The public will not have an opportunity to weigh in this week regarding the land use application by Alison Brown for her equestrian operation referred to as Antelope Road Outfitting facility. Chaffee County Planning Manager Jon Roorda announced that the property, located on rural-zoned land at 11600 Antelope Road, Salida, had not been properly noticed, and the public hearing, scheduled for 6 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 25, will no longer take place. The planning commissioner agenda indicates it will be delayed until Oct. 30, but the sign on the property still notes a Sept. 25 hearing date.
The public hearing was noticed in print on Thursday, Sept. 6, and Brown says it was posted on the property by Labor Day weekend. All neighbors on the dead-end road were notified by certified mail. Roorda sent an email to Brown saying he drove by Brown’s location at the end of the dead end on Sept. 8 (then amended it to say that he was there Sept. 11) and saw the sign lying face-down. Instead of notifying Brown that day, Roorda waited until Sept. 12, then said he was delaying the hearing.
“It was wedged up good and tight. Then it was down, and we put it up again,” said Sandy Hobbs, who confirmed the sign was originally posted before Labor Day weekend. “Around 3 p.m. on Monday I went to feed horses on the property and found it down. So I put it up wedged against the power box good and tight. The next day, same thing. It was very strange — it wasn’t just down again, but physically moved. How would it get way over there? So I tied it back up. I didn’t know about Roorda’s email at the time. It was up way more than a week and it just happens to be down right then? All I can say is it seems someone doesn’t want this hearing to take place.”
The notice of public hearing says the purpose of the owner’s application is: “To allow for an outfitting facility to provide service, housing and safekeeping to animals that are used in conjunction with guiding services involving riding out or hunting with foxhounds on public lands with other individuals who are not affecting substantial control over the foxhounds.”
Brown says that when she went to pick up the posting notice, the language on it disagreed with the application language. It read, “To allow for an outfitting facility which allows for riders and horses to come to the property, prepare and load up for group events on public land.” Brown said she refused to accept it until it was fixed.
“I don’t have riders and horses come to my property for this purpose,” she explained. “The horses I have on the property are all boarded there, and only riders who own or lease horses come to the property. No one brings horses to the property to prepare or load up for group events on public land as was stated in the description.”
It took an extra day and emails back-and-forth with Chaffee County Administrative Assistant Patty Baldwin before the notice included an accurate description matching the application.
Brown says she took the step of paying the $425 fee and submitting an LIR application, being careful to include the wording contained in Magistrate Amanda Hunter’s permanent injunction during district court proceedings this past summer regarding Brown’s American foxhounds, which are at this time not housed on the property. That language specifies that she must receive a county permit to operate her Antelope Road Outfitting facility.
“This is an application to allow my equestrian center and riding stables to operate,” said Brown. “This isn’t a kennel application and the dogs are not on the property. I’m not bringing the dogs back to Chaffee County until I complete a separate Limited Impact Review under the new land use code that the county put in place that requires a kennel permit for anyone who wants to have more than seven dogs on their property.”
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