The update of the land use section of the county comprehensive plan seems to be going faster than expected. County planning commissioners held their third meeting on land use on March 3 and expect to wrap it up April 7.
"We're fairly ahead of schedule on this," County Development Director Damian Peduto said. "It's an important and pivotal part of the comp plan." He presented an updated draft based on comments at the Feb. 4 comp plan meeting. "We switched two policies around for better flow and replaced some descriptive words."
Durango's Development Director Greg Hoch expressed some concerns about county draft policies to encourage more intense development where central utilities are more available, meaning near the towns. "You have policies that relate to cities and towns ... more intense development, that the county should assist the towns and coordinate with special districts regarding responsible development." Those policies are important to Durango, he said.
The draft shows approximately circular three mile planning areas around each town.
There are several special districts within the Durango's future growth area, such as South Durango Sanitation which serves the city's largest growth area, and part of the La Plata/ Archuleta Water District, Hoch said. "Ultimately at the request of the districts, the city has taken them over, so what they do with their utilities is important to us."
He referred to a draft policy that says, "When possible and appropriate, the county should assist the local municipalities during their planning efforts to achieve a higher level of service for residents within the county."
Hoch noted the city is updating its own comp plan, especially to reflect the change of use on Ewing Mesa to public use and community events rather than a potential development with 2,000 housing units. Ewing Mesa is off Colorado Highway 3. Hoch also cited a subdivision within the city's growth area that will be coming up for consideration by the county.
"In an ideal world, it would be you finish your plan and we finish our plan, and then we address those areas," he said.
He suggested that the city's idea of medium-density development, five to 12 units per acre, is different from what the county considers medium density. "Our concern is that in meeting your policies and the city considering much denser development on our periphery, if the county is going to consider that, you should keep in mind that it's appropriate to provide urban services. ... We want you to recognize the need for urban services in the urbanizing areas."
Three other draft policies say proposed land uses should be measured with goals, objectives, and policies in other parts of the comp plan, with physical characteristics of the land in question and availability of public facilities and services, and in terms of economic development and cost-benefit to the county.
Planning Commission chairman Jim Tencza noted, as he has many times, that the county comp plan is an advisory document. Hoch said that under Durango's Home Rule charter, all development "shall" match the city's plan. "Ours is mandatory," he said.
The only other comments came from Daniel Patterson from Rocky Mountain Tiny Homes. . "Consider the different options people are looking at for affordable housing," he said.
The county code should allow people to build smaller homes, he said. "My parents would love to move to Durango if I could build them a 500-square-foot house for $125,000. A lot of young people are looking at being mobile ... People don't know where their jobs will be. There are various subdivisions that need variances to build 300- to 600-square-foot stick-built homes."
Peduto said, "There's a building code amendment going on right now. The Board of Appeals is working on that. Tiny houses never existed before. They aren't RVs, because they are stick-built."
Tencza urged Patterson to be involved in July when planning commissioners start on the housing section of the comp plan.
Starting on April 7, planning commissioners will deal with airport issues in the comp plan.
