One of the largest-ever proposed developments in Breckenridge gets a few steps closer to breaking ground

Kit Geary/Summit Daily News
Breckenridge town staff members are starting the first steps of bringing the East Peak 8 / Gold Rush Lot development into fruition following the town signing an agreement with developer Breckenridge Grand Vacations this March.
The development will be one of the largest-ever residential developments in Breckenridge and features seven different parcels of land and includes single-family homes, workforce housing, duplexes and a hotel.
Parcel 1: The North Gondola Lot will remain a parking lot.
Parcel 2: Workforce housing on Park Avenue will have 48 bedrooms of employee housing and 400 winter recreational parking spaces.
Parcel 3: The South Gold Rush Lot will have 16 for-sale duplex units that will not be eligible for short-term rental licenses.
Parcel 4: A hotel with 36 rooms, 68 residential condominiums and a space for the Breckenridge Outdoor Education Center will be on East Peak 8.
Parcel 5: Two single-family homes are planned to be built on Four O’Clock Road, both of which will be eligible for short-term rental licenses.
Parcel 6: Fourteen single-family homes are slated to be built near Timber Trail, all of which will not be eligible for short-term rental licenses.
Parcel 7: Around 60 deed-restricted, workforce housing units are planned to be built on a parcel of land at the corner of Colorado Highway 9 and County Road 450 called the “Entrada Parcel.”
At a Breckenridge Town Council meeting on Tuesday, June 11, members of the town’s planning staff gave council an update on the work being done to get the development off the ground.
The Breckenridge Planning Commission held a hearing on Tuesday, June 4 for a subdivision related to the development’s Parcel 6. Parcel 6 is slated to house 14 single-family homes and will be near the Timber Trail.
A staff memo noted a second subdivision request will come in the near future to divide the parcel into 14 single-family lots.
The developer was meant to dedicate land to open space as a part of the agreement for the subdivision, yet the commission decided to require a cash contribution of 10% of the land value in lieu of a land dedication.
The Planning Commission unanimously approved the subdivision in a 6-0 vote.
At the same Planning Commission meeting, there was a hearing to amend the Gondola Lot Master Plan amendment in order to transfer the density necessary to build workforce housing on the Entrada lot. The Entrada parcel was recently annexed into the town; it was previously in unincorporated Summit county.
To get the density needed for the workforce housing, it needed to be borrowed from the Gondola Lot Master area and given to Peak 7 and 8 Master Plan area.
A staff memo states that the application to do so asks for a major amendment to most of the existing language within the Gondola Lot Master Plan, which beforehand was related to previous design concepts for the planning area.
The developer asked for a waiver from receiving negative development points, which are usually given in instances where density is taken from one area and given to another. The request was granted.
The amendment to the Gondola Lot Master Plan was unanimously approved with a 6-0 vote.
After all related master plans are modified to accommodate the project, the next steps in planning for the project include reviewing the individual site plans for each parcel.
It ultimately took 13 Town Council meetings, from June 2023 to March 2024, for Breckenridge Town Council to give approval for the development agreement after hashing through details with Breckenridge Grand Vacations. The proposal marks the second proposal for the project, with the first one featuring what would have been dense development in the core of Breckenridge. The developer revised the first proposal after hearing concerns from the community and council.

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