More than 1,100 hundred acres of undeveloped mountainside adjacent to Rico are for sale, and talk of a large land sale right on the town’s doorstep has raised concerns about an influx of development.
Town Manager Chauncey McCarthy says there are no specific plans for the land at this point, but that the town will be involved in the sale and whatever is eventually built on the site.
“There will be heavy community input on how the project moves forward,” McCarthy says. “The biggest thing is, does the town want to see growth in that nature?”
There are also some major challenges to developing the land. Much of it is steep and mountainous, with elevations around 9,000 feet.
“There's limited access up there,” says McCarthy. “There's no infrastructure.”
He’s also unsure if the town will be able to supply enough water to the site if it’s developed.
But he also says development isn’t inherently a bad thing. Market rate or luxury housing can definitely be part of it, but so can other types of development that benefit a community, like affordable housing or public spaces.
Potential conservation is also a significant consideration for the town, and a few local organizations are already interested in working with the town and future landowners. Patrick Gardner runs the Trust for Public Land and says there are a lot of possibilities for conservation on land like this
“It could be acquired by the town for open space,” says Gardner. “Some could be set aside for development, ideally for affordable housing. Some could have conservation easements on there.”
But a listing from boutique real estate firm Telluride Properties says the land is a one of a kind development opportunity. The offering price is $10 million. And there’s interest from potential buyers, some from as far away as China, Japan and the United Kingdom. A few have already toured the land.
Any developers will have to work with the interests of the town, but according to Telluride Properties real estate agent Eric Saunders, development could bring major improvements.
“Development gets a bad wrap a lot of times,” says Saunders. “But if they do decide to develop in Rico, you're gonna see them probably provide a lot of public benefit in the form of water, sewer, some other public benefit - trail improvements, things like that.”
At the end of the day though, the land sale is in its early stages, and all parties say they are committed to collaborating with the town and the local community.
Developers have come to Rico before
This isn’t the first time there’s been the possibility of real estate development around Rico though, and so far, projects have never really taken off.
Skip Zeller has lived in Rico for 40 years, and he’s seen the town go through a lot.
“Rico, when I got here - and I use these terms very loosely - it consisted of a bunch of hippies and a bunch of retired miners,” says Zeller.
Zeller is also an organizer with the Rico Land Collaborative, an organization that advocates for citizen-led approaches to new development in the town.
To this day, Rico has largely avoided the influx of real estate development that many mountain towns, like nearby Telluride, have already experienced. It’s still a very small community. Less than 200 people live there year-round and it doesn’t even have a sewer system.
“Rico is one of the few ex-mining towns that still maintain some sort of a reasonable amount of community,” says Zeller. “And we'd like to keep it that way.”
But Zeller says just because there’s talk of development, that doesn’t mean there’s anything to worry about.
“Development is inevitable,” he says. “But we’re all hoping that organizations who have gotten involved also want to work with this town and do what's best for the town.”
For now, residents, town management, conservationists and realtors are on the same page. But if development does happen on the land one day, it would undoubtedly be a big change for the landscape around Rico.
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