Crown Mountain joint county housing project ‘stalled out’

Pitkin and Eagle counties are once again deadlocked on an acquisition of U.S. Forest Service-owned land adjacent to Crown Mountain Park in El Jebel.

The counties were given first right of refusal in the 1990s should the Forest Service seek to sell the land. The federal agency expressed to Pitkin and Eagle Counties that they were interested in selling the land in the last four years, according to Eagle County Manager Jeff Shroll. 

Shroll presented project updates during a joint session between Eagle and Pitkin county commissions on Tuesday. 

“I think, between the two counties, we’ve been gaslit on this project for so many years,” he said. “We dug really deep into whether or not we can do housing on the Eagle County-owned portion of the property that we do not lease to Crown Mountain. We just couldn’t get there with the Forest Service attorneys.” 

When exercising their first right of refusal, which gives Pitkin and Eagle counties “first dibs” on the property, the two local governments engaged with Forest Service attorneys to understand the limitations of how they could use the land. 

Both counties were hoping to build some deed-restricted housing on the land, as well as create more open space. 

“We looked at some housing opportunities closer to (the Eagle) county building over there,” said Shroll. “We would buy all that, then take the Valley Road and convert that back into more open space and presumably lease it back to Crown Mountain. The net gain to Parks and Recreation and Open Space would have been twofold, if not threefold.”

After consulting with Forest Service attorneys, however, they were told that the “patent” on the land — or the rules that govern what they can do with the federal land — would not allow the construction of housing. 

“The original language in the patent made it so we couldn’t find a way that housing would be allowed on that property under any circumstances,” said Shroll. “Even if it was, you know, a three or four to one exchange of some kind. So we just got stalled out on that.”

The process was ultimately halted long enough that the Forest Service is now no longer interested in selling the land, leaving the project in a state of stasis. The counties have the first right to purchase the land should the agency once again open the doors to a sale but are not interested in doing so under current legal interpretations of what they can do with the land. 

Changing those rules would require a “literal act of Congress,” according to Ashley Perl, the Resiliency and Housing director for Pitkin County.