The Falcon/Peyton Small Area Master Plan Advisory Committee discussed the pluses and minuses of rural residential development during a Jan. 2 meeting.Aaron Briggs, HB&A consultant to the committee, said once an area starts to develop as rural residential, it’s “stuck – it continues to develop that way.” The county defines rural residential as lots of 5 acres or less.”What’s so bad about rural residential?” asked Tasha Norman, N.E.S. Inc., consultant for the development of Shaw Ranch.Committee member Adrian Stanciu said rural residential areas will not develop central wastewater facilities and have limited potential for developing central water systems.Carl Schueler, manager of El Paso County’s long-range planning division, described rural residential as a lifestyle that is desirable but inefficient in terms of the number of people it can house. “Once you have it, it’s very hard to develop other options,” Schueler said.Briggs marked up a map of the planning area to show how significant urban development might occur in the Falcon area. Schueler responded by saying, “We don’t have enough water in the area right now to support the densities that are being approved.”Stanciu added, “It could all be urban if we’re willing to pay the price of recharge and bringing water into the area.””If you let it develop and run out of water, that’s an even bigger price to pay,” said committee member Mark Shook.Chairwoman Lynne Bliss said her Dec. 20 update before the El Paso County Board of County Commissioners went well. Bliss said the only difficult moment occurred when Commissioner Douglas Bruce noted that development after the 1993 plan did not follow the plan, so Bruce asked, “Why plan at all?”The committee also discussed House Bill 1246, recently signed by Gov. Ritter. The bill allows cities and counties to make their master plans enforceable.Schueler said the county commissioners will never vote to make master plans binding. “They don’t want their decision-making authority taken away,” he said.Schueler also presented a draft of the policy statement that will be included in the final master plan. Some items included in the draft:
- Accommodate logical annexations of property by the city of Colorado Springs along the Woodmen corridor west of Falcon, especially south of Woodmen Road
- Recognize and logically infill the existing urbanization patterns in the developing and approved urban area of Falcon
- Allow for the potential for development or redevelopment in the vicinity of the existing Peyton town center if central services can be reasonably provided
