Steamboat Springs residents anxious over the future of Whistler Park are lobbying City Council members to purchase a nine acres section of the park currently owned by the city’s school district.

The nine-acre parcel in question has been owned by the school district since 1980, but an agreement rezoned the parcel and merged it with roughly five acres of city land to create the recreational space in 1997.

Valued at just over $3 million as of last year, according to assessor records, the school district’s majority-parcel currently provides playing fields and open space to the surrounding area.

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In August, the school district announced it was using state grant money to explore the possibility of developing teacher and staff housing on its section of the park as it faces the prospect of 41% of its staff members leaving in the next five years due to a lack of affordable housing, according to a district feasibility study.

Superintendent Celine Wicks said the district recognizes, “importance of keeping the community’s character and value open green space,” and there is “no intention of a high-density project.” She also emphasized the district’s process as preliminary, adding it was “way too early” to know what a final outcome would look like.

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But for many living in the Whistler Park and on the eastern side of the city, the potential loss of what is already limited green space and over development in the area is enough to outweigh the school district’s housing project.

Residents like Casey Earp said Tuesday they were frustrated with the lack of clarity over what the school district might build and asked if a “right of first refusal” agreement might be signed as a way for the city to preserve the park space.

“I am a big supporter of affordable housing,” Earp said, “but there are cranes everywhere, there is not more green space coming into our community everywhere — there is one little bit on that side of town.”

Echoing a point she heard raised recently by Steamboat Springs City Parks Director Angela Cosby, Sonja Macys implored council members at their meeting to consider the opportunity from a financial planning opportunity.

“What does it look like if that park is developed and what does the city have to do to make its five acres functional?” asked Macys, who is a Routt County Commissioner but spoke as a private citizen.

Compared to the value of the school district’s $3 million section of Whistler Park, assessor records show the city’s 5.6-acre plot, which consists mostly of the park’s access routes, parking lot and pond area, valued at $184,800 in 2023.

“There is a pretty significant cost associated with that so if you look at the potential cost of purchasing Whistler Park, it might actually end up costing less (to buy) than redeveloping your own park,” she added.

The public appeal to council members came a week a Steamboat Springs School Board provded addtional layers.

At the school board’s Sept. 9 business meeting, Superintendent Celine Wicks said Enterprise Community Partners, the firm assisting the district in developing the project with the state grant money, received a stop-work order from the Colorado Division of Housing.

Wicks said the order is related to budget allocation questions related to Enterprise Community Partners but that it was unrelated to the district’s housing program and the development does not question its “quality, technical integrity or value.”

“We are going to pivot, we are stopping on that, and we are going to be looking at our property over on the west side of town,” said Wicks, adding that it was unclear how long the stop-order would be in effect.

“Right now, our focus is away from the Whistler property and over to the Barber property,” she added.

Pivoting, the superintendent said the district would be working with a group called Rural Homes Colorado to explore potential staff housing options at its 22-acre property, known as the Barber property, located west of Downtown Steamboat on the edge of the Yampa Valley Housing Authority land known as Brown Ranch.

Still, the relocated focus for the housing project does not completely take the sale of Whistler Park out of the picture.

“I don’t think we can sit on Whistler as an asset when we are going to need to fund building on the other side,” said board member Kevin Callahan, adding that he felt the district should look to put the property on the market “sooner rather than later.”

Wicks said the district was working to generate cost estimates for the Barber parcel and would return to the board with additional information in late October or early November before any decision was made.