Local conservation group Keep Routt Wild has submitted detailed comments on the proposed Stagecoach Mountain Ranch development, calling for robust scientific review and ongoing community engagement but stopping short of endorsing or opposing the project outright.
Discovery Land Company’s proposal for Stagecoach Mountain Ranch, a planned 6,100-acre private ski area south of Steamboat Springs, includes 613 luxury homes alongside 137 workforce housing units, with 95 marked for affordable housing accessible to the public, according to the application’s planning documents.
Keep Routt Wild’s statement, sent by President Larry Desjardin, to Routt County planners on Nov. 17 as part of the application’s public input process, emphasizes the ecological significance of the Stagecoach area and advocates for more in-depth evaluation regarding the luxury development’s potential impacts on high-priority wildlife habitats.
Kyle Collins, Discovery Land Company’s vice president of architecture and planning, responded to Keep Routt Wild’s statement in an email to the newspaper on Monday.
“Discovery takes the potential impacts to wildlife habitats — particularly the Elk High Priority Habitats — very seriously,” he wrote. “We are still in the process of developing a comprehensive and thoughtful response not only to the comments submitted by Keep Routt Wild, but also to those from Colorado Parks and Wildlife related to these habitats.”
“As part of this effort, we are working with other wildlife habitat stakeholders to advance restoration of Elk Production areas that have been negatively impacted by recent wildfires in order to expand on our wildlife mitigation measures,” Collins continued.
“We are confident that the final version of the Stagecoach Mountain Ranch Wildlife Mitigation Plan will fully address all comments received relative to wildlife habitat,” Collins added. “The plan will provide both onsite and offsite mitigation measures that exceed the potential impacts identified, ensuring meaningful and lasting protections for elk and other wildlife.”
“Our interest in SMR goes beyond this individual project, as this will be the first major project under the County’s new UDC (Uniform Development Code) that addresses wildlife mitigation, and one using LPS (Land Preservation Subdivisions),” Desjardin wrote. “Therefore, this project will set a precedent of how wildlife mitigation is treated in Routt County for years to come.”
Keep Routt Wild also highlighted the sensitive nature of local wildlife corridors and habitats around Stagecoach Mountain Ranch.
The group noted its focus on high-priority habitats potentially impacted by the development and referred to Discovery Land Company’s mitigation plans for Columbian sharp-tailed grouse and golden eagles as “effective” — while also raising concerns about possible repercussions to elk populations.
“A highlighted concern of ours is the impact to important elk habitat from the development and associated trail-based recreation,” wrote Desjardin. “Elk serve as a proxy for many wildlife species that share their habitat and avoidance behavior to humans. The application proposes development in elk severe winter range, elk winter concentration areas, and elk production (calving) areas.”
The conservation organization acknowledged some proposed mitigation to elk habitats from the development application but said they do not “compensate for the net loss of high priority habitat that will occur through development.”
Keep Routt Wild also criticized the way in which Discovery Land Company quantified the impacts to high-priority habitats in their application, adding that “no impacts are assessed … for disturbances that will occur on the landowners’ properties.”
“The application proposes to mitigate for the loss of (high-priority habitat) by not developing an equivalent number of acres. There are issues with this approach,” wrote Desjardin. “Avoiding impacts in one area does not compensate for the impacts in another. There is still a net loss of high-priority habitat.”
“When scaled to the countywide level, such an approach would lead over time to a massive reduction and fragmentation of important habitat,” he continued.
The conservation group also noted the application’s proposal for new recreation trails and asked that the trails not be approved without further evaluation from both Colorado Parks and Wildlife and other local public land agencxies.
“We believe that the impact to wildlife habitat needs to be evaluated using best available science and the GIS tools to support it, and then mitigation needs to occur on-site, off-site, and/or by cash-in-lieu fees to offset the net impact,” Desjardin concluded in the letter. “Doing so will preserve the wildlife and habitat so highly valued by Routt County residents and visitors.”
Public hearings for Stagecoach Mountain Ranch are slated to begin early next year. Residents may submit comments ahead of the hearings at tinyurl.com/4w89vm42 or by emailing PlanningDept@co.routt.co.us.