Terry Stokka has lived in Black Forest for 29 years. He is president of the Friends of Black Forest, chairman of the Black Forest Land Use Committee and chairman of the Black Forest Water & Wells Committee.
Disclaimer: This column does not necessarily represent the views of The New Falcon Herald.
Flying Horse North change of plans
By Terry Stokka
It isn’t often that a developer spends a lot of money designing a residential development that is approved, and then completely changes his mind and spends a lot more money designing a totally different development that is also approved, and then changes his mind once again, going back to the original plan. The whole process and all it entails is expensive and mind boggling.
The owner of this complicated story is Classic Homes and the development is Flying Horse North. The original plan was for 283 lots, 2.5-acres or larger. The lots only covered half of the parcel so the remaining acreage was an 18-hole golf course and park space. The total area was 1,410 acres with a density of 5 acres per lot. The Black Forest Land Use Committee accepted the plan despite wishing the open space could be undeveloped trees and wildlife habitat, but the developer wanted the “open space” for a golf course, and the county commissioners approved it.
Filing 1 for the development was for 81 lots and the golf course. Those lots are almost completely built-out with large, beautiful homes. Filing 2 was for just one lot under a special circumstance. For many months, no further filings were submitted. Then a totally new sketch plan was submitted that changed the remaining 201 lots into 846 city-sized lots plus a luxury 275-room hotel. The Land Use Committee was shocked at this change. The new plan would build a small town in the middle of Black Forest. The negative consequences would be a five-fold increase in traffic through filing 1, resulting in congestion, light pollution, drainage problems and a few other issues. In addition, the new plan would require a central water and wastewater system encompassing several deep wells, piping, water treatment and massive expenditures for the infrastructure. As expected, the county commissioners approved the new sketch plan with the startling statement that they believed the new plan “generally conformed to the old plan.”
The new plan required many additional months of planning, dealing with water and wastewater issues and fleshing out the details. They then submitted filing 3 under the old approved plan since the new plan had not yet been fully approved. Now we are working under two plans at the same time. Filing 3 consisted of 50 lots at 2.5-acres per lot surrounding the golf course.
Several months later, filing 4 was submitted, consisting of 48 lots, each 2.5-acres or larger. Soon after that, filing 5 was submitted with 21 lots, once again 2.5-acres or larger. This was all in the area where the second plan had envisioned about 400 city-sized lots. With the area in filings 4 and 5 now having private wells and septic systems, that left less space for city-sized lots to share the cost of the central water and wastewater system.
It is my opinion that Classic Homes has quietly gone back to the original plan for 283 lots, each 2.5-acres or larger. Regarding the hotel, we don’t know, but again I speculate that the hotel builders probably wouldn’t want to foot the bill for central water and wastewater by themselves so it might also go by the wayside.
If things turn out like we hope, we will breathe a collective sigh of relief to not have the town of Flying Horse North in the middle of Black Forest. We will be able to be proud of Flying Horse North and its beautiful homes on large lots. We will say Thank You to Classic Homes for going back to the original plan. Who knew that this development would jump through so many hoops and spend so much money on two different plans, only to return to the original plan?
