Jefferson County commissioners deny permit for lift-served bike park

The Jefferson County Board of Commissioners last week denied a proposed lift-served mountain bike park atop Shadow Mountain Drive near Conifer, agreeing with dozens of vocal residents who opposed the project. 

The county’s planning commission last month recommended that the commissioners deny the permit application for the Shadow Mountain Bike Park, which would have been the first lift-served mountain bike park in Colorado that is not part of a ski resort. 

A well-organized group of local residents — many of them neighbors of the would-be park — voiced vehement opposition to the project, showing up by the dozens to testify at the planning and county commissioner meetings. They collected more than 5,800 signatures and 700 letters from residents and groups opposed to the plan. They urged county leaders to consider impacts to wildlife, habitat, water, potential wildfire, strains on local emergency services and traffic on the two-lane, home-lined Shadow Mountain Drive.

Ultimately, county officials decided the project was not compatible with the agricultural and residential zoning around the property and rejected the developers’ request for a special permit. The agricultural zoning allows one home for every 10 acres in the area, so the 230-acre parcel could accommodate 23 homes. 

“This is a tremendous project. There is no question about it. There is no question about the positive economic impact it would have on Conifer. However, there are so many other factors that really lift up this question of compatibility,” Jefferson County Commissioner Lesley Dahlkemper said. 

The project’s backers, Jason Evans and Phil Bouchard, spent four years working on the bike park plan. The 230-acre property is owned by the Colorado State Land Board, which is tasked with generating money for schools from leases on  its land. The pair of mountain bikers had inked a tentative, revenue-based longterm lease with the board that would have delivered annual rent payments of $241,000 to $572,000. The developers said the lift-served bike park could host as many as 70,000 visitors on about 16 miles of trails, generating up to $12 million a year in revenue when fully built. 

After several public meetings to vet their plan, Evans and Bouchard had agreed on a five-month seasonal closure of the park to protect wildlife. They had developed a parking reservation system to encourage carpooling and reduce traffic near the park. They planned to have their own emergency services — like a ski patrol. They said they would limit the width of trails and cap the total mileage of singletrack. 

“We have been incorporating community input for four years,” Evans told the commissioners Tuesday. “We are trying to build something that is really awesome for our community.”

Bouchard and Evans said their plan would address trail crowding and meet a growing demand for mountain bikers who like to ride fast downhill, which has raised issues in recent years on crowded Jefferson County bike trails.  

“The Front Range of Colorado absolutely needs not just one but several of these bike parks. Absolutely,” said Commissioner Andy Kerr, who serves on the board of Bicycle Colorado but cited wildlife and residents’ concerns in his vote against the development on Shadow Mountain Drive. 

For a second there, as Kerr spoke at the Tuesday meeting following several hours of opposition testimony, Bouchard thought the commissioner might support the bike park. (The vote was 2-1, with commissioner Tracy Kraft-Tharp voting to approve the special-use permit and a rezoning that would allow the chairlift-anchored park in a zone that does not allow mechanized recreation.)

Bouchard on Wednesday expressed frustration with the approval process. He and Evans spent four years working with a team of consultants and county planning staff to build a 436-page application that addressed wildlife, emergency services, water, traffic and community concerns. The Stop The Bike Park’s presentation opposing the project spanned 380 pages.

“I think there were things going on behind the scenes,” Bouchard said Wednesday. “We built an application that was as close as possible to perfect and was really only nonconforming because of a land use recommendation that is 10, maybe 15 years old. And it’s supposed to be a guiding document, a recommendation. I don’t know if it was a threat of litigation against the county or people’s political future that ultimately kept it out of the approval category.”

Bouchard said county leaders say they want to expand recreation in Jefferson County but “if you look at a map of the county, of all the places that would allow any type of recreation and that are zoned for recreation, you will get nothing because there is nothing left. It’s all already developed or conserved as open space,” he said. “If you want to expand recreation in Jefferson County, you need to update land use code or treat land use recommendations for what they are: recommendations.”