Chaffee County OKs Divided Sky Estates final plat with condition requiring road maintenance agreement

The Chaffee County Board of County Commissioners approved the Divided Sky Estates final plat on June 10, 2025, voting to record a 13‑lot subdivision on roughly 38 acres on Methodist Mountain with a set of conditions that include a requirement for a written roadway maintenance agreement with adjacent subdivisions before recording.

The approval matters because the proposal, filed before the 2022 moratorium, is processed under the county’s 2014 land use code and drew extensive public comment about road maintenance, water quality, wildfire risk and drainage. Commissioners approved a resolution with findings and conditions and set deadlines for the applicant to submit the final plat and related materials.

Planning staff presented the project overview and history, noting the site lies below Highway 50 near County Road 108 and is bounded largely by BLM land. The proposal creates 13 market‑rate lots (no affordable housing is proposed), with an overall density of about 2.95 acres per lot. The county record and staff reports say individual wells and septic systems are proposed for water and sewer services. Several lots (noted in the staff findings as lots 2, 5, 9 and 11) will require individually engineered site plans at the time of building permit because of identified geologic or fluvial concerns.

Gary Baker, planning manager, told commissioners the subdivision was reviewed under the 2014 land use code because the application was filed before the 2022 moratorium and that the county’s contract engineer, SGM Engineering, had reviewed fluvial‑hazards and drainage studies and found them adequate for the plat conditions. Baker said the applicant will be required to provide proof of water augmentation, a weed bond, payment‑in‑lieu for open‑space dedication ($17,224), a fee in lieu of cisterns to the South Arkansas Fire Protection District, and other standard subdivision requirements. Staff set a deadline of August 2, 2025, for submission of the final plat, subdivision improvement agreement and remaining materials.

Neighbors from the adjacent Choctaw and Cherokee Heights subdivisions repeatedly urged the board to require a clear plan for maintaining Archery Lane and other shared access roads. "We do not want our roads to be ripped up and left without a funding mechanism," said Kevin Kederland, a resident who identified himself as vice president of the Choctaw Cherokee Heights HOA. Linda Erickson, who said she has lived in the neighboring subdivision since 2007, asked commissioners to postpone approval and have the county require a more concrete, mutually acceptable plan for road funding and liability.

The applicant and project engineers said they had negotiated with nearby HOAs and proposed that each subdivision maintain roads within its boundaries, and that Divided Sky owners would contribute proportionally to maintenance. Dennis McGrane, the project’s water engineer, told the board the well test results on the property itself showed water quality within regulatory limits; he also described how arsenic and other naturally occurring constituents vary across the Arkansas River valley and noted that one nearby off‑site well had arsenic slightly above the regulatory standard.

Commissioners amended the draft resolution to add clearer language requiring a roadway maintenance agreement among Divided Sky and the adjacent subdivisions (Choctaw Heights and Cherokee Heights) in a recorded form or equivalent before the final plat may be recorded. The board voted to approve the resolution as amended. The board also noted the statutory appeal period for the decision and the county’s authority to require maintenance and, if owners fail to pay for maintenance, to perform work and place liens to recover costs.

The resolution records numerous conditions of approval, including engineered site plans for specified lots at the building permit stage, proof of augmentation for water rights, required payments in lieu of dedicated firefighting cisterns, and a payment in lieu for open space dedication. Baker told the board the county will also require a final plat note to notify future buyers about the need to provide water‑quality data at the time of the first post‑plat building permit.

Commissioners set an administrative deadline for the applicant to submit the final plat and all required items by August 2, 2025. If the paperwork and the roadway maintenance agreement are not in place by that date the county’s findings say the application may not proceed to recording without further action.

The board’s approval ends a multi‑year review process that included prior continuances and a neighborhood appeal that extended internal deadlines. The decision was approved by the board; the audio transcript records members voting "Aye," and the resolution number recorded in the meeting packet is Resolution 2025‑22.

Next steps for the applicant include final plat corrections, completing outstanding technical notes, executing the subdivision improvement agreement and recording the roadway maintenance agreement for Archery Lane to the satisfaction of county staff. The county emphasized that building permits for homes on several lots will require additional engineered site plans and compliance with the current International Wildland‑Urban Interface Code.