This message comes from Betty Gibbs, president of the Land Use Coalition. Betty has been to several LPBC luncheons, and I am a member of the LUC as well. This evening I attended their monthly board meeting, along with LPBC members Eva Kosinski and Jerry Van Sickle. Sheriff Joe Pelle was a guest also, and came to address the topic of RS2477 roads - another hot button issue across the west and in Boulder County.
I agreed to give up my presentation date of March 17th, if they can get Rep. Shawn Mitchell to come. Shawn is running a bill to end eminent domain takings in Colorado. Shawn is a lib in R's clothing and has sponsored many successfully passed reform and repeal bills in the state house. Read down and get the flavor of what's been going on in the anti-land merger battle with the county commissioners. So far I am the only commissioner candidate that opposes land mergers and eminent domain. Jeff Christen-Mitchell needs to come up to speed on this topic. If Jeff runs for commissioner in district #1, he should easily be able to get the support of the LUC. Paul Tiger -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Betty Gibbs Sent: Wednesday, February 04, 2004 9:22 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [luc-legislation] Jan 22 Merger hearing result The hearing on the merger rules text amendment 18-121 went on for three hours. Here are some of the highlights and the results. About 30 people spoke in favor of having consent from landowners before properties are merged. Other counties in Colorado have voluntary merger policies, but only in Boulder county are mergers forced onto property owners. As expected the Commissioners refuse to rescind the present policy and they also refused to set up a committee to look into how mergers are done and how they affect landowners. The only concession made was to ask the Land Use Department to recommend possible changes in the Land Use Code that would address some of the issues of forced mergers. A committee of the Land Use Coalition has already had a meeting with the Land Use Department and two representatives from the Assessor's office. The meeting was spent expressing ideas about what can be done, but no specific recommendations have been made at this time. When something more definite comes from these meetings, we will let you know. Following are several articles about the hearings that have more specific information about what went on at the hearing. -------------------- County to review parcel mergers Some landowners say properties combined without their knowledge By Laura Morsch, Camera Staff Writer January 23, 2004 Angry Boulder County mountain landowners packed a county commissioners hearing Thursday to demand the repeal of a controversial property-merging provision, and the commissioners promised to give the issue further review. Under a regulation enacted in 1993 and designed to limit new development in western Boulder County, if vacant lots in mountain areas were adjacent to developed ones with the same owner, the two properties could be merged. The measure prevented landowners from building on the vacant lots that were merged. Advertisement The mergers occurred without the owner's consent - and some say without the owner's knowledge. About 30 people testified at the Thursday hearing, most demanding that properties that were combined before a 2003 Colorado law banning such mergers be re-divided into separate lots. Joe Kellogg bought property in the mountains adjacent to land owned by his family. As a wedding gift, a family member gave him another parcel that bordered his own. But a week later, the two properties were merged into one in the county's records, eliminating any chance of developing the new parcel, and therefore lowering its property value, Kellogg said Thursday. "I think it's really unfair," he said. But Allenspark resident Stan Hunting said he worried that dividing the merged properties could cause a surge of development that would ruin the beauty and value of Boulder County mountain areas. "We don't need 300 more building sites in Boulder County," he said. County commissioners denied requests for a blanket "unmerging" of the affected properties, but directed Land Use Director Graham Billingsley to develop criteria for dividing some of the lots on a case-by-case basis. "I want to take time to look at this more carefully and see if we can craft something reasonable," Commissioner Thomas Mayer said. Kevin Probst, a member of the Land Use Coalition, an organization whose aim is to inform the public about land use issues, said the decision to review the issue did not go far enough. "I am personally very disappointed they weren't willing to bring citizens into the process," he said. Commissioner Paul Danish said he sympathized with many of the residents who testified at the hearing. "There's some stories of some real unfairness," Danish said. But he said forming a public committee to examine the merging issue was premature. Danish said he would like to see a draft of possible unmerging criteria from Billingsley in two to three weeks for the commissioners to review. Contact Laura Morsch at (303) 473-1328 or [EMAIL PROTECTED] or (303) 473-1328. ------------------- County takes huge step By Trevor Hughes The Daily Times-Call BOULDER Mountain residents who say they lost money and their rights in a controversial 1993 county decision might get both back after elected officials Thursday agreed to reconsider. Known as the mountain merger provision, the 1993 action by the Boulder County Commissioners combined adjacent lots owned by the same owners into single parcels. The end result was a dramatic reduction in the number of mountain homes. County officials say about 500 lots were combined, often without the owners knowing it, into about 220 parcels. Adding insult, however, the county sometimes kept taxing landowners at the higher, separated rates. This will be a serious effort on the countys part to look at this,said Commissioner Ron Stewart at the end of a three-hour meeting. Stewart is the only remaining commissioner who originally approved the merger rule. County land-use planners will now investigate ways to aid people who say they were hurt by the merger rule, with remedies ranging from un-merging to rebates on property taxes. Theyll report in February. Because the county did not notify residents their properties were being merged, it also never told them that their property taxes should go down as a result. Additionally, state law prohibits the county from refunding overpaid taxes after more than two years. Most of the mountain residents who packed the county courthouse hearing room Thursday hoped the county would agree to undo all the mergers with a single decision. They had pushed for a citizens committee to review the mergers, not county staff. Were happy that theyre willing to reconsider this policy. Thats a huge step,said Nederland resident Kevin Probst from the Land Use Coalition. Theyre willing to compromise to the level they have to. The Land Use Coalition was formed in the early 1990s to oppose what it saw as the commissions willingness to let private property rights fall victim to public support for open space and slower growth. While the commission on Thursday unanimously agreed to review the mergers, the discussion showed signs of the decadelong battle between the county and the LUC. Stewart, before voting to re-evaluate the mergers, spent 10 minutes detailing to the audience the benefits of open space on property values and quality of life. Stewart, also the countys open space and parks director, was unapologetic about the steps taken to limit growth. Im not going to vote, as long as I am here, to increase substantially the amount of development in the mountains,Stewart said. If (the mergers) hadnt been done, we wouldnt have the quality of life we have in Boulder County today. I want us to do some change ... but I dont want to completely undo it. For more than two hours, though, residents asked Stewart and the other commissioners to do just that. Two factors drove Thursdays discussion: a new state law requiring the county to get permission before merging lots, and the threat of a lawsuit from mountain residents buoyed by that new law. They are not just unfair, they are wrong,said Pam McElwain of Loveland said of the mergers. Why did the county pass this policy in the first place? There are still people who are out there who have no idea this has happened to them. McElwain and her husband said they bought a house and a vacant lot in the Boulder County mountains in the 1980s. When they lost their home to foreclosure and tried to build a new one on the vacant land they still owned in the 1990s, the county blocked them. Its so easy for you to fix this,said Olde Stage Road resident Rich Larson, who said his property also was merged without notification or permission. The hearing was officially held to bring the countys merger rules in line with the new state law. Commissioners approved those changes unanimously, but those changes only affect future mergers. Not every mountain resident at the hearing wanted the lots unmerged, however. We dont need 300 more building sites in the mountains of Boulder County,said Allenspark resident Stan Huntting. If they were all built out, we would truly lose what we have worked so hard to protect. Development and speculation on those mountain lands is not compatible with the values of Boulder County. The Land Use Coalition says its members are mostly regular people who bought next-door lots as investments and are not developers. ******************* Betty Gibbs, President (303-444-6032) Land Use Coalition P.O. Box 20265, Boulder CO 80308 [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.landusecoalition.org ********************
