EAGLE-VAIL, Colorado — Eagle-Vail, Colorado officials have abandoned a proposal to pay for a new pool and may tweak an idea to impose a fee on real estate sold in the community.

Members of Eagle-Vail’s property owners association and metro district presented two funding ideas to residents at a series of meetings this month.

The $700 one-time fee would have gone toward building a new community pool. The 2 percent transfer tax — which officials though could produce $1 million a year — would require that an additional 2 percent of the sale price of a piece of property be paid when the title is transferred.

About 200 people attended the public meetings and 102 gave feedback on the two ideas. A little more than half said they were comfortable with paying $700 to build the pool. Even fewer, about 35 percent, approved of the proposed real estate fee.

Officials said the proposals would need to go hand in hand and because of the lack of support, decided to withdraw the fee for the pool and take the real estate fee back to the drawing board.

“Without a long-term funding source in place, we did not think it was fiscally responsible for us to ask for a special assessment that would pay for the pool, but not address Eagle-Vail’s future funding needs,” said John Nichols, chairman of the Eagle-Vail Metro District.

The Metro District will run out of money in 2011 if it continues to pay for the recommended maintenance and upkeep of its facilities and doesn’t find a new source of revenue, said to Ken Marchetti, the community’s financial advisor. A 2007 study concluded Eagle-Vail would need to spend an average of a $1 million a year to maintain things like its clubhouse, golf cart paths, tennis courts and ball fields.

Members of both community boards are now turning their attention toward hiring a community manager and working with that person to come up with a new financial plan.

“We heard our neighbors and now we’ll develop a new game plan for tackling the pool and other funding needs,” Nichols said.

Eagle-Vail’s manager would be responsible for refining the community’s growth policies and creating a budget, officials said.

“We’re still going ahead full throttle to address Eagle-Vail’s future regarding the need for a sustainable funding source — not only for building the new pool but for other capital projects and deferred and continuing maintenance,” said Jeff Layman, president of the Eagle-Vail Property Owners Association. “We took the issues to our friends and neighbors because we didn’t like making decisions without input from those who are affected.”

Some residents said they would be OK with a smaller transfer tax and a 1 percent or 1.5 percent fee could be part of a new financial proposal, officials said.

Property owners annual meeting

The Eagle-Vail Property Owners Association will hold its annual meeting at 5:30 p.m., Friday at Battle Mountain High School. Eagle-Vail property owners are encouraged to attend the meeting and provide feedback on funding possibilities for Eagle-Vail and participate in the election of new property owners association board members.

Staff Writer Chris Outcalt can be reached at 970-748-2931 or coutcalt@vaildaily.com