An eleventh-hour effort to stop the creation of a small subdivision in the foothills outside Morrison hinges on tentative and uncertain findings of a Native American burial site.
Two contractors, Damien Davis and Ken Hoyt, plan to subdivide 30 undeveloped acres south of the North Turkey Creek Road and Starlight Drive intersection into three 10-acre home lots. Richard Finney, a spacecraft engineer who lives to the west, has long opposed that idea.
After losing one legal case against Davis and Hoyt and being ordered Oct. 20 to pay them $88,000 in attorney fees, Finney sued again one week later. He is also suing Jefferson County planners and commissioners for approving the Davis-Hoyt development in September.
“The suit is as meritless as Mr. Finney’s other actions taken against my client and this project,” said Dylan Woods, a lawyer for the prospective developers. “We’re confident the district court will approve the Board of County Commissioners’ decision in due course.”
Finney’s latest reasoning is that on Oct. 15, Colorado’s state archaeologist “visited the site and found support for an indigenous person’s burial site,” according to the lawsuit he filed Oct. 27. The archaeologist, Holly Norton, says her work there “has been pretty minimal.”
“I will tell you, honestly, we get a lot of folks who reach out and sometimes it feels like people are looking for an excuse to stop a development that they don’t like. In this case, the neighbors were actually concerned,” Norton said in an interview. “Several families in this neighborhood have this oral history of there being a burial on this parcel and on this property.”
Norton, who also leads the Colorado Office of Archaeology and Historic Preservation, said she has not visited the property, since it is private, and has never spoken with Davis or Hoyt. She has only viewed the site from public rights of way and is cautious when discussing her findings.
“Given the landform, I think that there could potentially be an archaeological site or a burial,” she explained by phone. “That is information I conveyed back to the county for them to consider as they see appropriate in their deliberations. That is the extent of my involvement.
“You asked what me and my team found. We didn’t find anything. We just saw an area where there is the potential for archaeological sites,” according to the state archaeologist.
Norton stressed that her role is advisory. She takes no position on development at the site.
Finney, the displeased neighbor, says county officials have told him there is no mechanism by which they can pause the Davis-Hoyt development, so he is asking a judge to do so. Cassie Pearce, a spokeswoman for Jefferson County, declined to discuss the matter.
“Once development begins, environmental damage and loss of historical artifacts cannot be undone, property boundary markers may be permanently altered, and historical, archaeological and paleontological resources will be lost,” Finney’s lawsuit warned last week.
Talk of archaeology or historical import have been absent from the county’s discussion of the Cimarron Peak subdivision, as Davis and Hoyt call their project. Instead, the focus has been on questions and concerns that are more common to a rural mountain development.
“There were a number of issues that were especially concerning, like road access, a fenceline discrepancy, drainage, well water, flood plain,” Planning Commissioner Stacy Liles said at a Sept. 10 hearing. “It sounds like there was a lot of stuff from the past that we can’t deal with. We are looking at whether it meets the requirements or not.”
Liles and her colleagues determined it does; they voted 6-0 to approve the subdivision. That sent the idea on to the Board of County Commissioners, which considered it Sept. 30.
“No cultural sites were identified,” county engineer Laura Armstrong told commissioners then. “No impacts to historical or archaeological or paleontological resources are expected.”
After hearing from Davis and Finney, commissioners voted 2-1 to approve the subdivision. This is the decision Finney is now asking Jefferson County District Court to reverse.
On Oct. 30, Judge Christopher Rhamey declined to halt the development because Finney had not yet served his lawsuit on the Cimarron developers or Jefferson County, but offered to hold a hearing and consider issuing a stay after the defendants have had time to weigh in.
Davis, who lives in nearby Evergreen and bought the 30 acres along North Turkey Creek Road in 2018, said the subdivision process has been “frustrating at times but understandable.”
“Our intent is to have three homes ultimately built here,” he told Jefferson County commissioners on Sept. 30, “and to have families being raised on these 10-acre lots.”
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