Developing Dilemma: Durango Builders, locals debate growth plans.

• Author: Titus, Stephen
• Position: Statistical Data Included

WHEN BOB WOLFF LANDED IN DURANGO IN THE MID 1970s FRESH OUT OF COLLEGE, HE FOUND AN OUT-OF-THE WAY COLLEGE/RESORT TOWN WHERE REAL COWBOYS STILL DROVE CATTLE ON HORSEBACK, NATIVE AMERICAN TRADING POSTS DOTTED THE TOWN'S OUTSKIRTS, AND THE BIGGEST SOCIAL EVENT OF THE YEAR WAS THE LA PLATA COUNTY FAIR. NESTLED IN the Animas Valley at the foot of the San Juan Mountains, Durango was the financial and social hub of the isolated Four Corners area. But even then a few residential developments were sprouting on the mesa southeast of town and northeast along scenic Florida Road.

Thirty years later, Durango retains an Old West feel --and tourists still give themselves away when they pronounce that road. It's Flo-REED-a.

But much else has changed.

Today Durango is an outdoor sports mecca where professional cyclists stretch their legs along the same trails as cowgirls in Wranglers. The Merrill Lynch office is just up the street from Hassle-Free Sports, and it is common to hear several foreign languages spoken at hotels and restaurants. While downtown is still the heart of the region, a new commercial hub complete with big-box retailers and a shopping mall draws patrons from surrounding communities. Residential projects like Durango West are giving middle class home buyers a place to live in a first-class resort town.

But perhaps the biggest change in Durango has been philosophical. After watching La Plata County's population increase 34 percent in the '90s, locals want to put the brakes on growth. "The La Plata (County) view of development was 'bring it on,' until the early '90s when the people said enough," said Nancy Lauro, development director for the county.

Wolff, now a successful architect and developer, is facing a Catch-22 of appeasing anti-growth locals and adhering to the city's development master plan. He is proposing one of the more visible and controversial projects: Riverside. Plans for the residential development slated for the southernmost end of the Animas Valley were presented in the 1980s and included about 1,600 homes on 260 acres.

Back then, city and county planners embraced the project, but the original developer sold the land to Wolff and his partner, and a communitywide change of heart has postponed their plans for more than a decade.

To help appease the community, Wolff pared down Riverside, first to 600 units, and then to just 66 parcels for high-end homes, which he says is a waste of the property. Greg Hoch, director of...