Steamboat Pilot & Today

Steamboat Springs — The Steamboat Springs City Council tonight will discuss how to proceed with a city-owned recreation center.

Such a center has been discussed for years. Last fall, the city's parks, open space and recreational services department began holding community meetings to discuss the issue.

At a Nov. 13 council meeting, advocates of a center asked the council to consider putting the issue before voters in November.

Council members decided at that meeting that groups involved in the recreation center discussion should hold facilitated meetings to resolve differences about what a recreation center should include and where it should be built.

The main issue in question is whether the recreation center should have an indoor pool. The Steamboat Springs Health and Recreation Association has proposed building an indoor pool at its center at Third and Lincoln, but others have advocated including an indoor pool in a new recreation center.

The Parks and Recreation Commission will discuss a possible ballot question, financing alternatives and potential site locations at tonight's meeting.

The council also will discuss two planning items with staff. One is the city's big box ordinance, which applies to single-tenant commercial uses of more than 12,000 feet. Those projects must go through the planned unit development process, which requires that the public benefits outweigh the environmental impacts.

Council members also will discuss affordable housing. One affordable housing topic will be the possibility of a land acquisition fund. The fund would be made up of payments-in-lieu for building affordable housing, which would pay for land for housing projects.

In other business, the council will have a joint meeting with the Routt County Board of Commissioners. The topics are:

-Review of joint community plan action items. The city and the county have identified accomplishments they want to make, and some of them must be done with cooperation. Those actions include coordinating land use and transportation decisions as well as preparing a cultural arts plan.

-Report on the water quality base line. Council members and commissioners had asked staff for recommendations on a water-quality monitoring program. Instead, Mike Zopf of the county environmental health department is recommending the formation of a basin-wide or countywide watershed planning group.

-West of Steamboat Springs Area Plan. Officials will talk about city and county funding of infrastructure in the area.