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Steamboat Springs — A 51-lot subdivision proposed near Oak Creek could be successful, but more information should be collected before the Town Board annexes and accepts the subdivision, according to a letter from Routt County commissioners.

County commissioners provided comments on the plan at the request of the Oak Creek Town Board.

Among other issues, the letter stated an impact statement that county commissioners received from Sierra View Development Group, which is proposing the subdivision, appeared to be incomplete or unclear in its analysis of water and sewer impacts, drainage impacts, open space impacts and fiscal impacts.

"We didn't think it was adequate enough, that's really what we were trying to say on a variety of points," Routt County Commissioner Nancy Stahoviak said. "There's some information to start with, but some of it isn't developed enough, some of it isn't there yet, and we feel like they do need more information before moving ahead. ... We just need to make sure that it's done right."

The subdivision could house 175 people when it's finished, which would mark an approximate 20 percent increase in Oak Creek's population of about 850.

It would be one of the bigger subdivisions that the county has seen in recent years, said Routt County Planning Commissioner John Eastman, who assisted in the overview of the subdivision.

The message county commissioners wanted to give Oak Creek trustees, Eastman said, was to be patient and be sure all the necessary information was available.

"It's not saying, 'Don't approve this,'" Eastman said. Rather, he said, the letter gives the Town Board ideas on how to avoid future problems.

"It's a lot easier to solve drainage, water, sewer, road alignment problems on paper than it is to rebuild them once they've been built," Eastman said.

The letter detailed areas in the subdivision's impact statement where developers needed to provide more information.

One comment was that a water-demand analysis, details on water rights to meet that demand and a wastewater report should all be submitted. Another was that it was unclear whether the requirements for open space had been met in the proposal.

County commissioners also wrote that analyses of how much the annexation could cost the town, how much revenue the annexed subdivision would create for the town, and how the subdivision would impact traffic through the town would be helpful.

A public hearing about the subdivision originally was scheduled for the Town Board's meeting Aug. 28. After developers learned that, according to state statute, county commissioners should be given 20 days to comment on an annexation, developers asked the Town Board to table the public hearing until its next meeting.

Oak Creek's mayor, Cargo Rodeman, said she agreed with what county commissioners had written in their letter.

"I tend to agree with the county," Rodeman said. "They're saying that (the impact statement) is incomplete, and basically it's what our board tried to tell (developers)."

Developer Tim Geiger, who is part of the Sierra Development Group, said he understood concerns about the project but that he was ready to be done with "filling stuff out."

"We want to do it right, also, but we'd like to get to work," Geiger said. "A project like this has never been done in Oak Creek, so it's understandable that nobody really knows which hoops we should jump through, and they have us jumping back and forth."

-- To reach Susan Bacon, call 871-4203

or e-mail sbacon@steamboatpilot.com