POSEAC recommends Stillwater Bend conservation easement to county commissioners

Melissa Arnold, a land officer in Boulder County Parks and Open Space's real estate division, asked the Parks and Open Space Advisory Committee on the evening of the county's November meeting to recommend acquisition of a conservation easement on the 140-acre Stillwater Bend property west of Hygiene near Longmont.

Arnold said the parcel includes 1,700 feet of Saint Vrain Creek, reclaimed gravel ponds and an unusual off-channel backwater created by the 2013 flood that provides breeding habitat for native species including a rare Colorado fish, the northern redbelly dace. She said the Hepp family has partnered with county wildlife staff on species recovery work and received a county stewardship award in 2023.

Under the negotiated deal, staff said the three existing legal parcels would be reconfigured into four records: an approximately 88-acre preserve encumbered by a conservation easement and two house lots subject to house-lot conservation easements or restrictive covenants. The county's proposal would remove one development right and tie the Chapman and McCaslin ditch water rights to the preserved property. Staff presented a negotiated purchase price of $1,700,000.

Committee members asked about permitted house sizes, whether existing agricultural uses (hay fields and barns) would be preserved, how conservation easements would address noxious weeds, and whether the backwater was connected to Saint Vrain Creek. Arnold and Janice Wissman, real estate division manager, said house-lot easements typically allow one home and accessory structures and that house construction and floodplain issues remain subject to normal land-use permitting; conservation-easement staff would support stewardship visits and weed management planning with landowners. Arnold said the backwater is an off-channel area connected to the creek and that beaver activity was present and would be encouraged as part of habitat protection.

Wissman described valuation work used to justify the price and said some negotiation details and legal documents are finalized through county attorneys and recorded at closing; she said key deal terms were being provided to the advisory committee so members could advise commissioners.

Carol Byerly moved and John White seconded that POSEAC recommend the acquisition to the Board of County Commissioners. The committee voted unanimously in favor and the recommendation will be forwarded to the commissioners.

Next steps: staff will present the acquisition to the Board of County Commissioners with the terms described to POSEAC; conservation documents will be recorded at closing and then posted publicly, staff said.