Board doubles master plan amendment cycles

The Douglas County Planning Commission voted 6-1 Tuesday to increase the master plan cycle to twice a year after some opponents objected to a recommendation to hear changes in land use four times annually.

The board did not change the amendment process or on-going plan review because it already allows up to four times a year.

Member Bob Conner voted against the change.

Staff had asked for up to four times a year, but commissioners decided that was too much.

The changes go to Douglas County commissioners for final approval.

John Garvin, co-chairman of the Sustainable Growth Committee, urged the board to leave the process at once a year.

"Master plan amendments should not be easy to get," Garvin said. "I get the feeling that master plan amendments - the availability of them - exists in a continuum, every year, year in, year out. One gets the feeling they are there for the taking."

Judy Sturgis, also a member of the Sustainable Growth Committee, said she learned about the master plan as she watched Clear Creek development go through the process in 2000.

"I watched the whole process from beginning to end and I started an eight-year search to see how it works," Sturgis said.

She said quarterly dates to submit master plan amendments would undermine the integrity of the 1996 plan which was updated in 2006.

"The tax-paying public would have to come here four times a year," Sturgis said. "I fought very hard to get it back to one time a year. It's so important to our plan to keep it consistent. Leave it the way it is. What rush are we in right now?"

Staff had asked for the additional cycles to give the county and applicants more time to work on an amendment request.

"We have no sympathy for an applicant who can't come forward prepared," Garvin said.

Commissioner Lawrence Howell said hearing master plan amendment requests once a year was prohibitive.

"We're limiting the number of times people are allowed to ask for changes. It sounds like we're discouraging the asking, not the permitting," Howell said.

He said if members of the public miss the current one-time annual window, they're excluded from the process for a year.

Mimi Moss, director of community development, said the change in cycles had been under consideration for years.

"Providing more cycles doesn't mean more master plan amendments will be approved. They still have to meet the criteria and make the findings. You don't have to approve them if they don't," Moss said.