Colorado high court ruling favors Telluride

DENVER — First the fight over the Valley Floor; now, for Telluride, the party.

The Colorado Supreme Court handed Telluride a victory Monday, when it ruled the town has constitutional authority to condemn nearly 600 acres of the Valley Floor that lie outside its boundaries.

The ruling affirms an earlier decision rendered by the San Miguel District Court.

San Miguel Valley Corporation, which in a separate trial last year secured a $50-million price tag for its portion of the Valley Floor, argued Telluride didn’t have the right to condemn the land in the first place.

The corporation claimed a subsection of statute, known as “the Telluride Amendment” barred the town from condemning outlying land for parks, recreation or open space.

The state supreme court disagreed, ruling 6-1 against SMVC, with Justice Allison Eid dissenting.

“The opinion stated that yes, we did, as a home-rule charter (municipality) have that right,” Telluride Mayor Stu Fraser said Monday.

“It means that we have some final steps to take that could take anywhere from a month to two months, but that we will have the title for the 572 acres on the south side of the Valley Floor.”

Though he did not know whether SMVC intended to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, Fraser said supporters were going ahead with a celebration at Elk Park Monday afternoon. Additional celebrations are planned for when the town has the title in hand.

“To have it (ruling) 6-1 is more than we had hoped for,” he said. “We just hoped we’d be able to win the case, but 6-1 was a pretty strong statement.”

The corporation’s Telluride office referred calls to attorney Tom Ragonetti, who did not immediately return calls seeking comment.

According to the ruling, the SMVC argued Telluride went beyond the scope of its constitutional powers because the purposes for which it condemned were not “purely” local and municipal.

But the Colorado Supreme Court found the state constitution allows home-rule municipalities to condemn property for “any lawful, public, local and municipal purpose.”

It then had to evaluate whether condemning property for parks and open space constitutes such a purpose, as well as the impact the Telluride Amendment has on home-rule municipalities’ eminent domain powers.

The majority’s finding? The Telluride Amendment is at least partly unconstitutional.

“Because the General Assembly cannot deny home rule municipalities the eminent domain power conferred to them in the constitution, the court holds that subsection 4b (the amendment) is unconstitutional with respect to home rule municipalities,” the ruling read.

“The court thus concludes that Telluride’s condemnation of the property was lawful and affirms the judgment of the trial court.”

The court rejected the argument that condemnation powers were limited to a narrow list of purposes. The majority did not recognize a distinction between the scope of territorial and extraterritorial eminent domain powers.

Dissenting with the majority opinion, Eid said the state constitution doesn’t allow home-rule municipalities exclusive extraterritorial condemnation authority; therefore, the Telluride Amendment was constitutional.

“...the effect of (Monday’s) ruling is to cut out the General Assembly from regulating extraterritorial condemnations,” she wrote. “The majority holds that a home-rule municipality has the constitutional authority to condemn property outside of its boundaries essentially for any valid purpose — a broad statement indeed.”

The battle for the Valley Floor has been waged for nearly a decade. The SMVC announced plans to develop the property in 1999, but a few years later, Telluride voters approved allowing the town to condemn the acreage, which the National Trust lists among America’s most endangered historic places.

Telluride valued the land at $25 million, but a Delta jury last year placed the value at $50 million and ordered the town to pay millions in attorney’s fees (since reduced). Through private donations and bonding, the town raised the $50 million.

Fraser said Monday that in light of the ruling, Telluride will conduct environmental studies and draw up a conservation easement in the near future.

“We need to know what is out there, that we have a baseline,” he said. “... Everything we said we’re going to do with the Valley Floor is what we’re going to do. There will be no development on it.”