Clay Wormington loves his landing strip in southwest Colorado.
Set in a high valley on the eastern front of the San Juan Mountains at 9,300 feet above sea level, it’s perfect for flying in provisions for his inn in remote Lake City.
“It’s just beautiful,” he said of the dirt runway by the Hinsdale spur of the Alpine Loop, a famous four-wheel-drive route that climbs west from Lake City to cross the San Juans at Cinnamon Pass. “It’s smooth as pavement.”
When he started buzzing in and out of the strip, built in the 1950s but little-used for years, county officials told him he had to apply for a special-use permit to use the strip. He disagreed.
Now, after three years of legal wrangling, the entire zoning scheme for Hinsdale County is in jeopardy, after a judge in the case ruled last month that it had been put on the books improperly.
Citing “several defects,” including no copy of the zoning resolution bearing the original signatures of county commissioners on file, District Judge Charles Greenacre found that the county’s zoning rules, legally, do not exist.
“The absence of an official record would lead one to believe that there were no zoning regulations,” he wrote, ruling them “void as a matter of law.”
Though Greenacre’s May 10 finding led some in the county to believe wrongly that a libertarian dream had landed, Greenacre delayed the impact of his ruling until the Colorado Supreme Court weighs in, or decides not to.
As they wait to learn if the Supreme Court will hear their appeal, county officials will continue enforcing the rules, they say. And if those rules end up dying on the vine, they’ll move quickly to enact new ones, they said.
“I think that was confusing to people, but I think the word is out now that we do have valid zoning, and everybody’s going to proceed as usual until we hear something different,” Hinsdale County Administrator Laurie Vier heller said.
Staff writer Jim Hughes can be reached at 303-820-1244 or jhughes@denverpost.com.
