The Summit County Council Wednesday voted to modify their Amended Development Agreement for the Canyons Resort Area.
They agreed to extend some deadlines in the Agreement, which the county approved a year ago, almost to the day. The vote doesn’t change the substance of two conditions the resort has to meet—it just doesn’t require their completion by the end of 2018.
Representatives from the Canyons asked the council to amend two conditions relating to roads and transit. They said they’re substantially on their way to meeting the conditions—but can’t quite finish by the end of the year.
County staff planner Tiffany Northup-Robinson said the first item, Condition #6, deals with road improvements in the lower part of the Canyons.
“Some of the improvements have been made from the lower village roundabout up to the resort core.” Northup-Robinson continued, “Expanding, widening Canyons Resort dr. including turning lanes, installing crossings, passing of that nature. However, the roundabout and the connection that was going to happen from Canyon Resorts Dr down to Red Pine Rd did not happen this year as was expected as part of this approval.”
Larry White, the head of the firm TCFC, said they ran into some platting issues to get the road connection done from Canyons Resort Drive to Red Pine Road.
“Simply put, the reason that we didn’t get it done is because of the platting process.” White explained, “In the platting process the number of people that have to agree to a plat and reconcile plat notes, include the county, the CVMA, Vail, as well as TCFC. Between that number of people trying to reconcile plat notes on RC-16 and RC-20 and dividing both RC-16 and 20 into A and B where the perimeter by Red Pine rd. is residential and the interior is hotel lodging. So, it actually splits the opposite direction of the current tax maps, particularly on 16. In order to get all the platting done which allows—the platting is what actually creates the plat for the road to happen. It simply did not get done in time for us to reasonably assume that we could get it done by November, which was a vail requirement that it had to get done before ski season.”
He said the plat work was done by last August, but that wasn’t soon enough for them to construct the road this year.
They now expect the road to get done by next fall. The formal deadline will be the end of calendar year 2019.
The other condition was a traffic study, showing how the Canyons will reduce their vehicle impacts by a required 27 percent.
The new deadline there will be this March. The head of the Resort Village Management Association, Brian Madacsi said they’re very close to finishing.
“We’re very close at this point the final draft has been turned in.” Madacsi said, “As soon as county engineering and transportation have a chance to review it I’m confident we’ll make that March 1st date. All the heavy lifting’s been done, the analysis, we’ve done the leg work to get there.”
