Before even entering Pug Ryan’s Brewery Saturday morning for a roundtable discussion, attendees were met with literature opposing the Porritt Group’s plans for a major development by the waterfront.

The project in question is a five-story structure that the Dillon Town Council approved as a planned unit development earlier this year. Located at 626 Lake Dillon Drive, where the Best Western and defunct Arapahoe Cafe now stand, the project would include 200 condominium units, three restaurants, retail space and public amenities including a park and observation tower.

A passionate, yet split, crowd convened at the brewery Saturday, Aug. 3, for what turned out to be a contentious discussion about the future of Dillon and the developer’s overarching plans for redeveloping the town center.

At the front of the room sat a panel of three supporters of the project: Brad Bailey, a former Dillon Town Council member who voted in favor of the waterfront development, Jesse Grewal, a representative of the Porritt Group and Rex Roberts, a representative of Red Table Ventures, a partner on the project.

Developer Jake Porritt, who was not in attendance Saturday, convened the meeting ahead of a special election scheduled for Oct. 1, where the fate of the waterfront project will be before town voters. 

Dillon residents who are opposed to the project — many of whom were in attendance Saturday — earlier this year circulated a petition calling for a referendum vote on Porritt’s plans. The petition gathered more than 200 signatures.

Before the conversation ramped up Saturday, Bailey addressed the crowd and said efforts such as Porritt’s are needed to support the development and forward progression of the town.

“There’s just not enough people living here to drive development,” Bailey said. “We don’t all have to embrace this development — I get that — but we can channel it and manage it.”

A couple people in the crowd shouted questions about whether Bailey was being paid by the Porritt Group to show his support for the project. Bailey said he wasn’t being compensated.

According to information handed out by the Porritt Group, the upcoming referendum will have one of two results. Either voters reaffirm the Dillon Town Council’s March 19 approval of the planned unit development for the waterfront project, or — if they vote down the project — a “purely residential development” with no public or commercial spaces will be built.

Porritt laid out these “binary” options to Dillon residents at an earlier meeting at the brewery in June. At the time, Porritt said the planned unit development approved by the Dillon Town Council allows for flexibility from the underlying zoning, allowing for features like commercial spaces and the public park along Lake Dillon Drive. But if town residents vote that project down, he said he will be forced to move forward with a “by right” project that would be bound to the underlying zoning and would therefore not include commercial or public space.

A funding mechanism known as a metropolitan district was among the top concerns raised by residents in attendance Saturday. The Dillon Town Council approved a service plan last year that allowed metro districts to be established for Porritt’s proposed redevelopment plans. 

Developers establish metro districts in order to issue tax-exempt bonds, which are paid off over time with revenues generated by metro district property taxes and fees. Porritt previously explained that the metro districts established for his project will essentially place an additional tax on the businesses within the district, generating additional tax revenue that can be spent on public infrastructure associated with the project. Metro districts cannot be used to fund private components of a development.

“We’re hoping to hopefully apply (the metropolitan district tax revenue) towards, potentially a parking garage, workforce housing and other needs of the town,” Grewal said.

Porritt has previously said that more than 75% of the taxbase for the metro districts will be generated by the project at 626 Lake Dillon Drive. Porritt said he plans to use these funds to help actualize the redevelopment of other parts of the town core, as outlined in the “master plan” he has proposed.

Inclusive of the project at 262 Lake Dillon Drive, the “master plan” that Porritt has laid out includes about 271 market-rate residential units, 282 workforce housing units, four new restaurant spaces and numerous commercial and retail spaces, including a small grocery store.

Under Porritt’s “master plan,” the workforce housing would be located at the current location of Pug Ryan’s Brewery, which would also be getting a two-level parking garage, as well as at a structure where the Dillon Town Hall now stands. The market-rate units include the 200 condominium units that are part of the lakefront development as well as another 71 units at the condominium project previously known as Uptown 240. 

Town staffers previously said without the revenue generated by the “branded residences,” it was unlikely the remainder of the projects in the “master plan” could be completed.

But some Dillon residents expressed concern about a metro district being used in town, with resident Mary Ellen Gilliand pointing to articles published in the Denver Post, including an investigation that found the districts “give developers enormous power.”

Gilliland, who showed up to the meeting with a list of 50 articles and editorial columns highlighting times when metro districts, she says, “went wrong,” arguing that the legislation around them is poorly crafted and can impact residents. 

She noted while some successful metropolitan districts might exist, for “many (metro district) boards are not citizens.”  

She added while the possibility to make “scads of money” might be tempting, she didn’t think it was the right fit for the town of Dillon. 

Dillon resident Joel Schwartzman said the proposed development “interrupts, actually challenges the whole ambiance of what this town is.” He said he wished the matter was put to a ballot earlier and the town took more community input. 

Schwartzman added he didn’t want the developer to impose its vision on Dillon residents, resulting a handful of crowd members giving him a round of applause. 

Dillon business owners also chimed, including George Swintz, who won’t be able to vote on the October referendum because he is Breckenridge resident. He said he’s witnessed a “deterioration” in the town’s business landscape, pointing to business closures and a decline in the town’s sales tax revenue.

“There are more and more demands on the budget for the town with less and less revenue,” Swintz said. “And the metro district that the Porritt group is proposing is a way to rejuvenate, revitalize downtown without affecting the taxes for the rest of the community.”

Editor’s note: Summit Daily News reporter Ryan Spencer contributed to this story.