Coconino County leaders review draft comprehensive plan update, set public hearing schedule

County planning staff presented a condensed draft of an updated countywide comprehensive plan at the Coconino County Board of Supervisors’ Sept. 9 work session, describing reduced policy volume, prioritized implementation actions and a timetable that includes a planning commission public hearing this month and a board adoption hearing later this year.

Melissa Shaw, the county planner leading the update, told supervisors the 2015 plan was “conservation based” and that the draft before the board is organized around three core values: maintaining the county’s rural lifestyle, stewardship of the natural environment, and honoring cultural and community diversity. "The current plan, the 2015 plan, is a conservation based plan," Shaw said. She said the update condenses the prior document’s roughly 386 policies into 179 policies and groups them under chapters such as land use and growth, transportation and circulation, resilient economies and housing, parks and trails, energy and climate, and water resources.

Why it matters: The comprehensive plan guides county policy on where and how growth should occur, what development practices are encouraged, and how scarce utilities and services should be prioritized. Several supervisors emphasized the plan’s role in shaping future land use, transportation…