Boulder County Comprehensive Plan:  Plains Planning Area Policy PPA 1.03:

Where pertinent, land use proposals within the Plains Planning Area should adhere to the following land use guidelines:

(d) Minimizing potential negative impacts on surrounding lands, including agricultural land, attendant agricultural uses, and established neighborhoods and other adjoining or nearby development.

Several other alignments besides the drinking, irrigation and recreational use water supply ditch are being considered.  All would equally damage this corridor and the quality of the quiet rural lives we have chosen.  At the County Commissioners' meeting May 5th, we expressed our concerns about the adverse impacts a regional trail would have on our valley.  Impacts we would all feel no matter where the final alignment would be.

After we talked, the Commissioner’s tried to allay our concerns. 

One neighbor wrote this response:

We were told parking lots would alleviate our concerns about traffic.  Parking lots exist at Gregory Canyon, Sanitas, Chatauqua Park and Betasso and they are woefully inadequate.  The cars line the adjacent streets and private properties for almost a half mile causing safety issues, traffic congestion and problems for the local landowners.  Parking lots will not mitigate our concerns for parking issues and traffic.

Public bathroom facilities will not alleviate our concern for public elimination on our property.  When Nature calls, a person responds.  Most of the off trail use on Sanitas, Chatauqua and the Mesa Trail is simply from people finding a private place to relieve themselves.  This is a daily occurrence on Open Space.  This proposed trail has little Open Space on it.  People will be relieving themselves on private property.

No Commissioner addressed the issue of canine feces.  There is no solution for this problem.  Canine fecal matter is left all over Open Space all the time despite the posted rules for picking up after pets.  Gregory Canyon trailhead reeks of feces; Coot Lake and both Sanitas trails are littered with canine fecal material, bagged and un-bagged.  With no buffer between the trail and private property this fecal matter will waft in the air of the surrounding property owners.  This issue will never be resolved.

The issue of noise will never be resolved either.  There is no way to address the noise and disturbance from 40,000 uninvited and unwelcome people when the County will provide less than 20 feet of space between the trail users and private property.

Multiple times we have been told that our concerns are premature because no alignment has been determined as of yet.  It matters not one iota whether it goes down the Feeder Canal, or around Table Mountain, down 37^th St., 49^th St. or 55^th St., down Monarch Rd., Niwot Rd., Neva Rd., Oxford Rd., Prospect Rd., St. Vrain Rd. or Hygiene Rd.  You do not own enough Open Space in the valley you have chosen to mitigate any of the concerns of the people living on or near any of the alignments that could possibly be chosen.  It matters not that I am the one writing to you because someone three blocks to the north, south, east or west of me will have the exact same concerns.  It matters not what alignment you pick in this peaceful, rural corridor; the complaints are valid for all the alignments.  Unless you move the proposed trail out of this corridor, you do not have a place to put 40,000 uninvited, unwelcome users without causing immense damage.

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