CENTRAL CITY — Bob Powe likes to sit on his front porch in the mornings, coffee in hand, and watch from his house on Casey Street as the sun slowly skirts the ridgeline across Gregory Gulch.

The warmth from the sky, Powe said, is vital in this Gilpin County town that’s perched at 8,500 feet, and where during the fall and winter the sun sits low on the horizon and shades Central City for part of the day.

Now, he said, that view and the precious few hours of sunshine are at risk. In Gregory Gulch below Powe’s Victorian Gothic home, a developer has proposed a 27-story hotel tower with 600 rooms and a 100,000-square-foot casino, along with other components of a large resort plan. If built, the tower threatens to cast his 1865 house largely in the shadows for months at a time.

“This house

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