The Natrona County Planning and Zoning Commission received a presentation Oct. 14 on proposed text amendments to the county2022 zoning resolution but took no formal action.

Planning staff member Sabrina, who led the presentation, said the update is intended to fix contradictions and wording errors introduced during the 2022 rewrite and to consolidate scattered rules so users can find related standards in one place. "When you go through a major change like that, a lot of times there are those little things that need to be adjusted," Sabrina said.

The proposed changes are numerous but largely described by staff as clarifications rather than wholesale rewrites. Key items highlighted by Sabrina included: consolidating wireless-communications rules into a new appendix; combining separate planned-unit-development and telecommunications references into single sections; removing a short landscaping section and focusing buffers and screening where they matter; renaming "off-premise signs" to "billboard" for consistency; creating a new commercial-storage category (for fenced RV/boat/vehicle storage); and tightening several definitions (for example, consolidating some residential categories and revising the winery/brewery/distillery language).

Sabrina told commissioners the packet contains about eight pages of discrete changes and that the full, 234-page proposed document was posted for public review on Sept. 30. "This entire 234-page document that you all received is on our website for people to go to," she said. Staff issued the public notice required for the process and said the timeline anticipates the commission2s public hearing on Nov. 19 and a Board of County Commissioners (BOCC) hearing on Dec. 2, with the goal of finalizing the update by year-end if no substantive changes are requested.

Several substantive policy items drew commissioner questions. On extractive industries, the draft originally included a five-mile buffer language; staff replaced that numeric buffer with a provision that some operations "may require a reasonable buffer between the mineral extraction site and residential areas as determined by the approval criteria listed in the conditional use permit." Sabrina said the five-mile reference could not be traced to a clear source and that county attorneys reviewed and approved the revised, performance-based wording.

Commissioners also questioned language about the Industrial Siting (siting/siting-council) process and whether some projects should go first to the state Industrial Siting Council (ISC). Sabrina said state statute (cited in the presentation as "35-12") governs the ISC process and that sending an application to ISC first could forfeit local notice and certain local regulatory steps. She said the draft preserves opportunities for local comment during ISC review and that staff had spoken with other Wyoming counties about concurrent coordination with ISC agencies.

Other technical changes noted by staff include:
- Adding a cross-reference to the Telecommunications Act and defining telecom terms in the resolution;
- Requiring compliance with the adopted International Fire Code for flammable/combustible storage thresholds that appear in the draft (Sabrina said those numerical thresholds come from the fire code);
- Adding a definition for meteorological towers distinct from wind turbines, consistent with state statute and standard definitions;
- Creating a formal CUP-extension process (allowing a 12-month extension in some cases, situationally requiring PNZ/BOCC review);
- Standardizing zoning-certificate triggers for accessory structures to 225 square feet (previously different thresholds for commercial and residential);
- Adding rural addressing rules so separate structures (for example, a barn half a mile from a house) can receive distinct addresses for emergency response;
- Removing some nuisance items (for example, barking-dog language tied strictly to property-line noise) after consulting code enforcement.

Commissioners pressed staff for sourcing on some changes (for example, the transcript of the meeting shows a commissioner asking where the change from 1,000 feet to 2,500 feet for a separation standard came from). Sabrina said she researched other Wyoming counties (Laramie, Sheridan, Albany) and some national examples and that she would look up the specific origin for that distance and report back to commissioners.

Sabrina described the process steps: staff posted the public notice on Sept. 30, the public-review draft is on the county website, the PNZ public hearing is scheduled for Nov. 19, and BOCC public hearings are scheduled for Dec. 2 (with a contingency date of Dec. 16 if BOCC tables action). She emphasized this meeting was a presentation and work session; the commission will consider taking a vote at its next meeting in November.

On other upcoming items, staff said the commission can expect a cell-tower variance for a 300-foot tower near Pathfinder at the November meeting (the applicant seeks a reduced fall-zone setback from 600 feet to 100 feet), a major two-lot subdivision, and a previously tabled zone-change request that staff expects the commission to untable and deny so it does not remain indefinitely on the docket.

Votes at a glance: the only formal action recorded in the transcript was the commission's approval of minutes from the Aug. 12, 2025 meeting. The motion to approve the minutes as prepared passed by voice vote; the transcript records unanimous "aye" and no opposition.

The presentation closed with staff noting the document remains a living draft. "We're going to note changes that we're like, oh, we just need to change this or we just need to change that," Sabrina said, adding staff will post any corrected version after the commission's next review. Commissioners discussed the frequency of formal updates; several said periodic review (for example, every two years for substantive items with smaller edits tracked annually) would help balance regulatory certainty and responsiveness to new land-use issues.

The commission did not take a vote on the zoning-text amendment at the Oct. 14 meeting; next formal steps are the Nov. 19 PNZ public hearing and the Dec. 2 BOCC public hearing, per staff's timeline.