County works on revising land use code

First meeting Tuesday

By Phillip Yates
January 11, 2008

Print Email

GLENWOOD SPRINGS - It's been more than four years since Garfield County officials first sat down and started to revise the county's new land use code. Before that, it had been cobbled together in bits and pieces for about 30 years.

Now the county is getting closer to finally having the rewrite done.

So Garfield County commissioners, Planning and Zoning Commission members and planning staff are wading through the thick stacks of information on the land use codes as they hold a series of workshops, which are open to the public, about the new land use codes.

The county will hold four more meetings, after conducting one on Tuesday, to work through the proposed regulations.

"We will have all those (meetings) until we work out all the details," said county Commissioner John Martin.

The meetings, according to a recent public announcement, are scheduled for:

• today from 9 a.m. to noon at the Health and Human Services Building, 195 W. 14th St., in Rifle.

• Feb. 6 from 1:30 to 5 p.m. at the County Administration Building, 108 Eighth St., in Glenwood Springs.

• Feb. 21 from 9 a.m. to noon at the Health and Human Services Building in Rifle.

• Feb. 28 from 9 a.m. to noon at the County Administration Building.

Once the workshops conclude, county commissioners will send the land use regulations back to the Planning and Zoning Commission. After the commission has reviewed the new plan and signed off on it, it will send it back to commissioners, who will hold public hearings on the new document, Martin said.

"We want it to be right," Martin said. "We don't want it to be wrong. We are trying to make it consistent and easy to use."

Martin said commissioners want to have the new land use document, with all its new rules and regulations, ready for a public hearing process by May.

One of the planned changes to the land use codes would make it possible for people seeking permits to build accessory dwellings or run home businesses to undergo a review by a county staff, rather than a public hearing. However, a hearing could be required if it is seen as necessary. The new code also lays out a way for an applicant to seek a nonsubstantial change to an approved preliminary development plan without having to start over again with a new public hearing process.

Contact Phillip Yates: 384-9117pyates@postindependent.com