The URL can be used to link to this page

Home My WebLink About10.0 Letter from Neighbor 06.24.2007TO: Eagle County Government 500 Broadway Eagle, CO. 81631 , vfoot;;,0 i4e- p 1.1 ,,,,t, „et, , PI 01 ri 11% (, aw 'ifli;‘ C' TO: Jim Adams 181 Harmony Lane Carbondale, CO. 81623 ATT: Ms. ue Fis'rler Coun Commissioner, District 3 s one: '70-963-3887 Date: June 24, 2007 ,rte NJA I am a property owner and resident in Joseph's Meadow Subdivision, Garfield County. In our area of Missouri Heights, there are a number of concerned homeowners who are among forty or more property owners in both Eagle and Garfield Counties who use Harmony Lane as their primary access to public county roadways. In 1993 two small subdivisions (Harmony View in Eagle County and Joseph's Meadows in Garfield County) were approved on the Eagle/Garfield County line on Missouri Heights. The northern borders of both developments lie adjacent to the same public county road, i.e. 102 Road in Garfield County and Fender Lane in Eagle County. Harmony Lane provides the only access to those county roads from these two subdivisions as well as a host of other properties in the area. (Please see enclosed vicinity map). On the Eagle side, the Harmony View developer was required to upgrade Harmony Lane from a cow path to Eagle's minimum standards. Joseph's Meadow, after a bit of coercion, was required to contribute $6000 to the cost of the road improvement. For final approval of Filing #2, Harmony View was required to dedicate the Harmony Lane roadway from Fender Lane to the south boundary of Harmony View Subdivision to Eagle County. I have not researched the Harmony Lane ownership south of Harmony View boundary but I believe that from that point to the Soderberg Subdivision's Sunset Lane, the roadway is owned jointly by the developer of Fox Run Subdivision (in Eagle County) and Thomas Levitt, who owns vacant land in Garfield County adjacent to the 2nd leg of Harmony Lane. It is a private road. In 1993, when the Harmony Lane upgrade was completed, there was an almost immediate response from the residents of the Soderberg and Glenn Subdivisions in using Harmony Lane as their primary access. The Pinon Grove and Levitt Subdivisions were developed and approved by Garfield County in the mid 1990s. However, Levitt's 13 -lot development remains vacant because the lots have not, as yet, been offered for sale. It's roads are all paved and dedicated to Garfield County and appear to be public roadways. ENGINEERING In early 2000 Mr. Levitt complied with a Garfield County mandate to chip and seal the surface of Harmony Lane from 102 Road/Fender Lane to its intersection with Wind River Road. (Please refer to map). He was not required to address any of the obvious major drainage problems, although, a year or two later he did install a thick black -top cover over the major pot -hole -riddled section of Harmony Lane. At the time of the Levitt Subdivision's final approval, Mr. Levitt was also required to develop and promote a Homeowners' Road Maintenance Agreement. Harmony View, Joseph's Meadows and Pinion Grove all signed the Agreement. However, The Glenn Subdivision developer, when asked to join the group, ignored the request, even though the residents of that subdivision use Harmony Lane regularly as their access road. In the winter and spring of 2005, due to vastly increased traffic, Harmony Lane had begun to deteriorate rapidly. A bid for road repair was prepared and a comprehensive request for funds was sent to the addresses of ALL of the known users of Harmony Lane in both Eagle and Garfield County. We received just three replies; one from the Soderberg Subdivision, one from the Pinion Grove Subdivision and one from Fox Run. All the members of the Road Maintenance Group felt that ALL the Harmony road users should contribute to the road repair ( the" all -or -nothing approach") so, in the end, no one contributed and the matter was put on the "back-bumer". In the summer of 2005, I called Eagle County Commissioner Stone. We discussed options for addressing Harmony Lane's problems. One reasonable solution appeared to be setting up an Improvement District. He offered the County's help in steering us through the procedure. He arranged for a County Engineer to physically inspect Harmony Lane to identify major areas that need drainage improvement. We greatly appreciated Commissioner Stone's interest, effort and input. Until now, most of our friends and neighbors have remained quietly uninvolved even though, year after year, Harmony Lane is experiencing ever -greater traffic volume and therefore ever -greater deterioration. Thirty to forty property and homeowners can generate a sizeable amount of activity from construction vehicles to service people and to three and four car families, etc. The 1st leg of Harmony Lane (from 102/Fender to the intersection with Wind River Road) is taking a major beating because, originally, it really was neither designed nor constructed to handle this large increase in usage. Although the major portion of the 1" leg of Harmony Lane is a dedicated roadway, Eagle County refuses to provide us with any normal road improvement or minimal maintenance services. It is fairly obvious to us that none of our taxes over the past thirteen years has been applied to our local, general safety and welfare needs. Our small group has decided that there are only two viable alternatives left to be explored. The first is one we would urge Eagle County to consider very, very seriously: that Eagle and Garfield Counties work together to formulate a reasonable plan to make improvements to and provide full- time maintenance for the 1" leg of Harmony Lane through its intersection with Wind River Road. (Please see the attached road improvement estimate from a local contractor.) The second alternative would be to create a Roadway Improvement District. However, the State of Colorado's current Title 32, Special Districts Provisions, appears to be too overwhelmingly costly for such a small area as ours. A less costly, legally acceptable alternative may be available. We are aware of other small, ignored areas in Colorado, like ours, that have similar problems. Over the years many of them were successful in convincing theipi counties to provide them with substantial legal assistance in setting up a Roadway Improvement District which included providing legal boundary definitions, researching and developing a list of tax -paying property owners within the proposed District and creating a legally acceptable voting procedure to determine support for the District. And then finally when the measure passes muster, allowing the District to use the County's credit rating to make a ten-year bank loan to pay the contractor to make the necessary, major roadway improvements. Obviously Eagle and Garfield County personnel would have to work closely together to assess and collect the additional taxes from the property owners to pay off the loan If the Roadway Improvement District above is successfully accomplished and the major improvements to the 1 S` leg of Harmony Lane are made and meet with Eagle County's approval, it wouldn't take much after that to maintain the roadway. We would expect both Eagle and Garfield Counties to develop a joint plan to provide future year-round maintenance on the improved section of Harmony Lane using their own personnel and equipment as part of the general road maintenance program already being applied to the other dedicated roads in our area. The Special District could use the same formula for fairly assessing all property -owner taxes that was used in our Road Maintenance Agreement. It divides the length of Harmony Lane into three sections, identifies the length of each section and further identifies the number of users for each section. (Please see pages 1 and 2 and sectional scale attached). The problems with Harmony Lane are genuinely serious. We have tried to solve them ourselves but come up empty. We come to you, at this point, because we really need help. We would greatly appreciate your in-depth consideration of the possible solutions outlined above. Thank you. Respectfully submitted, James S. Adams cc: Thomas Levitt, Garfield County - White Cloud Subdivision Jasper Johns, Garfield - Undeveloped property Alan Caniglia, Eagle County - Fox Run Subdivision Joe Edwards, Eagle County - Soderberg Subdivision Kim Holland, Eagle County - Harmony View Subdivision Bob Elmore, Garfield County - Pinion Grove Subdivision