Given its importance in guiding the future development of Mountain Village, the draft process was the number six story of 2010 and holds the same position at number six for 2011.
In the course of its evolution, the document has raised hackles as well as hopes in the community.
The plan's most contentious aspect, which would have allowed development of a five-star hotel in the Boomerang/Comanche subarea beneath the Telluride Ski Area’s Gorrono Ranch restaurant along the Lower Village Bypass ski run, was eliminated from the plan in May.
Another facet of the plan cut by council was a high-density professional housing development at the current location of Telluride Ski and Golf’s mountain shops maintenance area, off San Joaquin Road.
With an emphasis on “hotbeds” full of revenue-providing visitors, the plan’s creators explored sites for additional hotbed development in the Mountain Village Center. These areas include the current location of the Meadows Magic Carpet, where a 66-unit, 45,000-square-foot development could be located, as well as redevelopment of the Gondola Station to provide 70 additional hotbeds.
“The goal was to put [hotbeds] in the Core,” Mayor Bob Delves explained during one of last year’s hearings on the plan. Although the removal of the contentious Boomerang/Comanche subarea quieted previously vocal concerns from property owners along nearby San Joaquin Road, the elimination of the site was a blow to others who had hoped the site could lure a well-established hotelier such as the Four Seasons – and all the economic benefits that would go with the development of such a property – to Mountain Village.
Another component of the Comprehensive Plan envisions redevelopment of the current Telluride Apartments site in the Meadows to allow for higher-density affordable housing. That component could be one of the first elements of the plan to come to fruition.
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