An old railroad bridge on Warm Springs Ranch near Ketchum will be removed and replaced downstream with a two-lane vehicular bridge over Warm Springs Creek.
The Ketchum Planning & Zoning Commission Monday, Nov. 28, approved a modification of landowner Sun Valley Ventures' bridge that joins land in the city limits with land in unincorporated Blaine County.
Vehicles use the existing bridge off Bald Mountain Road to access the Warm Springs Golf Course, but project representative Henry Dean called it "structurally deficient."
A city staff report states the new bridge will improve necessary access to the property and will facilitate "fuels reduction" efforts by the U.S. Forest Service. The bridge will also be used for removing elk from the site this winter.
Plans call for its removal, with a 30-foot replacement—26 feet with two-foot curbs on either side—to be constructed 415 feet downstream.
"It's the same bridge, the same criteria, there are no changes," Dean said. "We're just moving it."
Dean said concerns voiced by residents about increased traffic on Bald Mountain Road prompted Sun Valley Ventures, now owned solely by Sun Valley resident Stephen Roth, to relocate it.
P&Z approved in October changes to the bridge in its current location.
Will Miller, Warm Springs Ranch environmental consultant, said the new bridge will allow for river access and a restoration plan will repair disturbed areas.
"If you're floating in a canoe, you'd have a three- to four-foot clearance," he said. "You'd have a six- to seven-foot clearance if you were walking across the ... edge of the stream."
He said workers will try to keep construction out of the riparian setback—the ecologically delicate banks of the stream—and formerly disrupted areas will be revegetated.
Ketchum resident Robert Rudy, who attended Monday's meeting, said a service bridge should not be replaced with a street bridge.
"If you allow this to be a 30-foot-wide bridge, it's a rubber stamp for whatever development (is proposed) on the other side," he said.
Dean said Sun Valley Ventures has no plans for development on the county side of their property.
"I have no idea what's going to happen on that side any more than you do," Dean said. "We have no plans. After the ... massacre several months ago, we're going to have to tread very slowly."
A multi-faceted plan to annex and develop the area was thrown off course last summer following objections by the City Council over plans to decommission the golf course.
The hotel partner pulled out of the project, and Sun Valley Ventures pulled its applications.
A public hearing on their latest application, which seeks to subdivide 10 lots in the city's Tourist zone, is scheduled for Dec. 12.
