Community Meeting Re: Rezoning Request for St Malo Catholic Center, Pine

Camp St. Malo Retreat and Conference Center is an entity of the Archdiocese of Denver. We are looking forward to meeting as many of our new neighbors as possible to review our proposed plans for the property along Elk Creek Road just south of Schaffer’s Crossing.

Please feel free to let us know your concerns and we will attempt to answer any and all of your questions to the best of our abilities. We will be monitoring this thread.

A similar thread with lots of information can be found on pinecam ( www.pinecam.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=202999 ).

We hope that our ongoing dialogue here on mymountaintown, pinecam, at our community meeting on the 20th, and going forward, will be honest, respectful, and positive. We are doing our best to be open and to respond to your comments and questions.

Please keep in mind two realities:
1. We are at the beginning of this process, and many regulations and details have not been flushed out. If an answer is vague, it is only because a more specific answer is not yet available.

2. In submitting a site plan, we are trying to predict (and show the community) our full plan. We need to have in mind where we might eventually end up so that we build our infrastructure correctly. Different buildings serve different functions/aspects of our mission. While we can foresee times when schedules overlap and multiple aspects of the site are concurrently used, we do not feel that this will be typical. The chapel will be large enough to accommodate these potential overlaps.

There seems to be a lot of concern about the traffic. The 30 car number came from an example that was presented on pinecam. It was not mathematical or the result of a study. Our first building will be a retreat center for 60 people. We figured a full retreat house with people arriving two per car. This was given as a typical retreat example. Will there be times when more cars are on sight? Yes, but what will often be the case is that there will be less cars, and many days with zero cars. We will follow the guidance given to us by the county and CDOT related to traffic and roads.

As for fire concerns, we are cognizant of the issues and we will put forth best effort to mitigate the danger. We are exploring the route of a second means of egress, which is required by the fire department.

As for the various guarantees that some are desiring, we invite you to be involved in the rezoning process. Please continue to make known your concerns and work with us as we try to address them. Our desire is to be good neighbors and promote responsible growth.

I do not live in Jeffco nor am I near where this is to be built but have a couple of friend who both have home nearby.

Most people move to the mountains to escape the rat race of the city. They enjoy the quiet, nature, and not being right next to their neighbor.

Concerns that I know my friends have are…

Safety - This includes fire and traffic most folks coming from town are not use to our winding mountain roads and tend to drive a bit faster than many of us. As far as fire again those of us that live here typically will not light a campfire when it is very windy or things are starting to dry out even if there is not a fire ban.

Our counties (Jeffco and Park) have seen our fair share of destruction over the past 15 years and well frankly I can understand them not wanting camping in the area.

We have also suffered many loses at the very spot you wish to add more congestion to and while CDOT is to try and fix the issue those loses are still fresh in our minds. I drive that part of 285 daily and have seen many near misses and witnessed one accident (thank goodness not a bad one).

Pollution –

Noise - Again most of us moved here to get away from noise, while laughing children is a wonderful noise I would not want to here is every weekend when I am out on my deck listening to the birds and the sound of the wind coming through the trees. My favorite time to sit on my deck is when it is snowing it is so quiet and still. Added traffic means more noise from cars be it 30 or 300 it will be there.

Light - I will also say many of us moved here to escape the city lights and enjoy the stars (nature’s lights) even if the lights aim at the ground it affects what you see and putting a racetrack of path lights to me is just not what I want to see.

Trash – Some folks are not mindful of trash (city and mountain folks)

So if you are going to pave paradise and put up a parking lot be mindful of your neighbor isn’t that what is preached in most religions? While progress is going to happen don’t mow over the little guy his/her home might be the only thing that brings joy to them after a hard day of work and struggling to make end meet.

Just some thoughts to consider I use to live up Kennedy Gulch and I would have fought to keep my little piece of paradise tooth and nail had I still been there.

Should you get your zoning I would love to see some things that will help the community one suggestion would be that those attending a retreat bring a can food item for the food bank up here.

Unfortunately the food banks here in the mountains are few and far between and many people are struggling.


Another suggestion is helping some of our elderly in the community that are home bound and need help with maintenance on their homes.

Thanks for listening.

Thank you for the responses, Archdiocese. I had several on the first page that have not been addressed.

One that I would very much like to know is whether you will be using your tax exempt status as a Church with no property taxes paid to Jeffco? This is critical to all other questions that I have.

Thank you for your response.

I haven't seen this one brought up yet either here or on PC and was wondering about water rights. Would be interested to know where the Retreat will be getting their water? Elk Creek? Wells?

ZHawke if you look at the links above provided by SC it will take you to documents and in the deeds it shows purchase of water rights. But that is a good question as water rights are for irrigation and will have to be converted in some form for the use of water in an augmentation plan to drill a well(s) which has not been discussed.

Ashley wrote: ZHawke if you look at the links above provided by SC it will take you to documents and in the deeds it shows purchase of water rights. But that is a good question as water rights are for irrigation and will have to be converted in some form for the use of water in an augmentation plan to drill a well(s) which has not been discussed.

Thanks, Ashley. I just remember water rights being such a point of contention with the previous owner/developer.

The Archdiocese of Denver is a non-profit religious organization. We have been granted tax exemption. It is not that we choose whether to use our exemption or not. We operate as a tax exempt entity.

The water will come from wells. Steps have been taken to ensure access and rights to water are appropriate and in order.