Laserfiche WebLink
3. The excavation of material is part of a project that is subject to government review and permitting. <br />The approved government permits ensure a beneficial use of the site affected by material extraction. <br />The intended off site use of the material is clearly incidental to the project. <br />Response: <br />Please consider the following statements of fact as support for the assumption that the activity would not fall <br />under the definition of the term mining: <br />Exemption 1: Ownership and End Use <br />a) The Rocky Mountain Fen Research Project Boundary includes the adjacent, privately held <br />Hayden and Hallenbeck Ranches. Both ranches were simultaneously owned by the City of Aurora <br />until 2005 when the City subdivided the 35.38 acre Hayden Homestead from the Hayden Ranch <br />for donation to Colorado Preservation Inc. and Colorado Mountain College as the land base for <br />their experiential learning center. Both CMC and the City of Aurora will be signatories to a <br />Memorandum of Understanding for the Rocky Mountain Fen Research Project, under which, peat <br />material extracted on the Hallenbeck Ranch will be transplanted into a damaged fen on the <br />Hayden Homestead to restore the historic form and function of the wetland. The City will not <br />charge for the extracted material as part of the agreement. No commercial or residential use of the <br />extraction site is contemplated. <br />b) The extracted materials will be used within the Rocky Mountain Fen Research Project Area, and <br />are intended to restore the form and function of wetlands that were damaged through historic <br />mining of peat, which was an integral part of the ranching operation. <br />c) The Hallenbeck Ranch, where the material would be extracted, was historically zoned <br />Agricultural Forestry (AF). That zoning was changed to Rural (RUR) in 1999 to allow for its <br />preservation as open space. The RUR Rural District is described as follows: <br />RUR Rural District: Intended to allow for the preservation of large tracts of land that were <br />acquired primarily for water rights and open space, and were not acquired for the primary <br />purposes of residential, commercial or industrial development. The minimum land area <br />required for this zoning district is 320 acres. (Lake County Land Development Code: 4.2.1) <br />The continued use of the land for agriculture, animal production, and crop production are all <br />uses by right on RUR zoned lands. (Lake County Land Development Code: 5 -9) <br />With the exception of a Caretakers Residential Unit, which is a conditional use requiring <br />permitting, all other residential development is considered a "Prohibited Use" in the RUR <br />District. (Lake County Land Development Code: 5 -2) <br />Commercial uses, (with two minor exceptions - Rental Service, indoor and outdoor display / <br />storage), are all considered to be Prohibited Uses in the RUR District. (Lake County Land <br />Development Code: 5 -5 — 5 -7) <br />Reservoirs with water storage over 15 acre -feet are a conditional use (Lake County Land <br />Development Code: 5 -4) <br />