After what developers say has been 28 major site plan changes, Silverthorne planning officials gave approval for a proposed condominium development to move on to its next step at a Feb. 18 meeting. 

With unanimous approval from planning officials, the site plan for a three-story, 49-unit condominium building slated for 776 Blue River Parkway will now make its way to Silverthorne Town Council for approval. 

The project, dubbed North Shores, is being overseen by the same team that built the Apres Shores condos on Colorado Highway 9, TG Developments. The team’s first proposal for this development, featuring 69 units on the site and one adjacent to it, was shot down in April 2024 by officials due to strong community concern that it could have disturbed a locally treasured piece of land known as the Annie Road parcel.

The developer also found itself in hot water in December when the company violated rules related to public transparency. 

Assistant community development director Danelle Cook explained to planning commissioners the developer broke these rules twice, “first by sending an email to the Town Council members on December 9, and then (a second time) on December 11 by discussing their land-use application outside of the quasi-judicial process at a Town Council hearing.” This is an action staff members legally have to disclose for the project to move forward, a staff memo for the Feb. 18 meeting said. 

While voting on the matter, planning officials wanted to ensure the concerns of neighbors of the upcoming development were met. Residents of the nearby Rainbow Run development, whose concerns aided in halting the development of the 69-unit plan, asked for some sort of screening mechanism be installed to mitigate light and noise. They said their request stemmed from a traffic analysis included in the development plans which demonstrated this development and the adjacent Apres Shores units are projected to generate 829 vehicle trips on the average workday. It was not decided at the Feb. 18 meeting how exactly the request should be met.

Planning for the current iteration of the development coincides with Colorado Department of Transportation efforts to improve traffic flow in Silverthorne and Dillon propelled by projections that traffic will increase 45% in the next 20 years along the towns’ major corridors. Staff members and planning officials discussed how the developer’s plans for traffic circulation will have to accommodate the agency’s future plans for an intersection near the parcel. 

Silverthorne senior planner Emily Weber said the site plan consolidates the lots owned by the developer in the area and this will result in traffic circulation that reduces conflicting left turns onto the Colorado Highway 9. She said this was something CDOT officials wanted to change about traffic flow in the area. CDOT officials intend to make the three-way signalized intersection at Annie Road and Colorado Highway 9 a four-way intersection.

Planning officials also commented on the developer’s interactions with the town and the public.

During her time to vote, planning commissioner Valerie Connelly reminded the developers of the decorum which stands in public meetings.

“In some of the meetings that you’ve all been in, there’s some snickering and some side comments that I’ve witnessed (in these planning meetings and while I was watching) the town council recorded meeting,” Connelly said, noting they have a “reputation to uphold as builders, developers.”

Formerly a mobile home park, the land parcel has history

First plotted as two parcels of land instead of one, the site slated to house the development served as a mobile home park from 1972 up until 2022. In 2021, a developer bought the site.

Residents brought their worries regarding the sale to local officials, with some saying their homes were too old to feasibly move off the site and have them stay intact. Representatives of the developer, the Aidan Group, said the original owner of the property notified residents in June 2019 that they were planning to sell the land for development. Advocates of the homeowners said even with a heads up, it would have been difficult for residents to raise enough funds to buy the land so they could continue living on it.

In 2022, those developers received approval on a site plan for a 3-story, 49-unit condominium building. Then, in 2023, TG Developments bought the property. Because ownership was transferred, the approval for the previous site plan couldn’t be upheld. 

TG Developments received approval on a new site plan, including a site adjacent to the property, in April 2024, according to the town’s senior planner, Emily Weber. These plans included 69 units instead of 49 units, around 21 of which would have been town-owned workforce housing. These were the plans nixed by officials at the request of community members for the sake of preserving the Annie Road parcel.