What was billed as a luxury RV resort development near Canon City, Colorado, is turning out to be something else entirely … at least so far.
The Fremont County Board of Commissioners last week decided to pump the brakes on the Phantom Canyon RV Ranch, located at 505 County Road 67 in Penrose, Colorado. The development has run afoul of both the Fremont County Planning & Zoning Director, as well as the chief county building officials, who both told the board that park owners were not in compliance with an existing special review use permit.
Phantom Canyon RV Ranch developers had asked the county for modifications to its use permit that would add 20 additional self-contained trailers, an on-site wastewater treatment system, less recreational area, and another 24,000 square feet of storage area.
The park’s original application was approved by the county in March 2020. Since then the county has uncovered several violations at the facility. The county planning director said the site now has several wrecked or unregistered vehicles, an unlicensed contractor yard, non-approved dump station transfer tanks, and several RVs at the site.
“We were originally told that this would be a luxury RV park, but we’ve seen the pictures from the visits over time – there is nothing that I would say is luxurious,” said Commission Chair Debbie Bell. “We also were guaranteed that you would be focusing on self-contained RVs only – only vehicles 10 years old or newer would be allowed except for the instance of some rebuilds.”
Park co-owner Mitch Slatin said he’s kicked many people out of the park, and it’s now “fairly empty.”
“We look forward to finally being able to move forward and finally being able to build a park,” he said. “That’s been the problem – we have not been allowed to build the park. You allowed us to open on March 10, 2020, but after that, every time we took a step to build the park, we were told to stop. For two years, we were told not to do anything. Let us build a park. Let us build it right, and we will give you the product we promised.”
The board is expected to render a final decision Feb 8.
##RVT1036b
Lends new meaning to the term “RV Luxury Resort” eh?
10 year limit?
That’s like the parking lot at Costco only allowing a 10 year old car limit. I understand they don’t want junker rigs, or ones with serious damage, but come on….
No rig over 10 years? I wouldn’t be caught dead in a place with people like that. We stay down Highway 50 at Haggard’s RV park. Wonderful people!