La Plata County officials are considering changes to the land-use permitting process in an attempt to make it more efficient for builders and developers, but it’s still a work in progress.
County planners met Thursday with engineers, developers and interested parties to discuss the proposed changes.
The changes would primarily entail an “applicant’s feasibility evaluation.” The intent of the evaluation is to save applicants time and money by having them meet in advance with health, environment, fire and water service agencies and others who have a regulatory say in the process to determine if their intended project is even conceivable.
“This triangulation occurs when applicants put time and money into their project, then comments come back that conflict, and then there has to be redesign,” county Planning Engineer Victoria Schmitt said. “A lot of experienced developers are doing this anyway, but the idea is to have them speak with the agencies beforehand.”
Under the proposed process, applicants would obtain a feasibility evaluation form from the planning department or online, basically describe their project, meet with the appropriate agencies and have a pre-application meeting with county planners. The purpose of contacting the agencies would just be to receive comments on the project; applicants would not be required to resolve issues if the agencies provide conflicting information.
The proposed process is still under draft, and the county intends to eventually eliminate paper applications and transition to online-only processing.
Officials promoted the proposal on the grounds that it will prevent developers from finding out their projects are incompatible after they’re months into the application process and have sunk thousands into designs. Schmitt said the new procedure could be a model for other, similar permitting processes with the county.
But some in attendance felt the proposal would streamline the process for county officials while shifting the burden to the applicants to contact the agencies.
“My concern is that someone goes through talking to (Colorado Department of Transportation), the San Juan Basin Health Department, etc. and spending their time, and we’re spending money,” said Dan Burkhart, a private planner. “How do we get to the decision-makers – the county commission? It’s a lot of time, effort and money just to determine compatibility.”
jpace@durangoherald.com
