February Mayor's Minute

Hello neighbors, Below are some Town Council meeting highlights from last month and some upcoming topics. As always, I hope you can join us for this Thursday’s meeting or consider sharing your feedback with us about any of these matters. January 18 Meeting Highlights

• Bill Jensen provided Telluride Ski & Golf’s (TSG) winter season update and discussed the impact of the low precipitation on visitation, snow making, and our economy. Jensen noted that the Mountain View Apartments in the Meadows neighborhood was 99% complete and most units were already occupied. TSG hopes to begin constructing additional bike flow trails in Mountain Village this summer and anticipates breaking ground on the Ilium housing project in 2019.
• Town Council appointed as an alternate member to the Building Board of Appeals.
• The Telluride Regional Airport (TRAA) Manager, Kenny Maenpa, presented TRAA’s biannual report stating that the Commercial and General Aviation Terminals remodel and expansions were completed in 2017. In addition, the Category C approach has been completed and TRAA is optimistic that the airport will soon see larger planes landing at Telluride Regional Airport (TEX).
• As always, Council heard routine land use matters, Council board updates, and reports from staff. Of specific note this month, the Cable and Broadband Services Director Steven Lehane reported that due to a 42% price increase, the Town of Mountain Village (TMV) Cable department is weighing whether to drop Univision channels from the list of cable channels. Lehane shared with Council that dropping Univision would leave the community with only one Spanish language option on our cable lineup, Telemundo. Please consider sharing your thoughts on this potential change with me or directly with the Cable Department.

If you would like more specifics about any of these topics, you can review minutes from the meeting or watch the video at the town website. February 15 Agenda Topics

• Town Council will consider an ordinance opting out of the Colorado voter signature verification requirement for municipal elections. The voter signature verification is facilitated through the statewide voter verification system. Given that our Town Charter allows non-resident property owners to vote in municipal elections, many eligible voters' signatures would not be in the Colorado-based verification system. Associate Town Attorney Sarah Abbott will discuss the pros and cons of opting out of this requirement.
• We will consider a Standstill Agreement regarding Lots 126R and 152R, commonly known as “Rosewood”. The current owner of the property had recently applied to the town to extend the Rosewood Planned Unit Development (PUD) vested rights, set to expire March 18, 2018, by an additional two years. However, the property owner has withdrawn the renewal application and has now asked the town to consider entering into a Standstill Agreement.The Standstill Agreement would provide that the town would not initiate revocation proceedings on the 2007 PUD Approval so long as the owner submits and pursues a revised PUD application with material reductions to the overall mass/scale of the project and reductions to the land uses and densities occurring on the property, relative to the 2007 PUD Approval, by June 15, 2018.Given the complexity and time span of the project to date, TMV staff has put together a land and density analysis that tracks the historical zoning and densities of the properties making up Rosewood, which we encourage you to review.
• Council will consider a Comprehensive Plan amendment regarding Parcel M, which consists of Lot 30 and a portion of the adjacent open space parcel OS1AR-3. Parcel M is located within the Village Center Subarea and was slated in the Comprehensive Plan as a potential flagship hotel site in the Village Center Subarea. In drafting this amendment, Council has communicated extensively with both property owners, held a public workshop, and the Design Review Board (DRB) reviewed and voted to recommend the amendment at their February 9 meeting.
• Council will review and decide whether to end employee permit parking on Upper Mountain Village Boulevard. Earlier this month, the Parking and Transportation Committee voted to recommend permanently eliminating these parking permits effective May 23, 2018, given the availability of free day parking in the Gondola Parking Garage and the newly approved temporary 30-space parking lot on 161-CR.
• Lastly, we will consider a $10,000 funding request from the Telluride Mountain Club (TMC) for implementation of a proposed Trails Sustainability Plan and to aid in the creation of a Trails Sustainability Document in 2018. TMC is proposing to coordinate trails management and development planning with funding from regional entities (Forest Service, San Miguel County, Telluride, Mountain Village, and privately held land owners).

A full agenda has been posted on our website; we welcome your input by any means you are comfortable with and hope to see you at the meeting. Warm regards, Laila Benitez Mountain Village Mayor