Post-office access a sore point with Dolores Town Board

Post-office access a sore point with Dolores Town Board

October 18, 2001

A CAR PREPARES to negotiate the steep dip leading into the Dolores Post Office recently. Access to the post office has caused an ongoing dispute involving the owners of the lot, the Dolores Town Board, and the Colorado Department of Transportation.

By Janelle Holden
Journal staff writer

As any Dolores resident knows, accessing the Dolores Post Office by car is a jolting task.

Turn into the post office from State Highway 184, or Railroad Avenue, and you’ll invariably encounter a precipitous dip in the gravel between the highway and the lip of the paved parking lot. Some motorists claim it causes front-end damage to their cars.

Fixing the access has caused the Dolores Town Board a few headaches over the past year, but at Monday’s board meeting the board decided to try a new strategy — doing nothing.

"As far as us doing anything about it, I don’t think that we’re the lead player in this thing," Town Attorney Jim Hatter told the board. "I don’t think it’s our $45,000 problem, let’s put it that way."

But the Colorado Department of Transportation thinks the illegal access is someone’s problem to fix, and it’s chosen the town and the current post-office lot owner, a private citizen, to send highway-access permit applications. The applications are accompanied by a demand that the access be fixed to CDOT standards within 45 days of the permit’s approval.

The town, however, argues that it should not be held accountable for repairing the access at an estimated cost of $45,552, especially since it does not own the lot or operate a business on the lot’s site.

"We don’t own the post-office property," Hatter explained on Wednesday. "The property is owned by a private individual who may or may not have recourse against his architect and builder for whatever screw-ups occurred."

No one denies that some "screw-ups" did occur.

According to Ronda Lancaster, the town clerk, the post-office developers built an illegal access on Ninth Street, which the town owns.

"They built the access on Ninth Street — we didn’t allow them to, they just did it," Lancaster explained on Wednesday. "At first they were wanting the property behind the pizza place, and the town was going to give them the alley for it, but when they changed to the other property, Richard Grice did not change his thinking and thought that we had given up Ninth Street."

Grice was the town planner in 1998 and 1999, when the post office was being built. Not only did he sign off on the illegal access, but so did the former mayor, Shirley Powell, who signed the certificate of occupancy in December 1999.

Since then, other problems have been found with the access, including the fact that a house is located adjacent to the property and the two highway accesses are too close together.

"What really makes it illegal is because there is two accesses so close together, and the grade," said Lancaster, who estimated that the entrance grade from the highway into the post office is much steeper than the grade of 2 percent grade or less required by CDOT.

The new access would include sidewalks along the highway, curb and gutter, proper storm drainage, new paving, access to the residence, access to the post office, and a curb down the middle of Ninth Street to separate the two accesses. It would move the current post-office access 10 feet to the west, and take out all of the current parking on the west side, according to Lancaster.

Although some board trustees suggested just slapping a "little concrete" on the trench, the access would still be illegal by state standards.

The town has tried to work with the past and current owners and the post office to resolve the problem, but to no avail.

"We have had absolutely no cooperation from the post office, nor we have we had any cooperation from CDOT. It’s to the point that they’ve scheduled meetings when they knew we couldn’t show up for that meeting," said Hatter.

"And canceled the meeting when they knew several of us would show up," added trustee Val Truelsen.

Hatter, at one point, said he wrote a "real nasty" letter to the post office, and their response was "too bad for you."

The response, according to Hatter, included two court cases that upheld the right of the federal government to construct buildings even if it violates town zoning regulations.

So, after considering all of the town’s options, Hatter recommended that the board not apply for a permit, and let CDOT either close the access to the post office or make the lot tenant, owner, post-office developer, or architect liable for fixing the illegal access in court.

Also on Monday, the board:

• Gave conditional approval to Frank Hensen, owner of Hensen Construction, to build a garage on the back of his leased office building next to the Hollywood Bar at 419 Central Ave. The building is leased to the U.S. Forest Service, which plans to use it for office space, and to house the Forest Service fire engines on the back.

But in order to build the garage, Hensen’s building would cover 100 percent of the lot to the edge of the alley that runs behind the building. The Dolores Land Use Code only allows for building on 50 percent of a lot in the community business district, and requires a 25-foot setback in case of fires, for deliveries to businesses in the district, and for off-street parking.

Even though the mayor and one trustee expressed concern that the variance and special exception would set a "dangerous precedent," the board approved it by a vote of 3 to 2, with one trustee abstaining and one absent.

Next week’s town workshop will also include a special board meeting to finalize the board’s approval of Hensen’s request. Hensen is required in the ordinance to provide information about the specific safety measures he plans to construct on the garage to notify alley users of the trucks’ departure. The board also will review the ordinance in five years.

• Decided that no longer will motor homes, recreational trailers, and boats be allowed to park indefinitely on town streets. The board approved, by a vote of 5 to 1, an ordinance that limits recreational vehicles to parking on town streets for three days within a one-month period. Violating the ordinance is punishable by a fine of up to $300, up to 90 days in jail, or both fines and incarceration.

• Planned to consider at future meetings passing a curfew ordinance for youth in the town. The ordinance could require juveniles to be home by 11 p.m. or midnight.