John Scarffe, Nederland.  The Nederland Board of Trustees approved recommendations for the Forsythe II fire mitigation project put forward by the Nederland Parks, Recreation and Open Spaces Advisory Board (PROSAB) during a regular meeting at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, May 1, in the Nederland Community Center.

Dallas Masters, Trustee liaison for PROSAB, said the Forsythe II issue came before the Board to reiterate support and to comment again, and it was controversial. The Board asked people to go to a PROSAB meeting and formed the Design Advisory Team (DAT) with Kristen Conrad, Firefighters Rick Dirr and Mike Smith.

The Town has supported the U.S. Forest Service Forsythe II Project with past actions, according to the agenda request. A citizen committee called the Forsythe II Big Springs Design Advisory Team was formed to make recommendations on the treatments in Units 1 and 2 that border the Big Springs Neighborhood.

The Forest Service and PROSAB have a long-term partnership in working on various issues and projects in the lands surrounding Nederland, according to the request. Following citizen concern expressed at a Board meeting in 2017 regarding support for Forsythe II, the Board voted unanimously to continue support.

The Forsythe II Big Springs DAT was formed at a subsequent PROSAB meeting. The DAT was comprised of citizens living in Big Springs, local firefighters and PROSAB members. It met five times from March 2017 to April 2018, and conducted a site visit in March 2018. The DAT recommendations were also reviewed by PROSAB on April 19 without modification.

Masters told the Board that the group came up with recommendations and used a variety of criteria to judge fire mitigation. Unit 1 is north of Peakview Drive, and Unit 2 is behind Big Springs to the south and east. The DAT came up with criteria for mitigation and putting things on maps and a site visit with the Forest Service.

The Board needs to approve the recommendations and pass them to the Forest Service by May 6, so that’s why it’s on agenda tonight, Masters said. “We all came to consensus so this is the result.”

For Unit 1, the group recommended Aspen enhancement, thinned a lot more to let the Aspens develop. Ponderosa Pine and mixed Conifer treatment should be done on the western boundary. They recommended up to 4.4 acres of Lodgepole pine patch and clear cut.

The group recommends trying to keep the Ponderosa Pines, Masters said. They will give the Forest Service the flexibility to do cuts.

The firefighters would be like the patch clear cut to be more north and south because of prevailing winds, Masters said, but it requires them to talk to two land owners. Both were amendable to discuss this, which leaves a lot of that mitigation up to the land owners.

Unit 2 will mainly consists of Lodgepole Pine treatment, Masters said. Unit 2 is not controversial.

In addition, the group asked the Forest Service if they could cut the Wild Wood egress and include that in the total of Unit 2 acres, so about 10 acres and three to four more for the egress would be cut. The egress needs to be engineered, but it will save the owner money, Masters said.

According to the recommendations, the Forsythe II Final Decision includes a no-cut buffer along private land boundaries so that the treatable acres in Units 1 and 2 were reduced to 4.4 and 14.7 acres, respectively.

Mayor Kristopher Larsen congratulated the DAT on this project. Masters said that a multi-party monitoring group is involved, and they will review this, but they will think of their recommendations as the highest priority.

This is what they are going to do. The Forest Service and firefighters think this is not sufficient to prevent a catastrophic fire, but it’s better than doing nothing.

The Wild Wood egress was part of this discussion, and Unit 2 includes language that the Forest Service will clear that for the town once engineered, Masters said. The Board approved the recommendations.

Town Administrator Karen Gerrity updated the new Board, with members elected that night, on the ongoing discussion about the Intergovernmental Agreement (IGA) with Boulder County, negotiating back and forth.

Boulder County and the Town of Nederland have a Comprehensive Development Plan IGA that went into effect in March 2002 with a 20-year term, according to background. The IGA requires a five-step process for amending the IGA to approve annexations, with recommendations from both the Town and county planning commissions, approval by the Nederland Board of Trustees and Boulder County Commissioners and a vote of the town electorate.

The Trustees created a list of goals for pursuing revisions to the 2002 Boulder County Comprehensive Development Plan IGA, according to background. Town staff, Boulder County Land Use staff, the Boulder County Commissioners and the Nederland Trustees have spent the past six months discussing the draft IGA and proposed map.

Based on these conversations, the Boulder County Land Use staff drafted the current version of the proposed IGA. The draft IGA includes changes to streamline amendment procedures and to ensure timely responses to referrals and establishment of clear procedures for processing amendments.

The draft IGA includes a Primary Planning Area within which annexation can occur with no amendment to the IGA or decision role for the County, and no vote of the town electorate.

Annexation would need to be instigated by the property owner. The draft reflects an expiration date of 2032, ten years from the current 2022 expiration date.

The Trustees asked PROSAB, the Sustainability Advisory Board and the Planning Commission to weigh in and provide feedback, according to background.

The IGA comprehensive development plan was signed in March 2002, Gerrity told the Board. Everything outside the town limits has been deemed a rural preservation area. Anytime anything outside of town limits can be annexed, they would have to go through the five-step process.

It would end up going to a vote, Gerrity said, so the Board started talking about re-negotiating it because the IGA expires in 2022. For the past six months, staff has been in conversation about what would that look like.

They have talked about goals, objectives and outcomes. For the next step, the Town has proposed four different areas called the primary planning areas, Gerrity said.

“When this is all said and done, if the Board decides, the map would show identified places if property owners wanted to apply for annexation. “We would follow state statute instead of the IGA processes. The state does have guidelines and there are circumstances when it would have to go for a vote.”

Mayor Larsen said that any action for annexation comes from the property owner, and they have to say, “We want to be a part of the town. Boulder County has agreed with us that these are areas that make sense.”

Gerrity said Town staff will be discussing this with the Board in the future.

(Originally published in the May 10, 2018, print edition of The Mountain-Ear.)