Letter: Preserve parking for Snowmass property owners

Madam mayor, council members and town staff,

Capitol Peak and Hayden owners pay about $1 million a year to support and maintain community-purpose facilities that are used by virtually everyone who visits Snowmass to ski, enjoy concerts on the hill, bike or hike. In the past seven years, that makes well over $7 million (Viceroy would add to this total).

We pay to run Skittles; we pay to snowmelt the plaza; we pay to light the fire pit on the plaza; we pay to snowmelt the pedestrian walkway from the transit center to the gondola, the ski lift and Skittles; we pay to maintain the Base Village public toilets; we pay to maintain the garage; and so on. These are all community-purpose facilities solely maintained by Base Village owners but enjoyed by the community and visitors.

In the rightful fervor to see Base Village completed, we ask that 100 percent of our entitled parking remain contiguous to our Capitol Peak buildings and fenced from commercial parking, as it is today. We ask that these conditions be placed in the current amendment.

Only because the applicant has asked for alterations (lines 49 through 54 in the proposed amendment) to the current planned-unit-development terms are the Capitol Peak existing parking conditions in jeopardy. The developer already has failed to deliver most of the sales-brochure-promised amenities; please do not let this be another instance where the developer ignores Phase 1 owners.

As Smokey Bear says, “Only You can prevent forest fires,” and here, only the Town Council can prevent this situation from being inflicted upon Phase 1 owners by inserting the parking conditions shown above that must be met by the applicant.

We appreciate all of the hours of effort by those working on the Base Village completion, and thank you in advance for the assistance in preventing further damage to Phase 1 owners.

Patricia Jayne (Pat) Keefer

Base Village Capitol Peak owner, Snowmass Village