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A Dragonfly Paddle Yoga class is held on Monument Lake. With new changes to the Monument Lake Use Permit, including parking requirements, the business will no longer be allowed to operate, said founder Christine Malborg at a July 5 meeting of the Monument Board of Trustees.

A Dragonfly Paddle Yoga class is held on Monument Lake. With new changes to the Monument Lake Use Permit, including parking requirements, the business will no longer be allowed to operate, said founder Christine Malborg at a July 5 meeting of the Monument Board of Trustees.

MONUMENT • The Town of Monument recently reinstated Lake Use Permits after revising them and adding new conditions.

The Board of Trustees approved an ordinance that changed the Monument Lake Rules and Regulations pertaining to businesses looking to make use of the lake with a permit. The ordinance also modified the Temporary Uses section of the Monument Municipal Code, as the two sets of changes function together.

Madeline VanDenHoek, the town’s director of parks and community relations, presented the proposed lake rules and regulations for Lake Use Permits changes to the board at its July 5 meeting, while planning director Nina Ruiz explained the Temporary Uses changes.

Among updates to Lake Use Permits, the permit fee increased from $250 to $350 and removed a waiver of permit fees for nonprofit organizations. Trustee Redmond Ramos questioned why the waiver would be removed, as he saw it hurting nonprofits looking to make use of the lake, using the Boy Scouts of America as an example.

“The benefit for the town is minimal while the hurt to a nonprofit is potentially large,” he said.

VanDenHoek explained nonprofits, like the Boy Scouts and others, that want to make use of the lake could still do so. However, if those organizations operate as a business at the lake, they would be held to the permit fee and regulations.

Other updates include that permits will be issued on a first-come first-served basis, and the number of participants was cut . Also, the new rules cut the number of participants requiring a Lake Use Permit to operate at non-peak hours on weekdays. Permits may be denied based on criteria that may negatively impact Monument Lake, such as the type of business activity, the number of participants, and the day and time requested. Additionally, vendors are now required to use the lake’s overflow parking lot on Mitchell Avenue east of the lake.

Compliance with the rules and regulations of the town code is required for the issue of a permit, VanDenHoek said. Violation of the rules could result in denial of a requested permit or revocation of an existing one.

Trustee Darcy Schoening asked for clarification on operating at the lake outside of peak hours. VanDenHoek said the repercussion for a business discovered to be operating outside of peak hours would be having its Lake Use Permit revoked.

During public comment, Christine Malborg, founder of Dragonfly Paddle Yoga, said she had operated her business on Monument Lake on Wednesdays prior to peak hours. Malborg’s operations had been put on hold with the moratorium on Lake Use Permits.

However, she said the revisions to regulations for the reinstated permits would still put an end to her business operating at Monument Lake.

She called the process of trying to save her operations an “interesting experience.”

“It’s unrecoverable what I’ve lost so far,” she said. “I come with 10 people, which means I have 10 paddleboards plus my own, and to have to park in the overflow parking lot would just make it impossible to run my business. I have to look after people’s personal belongings and I have equipment to run the class, which means I’m going in and out of my van. I have no way of storing that anywhere else.

“It looks like my business is pretty much done.”

Ruiz presented changes to the Temporary Uses portion of the municipal code, which provided additional clarification allowing businesses to have minor temporary uses of the properties for special events and storage, as well as cleaned up existing language in the code.

Brian Brooks, a co-owner of Brooks Brothers Cabinetry, which has a 5,000 square-foot location at 530 E. 8th St. in Monument, spoke about an example that the change to land use would have on his business.

He said the change would allow the business to have temporary storage while it goes through the process of expanding its existing building with the appropriate site plan.

During final comments from the board, Ramos said he agreed with the changes to both the rules and regulations for the Lake Use Permits and the Temporary Uses of the municipal code.

“In a perfect world, I’d still like to see the nonprofit permit fee waived, but I am comfortable voting for this,” he said.

Schoening said she didn’t see the point in voting for the ordinance, as the discussion of changes was prompted to help support Dragonfly Paddle Yoga continue to operate at the lake.

“I definitely sympathize with her fight,” Schoening said. “It sounds like this isn’t going to even help a business owner that we set out to help here, so I’m not sure what we are doing and why we’re passing this anymore. … I see very little benefit.”

The ordinance was passed 4-2 with Schoening and Mayor Don Wilson casting the votes against.