City staff on Wednesday reviewed the city’s 2020 comprehensive plan to give council context ahead of a forthcoming strategic planning process. Tamara Howling, community development director, and Tim Lierbog, principal planner, presented the document’s scope, policy structure and links to implementation.

The presentation said the plan is a long‑range (10–20 year) roadmap covering land use, transportation, housing, economic development, parks and resource stewardship. Howling said the plan was adopted in 2020 after a 22‑month process and was informed by a 2019 statistically valid community survey and an active Comprehensive Plan Advisory Committee (CPAC).

Howling told council the state’s revised statutes direct Colorado cities to discourage sprawl and promote redevelopment and require several plan elements; she said the 2020 plan already included many of those topics and that, beginning with the plan’s land use chapter, “the crux and foundation is, historically has been in the land use elements.” Tim Lierbog described the plan’s tiered growth framework, an urban development boundary (UDB) almost coterminous with the city’s Presidio 201 boundary, and nine land‑use designations that guide zoning and capital investments.

The staff presentation emphasized that the land‑use map is not a zoning map but that implementing zone districts were adopted alongside the 2020 zoning and development code; zoning changes must be consistent with the land‑use designations. Staff also noted related plans—parks and recreation, multimodal transportation, water efficiency and others—are used to set capacity and level‑of‑service targets implemented through standalone utility and transportation plans.

Howling closed by noting the plan’s implementation chapter envisioned an ongoing matrix of priorities (short, mid and long term) that the council has since addressed through two‑year strategic priorities. She encouraged councilmembers to read the appendices and the issues and opportunities report that underpinned the plan’s policies.

Council members asked procedural questions about how the plan connects to upcoming work, and staff said the briefing was intended only for context, not to reopen policy decisions that would be addressed during strategic planning.