Eagle – A proposal by Vail Resorts to build a concrete-track alpine slide at Beaver Creek ski area has flared into a major battle with property owners in the tony resort.
Several groups representing hundreds of homeowners – and even former President Gerald Ford – have blasted the ski company for the plan, which they contend would turn the resort into little more than an amusement park.
“An alpine slide is an amusement-park ride,” said Rick Johnson, an attorney for the Beaver Creek Property Owners Association. “An alpine slide is not compatible with the valley’s environment.”
At issue before the Eagle County commissioners in a hearing that stretched into Monday evening is whether the alpine slide still is permitted under county regulations adopted in 1994, even though it was omitted from the original list of accepted uses included in the earlier 1988 regulations.
Vail Resorts officials contend that an alpine slide is an accepted use for the prominent “Hay Meadow” slope just above the village because the latest version of the regulations allows for “all recreational uses.”
“It says ‘all recreational activities of a year-round mountain resort.’ It doesn’t say ‘some.’ It doesn’t exclude some,” said Diane Mauriello, attorney for the ski company.
She argued that the Beaver Creek property owners and the company carefully negotiated the regulations. She pointed out that when determining acceptable uses for another area, alpine slides are specifically ruled out.
“If the owners intended to prohibit something, they did so expressly. They said it,” Mauriello said.
The critics of the proposal, she continued, “want you to focus on the change in the language from 1988 to 1994, rather than the clear and unambiguous language (in the 1994 regulations).”
Ford, who has owned a home in Beaver Creek for 30 years, wrote that he and his wife, Betty, oppose the installation of an alpine slide, lending considerable clout to the campaign that has near-unanimous support of the other property owners.
“We have always enjoyed the peace and beauty of Beaver Creek mountain,” he wrote.
Commissioner Tom Stone took Beaver Creek ski area chief John Garnsey to task for failing to work with the property owners on the proposal.
“I’m a little surprised and dismayed that Vail Resorts did not employ what I call the good-neighbor policy,” Stone said.
Garnsey noted that the company “went back to the drawing board” to try to address the concerns but had no luck winning over homeowners.
“I certainly think the Armageddon that they’ve turned the (alpine) slide into is unfounded on many basis,” he said.
Vail Resorts already operates an alpine slide at Breckenridge ski area, and other courses – which allow riders to coast downhill on carts in concrete channels – exist at Steamboat’s Howelsen Hill, Winter Park and Heritage Square in Golden.
Critics argue that an alpine slide just above the upscale base area would pose a noisy, ugly intrusion that would cheapen Beaver Creek.
“The irony,” Dunn said, “is the quality of life that Vail Resorts … has used to sell its real estate and to market its ski resort is what we’re trying to preserve here.”
Staff writer Steve Lipsher can be reached at 970-513-9495 or slipsher@denverpost.com.
