ROARING FORK BROADCASTING COMPANY
Eagle County commissioners have denied a request for a 25-stall boarding stable and a 20,000-square-foot covered riding arena in Missouri Heights.
During a meeting in El Jebel on Tuesday, commissioners cited issues with intensity of use and compatibility as their main reason. Annie Graber, owner of Twin Acres LLC, planned to lease the 101-acre parcel at 623 Fender Lane for an equestrian operation. A special use permit is required for a boarding and riding stable function on the land.
“The intensity of this use does seem to be incompatible with what is surrounding it right now,” said Commissioner Matt Scherr.
Commissioner Kathy Chandler Henry agreed, specifically referencing the Eagle County Comprehensive Plan, which lays out long-range planning for the county.
“The intensity of use and the size and scope leads me to feel like it has not met the standards of the comprehensive [plan],” Chandler-Henry said. “It’s a quiet neighborhood, it’s a residential neighborhood. This is a large commercial operation.”
Had the applicant intended a ranching operation on the land, it would be allowed as a use-by-right.
Details of the proposed business fluctuated over the course of the application process, which began in May 2022, but the final plan included boarding 45 horses on the property as well as training and riding by appointment.
Aspen Valley Land Trust holds a conservation easement on approximately 80 acres of the property. Graber said that she did not intend to graze the horses on the conserved acreage, but planned to hay the land twice annually to feed the horses and occasionally take horses on the property for riding.
The application originally included plans for equestrian events, like competitions, on the property, but that was eventually scrapped due to potential impact.
The decision followed a monthslong debate over the nature of Missouri Heights, pitting residents of the community who wanted to protect their neighborhood from heightened traffic and equestrian impacts against those sympathetic to a Western heritage-type operation on land that’s historically been occupied by more horses than people before being subdivided into luxurious mountain homes.
County staff had recommended approval of the application, on the condition of a number of updates to the application ranging from the mowing of grass parking spaces to limiting the number of horse trailers on the property at any given time.
The commissioners all said their concerns over fire hardening, sufficient water and emergency egress had all been assuaged by the applicant. Ultimately, the impact of a commercial operation with 45 horses did not match surrounding density or intensity of use in their understanding of the area’s comprehensive plan and county code.
“I do think the intensity of this use for 45 horses is beyond really what they were considering when they wrote the comprehensive plan,” said Commissioner Jeannie McQueeney.
At the original June 18 meeting date for the permit hearing, public comment lasted more than three hours. Residents of Missouri Heights, and occasionally attorneys they hired to poke holes in the application, criticized the Twin Acres operation for its intensity.
Supporters of the applicant alleged hypocrisy against the critics, many of whom had organized under a “Keep Missouri Heights Rural” coalition. Missouri Heights had always been rural, they said, until what was historically ranchland was subdivided for residential dwellings.
According to Assistant Eagle County Attorney Matt Peterson, the applicant will need to wait a calendar year after the denial date is codified in a resolution if they’d like to apply again with a modified application — starting at the very beginning of the planning process. The passing of the resolution will come in the next 90 days.
Graber and her team declined to comment after the commissioners delivered the decision. The dozens of members of the public in attendance at Tuesday’s meeting erupted in applause once the meeting adjourned.