Brief by Central Staff
Recreation – November 2005 – Colorado Central Magazine
Plans for a major development on Wolf Creek Pass are now on hold, thanks to a ruling by District Judge O. John Kuenhold in a case brought against Mineral County and the developer by Colorado Wild and the Wolf Creek Ski Area.
This sounds complicated, and it is. There are two major private parties. One is the Pitcher family, which owns the Wolf Creek Ski Area near the summit of Wolf Creek Pass on U.S. 160 between South Fork and Pagosa Springs. The other is Texas billionaire Red McCombs.
McCombs owns hundreds of acres near the base of the ski area. He proposes to develop it into the Village at Wolf Creek with hotels, 222,000 square feet of commercial space, and housing for up to 10,500 people.
The immediate issue is an access road from U.S. 160. At the moment, there’s a dirt Forest Service road that is not maintained in the winter. Mineral County approved the development, but the judge found that the road was inadequate, and thus the county’s approval was “so devoid of evidentiary support that it can only be explained as an arbitrary and capricious exercise of authority.”
The judge’s ruling means that the county subdivision process has to begin anew, because that road won’t handle the expected traffic. Assuming the Forest Service allows the road to be improved, a highway interchange with U.S. 160 might also be required.
Wolf Creek Village has drawn considerable opposition from environmental groups, and adjacent counties aren’t real happy with it either.
That’s because the village is in Mineral County, which will get the tax revenues. But it’s in a corner of Mineral County that cannot be reached directly from the county seat at Creede. The closest settlements — and presumably the ones that will need to provide law enforcement and schools for village employees — are South Fork in Rio Grande County and Pagosa Springs in Archuleta County, and they won’t be getting any of the tax revenue.