Your article with regard to the Canyon Drive Condominiums, July
12, prompts me to reply to comments made by Castle Rock Planning
Director Rita Gerou.
To the editor:
Your article with regard to the Canyon Drive Condominiums, July
12, prompts me to reply to comments made by Castle Rock Planning
Director Rita Gerou.
The first of these comments was, “There’s a difference between a
plat and a condo plat,” Gerou said. “A plat is set by the town and
a condo plat is set by the condominium association. Mr. Elsner is
using a map of the condo plat.”
As a matter of fact, I am using the same map and plat filed in
1983 that is relied upon Gerou. She, however, is using only the
dedication on the plat and is either blissfully unaware of what is
shown on that dedication or the plat, or willfully ignores what is
said there.
The plat, relied on by Gerou, dedicated Canyon Drive as a public
street. It also creates certain sewer and water easements and
access to those easements. These are limited in scope and provide
access to install and repair sewer and water.
This plat does not dedicate or show any public easements or
right of general access on our property. Gerou seeks to torture a
specific easement into a general access easement.
Gerou is either blissfully unaware or chooses to disregard the
condominium declaration, filed by the original developer of Canyon
Drive June 1, 1984, that reserved a right to the original developer
to use our common elements for construction of other condominiums
on our grounds. That reservation expired seven years from the above
date.
For Gerou’s information, she can find this reservation and its
expiration recorded in the records of the county clerk and recorder
at book 524, pages 181-82. This is paragraph 37 of the condominium
declaration.
However, I don’t think Gerou wants to consider this paragraph.
She prefers to resurrect a right that has been extinguished by time
and award the extinguished right to a developer who has no
connection to Canyon Drive Condominiums. She greatly exceeds her
authority in doing so.
How could a developer who is a stranger to Canyon Drive
Condominiums have a right that the original developer no longer
has?
Gerou is blissfully unaware or does not want to know that
Sovereign, the present developer of Castleview condominiums, holds
its property by a deed that conveys absolutely no easements or
rights-of-way outside its own boundaries.
I am puzzled by Gerou’s statement that Sovereign has gone
through proper channels. My question is, how did Canyon Drive’s
property come into channels?
The owners of Canyon Drive Condominiums could consent to the use
of their land, but Sovereign or Castle Rock could bring our
property into the planning process without owner consent. We did
not acquire our property from Castle Rock, and the town is not in
the chain of title of Canyon Drive Condominiums.
Gary Hoover, counsel for Sovereign, said the town records
contain a statement that “ … the existing HOMEOWNERS ASSOCIATION
agrees … ” someone has misrepresented to the town that our
HOMEOWNERS ASSOCIATION agreed to the Castleview plan. The town has
relied on this misrepresentation without confirming it and securing
a sign off by the true owners.
Gerou is blissfully unaware, or has no desire to know, that
there is no connection in title or interest between the Castleview
development and Canyon Drive Condominiums. Title was irrevocable,
severed by foreclosures on the land that today comprises Castleview
condominiums. It does not pay dues to our association and it does
not help maintain our driveways that have been affected by
Sovereign’s heavy construction equipment.
Neither does the town pay for installation or maintenance of our
paved common elements. There are no dedicated streets or driveways
in the interior of our condominium plat, only common elements owned
by the owners of the 40 individual condominiums.
But Gerou does not want to know that.
Finally, Gerou confirms my belief that the planning department
granted greater density and other privileges to Sovereign, which
would not have been permitted under existing planning rules without
incorporation of our property into the planning process. Somewhere
that process has gone astray.
It always has been my belief that the purpose of the planning
process was to protect the interests of the town residents, not to
maximize the privileges of developers.
George F. Elsner
Castle Rock