cost breakdown for some of the market-rate units. The cheapest: $247 per square foot for a 1,700 square foot home, or $421,000. But that number, he acknowledged, doesn't include land or financing costs.
At that, the room erupted in sounds of disbelief and headshakes.
Planning Commission staff member Heather Hartman also had her doubts about Harvest’s affordability promise.
“To a young family in the Roaring Fork Valley that is commuting, $400,00 is not attainable,” she said.
The commission had other concerns too: traffic congestion on Highway 82, water use, wildlife impacts and the size of the development. Fully built out, it would be twice as big as Willits.
Mixed Feelings
Planning Commission member Wes Miller offered a different perspective.
“You know, all we hear in the Planning Commission all over the valley is ‘We need affordable housing,’” he said. “It's just the chorus all the time, and then nobody wants it in their neighborhood.”
The Harvest development was, at the very least, he said, a stab at fixing a problem that everyone acknowledges, but that no one can agree on how to resolve.
By the time the commission members finished making their remarks, the meeting had run well over three hours, prompting them to postpone public comment to their next meeting.
Carbondale resident John Gross was among those hoping to speak. After hearing Myers’ presentation, he had mixed feelings about the project.
“To get a good walkable community, you do need a certain density,” he said. “Having a commercial center that can provide basic day care, groceries, those kinds of services, doctors — that's the kind of housing community that I would really support.”
But other aspects of the project concern him. He questioned Miller’s description of the property as a largely barren-looking landscape.
The proposed site borders a conservation easement that contains an important riparian area along the Roaring Fork River. Gross also noted that what Miller described as land “denuded” of useful vegetation is one of the last remaining large areas of winter habitat for elk and deer in the lower Roaring Fork Valley.
“Putting this development in there will annihilate this last reservoir for a lot of the creatures that can still come down into the valley,” he said.
Of the project, Gross added, overall, “it's a hodgepodge of some really good stuff and some things that are really bad.”
The next public hearing on the Harvest development is March 11 at the Colorado Mountain College Spring Valley Campus.
