Sterling Ranch-A Good Concept, Just Not in My Backyard

On paper it sounds like an idyllic Colorado community.  37% of the land preserved for open space, parks, and wildlife corridors, 30 miles of hiking, biking, horseback riding trails connecting our two neighboring state parks, a new model for water conservation in Colorado by using rainwater harvesting and water efficient homes.  Sounds great, doesn't it?  I would love to live there, IF I didn't already live here.  This photo is the current view as I drive out of Roxborough Village.  Cattle pastures as far as the eye can see, our little community isolated from the big city, but close enough to enjoy the amenities if we like.  Highlands Ranch, that abomination as most of us out here think of it as, is only about 10 miles to the north and east.  We live here because we like the isolation.  We live here because we like the cows, deer, coyotes, and bears.  We live here because we DO NOT want to live in Highlands Ranch.

The Sterling Ranch master minds are flooding us with propaganda.  Last week alone I received a flyer in the mail touting the wonders that will be Sterling Ranch and there was a full page article in our quarterly newsletter, The Roxborough Voice.  Apparently this was one of a series of newsletters since it is entitled: "Sterling Ranch News Where Quality of Life Begins, Vol. 1, Issue 1."  The newsletter desperately tries to convince the residents of Roxborough that this will be good for us.  Our property values will soar, we will have out own High School and Middle School so our children will no longer have to be bused to Highlands Ranch, we will have an incredible sports complex, a 4H center, and it will be beautiful!  It also goes on to say that the addition of 15000 homes will decrease our traffic problems.  They will also be "preserving" the wildlife by designating that whopping 37% of the land to open space.  Tell that to the coyotes and deer that will lose their habitat and all the gophers and rabbits that will most likely be blasted out of their holes to build roads and homes.  Sterling Ranch will really be a godsend to all us out here in Roxborough.  We don't know what we've been missing.

I do know what I have not been missing.  I have not been missing massive shopping centers only a couple miles from home, I have not been missing passing house after house on my 7 mile drive down Titan Parkway to get out of Roxborough.  I have not been missing all the for sale signs on the family ranches around here as people try to get away from this development.  What I will miss is seeing a calf being born on my way to work and the baby cows that multiply every spring, deer grazing on the side of the road, kamikaze gophers standing on their hind legs chirping at each other, and packs of coyotes calling to each other across the grasslands.  I will miss our sense of small town Colorado.  I will miss our isolation.

Unfortunately I was not able to attend the public hearing held in Castle Rock last week so that Roxborough residents could have their voices heard.  I'm sure there was a lot of passionate outrage at the development that will just blend us into the rest of the south Denver suburbs.  I'm also sure it was just a formality.  For the last year the power station down the road has been getting ready to establish the new grid.  Development is set for 2013-2015.  Why in such a poor housing market they would even consider beginning a new development is beyond me.  Across the street an attempt to build a community of horse properties over the last 4 years since we've moved here has yielded 1 house and a lot of empty roads (because they always build those first).   I guess we'll just have to grin and bear it, and move, if the housing market ever recovers and if having a development of new houses down the street doesn't kill any chance we have of ever selling our over 20 year old home.