A warning to all subdivisions in Montezuma County: the county commissioners will – with no notice to you whatsoever – change your zoning to allow commercial development in your quiet residential neighborhood.
The Commissioners did this very thing to the Forks subdivision on May 28. They kowtowed to an out-of-state commercial developer who had found a weakness in our outdated 48-year-old covenants that stated the lot “may be used for commercial purposes.”
We know that covenants are not zoning, but with the stroke of their pens the commissioners changed the county’s zoning from residential to commercial and allowed a 10-room motel to be built in our 100% residential neighborhood!
This is a blatant violation of the Land Use Code. This developer already has at least eight lawsuits under his belt in Arizona, by the way.
The commissioners also failed to notify CDOT of the new development – CDOT’s regulations require notification of any “change of use” of a property accessed from a state highway.
The commissioners had the audacity to tell the neighborhood that we would have to pay for a traffic survey to deal with all the vehicles from the motel on our tiny private road. What we at The Forks are left with now are lowered property values (one pending home sale already fell through because of the motel going in next to it), road damage, a dangerous highway entrance where one fatality has already occurred, and a complete loss of faith in our elected Commissioners.
Suzanne Motsinger
Dolores
