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Addition to Larimer County Open Space?

1K views 14 replies 8 participants last post by  ignazjr 
#1 ·
Hi there,

I just wanted to point everyone to this article:

http://www.coloradoan.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060824/NEWS01/608240334/1002

My company currently owns the property they are referring to and has decided to sell it. As you can imagine everyone is pretty heart broken about it but we're hoping something comes through and it can be preserved in its current state rather than divied up and sold to developers.

The land is located a couple of miles west (toward EP) of the Lions Gulch trailhead on Hwy 36. This would be great for the MTB community because it has established roads, campsites, cabins, parking, and trails. Some of these trails make direct connections to the Homestead Meadows and Lions Gulch trails. I know these are pretty popular places to ride. I myself have done several multi-hour exploration trips around Homestead Meadows. This would allow another access to that area.

Most importantly I don't want to see it sold off to developers. The area is in pristine condition and I have seen tons of wildlife (deer, elk, moose, owls, coyotes and signs of bigger, toothier animals).

I for one am going to write the County Commissioners and stress how much I'd like to see the area preserved. Just thought I would share in case you'd like to do the same.

j
 
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#2 ·
j-dawg said:
Hi there,

I just wanted to point everyone to this article:

http://www.coloradoan.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060824/NEWS01/608240334/1002

My company currently owns the property they are referring to and has decided to sell it. As you can imagine everyone is pretty heart broken about it but we're hoping something comes through and it can be preserved in its current state rather than divied up and sold to developers.

The land is located a couple of miles west (toward EP) of the Lions Gulch trailhead on Hwy 36. This would be great for the MTB community because it has established roads, campsites, cabins, parking, and trails. Some of these trails make direct connections to the Homestead Meadows and Lions Gulch trails. I know these are pretty popular places to ride. I myself have done several multi-hour exploration trips around Homestead Meadows. This would allow another access to that area.

Most importantly I don't want to see it sold off to developers. The area is in pristine condition and I have seen tons of wildlife (deer, elk, moose, owls, coyotes and signs of bigger, toothier animals).

I for one am going to write the County Commissioners and stress how much I'd like to see the area preserved. Just thought I would share in case you'd like to do the same.

j
That is a great chunk of land. Thanks for the heads up. If you hear of anything else we might be able to do, please let me know!
 
#5 ·
I apologize for the length of this post. I wanted to post this verbatim as it came to me. It is a letter from Larimer County about what can be done to help preserve this area and bring it into the Open Lands and Parks. I know it says the date to submit was supposed to be 8/22 but I'm sure they would take late feedback. I plan on e-mailing mine to the address at the very bottom.

I'll try and post my letter when it's complete. As you can tell I'm pretty passionate about this area.

Thanks again,

j

Dear Supporter:

We need your help to protect Hermit Park! Please help us by writing a letter of support!

Located in Larimer County's Estes Valley Conservation Priority Area, the Hermit Park property includes over 1350 acres of forested slopes, open meadows and intact wetlands. Working with willing property owners, Hermit Park is the last piece of the puzzle in a larger land protection effort in this priority area as identified in the 1993 Parks Master Plan and 2001 Larimer County Open Lands Master Plan. The protection of this highly visible, pristine property will provide a contiguous land connection with existing protected lands, publicly-owned Roosevelt National Forest and Rocky Mountain National Park and privately-owned Meadowdale Conservation Easement. This property will add to the approximately 42,000 existing protected lands in the Estes Valley, not including Rocky Mountain National Park. Accessible within 30 minutes from Loveland/Fort Collins area and 40 minutes from Boulder and the gateway of Rocky Mountain National Park, this property, for which public access is envisioned, will provide expanded recreational opportunities thousands of Larimer County citizens and travelers in the Estes Valley Conservation Area.

Acquisition of the Hermit Park property is only possible through partnering with Great Outdoors Colorado, Estes Valley Land Trust, Estes Valley Recreation and Parks District, Town of Estes, Colorado Division of Wildlife, National Park Service, and United States Forest Service. Larimer County would manage the multiple uses which Hermit Park provides such as camping, cabin rentals, hunting, hiking, mountain biking, horseback riding, wildlife watching, picnicking, and large group use events. This property will allow connections to existing USFS trails and fulfill the Town of Estes desire for a trail to the top of Kruger Rock. These recreational opportunities would provide a new diverse and expanded recreational opportunity to the Estes Valley Area. This property fills a niche in regional recreational portfolio, not existing at this gateway to RMNP, which combines camping, cabins, etc. on publicly owned lands.

As an import part of the Larimer County Estes Valley Land Protection Priority Area, this area boasts an abundance of wildlife, important wetlands, elk wintering range and migration corridor. The site is also listed as an ecologically sensitive site by the USFS and CNHP for the rare rocky mountain cinquefoil plant. Preserving these lands will offer an important public hunting area which will be used to help control the burgeoning elk population in the Estes Valley.

To help fund this project, Larimer County Parks and Open Lands is applying to Great Outdoors Colorado (Colorado Lottery Funds) for an open space and local government grant. The project will cost approximately $5-7.5 million with a grant request to GOCO for a total of $1.5 - 3 million to help leverage local sales tax along with partnership contributions. Letters of support from the community and the future park and open space users are extremely beneficial to winning grants of this nature from Great Outdoors Colorado. We need your help! We need your letter of support to help make this grant application a successful one!

The strongest and most influential letters of support are written from the heart and talk specifically about why protection of Hermit Park is important to you or your organization. Letters should identify a need for the project as well as the benefits of the project from your perspective. It is essential that letters of support be written in your own words. Form letters are not useful for this grant.

To assist you in drafting your own letter of support, we have provided a sample list of benefits and needs as well as a sample support letter - it is only a sample, please do not copy it verbatim.

Benefits of the Project:
Through a partnership between Larimer County, GOCO, EVLT, EVRPD, Town of Estes, DOW, NPS, and USFS, this project will:
• Purchase the Hermit Park property including over 1350 acres of forested slopes, open meadows and intact wetlands.
• Add to the 42,000 existing protected lands in the Estes Valley, not including Rocky Mountain National Park.
• Provide Regional Trail Connections - newly proposed trail to Kruger Rock as well as to existing 7-mile Homestead Meadows USFS trail system.
• Protect important natural resources including the rare rocky mountain cinquefoil, important wetlands, pristine ponderosa pine and Douglas fir forests, elk wintering range and migration corridor.
• Offer a new diverse and expanded recreational opportunity to the Estes Valley Area. This property fills a niche in regional recreational portfolio, not existing at this gateway to RMNP, which combines camping, cabins, etc. on publicly owned lands

Need/Urgency of the Project:
• Now is the time! Owned by a private corporation motivated to sell, this property just came onto the market and Larimer County has a very short window of opportunity to act, the time to protect this property is now! Larimer County and its partners are ready to purchase this property and needs to be ready to make our payment when this property closes if it is to be protected as a park and open space and not sold for development.
• Citizens in Larimer County have expressed their desire for an increase in passive recreation areas. In a 2001 scientific survey of county residents, 72% of respondents indicated they wanted to see more lands with public access. Walking and hiking were the activities most enjoyed by over 70% of respondents. Hermit Park will provide a haven to "get away from it all" and enjoy nature.
• The dramatically increasing population along the northern Front Range is creating an increased demand for the protection of natural areas and wildlife habitat. Growing communities in Larimer County voiced their opinion by supporting the Help Preserve Open Space sales tax initiative in 1995, and again in 1999 when the citizens voted to extend the sales tax and allow bonding. Preserving 1,350 acres in the Front Range foothills provides significant wildlife habitat, especially when it connects to thousands of acres of other public lands.
• Intense development pressure in the Estes Valley. Estes Valley has a slow growing resident rate, 9% (US CENSUS 2000), yet the booming vacation home market in Estes has been booming as more people desire to have vacation homes in the valley. If not protected NOW this land WILL become highly sought after for development.

Please mail or fax your letter by August 22, 2006 to:
Greg Good
Larimer County Parks and Open Lands Department
1800 S. County Road 31
Loveland, CO 80537
Phone (970) 679-4534
FAX (970) 679-4574
ggood@larimer.org

But, be sure to address your letter to:
Great Outdoors Colorado Board
1600 Broadway, Suite 1650
Denver, CO 80202

I hope this information is helpful in writing your letter. Please feel free to call me at (970)679-4562 or email ggood@larimer.org if you need any further information.

Thank you for your support.

Greg Good
Larimer County Parks & Open Lands
 
#6 ·
j-dawg,

thanks for posting this. I have my letters signed, sealed, and waiting for stamps :)... I'll send them tomorrow. I don't usually get too involved in write-in campaigns, but I've spent time at Hermit Park, and it would be a shame not to be able to utilize it as another county park...
 
#7 ·
Nice job Larimer County!

From the Coloradoan

The Larimer County commissioners unanimously approved a deal Monday for the purchase of Hermit Park, a 1,362-acre facility outside Estes Park owned by Agilent Technologies.

The commissioners agreed to buy the property, which includes 3 miles of hiking trails, 15 cabins, 76 campsites and hundreds of acres of undeveloped open space for $6.5 million. The property was appraised at $8.7 million.

Agilent offered the property at a deeply discounted price because it wanted the county to take it on and do it in a timely manner, county officials said.

The commissioners said the park, which is bordered by U.S. Forest Service land and private properties under conservation easements, was a bargain at the price. Residents will benefit greatly from having access to the park, said Commissioner Karen Wagner.

"Merry Christmas, Larimer County," Wagner said.

County officials expect to close the deal Feb. 15, 2007. The county's portion will total $5.2 million, with $4.55 million coming from open space sales tax dollars, $350,000 from park fees charged developers and $300,000 from the county's share of state Lottery dollars.

Financial partners include the Estes Valley Land Trust, which will contribute $700,000; the town of Estes Park, which has pledged $400,000; and Great Outdoors Colorado, or GOCO, which is expected to announce today it will give the county a $200,000 grant for the project.

A conservation easement will be placed on the property as part of the deal, officials said.

Earlier in the morning, the county's Open Lands Advisory Board put its seal of approval on the proposal. Board members said the property represented a "tremendous opportunity" to preserve open space in the Estes Valley and offer recreation to county residents.

Members of the public also spoke in favor of the project.

Barry Lewis of Fort Collins, an employee of Hewlett-Packard, which owned the park before Agilent, told the open lands board he and fellow workers were disappointed when they could no longer use the property as part of their benefits.

But he fully supports the county taking over Hermit Park and making it accessible to the public. The site 2 miles outside of Estes Park "is a tremendous asset to the county," Lewis said.

Part of the financing for the deal would involve transferring $1,750,000 from Open Lands Program's management fund to the acquisition fund. Even with the transfer, the management fund should have enough money to pay for maintenance of open land properties, said open lands manager K-Lynn Cameron.

The program also will loan its acquisition fund $1.2 million using two 35-acre housing sites on the property as collateral. In a "worst-case scenario" the program could sell the sites to pay off the loan and keep the acquisition fund in good shape for other projects, Cameron said.

A fundraising campaign to offset the loan will take pledges from individuals as well as apply for grants. County officials will ask the GOCO board of directors for $500,000 at its meeting today, Cameron said.

The open lands board recommended the program go with a $1.8 million loan based on three home sites so the acquisition fund would have more flexibility in considering future projects. But county staff said two housing sites - which they hope will never be sold - would be sufficient.

Other funding partners have "dug deep" to make the project work, said Marc Engemoen, director of public works, and so should the county.

"We think we can afford this money out of the acquisition fund; it still leaves money for projects that are on the books right now and comes away with $2 million for acquisitions," he said.

Hermit Park has been owned and operated as a private recreation facility by Hewlett-Packard Co. and Agilent Technologies since 1967. Agilent officials approached the county about buying the property last summer with the goal of preserving it as much as possible.

The park's facilities and natural resources, including a large wetlands area, are in excellent condition, said Gary Buffington, director of Larimer County Parks and Open Lands.

"Agilent has done a great job stewardship-wise in managing this property," Buffington said.

Buffington said if the deal is closed, the next step would be to develop a management plan for the property, and the park should be open to the public by 2008.

Wagner said she would advocate for a system that would let county residents have first priority for using facilities on the property.

Commissioner Glenn Gibson, who is retired from H-P, said he is looking forward to taking his grandchildren to Hermit Park, which he has visited many times.
"I'm tickled to death this is happening," he said.
 
#12 ·
I hope you're kidding

mtn hack said:
It's part of the contract, so as soon as it is signed.:rolleyes:
I hope the roll-eyes means you're kidding. I haven't heard any such thing. As someone who has spent a ton of time at Hermit Park I can tell you that there are not a lot of trails at Hermit Park that are meant for MTB. The true value is the preservation of the area and the access to Homestead Meadows. Plus the numerous camping opportunities year-round.

I recommend that as soon as the deal closes, people begin writing letters to emphasize open access to everyone in the management plan. If you want MTB to be a part of that you may want to lobby for the establishment of new trails. The possiblities there are endless but not too many exist today.

Feel free to PM if you have questions.

Thanks!
 
#15 ·
j-dawg said:
The true value is the preservation of the area and the access to Homestead Meadows.
I agree. If they allow bikes at least on the jeep road, you can count on the meadows being a lot more crowded. As it is, the climb up Lion Gulch is a higher price of entry than most people are willing to pay (figuratively speaking, of course). Now, if we can get a connector popping over the hill into Little Valley, that would be extra sweet!
 
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