Monument Realty collected another approval for its Silverline II project yesterday, though developers and the Mountain Village Town Council walked a planning tightrope to get there.

Now, all that stands between a hole in the ground for Monument is a final review from the town’s Design Review Board on Jan. 24.

Monument went before the council to request an additional density allowance on the lots at the base of the Mountain Village side of the gondola — a somewhat routine practice — but met a council that struggled with its lack of control over a project that it used to have a heavy hand in.

Silverline II is a scaled down version of the original large-scale,100-foot development that would have housed a town-financed $20-million recreation center. That project came with a slew of public benefits from the space for the center itself to a $500,000 payout from Monument for affordable housing. It also came with a slew of baggage that ultimately resulted in a  faulty special election.

Monument pulled that plan from the table in late October.

Silverline II touts the same flat-roofed and modern aesthetic as its predecessor, only in a travel size: it’s 200,000 square feet smaller and 40 feet shorter in places.

“Our partners and investors were concerned about where we were,” said Monument representative Bill Krokowski. “We now have a by-right design with the density transfer.”

But use-by-right is tricky in a town where units of density can be moved from lots like dollars from a bank. When the Village was created it was assigned a total density; some lots were given more density than others and some lots couldn’t be built to their allotment, resulting in a density bank developers can deposit into and withdraw from.
The town granted Monument its additional 77 units of density, essentially green-lighting the project to the DRB.

Silverline II will offer short-term rental units, developers said, and will house a mix of commercial and residential elements. The development will see 44 condo units, five employee housing units and 59 lodge or lodge efficiency units.

A collection of stone and wood and glass, the building is a contemporary approach among the gabled roofs and stucco of the Village Core.

Telluride Ski and Golf Co. even weighed in, asking council to consider allowing a project more dense than what was in front of them.

For council, the approval seemed bittersweet as members lamented losing public benefits on what is the core’s last large developable lot.

They wanted more affordable housing units than the three Monument proposed and they wanted public bathrooms built. They would get both. Monument said it would build the five units and find a way to craft the bathrooms.

But the balance of power had markedly shifted from town to developer, as Monument no longer had to run the gamut of a special planning process to achieve variances from the town’s myriad building codes.

“We believe we have something here that should be approved on its merits,” Krokowski told a hesitant council. “We’d rather be at construction right now in the core, not at this meeting.”

And in the end, Mayor Bob Delves welcomed the development. Literally.

“Welcome back to Mountain Village,” he said.