Editor’s note: This story has been corrected to correctly attribute comments about property taxation made by Gold Mountain Ranch Operations Manager Keller Herrin.
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A proposed guest ranch will come before Ouray County commissioners after receiving mixed reviews and votes from a special joint planning board hearing last week. If it’s approved, the Gold Mountain Ranch would be the only guest ranch licensed to operate in the county.
Owner Rick Wilson applied for a special-use permit to operate a guest ranch out of two different locations that make up the 1,400 acres of the Gold Mountain Ranch: one property one mile outside the city of Ouray and another property nearly three miles outside the town of Ridgway. The properties are owned by Keystone Portfolio Management, which has a working ranch network, according to the application.
The meeting combined the Ridgway Joint Area Planning Board and the Ouray Joint Area Planning Board with two representatives from the Ridgway Planning Commission, two representatives from the Ouray Planning Commission and two representatives from the Ouray County Planning Commission.
Intergovernmental agreements require the county to convene joint planning boards between the county and Ouray or Ridgway when a development is proposed in the unincorporated county but in close proximity to one of those municipalities. In this case, guest ranch facilities are proposed close enough to both Ouray and Ridgway that both planning boards met. It’s the first time that’s ever happened, Ouray County Senior Planner Bryan Sampson said.
The Gold Mountain Ranch properties are located at 1995 Gold Mountain Trail, one mile outside Ouray off of County Road 14, and at 779 Tranquility Trail off of County Road 5, 2.7 miles southwest of the town of Ridgway.
According to the application prepared by Gold Mountain Ranch Operations Manager Keller Herrin, “The land has been used for grazing livestock, as well as the training and breeding of horses with seasonal rotation in accordance with training schedules and stages of development. (The ranch) is a part of a multi-state program to breed, train, and sell high-end working horses.”
The ranch’s Ouray property includes one of Ouray’s oldest mining districts. It currently offers recreational activities — primarily trail rides and the Gold Mountain Via Ferrata — and lodging at The Wilmont ranch house, which has an existing short-term rental permit for a maximum of 12 overnight guests.
The application says the guest ranch designation would add onto these existing uses through accommodation packages for tourists and visitors, bringing them into the ranching experience through overnight stays, onsite meals as well as the potential for various other outdoor activities such as mountain biking and snowmobiling. The application proposes a maximum of 65 guests for day use.
Herrin said the special-use permit would allow them to expand current ranching operations.
Ouray County Planning Director Mark Castrodale said before this, the only record his department has of a guest ranch special-use permit was for Orvis Hot Springs which was granted that permit in 2006. But Orvis relinquished that permit in 2007 and didn’t move forward with its guest ranch plans, Castrodale said.
Herrin said the proposed guest ranch would bring together public and private uses to create opportunities for people to enjoy the property who wouldn’t normally be able to.
“That is a good long-term model going forward for tourism recreation,” Herrin said.
Land Use recommendation
Ouray County Land Use staff recommended denying the special-use permit request, saying the activities proposed in the application are outside the scope of a guest ranch as defined by the land use code. The recommendation also argued the majority of the property included in the application is not considered “principally a working ranch whose primary purpose is agriculture,” as outlined in the land use code definition of guest ranch.
Castrodale said the Land Use Department is updating a variety of land use code sections this year, including the section about guest ranches, but said the department could not recommend approval of this application under the existing definition.
Sampson said if the joint planning boards did not want to recommend denying the application, they could reconsider it once there is an updated definition for a guest ranch or recommend approving it with various conditions informed by other entities such as Colorado Parks and Wildlife.
Joint Planning Board discussion
Planning commissioners’ discussion centered on concerns about maintaining public access to trails that run through the property, adhering to CPW recommendations primarily regarding the protection of bighorn sheep and whether the proposed use fit the definition of a guest ranch.
“It is not an amusement park. Please take that to heart because it sounds like what you’re trying to build,” said Ouray County Planning Commissioner Kate Boehnke.
City of Ouray Planning Commissioner Kevin Schiffer asked Sampson how much of the property has to be “ranched” to be considered a ranch.
Sampson said aside from requiring 150 acres to operate a guest ranch, there’s no requirement for how much of that land needs to be used for ranching.
Herrin said one way to assess that could be through taxes. An agricultural tax designation doesn’t require any certain number of horses to establish agricultural status, for example, he said. The Ridgway property is taxed for agricultural use, but the Ouray property is currently classified as patented mining claims and residential. Herrin said the owners have not looked at the possibility of re-classifying the property.
City of Ouray Planning Commissioner Glenn Boyd said he didn’t see Gold Mountain Ranch trying to create an amusement park.
“I see you as creating a tourist attraction with a very defined, set scope,” he said.
Boyd asked if Herrin would be amenable to the conditions drawn up by the county land use staff. Herrin only expressed slight reservations about the condition of completing a geologic hazard survey, calling it timely and expensive.
Two members of the public spoke in support of the request, both of whom are in business partnerships with Herrin. Logan Tyler, who jointly operates the Gold Mountain Via Ferrata with the ranch, argued issuing the license could help keep the property somewhat open to the public.
“My theory is, is that if we get caught up in the bureaucracy and looking at just these nitpick details, that this project gets stifled, Rick decides to sell it, and then another guy like Tyler Perry comes in, and he buys the whole freaking lot, and he wants to privatize it all, and he wants to shut down all those trails,” Tyler said.
Tyler called the proposal a true collaboration between private and public interests and said the conditions outlined could appease both sides.
Tyler’s message seemed to resonate with some planning commissioners who said they were more convinced by the request at the end of their discussion.
But ultimately the Ridgway Joint Area Planning Board, composed of the Ridgway planning commissioners and Ouray County planning commissioners, voted unanimously to recommend denying the request, saying it doesn’t fit within the land use code definition of a guest ranch.
The Ouray Joint Area Planning Board, composed of the Ouray planning commissioners and Ouray County planning commissioners initiated two motions that failed. One recommended the Board of County Commissioners reconsider the request with an updated definition of a guest ranch. The other recommended the approval of the request with conditions.
All three recommendations will be forwarded to the Board of County Commissioners for consideration and ultimate approval.
Lia Salvatierra is a journalist with Report for America, a service program that helps boost underserved areas with more reporting resources.
