Letter: Please don’t pave paradise
“They paved paradise and put up a parking lot.”
That one sentence in “Big Yellow Taxi,” the legendary song by Joni Mitchell, says it all. If this construction goes forth, we will all have to endure and watch the destruction of the Booth Heights parcel of land in East Vail for years to come.
The topography of this land will certainly make construction extremely difficult. The area is steep and too narrow for high density housing to be built upon. It also has several dangerous loose rock formations above it.
The developer will have to dig and scrape and rearrange the land in order to fit this proposed development on it. This development will be a permenant eyesore forever. It will also carry future logistic consequences from conception.
I have attended various Vail Town Council meetings in the past. One of the serious problems mentioned was the lack of parking in this complex. If only one car per unit would be allowed, where are tenants supposed to park? On the frontage road?
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The location of employee housing in this area is also very impractical. This area isn’t near any stores or easy access in and out of the property. The frontage road in this area has a lot of traffic and is also deemed very dangerous. There have been numerous accidents in this area — some involving cars and some involving cyclists and pedestrians. Adding to traffic woes will be the future residents of this housing complex. So I urge The town of Vail to condemn this property from any kind of development.
We all have to be good stewards with what little open land that still exists in and around this lovely town of Vail. We have to preserve this land for the bighorn sheep that use this area for their winter grazing habitat. It’s also imperative to showcase the beautiful entrance to the Vail valley.
I implore the Town of Vail to condemn this property as being unsuitable for development.
Ingrid Seade
East Vail
