Permitting

It all started when…Everland Co-Founders Jon Jenkins and Laney Odom first went into the Douglas County Department of Community Development (DCD) in June 2019. This meeting was crucial because it was prior to the acquisition of the property. We wanted to understand permitting and to be sure we did not have to change the Zoning to create our Art Park. We did not have to change the Zoning but we did have to figure out what best categorized our plans to fit into the A1 Agriculture One District for this County and then go through the Use by Special Review (USR) process with the DCD.

We determined through our lengthy pre-referral review process that we would pursue a (USR) for a Cultural Facility (Art Park) & Campground while also continuing the use of the existing permit for the Religious Retreat and Residential use, which would all be possible on the 145.3 acres since we have 35 acres per each of these four uses.

What is important to understand is local and state governments, when opening a commercial operation basically control what you can and can’t do with your property/resources. Since Everland is partially off-grid relying on well water; showing proper use of our (legal) resources was a major factor in our permitting. Our hands have been tied in almost every way in regard to actually making major progress on the property and project until our USR plans are approved/voted on by the Commissioners. This can only happen after our permitting actually “passes” to get through to the Commissioners’ vote. This process overall in our country has become very political and those who manage permits aren’t necessarily helping one succeed as much as making sure you are following compliance, safety, and so on. The process can be dragged out with nit-picky questions by multiple departments each asking for different things with little cohesion or communication between all the departments, often making it painstakingly long and complex.

When people share stories about how difficult permitting can be; we can now attest that it is as difficult as “they” say. Particularly if you a new to it and aren’t a large developer. In Addition, having a unique “out-of-the-box” proposal on 145.3 acres of forested rural landscape has its own set of challenges. Albeit, we always understood permitting was the key to opening a legitimate and compliant commercial Art Park & Campground. We knew it would be timely yet crucial to work with the County and all the respective departments to meet and exceed compliance. Though we were naive in understanding how long it could actually take and were constantly hit with setbacks, ongoing requests, and new requirements, we remained determined and optimistic. Throughout the process, we worked diligently and listened to every department, and specifically from Jan 21-Oct 22 we adapted our plans to be better suited for this County and Canyon. We have provided detailed reports on how we will manage the land and minimize the impact on all resources, on how we believe our vision is low-impact (matching the Non-Urban Master Plans for our specific region in this county), and how we would keep visitors, the wildlife and community safe and protected from potential disturbances.

Our 4th Permitting Application (USR) submittal was turned into DCD on October 28th, 2022. We spent 1.5 years responding to the various County and State Department comments from the prior application on January 21st, 2022. In this lengthy process, we worked extremely hard with many engineering teams and consultants to adapt our previous plans to a more suitable long-term vision. Our most recent submittal provides new and updated reports with the understanding that what we had proposed prior was lofty and possibly even unrealistic for us to manage. Additionally, the previous plans were not backed up by Floodplain Studies, GESC Plans, Drainage Reports, and more which had not yet been asked of us. These additional requirements increasingly minimized our parking and therefore our overall impact, supporting a more feasible build-out and attendance, therefore naturally and organically limiting operations from what we had previously proposed.

Through this process, we have also worked to clearly outline our intentions, operations/ management plan, and solutions to concerns. We have shown in detail how we can and will accommodate this vision without negative impacts on the area, fitting into the specific use and approval standards that drive the DCD approval process. Some of the solutions which we added more details for are traffic/carpooling, phased tickets/parking, water resources, closed-loop NFS compost toilets, detailed and intense fire mitigation, forest management, clustering of all activities, re-use of existing infrastructure wherever possible, reduced and clearly outlined maximum annual and daily attendance, reduced hours of operations and more.

We have always recognized our responsibility to this beautiful area, and we have honored this in our plans and land management. We have never been careless in how we planned to create Everland but we have been naive at times and made many mistakes during this process. In all conversations with the US Forest Service, Fire District, Public Health & Services, Emergency Services, and other relative departments, we humbly listened to and learned from. We only pushed forward/back on items we know to be the best possible solutions for the future, like having closed-loop NFS-Certified high-efficiency compost toilets and not septic tanks. Regardless, even when we thought we had thoughtful planning incorporated, we continued to make many updates and worked tirelessly to meet the essential and vital permitting requirements in an effort to present a feasible project for all stakeholders.

We are not developers; we are a team of professional, kind, and ambitious dreamers whose vision is to co-create a space for connection through arts, retreats, nature, and camping. Our ultimate goal has always been to co-create a place that helps inspire through fostering the essential playful nature of being a human along with creativity in nature.

You can review all our updated and submitted permitting documents by visiting the Douglas County Planning Website where our documents are uploaded and all correspondence in regard to our project. To see the most recent documents you can click this link to get you to the right page BUT you must search documents by Descending Date to see the application documents we submitted on October, 28th 2022, which were uploaded to the DCD site on November 9th, 2022.

In the fall of 2022, we were aggressively targeted by a local smear campaign from an anonymous group, a group that has declined to communicate with us directly. Therefore we wanted to make our vision, story and updated documents more readily available and provide more transparency and easy access to our actual proposal and vision for all those interested.

For quicker review, we have provided links to the three primary planning documents below.

All the additional supporting documents/appendices can be found on the Douglas County Website and are listed below.

Other Primary Documents:

Civil CD- Construction Drawing
Cover Letter
Drainage Report
GESC Report
SIP - Engineering Comment Response

All Appendices listed in the Project Narrative & Management Plan:

Architectural Drawings
AutoTurn CAD
Critical Habitat Map
Emergency Compliance Plan
Everland Well Parcels
Fire Mitigation Phased Map
Forest Management Plan
Groundwater Supply Impact Evaluation
Neighborhood Outreach
Parking Operations Plan
Policy 6 Memo
Trail Design Memo
Tree & Net Evaluation
Tree & Net Safety Engineering Memo
Updated Acoustical Study
Updated Transportation Analysis
USDA Forest Service Letter
Wastewater Memo
Water Supply Response Comment Report

We want to thank all the Engineers, Advisors, Consultants, Supporters, Investors, and our Team for helping us get this 4th Permitting Application finalized and submitted to DCD. It has been a long and nuanced process but we have pride in how we have managed our permitting and what we are working to co-create at Everland. Thank you!

Everland withdrew our permitting application in Feb 2022 for the reasons outlined in our Closing Announcement, see the additional “what happened” link for the cumulation of obstacles that brought us to this decision.