The El Paso County Comprehensive Master Plan draft has been two years in the making. On May 5, the first of two meetings took place; members of the El Paso County Master Plan Advisory Committee presented information and statistics to the El Paso County Board of County Commissioners.The committee members recommended adoption of the plan.Chairman Brian Risley said the plan was launched when county commissioners requested better guidance for making development decisions. He said, at present, they have to consult 10 small area plans (written anywhere from 1977 to 2008), review 21 sketch plans (visual aids used to accompany site plans, drawn anywhere from 1982 to 1986); and there are also several areas with no plans.Risley said the master plan advisory committee is made up of people the board of county commissioners felt represented the interests of the whole county. Working with the committee to provide input were subject matter experts, about 200 partner agencies, members of the public and county staff, he said.They received 3,000 responses to the master plan survey and had 800 public contacts, Risley said. ìBlack Forest was a very active area for public input; they provided significant comments through the master plan process,î he said.Andrea Barlow, former chair of the master plan advisory committee,†recommended adoption of the plan as written to the board of county commissioners. She said, ìI just want to emphasize that this has been a very thorough process.îMark Gebhart, deputy director of El Paso County Planning and Community Development, said the plan will be used to evaluate development proposals and to coordinate local and regional initiatives going forward. He said the plan will also give guidance to establish a regulatory framework for the future.Gebhart said it would have been cost prohibitive to update each of the 10 small plans and develop plans for the areas that didnít have one. He said they also found inconsistent terminology in some of the Tri-Lakes area plan. ìThat sort of thing has created battles on planning commissions relative to what the plans really said/meant in those areas at the time it was written,î Gebhart said.John Houseal, principal and cofounder of Houseal Lavigne Associates (consultants to the process), reviewed the 14 chapters of the plan, the key areas of the county from a land-use perspective, areas of change and the identified place types (a design tool used to guide and evaluate urban development in terms of form, scale and function in the built environment).He said the study area is more than 2,100 square miles. Of that, 14% of the county is protected conservation area; 70% falls in the minimal change, undeveloped area; 6% falls into minimal change because it already has development in place and 90% of the county will see little to no change in terms of development. Houseal, said most of the development will take place in 10% of land area.People get nervous when they hear ìpriority development areasî ó these are areas where anticipated development might be proposed, he said. They are not areas that would require an illogical extension of resources, services and infrastructure or would have a major impact on the rural or environmental character of the county, Houseal said. ìThe plan identifies priority development areas as this prevents leap frog development and premature conversion of rural lands into developed intense areas,î he said.ìThe best way to think of a comprehensive master plan is that it is a foundation for decision making; it is not regulatory, and it is not zoning. It does not dictate what you can and cannot do with your property; it is meant to guide staff, developers, commissioners, business investors, and council members to make decisions in a uniform manner and work toward mutual objectives several years out.îAlso included in the plan is a matrix that includes a specific strategy the county can take to fulfill each objective and ensure goals are accomplished. ìWe intentionally planned this part with the goal of getting things done,î he said.Public comments were addressed after the lunch break.Update: The El Paso County Board of County Commissioners voted 8-0 to approve the plan at the May 26 meeting.†
