Areas that are progressive and ruralish with a sustainable plan...
Hello. My husband, Great
Dane, self, and 3 horses want to re-locate to Co from Louisiana. We are
looking for someplace progressive and sustainable to live with our animals. A
community is very important to us, since ours has left, post Katrina. We
thought about Salida
until we learned that they might not have a sustainable plan there. We are
considering Crestone,
Boulder area that is affordable... Any other suggestions would be greatly
appreciated.
Oh, and 2 hours from an airport is max for our children to visit. Thanks.
CO-Bound you are right about the
cowboy's suggestions. Highlands Ranch (HR) is a planned suburb (on C-470 not
E-470, E-470 is a toll road which starts farther
east). You will not find a horse ranch in it. Also most of the metro area hasn't done much for a sustainable energy plan. Denver has done made some
progress and most of the suburbs follow but HR does not. During the drought a
couple of years back when all of the metro was trying to curb water use HR was
handing out tickets to people who didn't water their lawns enough.
Aspen is a three and a half hour drive from Denver and unless you are a
millionaire you aren't going to be able to afford a house there. Conifer and Lookout Mountain are nice
Mountain communities where a lot of people own horses but there is little to no
sustainability plan.
The South Jeffco area along Bowles Ave does have some landowners who have not
sold their horse property to the developers yet but you are going to have a
tough time getting any of them to sell to you, and if you do it's going to be
at a premium.
My suggestion would be to look at Boulder or
areas near there. If you are in an area which is serviced by Xcel Energy you can buy alternative
energy from them. As far as Water Conservation,
this is the west, there isn't much water left. The big cities are working to
conserve water (although Boulder has more water then other cities so I don't
think they are as good at it as others). One thing I would be concerned about
if I was buying horse property is that most of them are on wells, instead of
using city water. Well water on the Front Range generally comes from a
huge underground water basin (which spans several states), but that basin is
overused and shrinking. Adding more users to it is very unsustainable. You want
to be on a city system because they will use water from the mountains.
ref:blogSustainCommunity