At the Falcon/Peyton Small Area Master Planning Advisory Committee meeting April 30, Carl Schueler, manager of El Paso County’s long-range planning division, announced a schedule for completing the master plan. According to the schedule, the El Paso County Planning Commission will adopt the plan July 15.Before the plan is adopted, the advisory committee will hold a public and agency review period from June 2 to July 7. During the review period, a draft of the plan will be available from the committee’s Web site: www.hbaa.com/Falcon-Peyton-MP.Schueler also said he intends to introduce the plan to the planning commission July 1. Planning commission meetings are open to the public.Committee members reviewed the latest version of the area concept map, which encourages development in areas that are already being developed.Schueler said at this time the plan does not recommend subdivisions in areas that are designated as rural because of long distances from facilities, services and roads. “But, if you can show that you have adequate facilities and services, fire district, schools and roads; then you will be able to come in and make your case and jump the timing,” he said.Judy von Ahlefeldt asked if the plan will include a statement about sequential development. “It’s a philosophical planning question of whether you want to keep growth together and grow slowly,” she said.Schueler said the plan assumes a certain amount of discontinuous development. “Basically, the plans states that ‘if you want to do discontinuous development in these areas that are further out, you have to address the issues rigorously,'” he said.Dave Martin, representing High Plains Ranch, questioned a discrepancy between the way roads are defined on the concept map and the county’s long-range transportation plan. “The definition of Peyton Highway on that plan is minor versus this (the concept map) that looks like it could be major,” he said.Peyton Highway has always been considered a major north/south road, Schueler said. “On the long range transportation plan, it is still a minor arterial because growth isn’t projected to be there. If we were to get some additional development in the Peyton area, it would begin to emerge as a higher traffic corridor,” he said.Highway 24 is the major corridor, and the plan also identifies Judge Orr Road as a focus of growth with a fairly major corridor along with Curtis/Stapleton, Schueler added.”There are some major arterial corridors north of Highway 24, but they are not shown on this plan because the intent of this plan is to not focus high-density growth much past Highway 24,” he said.The corridors on the concept map are reflective of major roadways, but they don’t show all the major roadways. “(Meridian Road) is on the major corridors’ plan to go all the way down to Highway 94. But it’s not identified as a growth and development corridor, even though it’s probably going to be four lanes to connect the dots,” Schueler said.The final plan will include additional maps for transportation and environmental constraints. Schueler said that “no single map can capture everything.”Von Ahlefeldt said she is concerned about designating Sterling Ranch as urban density, which the map legend defines as “suitable for urban density development and should include open space and provide transition zones between high and lower densities.””Sterling Ranch is surrounded nearly all the way around by existing rural residential development,” von Ahlefeldt said. “So I don’t know if it’s OK to say it’s suitable for urban development in advance of any land use decisions.”Schueler said he expects the planning commission to review the Sterling Ranch development May 6 under the Black Forest plan. “That area has been rural residential for a long time,” he said.As the meeting concluded, Schueler announced that the development services department received a plan for the Shaw Ranch development. Rock Springs Ranch also submitted a preliminary plan, a first final plat, a request for approval of water tank locations and an application for a dual special district, he said.The committee’s next meeting is at 3 p.m. May 28 at the Pikes Peak Regional Building Department in Colorado Springs. The public is invited.
