This November, voters in Colorado will decide if water projects and the health of the forest should come first, or if improvements to Interstate I-70 should.
Amendment 52 calls for diverting up to $90 million in taxes from drilling and mining activities from funding water projects and forest health to contributing to highway upgrades
Confluence Energy and Colorado Blue Logs LLC are partnering to salvage pine lumber from beetle kill. They plan to build a 6,000-square-foot building to house the lumber starting in January, and hope to open in April.
Colorado Blue Logs plans to build smaller, affordable homes for some of its 20 to 25 employees with the wood.
Breckenridge realty
Federal inspectors will rate the Lake Dillon Fire Rescue’s communication systems, firefighting operations and department protocol at the end of September.
If the evaluations come in lower, or higher, than the last inspection in 1999, homeowners insurance premiums are usually affected. In 1999, home inspectors of the Insurance Service Office gave the fire district a weak rating, which is common in smaller communities with high fire danger. However, Lake Dillon has improved its response time significantly since 1999. Once the evaluation is done, it can take a couple months to find out how the score will affect premiums.
BUILDER : LEVEL ONE BUILDING COMPANY, INC
This home was in Parade of Homes 2008
DESCRIPTION:
Sun, views and privacy make up the setting for this beautifully detailed custom home for a longtime local family. Owner and architect Robert Dickson, principal of Equinox Architecture, along with builder Level One Building Company, Inc. and a team of talented craftsmen, have created an exciting and artistic home. As with all Equinox Architecture projects, the inspiration for this floor plan is Read more »
Copper Mountain development is focusing on sustainable living. Copper installed a 4.2 kilowatt solar system to generate power for part of the transportation center. Its new training facility, Camp Woodward, will earn the Green Globes certification. Its efforts will help combat the rating it got in 2007 by the Ski Area Citizen’s Coalition as the worst green ski area in the West.
Some Denver investors are buying homes for $100,000 or less on the Front Range, and then renting them for up to $450 more than their mortgage and taxes. Many are located in Aurora, Green Valley Ranch, Montbello, southwest Denver and Commerce City. Homes selling for less than $100,000 on the Front Range have increased substantially since 2005. That year, 355 properties sold for under $100,000, but in the first nine months of 2008, 2,015 homes have sold in that price range nearly 90% were foreclosures. Foreclosures in 2007 in the Denver metro area jumped 41% since 2006. And so far this year, foreclosures are up 9% over the same time frame last year. However, investors may not be able to find as many good deals in the very near future. Colorado’s Division of Housing is spending about $88 million to purchase foreclosures, which will help about 15% of endangered homeowners.
Summit County Wildfire Council is thinning and removing dead trees in about a third of the areas adjacent to neighborhoods that are most prone to wildfires. Just this is costing more than $13 million.
The council lists 27 high-risk areas, including those in the Acorn Creek subdivision and in the Lower Blue Valley. Ptarmigan in Silverthorne also made the list, partially because of its steepness and dirt road access.
Now that many pine trees have died from the pine beetle, shorter grasses and shrubs, which can act as fuel for fire, are growing.
The biggest obstacle to removing dead pine trees is cost. Experts estimate the cost between $6,000 and $8,000 an acre, and federal funding isn’t coming through, so the burden is left to the state and private citizens.
Keystone Resort launched a virtual tour on its website through EveryScape. Now web surfers can walk through the region, including the interiors of restaurants and hotels. Visitors can do the same with Breckenridge ski resort.
Builder: Vision Builders of Summit County, LLC.
This home was in Parade of Homes 2008
DESCRIPTION:
230 Timberlane Circle features inspiring architecture, showcasing the hottest blended design of mountain contemporary with classical Old World styling. The home is built in a picturesque rural mountain neighborhood, offering a convenient and valuable in-town location. It also offers spectacular views of the mountains with a back yard of boundless national forest. A distinctive front entry sets the tone with hefty, curved, exposed beams and a metal roof supported by large moss-rock-wrapped columns. Read more »
Frisco ushered in its first solar-powered project in a commercial building in September 2008.
Panels installed by Grid Feeders (in Vail) provide about 35 percent of the electricity used in the building at 101 W. Main St.
When the building was first constructed in 1979, it was meant to be a solar building, as evidenced by windows, or skylights, that make up the slanting south-face of the building. However, the glass caused the building to heat up too much, and tenants had to use air conditioning nearly all year to maintain a comfortable temperature.
The solar panels owner Rob Philippe installed cost $80,000, but Xcel pitched in $45,000, and Philippe will get a tax credit of about $10,500 for the project.