Subdivision moves forward

RANGELY I Development is moving forward on 16 lots in a new subdivision approximately one-half mile west of Parkview Elementary School. An annexation last spring allowed Rio Mesa Resources, owned by Mike Hayes, to develop the 95-acre site. “We owned the land, and then Crossfire (Oil and Gas Construction Services) came to me looking for a place to build a shop,” Hayes said. “And that’s how it all got started.” What was initially a pair of industrial lots, one for Crossfire and the other for Hayes Petroleum Company, has become the West Rangely Subdivision, which will include 14 residential parcels ranging from four to seven acres in size. Hayes said that the lots will be complete with water, gas, electric and phone lines by this fall. “We’d been working on the main water and gas line last fall, and then the snow hit so we just kind of stopped,” Hayes said. “If the weather stays decent, we’ll put the main gas line in down there. And then later this spring, we’ll start putting in the rest of the residential water and gas lines.” Crossfire, which is heading up the project’s infrastructure work, is looking to Rangely as a “major hub” for its operations, Hayes said. It could eventually have as many as 200 employees operating out of the area. “This could be a real boost for the town and for the schools,” Hayes said. Increased traffic past school grounds would largely consist of light trucks traveling before or after school hours, Hayes said, although he is working to get a new access road to Highway 64 that would keep much of that traffic away from the school. Rangely Town Manager Peter Brixius said that after the line extensions for water and natural gas are complete, workers will build an interior loop road to access the new lots. The road will be gravel, much like Shale Drive on the east end of town. “Any time you can get some decent acreages that have city services, I think people are interested in that,” Brixius said. Letters sent last spring inviting adjacent property owners and taxing entities to attend public hearings resulted in “some marginal feedback,” Brixius said. Public meetings before town council and public notification of the annexation and subdivision and rezoning processes have followed standard procedure, Brixius said. Hayes said that while he’s never done anything like this before, he wanted the residential lots to have both in-town conveniences and country amenities. “That’s one of the things I wanted, to get lots big enough to have some livestock on them,” Hayes said. “You could have 4-H livestock or somebody with horses. It’d be limited but you could have some of that there. The lots are big but not too big.”