Review by Virginia McConnell Simmons
Land Use – December 2005 – Colorado Central Magazine
Cities in the Wilderness: A New Vision of Land Use in America
by Bruce Babbitt
Published in 2005 by Island Press
ISBN 1-55963-093-0
Land Use
More news about land preservation
Sidebar by Marcia Darnell
Land Use – February 2005 – Colorado Central Magazine
Preservation is, ironically, the hot new trend. Land trusts, easements, and other means of maintaining open space, wildlife, and historic landmarks are growing, especially in rural Colorado.
In addition to the Everson Ranch saved by the Orient Land Trust, other good land in the San Luis Valley is being preserved from development.
LTUA manages small parcels for wildlife corridors
Sidebar by Ed Quillen
Land Use – February 2005 – Colorado Central Magazine
The Land Trust of the Upper Arkansas (LTUA), which works in Lake, Chaffee, and Frémont counties, will turn four this year, and it now holds 12 conservation easements that cover about 800 acres.
A conservation easement is in some respects like other easements. A utility company, for instance, might purchase an easement from a property owner so it can run a power line across the property.
Valley View becomes Orient Land Trust for preservation
Article by Marcia Darnell
Land Use – February 2005 – Colorado Central Magazine
VALLEY VIEW HOT SPRINGS has been a local landmark for over 30 years. The clothing-optional, natural pools resort has drawn people from around the region and around the country for fun and relaxation.
Now it is more.
And now, Great Sand Dunes National Park
Article by Marcia Darnell
Land Use – December 2004 – Colorado Central Magazine
WELL, IT’S OFFICIAL. The San Luis Valley is home to the nation’s 58th national park. The Great Sand Dunes National Monument and Preserve is no more. All hail the Great Sand Dunes National Park!
Ted Turner has a problem most of us would enjoy
Brief by Central Staff
Land Use – June 2004 – Colorado Central Magazine
Billionaire media mogul Ted Turner faces a dilemma that many of us might enjoy: picking among money-making ventures.
Among Turner’s holdings are some large ranches in the West; his largest is the 588,000-acre Vermejo Park Ranch. It spreads west from Raton, N.M., and part of it extends north into Colorado on the east side of the San Luis Valley.
Conservation Easements put money in wrong pockets
Essay by Dave Skinner
Land Use – June 2002 – Colorado Central Magazine
LIKE NEARLY EVERYONE, I am concerned with the gradual, and sometimes not-so-gradual replacement of our wide-open West with housing. I’ve seen more than a few of my favorite hunting and fishing spots, and my favorite neighbors, disappear forever.
It’s a bad situation, made worse by conservation easements.
Local Land Trusts
Sidebar by Ed Quillen
Land Use – June 2002 – Colorado Central Magazine
Conservation Easements involve two principals: the landowner who sells the easement, and the non-profit corporation (generally known as a Land Trust) which acquires and administers the easement.
Different Land Trusts have different goals. Some want to preserve relatively pristine environments and therefore have rather restrictive easements, while others (like the Colorado Cattlemen’s Agricultural Land Trust) aim at keeping the land in agricultural production, and they’re not real concerned about how the land is grazed or fenced.
Grazing and Location Theory
Sidebar by Ed Quillen
Land Use – June 2002 – Colorado Central Magazine – 5ERN4Q62K64Q
Why all the interest in Conservation Easements? One reason is that we’re undergoing an economic and cultural shift.
The economic part of the transformation starts with classical economic geography and something called “central-place theory,” which is a branch of “location theory,” which tries to explain why activities occur where they do.
Conservation easements and Walley World
Essay by Ed Quillen
Land Use – June 2002 – Colorado Central Magazine
WHEN HALF A DOZEN PEOPLE strung across our state tell me I really ought to attend something, even if that something is 50 miles away on a weeknight, eventually I run out of excuses. That’s the best way to explain a trip to the standing-room-only meeting room in Westcliffe’s new bowling alley on the night of April 25, just to watch a forum on conservation easements.
Confessions of a planning commissioner
Essay by Forrest Whitman
Land Use – June 2002 – Colorado Central Magazine
RECENTLY I VOTED with the Gilpin Planning Commission as we sent a gravel pit and reclamation project down to the Court House for decision by the County Commissioners. During the break I swear I heard some of the neighbors muttering “Kill the Planning Commission and get a new one!” Maybe that was just my imagination, but the phone calls I got first thing the next morning sure were real. I didn’t like the Pactolus gravel mining and reclamation project from the start, but the Gilpin planning commission had no real choice but to vote for it. How can that be?
Market Democracy
Column by George Sibley
Land Use – March 2001 – Colorado Central Magazine
EARLY IN JANUARY, the Gunnison County Commissioners finally signed off on a new improved “LUR” — a 450-page Land Use Resolution to guide land use decisions in the unincorporated parts of the county. This document has been under revision for almost seven years, and as one member of the county planning commission said, “has the fingerprints of almost anyone who walked into this room and made a comment,” including “the fingerprints of people who now object to it.”
The Johnny Horizon Outdoor Pledge
from the BLM
Land Use – February 2001 – Colorado Central Magazine
The Johnny Horizon Outdoor Pledge
Where have you gone, Johnny Horizon
Column by Hal Walter
Land Use – February 2001 – Colorado Central Magazine
TO THE WEST OF MY HOUSE stands a behemoth dead ponderosa pine. A thing of gnarly beauty, this tree is the birthplace of countless owls, woodpeckers, swallows and other birds each spring. It is a hunting perch for redtailed hawks, and a twisted ornament on the horizon of more scandalously beautiful sunsets than I can remember.
Lake County planners recommend denial of Eagle Sky
Brief by Central Staff
Land Use – January 2001 – Colorado Central Magazine
The Lake County Planning and Zoning Commission has recommended that the county commissioners deny the Eagle Sky Christian Challenge Camp.
The 3-2 vote came at a Nov. 20 meeting, and the county commissioners planned to vote before the end of 2000 on whether to follow the recommendation for denial, or to over-rule the planning board and approve the camp, perhaps with conditions.
Running Hard to Stay in Place
Essay by Ed Quillen
Land Use – September 2000 – Colorado Central Magazine
IF A PRIVATE CITIZEN like Ted Turner owned 3 million acres of Colorado — about 4.5% of the state’s area — his every known action would doubtless fall under close public scrutiny. Whenever he built a barn or tore down a fence, bought some bison or sold some horses, we’d know about it.
But there’s an agency that controls 3 million acres of Colorado, and hardly anybody pays much attention to the State Land Board.
Land trades still alive
Brief by Central Staff
Land use – April 2000 – Colorado Central Magazine
Two controversial land swaps haven’t gone away — they’re both still active.
On March 14, the Colorado Board of Land Commissioners voted to “initiate the proposal” to swap 640 acres of state land on Little Cochetopa Creek in Chaffee County for 3,080 acres near La Jara Reservoir in Costilla County.
Propose land trades generating controvsersy
Brief by Central Staff
Land Use – March 2000 – Colorado Central Magazine
Public agencies usually don’t buy or sell land. Instead, they trade it, and two proposed land swaps in Central Colorado are generating some controversy.
In 1997, several large ranches in southern Lake County went on the market. Three were purchased by the cities of Pueblo and Aurora for their water rights.
Who’s in charge of our land?
Column by Hal Walter
Land Use – January 1996 – Colorado Central Magazine
If there’s anything beautiful about our government, it’s how slowly it does or doesn’t work. Our founding fathers — hoping to save us from ourselves — designed it that way. It keeps our elected clowns from doing wrong things too quickly. That’s why it took years and years to establish a wilderness area in the Sangre de Cristo mountain range.
Badger Creek: Big Country with some Big Problems
Article by Jeffrey Keidel
Land use – January 1996 – Colorado Central Magazine
The Badger Creek Watershed is BIG country. The area encompasses 135,000 acres stretching northeast of Salida.
But such statistics belie its vast and isolated beauty. The open range of the upper part of the basin, seems to go on forever. Black and Waugh Mountain serve as guideposts to keep oriented, but it’s still easy to get lost. The lower basin is rugged piñon-juniper terrain. Locals talk of ticks and rattlesnakes “down there.”
Sangre de Cristo Mountains: Spine or Barrier?
Brief by Central Staff
Land Use – November 1995 – Colorado Central Magazine
Sangres: Spine or Barrier?
Traditionally, the Sangre de Cristo range has served as a barrier between two basins — the San Luis Valley, and the Wet Mountain and Huerfano valleys.
The Nature Conservancy at work in Central Colorado
Article by Marcia Darnell
Land Use – July 1995 – Colorado Central Magazine
Ah, summer. When a hiker’s fancy turns to untrampled land, unusual plants, and a vista free of condo developments.
The Nature Conservancy holds four such areas in central Colorado: High Creek Fen Preserve, Mishak Lakes, Mexican Cut Preserve, and Hoosier Ridge Preserve.