Harvest Roaring Fork Withdraws 1,500-Unit Cattle Creek Permit

Harvest Roaring Fork pulled its permit application. The developers didn’t abandon the project — they just hit pause.

The firm behind the controversial 1,500-unit development near Cattle Creek formally withdrew its request for review on April 6. They plan to revise the proposal and resubmit once they’ve digested feedback from county planners and commissioners.

This isn’t a death knell for the project. It’s a reset.

The withdrawal stops the current review of the planned unit development (PUD). That PUD would have put 1,500 homes on 283 acres of land along Colorado Highway 82, right between Glenwood Springs and Carbondale. The site is prime real estate for locals who’ve watched property values climb and housing stock shrink. But it’s also a bottleneck for Highway 82 traffic.

The original proposal was aggressive. It included 150 deed-restricted affordable units. It offered nearly 300 owner-occupied workforce housing units. It counted roughly 1,050 market-rate homes. Plus commercial space and a hotel.

Oponents argued the scale was wrong. They said the area couldn’t handle the density. They worried about habitat fragmentation. They feared the strain on utilities and roads. The developers argued the opposite: this was the long-term solution to the valley’s housing shortage. Smaller homes. Closer to jobs. Closer to services.

Richard Myers, founder of Realty Capital, said the move was strategic. He cited "encouraging comments" from the March 11 hearing before the Garfield County Planning Commission.

“We thought the Planning and Zoning Commission was asking us to come back,” Myers said. “They gave us, or so it seemed, fairly encouraging comments, indicating that we were very close to making it, but that we needed to make some adjustments and corrections.”

Myers admitted the team is still defining the scope of those revisions. They’re talking to county staff to clarify objections. Some issues were minor — typographical errors, he noted. Others required deeper dives.

“The point is we are working on it at this very moment,” Myers said. “Some of the points were simple typographical errors. We are requesting clarifications and keeping conversations with staff to ensure we understand what their objections were regarding the application.”

The withdrawal letter, addressed to Garfield County Community Development Director Glenn Hartmann, asked the county to halt the review process. It explicitly requested that no further public hearings be scheduled for this specific submission.

But there’s a catch. The developers are keeping a separate, independent application alive. They intend to proceed with revoking the expired “River Edge Colorado” PUD that sits on the same property. That’s a distinct legal maneuver. It clears the title issues before the new, revised proposal lands on the desk.

Locals know Highway 82. They know the gridlock during peak commute hours. They know the pressure on water rights and sewage capacity. A 1,500-unit addition isn’t just a statistic. It’s a daily reality for drivers and homeowners.

The developers claim this is the answer to the housing crisis. Critics say it’s a traffic nightmare wrapped in a housing promise. The county is sitting in the middle, reviewing the fine print.

Myers wouldn’t say how long the revision process would take. He didn’t give a new timeline for the next submission. He just said they’re listening.

The ball is in the county’s court now. The developers have stepped back to adjust their stance. The planners have to decide if the adjustments are enough. Or if the scale itself is the problem.

The withdrawal is tactical. The goal remains the same: build on that land. Just smarter. Or so they claim.