|
 |
| From left, Alamosa resident Karen Lemke,
Rio Grande Healthy Living Park project leader Luette Frost, SLV Local Food
Coalition Director Liza Marron, and Adams State student life coordinator Aaron
Miltenburger, rear center, listen to the school board make its decision to sell
the Polston property to Dan Russell. Those in support of the healthy living park
wore green and donned stickers saying, “The healthy living park loves our
schools.” Courier photo by Lauren Krizansky |
|
|
|
|
|
Courier
staff writer
ALAMOSA — After hearing two Polston property visions, the
Alamosa Board of Education (ABOE) moved in a special meeting Thursday morning to
sell local businessman Dan Russell the parcel to realize his RV resort
dream.
The ABOE voted six to one to seal the sales deal with Russell, who
will pay $500,000 for the 38-acre property with water rights that was recently
appraised for $755,000. The Trust for Public Lands (TPL), a California-based
non-profit public benefit corporation representing the San Luis Valley Local
Foods Coalition, offered to pay the appraised amount for the parcel to create
the Rio Grande Healthy Living Park. Russell and the ABOE are expected to close
the sale in August.
ABOE Official Neil Hammer cast the only dissenting
vote after the school district leaders emerged from a timely executive session
that followed the presentations.
“The difference in price would be a
great benefit to educate our children,” Hammer said about the $250,000 loss. “It
would help us.”
The money, which is earmarked for capital improvements,
was one of many factors the ABOE took into consideration before making the
decision.
“I appreciate both parties and the ideas, thoughts and passions
they have for each project,” said ABOE President Bill Van Gieson. “It’s tough
when the weight of the community’s direction falls on the shoulders of the
school board.”
According to Russell’s calculations, his RV resort will
generate $50,000 in property taxes annually in addition to upwards of $2 million
locally spent tourist dollars.
“This makes the land taxable and it will
support future school needs,” Russell said. “This is a commitment to support our
community.”
Russell’s property interest is founded in improving Alamosa’s
economic state through providing a “destination” and access to the preexisting
Alamosa Ranch/Cole Park area through an expanded parking area and RV resort. He
said such a development, located on the corner of Highway 17 and Highway 160,
would allow people immediate opportunities to explore the city and its natural
settings while raising the tax base.
His preliminary plans include
creating 300 parking spaces near Cole Park’s Rio Grande River footbridge and
roughly 200 RV lots. They also include a land exchange with the City of Alamosa,
a private fishing pond, the ability for golfers to drive their carts to Cattails
and solutions to impending challenges from the East Alamosa Water and Sanitation
District that include tap fees.
His plan, however, will require working
with the city to accommodate some components like driving a golf cart on the
levees and public roadways, which ordinances do not currently permit.
“I
am working with the city to get them on board,” Russell said before the ABOE
took its vote. “This is an opportunity for the community to make
money.”
TLP wanted to acquire the property to develop the healthy living
park based on similar projects across the state and nationwide. The park would
have provided access to the Alamosa Ranch via bike and walking trails. It would
have also potentially included quarter acre farm plots to encourage new farmer
development; community gardens and greenhouses; a multi-purpose building with
possible kitchen space, classrooms and a food distribution warehouse; outdoor
events space; amphitheater; theme gardens; outdoor classroom space; picnic
tables; a wetlands preservation site; a traditional water uses education site; a
sites of the San Luis Valley playground; and exercise stations.
TPL
project manager Wade Shelton explained to the ABOE that transforming the idle
parcel into a healthy living park would boost property values within walking
distance 15 percent, protect natural resources and improve the community’s
health. The Polston property, he said, was “unique” and one of the best
opportunities he has seen in the state to develop in such a manner because of
its size and water rights.
“In Colorado, water is usually a limiting
factor,” Shelton said. “Here, we don’t have that problem.”
He added,
“There is an opportunity to be a trailblazer. If this moves forward, we believe
it will generate national attention and increase tourism.”
TPL would have
made the proposed healthy living park a reality with grant dollars from the
Colorado Health Foundation and Great Outdoors Colorado in addition to securing
some private funding from both inside and outside the Valley.
“This is
the opportunity to be on the cutting edge of parks, playground equipment and
food production,” Shelton said. “It would set Alamosa apart.”
Besides
Shelton’s Thursday morning presentation, the ABOE received a number of letters
in support of the healthy living park for a number of reasons.
“The
healthy living park is a place for open space, but most importantly it is an
economic incubator for the students and alumni of San Luis Valley schools to
continue their learning, a place where they can shape their own path to economic
success and subsequent contribution to the local tax base,” wrote Patrick
O’Neill, an Agro Engineering, Inc. agronomist. “We have a burgeoning local foods
movement across the United States, including in the San Luis Valley – we will
need the space to nurture the development of this economy, the Polston property
being ideal for just such a venture.”
Alamosa resident Karen Lemke
expressed concern for Alamosa’s future generations and the food growing
opportunities the property has provided for the struggling Guatemalan
community.
“I think it is important to consider all of the people
impacted by the decision,” Lemke wrote. "We must certainly think of the children
of Alamosa—what outcome will promise the most for their future? It is also
important to remember that Alamosa is a diverse community—our children come from
different economic backgrounds, different ethnic backgrounds."
Although
the Polston property is no longer an option, the San Luis Valley Local Foods
Coalition might have access to other abandoned lands. The Alamosa County
Economic Development/Chamber of Commerce has identified areas that could give
the coalition another chance to bring a healthy living park to the Valley.
