MONTROSE – After months of discussion and meetings, a city-appointed citizens group completed recommendations to the city council about development along the Uncompahgre River that flows through town.

Concern over the river didn’t become a priority until public outcry a few years ago over the clearing of more than 300 willows and cottonwood trees for the River Landing shopping center by developer Matt Miles.

At the time, there were no regulations to keep Miles from cutting down the trees to make way for his River Landing development, the huge complex that is now home to several big box stores including J.C. Penney, Target and Sports Authority. However, the clear-cutting led a group of concerned locals to form Friends of the River Uncompahgre, a group dedicated to the preservation of the river.

Compromise won out in the end, with Miles and FORU members Ben Tisdel and Elizabeth Roscoe working together as members of the Montrose River Corridor Work Group, which will present its findings to the Montrose City Council on Thursday night.

The proposed regulations include buffer zones of no development 100 feet from the average yearly high water mark. Within the 100-foot buffer zone are two other zones, a no-go zone of 40 feet from the high water mark, and a 40- to 100-foot slow-go zone.

The proposed regulations also call for no buildings and only soft surface trails inside the no-go zone with no disturbance of native riparian vegetation. Proposed rules for the slow-go zone state that any river development must enhance the river corridor with visual screening requirements for non-river oriented uses. Building design and fences that allow wildlife movement are also proposed.

According to Roscoe, the proposed regulations are, at this point, a stopgap measure.

“These are interim buffer ordinances until the river master plan is completed,” she said.

Roscoe said she believes the new regulations, if adopted by city council, are satisfactory, but she wanted a bigger buffer zone.

“Mostly what the group proposed will preserve the river, but my position was a little more conservative,” she said.

For a complete background on the work of the committee, log onto the city’s website at www.cityofmontorse.org and enter “river” in the search field.