Posted on: November 12th, 2009

Boulder County Planning Commission Public Hearing, November 18, 2009 – 1:30 p.m.

Hearing Room, 3rd Floor, Boulder County Courthouse

Proposed Townsite Plan for the community of Gold Hill, for inclusion into the County Comprehensive Plan

see for further information

http://www.bouldercounty.org/lu/bccp/mountain_subregion_element/pdf/BCCP090001PCStaffRec111809.pdf

BOULDER COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION PUBLIC HEARING November 18, 2009 – 1:30 PM Hearing Room, Third Floor Boulder County Courthouse

PUBLIC STUDY SESSION

STAFF PLANNER:   Garry Sanfaçon

BCCP-09-0001: Boulder County Comprehensive Plan (BCCP) Revision

Description:     Proposed Townsite Plan for the community of Gold Hill, for inclusion into the Boulder County Comprehensive Plan.

ACTION REQUESTED: Informational item. No action requested.

SUMMARY

This docket contains the proposed community of Gold Hill Townsite Plan, which was developed through a year-long community planning process (Exhibit A). At this stage, Gold Hill has developed a vision statement that they are proposing to be included into the Boulder County Comprehensive Plan.

The purpose of this study session is to provide the Planning Commission with an introduction to the Gold Hill Townsite Plan and to allow members of the public to provide input. No action is requested at this time.

Additional information about the project, including meeting notes, support documents, and maps may be accessed at the Land Use website: http://www.bouldercounty.org/lu/townsite_planning/GoldHill.htm.

BACKGROUND

In order to help preserve the unique character of each of Boulder County’s historic communities, the County Commissioners invited several townsites (Allenspark, Eldora, Eldorado Springs, Gold Hill, Raymond, and Riverside) to participate in a community planning process where property owners and residents work together to develop a plan and proposed regulations for guiding future preservation and development in their respective communities.

It should be noted that the County has taken a non-traditional approach to community planning with the townsites. Rather than staff designing and leading the planning process, or hiring an outside consultant to do so, the County has intentionally not adopted a particular planning process model or roadmap in advance in order to allow each community to define and design a planning process that best fits their needs and situation. The basic tenets of our approach with each community includes the following: being inclusive, being transparent, meeting the community where it is at, working bottom-up rather than top-down, and having the community define the geographic planning area, planning process and scope. A key desired outcome of the process is for the community to “own” the planning effort.

Staff’s role in these efforts has been to act as a resource to the community. Staff has helped provide technical assistance and coordinate with other county departments as well as conduct research about similar communities. Specific examples of how staff has been a resource to the community include: meeting logistical support and record keeping, data and mapping information, process design and facilitation when requested, communication and information clearinghouse through the Land Use website and mailings, “guest” speaker presentations, and liaison to the Planning Commission and Board of County Commissioners.

In the fall of 2008, the Gold Hill community, through its Town Meeting organization, voted to participate in the Townsite Planning Initiative and appointed a chairperson to coordinate the process. The Committee soon thereafter named itself the Gold Hill Community Planning Initiative (CPI) and identified the following general goals:

1. Get educated about the current County regulations (or lack thereof) as they apply to Gold Hill.
2. Understand how current regulations either do or do not protect what we care about in Gold Hill.
3. Understand our opportunities to affect the Comprehensive Plan and/or Land Use Code regulations.
4. Decide if we want to propose changes to the Comprehensive Plan and/or Land Use Code affecting Gold Hill.

One of the first tasks for the CPI was to define the geographic scope of the planning area. They decided to utilize the Gold Hill Town Meeting boundaries as defined in their bylaws for the planning area (Exhibit B). The next step was to formulate a project roadmap with several phases including education, visioning, plan development, community review, and county review.

In order to guide the initiative and help communicate the purpose of the initiative to the community the CPI developed the following mission statement: To bring together the collective wisdom, knowledge, and experience of the community to plan for and promote sustainability and stewardship- of both the natural and built environment in order to preserve the historical integrity and rural character of both the townsite and surrounding area for future generations.

To address Goal 1 above, two, day-long educational workshops were held during which county staff made presentations on the following topics: Site Plan Review and Transferable Development Credits program, Historic Zoning, Comprehensive Plan, SepticSmart, BuildSmart, Sustainability Initiative, Parks and Open Space, and demographic and census data. Over 40 community members attended the two workshops.

Before moving forward to focusing on particular issues, the CPI decided they should try to reach a broad community consensus on a vision for the future of Gold Hill.  They articulated several reasons for taking this path: “Reaching consensus on our vision statement gives us the opportunity to have our ideals, goals, and objectives for the future adopted as part of the County Comprehensive Plan. This is a great opportunity to act proactively in guiding county planners, the public, and landowners in making future land use decisions that will be in line with our collective vision.”

After several months of work the CPI created a draft vision statement and survey (Exhibit C), which they sent to 220 property owners and to their extensive email list. They received 41 responses and used the input to craft the proposed Community of Gold Hill Townsite Plan vision statement.

At a recent community event, the CPI invited community members to sign up to join the action planning and implementation part of the planning process (Goals 3 and 4 above). Although not many people elected to do so, a Committee was formed to delve into trails and open space issues. In addition, the Gold Hill Historic Zoning Committee is contemplating recommending revisions to the county’s Historic Zoning regulations, which were originally drafted for Gold Hill in 1968 and remain in place only in that community.

REFERRALS

The proposed revision to the Comprehensive Plan included in this report was distributed to our typical referral agencies for review, consideration, and comment. One response has been received from Public Health with no conflicts (Exhibit D).

NEXT STEPS

As stated previously, the purpose of this study session is to provide the Planning Commission with an introduction to the Gold Hill Townsite Plan and to allow members of the public to provide input. This is a time for Planning Commission to ask questions, listen to members of the public, and request additional information from staff if needed.

Based on the discussion and feedback at today’s meeting, staff may bring forward the final Gold Hill Townsite Plan at the Commission’s December 2009 meeting, or otherwise respond to the direction provided and/or additional information requested by the Commission today.  No action is requested of the Planning Commission at this time; however, an open discussion and feedback on the proposal are welcome and encouraged.

ATTACHMENTS

Exhibit A         Proposed Gold Hill Townsite Plan

Exhibit B         Gold Hill Town Meeting boundaries map

Exhibit C         Gold Hill CPI survey

Exhibit D         Public Health referral letter