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 funding, forest and watershed restoration, and housing strategy.

Key planning priorities and policy highlights - Land use: higher-density development is encouraged near rural centers with services; lower-density patterns are recommended where services are not available; the draft discourages fragmentation of large ranches and promotes conservation design for subdivisions. - Transportation: the plan supports a countywide multimodal connectivity master plan and exploring developer contributions, improvement districts and new funding sources to address local road safety and intercommunity connections. Shaw said public works is already pursuing grants related to a countywide connectivity network. - Economy and housing: the plan recommends a countywide housing needs assessment and exploring zoning changes to allow new types of local businesses and housing choices. The draft lists a housing assessment as a high-priority implementation action. - Natural resources and recreation: policies emphasize forest restoration and fuels reduction, dark-sky and scenic protections, invasive-weeds management, and coordinated trail planning (the plan notes the Arizona Trail and other regional trails). - Water resources: as a statutorily required element, the chapter focuses on water sustainability, water-quality protection and public information; Shaw said the plan recommends a countywide water resources study as an implementation item.

Implementation priorities and schedule Shaw showed the plan’s implementation matrix and said the advisory group marked a subset of items as higher priority. High-priority actions cited in the presentation include: (1) a countywide housing needs assessment and housing plan, (2) seeking funding for a multimodal master plan, (3) continuing forest fuels reduction and green-waste disposal strategies, (4) evaluating local safety projects and countermeasures for roads, and (5) developing a county sustainability-and-resilience work plan.

Shaw told the board the planning commission public hearing on the public-hearing draft is scheduled for Sept. 24; the county’s planned public hearing and board consideration of adoption is scheduled for Nov. 18. City and regional planning processes were discussed: the county will incorporate the City of Flagstaff regional plan by reference after the county plan is adopted, she said.

Public input and edits Shaw reviewed the 60-day public review that closed July 18: staff said they had responded to roughly 200 comments, incorporated wording changes (including altering usages such as "Indigenous"/"Native American" in specific contexts per advisory feedback) and met with external agencies including the Arizona State Land Department and the Bureau of Land Management. Several advisory-group members and planning commissioners joined the discussion and urged clearer references to local institutions, public-land economic impacts (including North Rim/South Rim access), and to add commitments to address invasive weeds and remove them as an emerging risk.

Supervisor comments and next steps Supervisors asked for clarifications on water-resource language, transportation (including bus service and Mountain Line coordination), multimodal trail funding, wildfire risk and home-hardening connections to land use, and the proposal to explore a transfer-of-development-rights (TDR) program for agricultural and ranchland conservation. Supervisor Lena Fowler requested staff follow up on a procedural request to standardize equipment washing protocols (to limit spread of invasive plants like cheatgrass) when county or contractor equipment operates in multiple locations.

Ending Shaw said staff will publish the public-hearing draft, post the interactive maps and take final edits from the board and advisory group leading up to the planning commission public hearing. "We have the public hearing draft out and available," she said, noting the public hearing dates to watch this fall.