In a classic case of “not in my backyard” thinking, prospective neighbors to a proposed lift-served bike park in Conifer, Colorado, are successfully opposing the park’s construction. They have organized as a group named “Stop the Bike Park,” and the group scored a major win this week.
“In a unanimous vote, the Jefferson County Planning Commission voted Sept. 23 to recommend denial of a special use permit for Conifer’s proposed Shadow Mountain Bike Park,” writes Jane Reuter in an article for the Canyon Courier.
All Colorado lift-served bike parks constructed thus far are all built on ski resorts, but Jason Evans and Phil Bouchard, the two men behind Shadow Mountain Bike Park, said that building a bike park that is designed around bike-first infrastructure allows for optimal trail design, and an even longer riding season.
“Since most of Colorado’s bike parks under ski resorts are located in high elevation areas, they typically don’t open until the middle of June and usually have to close before the end of September, leaving a short 3-4 month season, often cut short so resorts can prep to open for winter,” wrote Matt Miller.
“Bouchard and Evans are shooting to address all of these issues with something that would be the first of its kind in Colorado: a lift-served park for mountain biking only, open for half the year, and within an hour’s drive of Denver.”
According to Next 9News, “neighbors have been pushing back, saying that they’re worried about the extra traffic and noise.”
However, when the seven commissioners cast their votes against the proposal, they “repeatedly cited concerns about wildlife on the site and the park’s incompatibility with surrounding land uses,” writes Reuter. The commissioners didn’t make the decision lightly, as they “considered three nights and more than 16 hours of public testimony from 117 people, in addition to county staff reports and the applicants’ rebuttal.”
According to the news reports, while the county commissioners still have the final say on the project (most likely in November), the Planning Commission’s rejection is a big blow to Bouchard and Evans’ plans.
1 Comments
0 minutes ago
But if we look at traffic impact overall, ie people from Denver driving to JeffCo to ride park instead of all the way up to Trestle and Keystone, that's a net decrease in traffic. But yeah, locally more traffic. NIMBY strikes again.