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Open space committee: ‘Buy it’

Cliff Thompson

EDWARDS- By a 6-5 vote the Eagle County Open Space Advisory Committee urged the Board of County Commissioners to spend $3 million of open space tax money, and find an additional $3 million, to buy the 72-acre Eaton Ranch in Edwards.The $6 million the county is being asked to allocate is half the $12 million purchase price of a project that proponents said was on a fast track because it must be completed by Sept. 5. The remaining $6 million – and an estimated $2 million more to reclaim a former gravel pit and ranchland – will be raised by the nonprofit Vail Valley Foundation from private donations and state and federal grants.The land is being held by the foundation, which purchased a year-long option last September, while open space proponents decide how to protect the land from development. The land had been under contract as part of a larger development earlier in the year but those plans unraveled.The Eaton Ranch is between Edwards and portions of the B&B Gravel pit and batch plant on the south side of the Eagle River. Proponents told the advisory committee that county participation would be key to securing private donations.”The Eaton Ranch is so important for us that we decided to step slightly outside our mission,” said Ceil Folz of the foundation, which has been know primarily for cultural and athletic events.

Work in progressEarly plans for the property, which were called a “work in progress” by proponents, include bike and walking paths, ponds, small-scale ranching and grazing, river access, parking lots and restrooms.Folz and former foundation president Bob Knous told the advisory committee that no public money would be committed to the project until the entirety of the private funding has been acquired or committed. Two years ago county voters approved an open space tax that raises approximately $2.9 million annually. The purchase contract for Eaton Ranch requires $500,000 be paid to the ranch owners Jan. 15. “This is a rare opportunity to protect midvalley open space,” said Knous. “Development is imminent.”In recommending the purchase, the advisory committee made funding contingent on an appraisal of the land, receiving detailed plans on what will be done, receiving a “conservation easement” to prevent the land from being developed and sold at a later date, and a commitment from the foundation that it will fund the estimated $2 million in post-restoration improvements for the project.The Eaton Ranch decision came amid criticism from some advisory committee members who said the process of allocating open space money was flawed, and amid concern that too much open space money was being used for one project.Committee member Andy Weissner said the county commission should create deadlines so he and his fellow advisors can evaluate projects against one another. He also cautioned against paying a premium for the land that last year was appraised at $7.8 million.

“I have no problem paying a premium for this land, but we may be slitting our own throat on future projects if we pay a 50 percent premium,” he said. He and other members said they were worried future open space projects could fail if all of the open space funds for the next year are spent on Eaton Ranch.The ranch is owned by Bruce Eaton and Winifred Grimshaw-Edwards and has been operated as a ranch for several generations. The property includes 2,000 feet along the Eagle River and has several irrigated pastures which are used for hay production and grazing.Not the pitsThe majority of the land is dominated by the former B&B gravel pit and that it will take extensive restoration before the property can be used as a park or open space, proponents say. B&B has to restore the property under the terms of a mining permit issued by the state Mined Land Reclamation Board.The $6 million request is equal to an offer made by developers Rick Hermes and George Sanders of Community Concepts, who have a purchase contract on the remaining 105 acres of Eaton Ranch, which consists largely of undevelopable floodplain and wetlands.



Community Concepts offered the foundation $6 million toward the foundation’s fun-raising effort in September, which the foundation turned down the offer a day after the offer was made.”It didn’t take very much time for us to realize it really went against what we are trying to do with the Eaton Ranch property, which is to preserve open space,” Folz said when she announced the foundation’s decision last month.There are no plans to sell off a portion of the land for development to raise money for the purchase, Knous said.The Board of County Commissioners will address the matter early next month because they must decide whether to appropriate open space and other county-controlled money for the 2005 budget, which will be approved before Christmas.For now, the immediate future of the Eaton Ranch lies in the hands of county commissioners and a property appraiser.”We need the commissioners to reaffirm what the open space committee did and we need a fair market appraisal at $12 million,” Knous said.Staff Writer Cliff Thompson can be reached at 949-0555, ext. 450, or cthompson@vaildaily.comVail Colorado


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