Land Use Regulations

DELTA COUNTY LAND USE CODE—BACK IN ACTION!

Have you been losing sleep at night wondering what on earth is going on with the Delta County Land Use Regulation update?  We want to thank you for your patience!  Unfortunately, as with everything else, the impacts of COVID caused significant delays in our efforts to update the Land Use Code.  We had originally planned to bring an official draft of the Land Use Regulations to the public for input in April. We had to postpone those plans due to COVID.

We are planning a roll out to the public that includes both a virtual meeting, and in-person open house events.  Citizens may choose the meeting format that best meets their needs.  See the schedule of events for more information.

A Quick Recap

In January of 2019, we began the land use update. Our goal for the new land use codes is to improve our land use regulations by:

• Ensuring due process with a simple, clear, fair and predictable development process for property owners.
• Providing clarity and assurances for residents and property owners about how land around them might develop.
• Creating consistency between the vision and goals in the Master Plan with the development regulations.
• Supporting decision making that better responds to unique infrastructure and needs around the county rather than one size fits all.
• Fostering more coordination between the county and municipalities on accomplishing shared goals.

We started the update by analyzing DATA! We looked at roads, parcel sizes, conservation easements, wildfire prone areas, etc. This information helped shape our conversations about why it’s time to zone Delta County, and how zoning could begin to work in Delta County. See the initial analysis for details.  In the Spring of 2019, we hosted a series of community forums and podcasts to help residents and business owners prepare for this update by learning about different land use tools, and by asking residents to thinking thoughtfully about the challenges we need to resolve in Delta County. We encourage you to revisit the podcasts.

In July of 2019, we brought to you a white paper that outlined what zoning could like in Delta County and hosted community meetings to get your input.

Our consultant team then began the very tedious process of writing a new land use code. The consultant team presented their Concept Land Use Code to the County Commissioners in January of 2020. We realized immediately the challenge we had in front of us of both reviewing the Concept Code and learning it. We had to assess whether the Concept Code met the goals that we established. We also realized it would be a challenge for our community to learn the new code, so we made the Concept Code available to the public in January. 
  
We then dug in. The Commissioners held numerous work sessions from January through June. During this time we explored how the concept code would work, ran numerous land use examples through the code to evaluate if we were meeting our goals, and made significant revisions to the document. 

That hard work has paid off, and we are excited to share the first OFFICIAL DRAFT Land Use Code. We believe we have found a balance and are meeting the goals we have set out to achieve, and are eager to hear feedback from the community.

How to Participate

Attend one of four upcoming open houses including a virtual open house on July 9.

Written Comments: Comments can be shared with the County at DeltaCountyLandUse@deltacounty.com or at 501 Palmer St., Suite 119, Delta, CO 81416.

Online Community Forum: Comments can be shared including an opportunity for discussion and interaction with other community members here.

Next Steps

Community input is due by July 22. The County Commissioners will then review comments and determine what changes to make to the Land Use Code and Zoning Map based on Community Input.