Pitkin County staff give comprehensive update on Vision 2050, set May 20 follow-up on housing and water

Pitkin County planning staff on Tuesday updated the Board of County Commissioners on Vision 2050, the multi-stage effort to update the county comprehensive plan and follow-on code amendments. The update covered technical studies under way, the schedule for moving from policy to code, and a May 20 board session planned to focus on housing outside the urban growth boundary and associated water analyses.

Deputy County Manager Cara Sloburnova opened the presentation by framing Vision 2050 as “the launching point from the Community Growth Advisory Committee recommendations from May of 2023,” and said staff have organized the implementation into four stages: (1) comprehensive plan update, (2) building the recommendations (data and studies), (3) drafting guiding policy, and (4) code and ordinance updates and adoption. Long-range planning staff identified the comprehensive plan update as the policy foundation that will lead and justify later code changes.

Community development director Suzanne Wolf and long-range staff said the project has shifted from early values conversations into intensive technical analysis. Wolf summarized the team’s approach as “data informed, values driven,” and described a slate of studies now in progress, including a greenhouse gas inventory update, transportation and residential intensity analyses, embodied carbon and climate-intensity work, water planning and supply analysis, studies of floor-area-ratio and net parcel impacts, and targeted research on transferable development rights (TDRs) and growth-management options.

Long-range planner Hannah Hunt explained how staff are integrating those studies into the draft plan’s organizing chapters — natural environment, built environment, transportation and mobility, community and economic health, resilient infrastructure and utilities, and a regional approach element — and said a white paper to synthesize the intensity studies will be presented to the Vision 2050 work group on May 7. Hunt told commissioners that the plan authors intend to pull key findings together for a joint BOCC–Planning & Zoning (P&Z) meeting in July, then launch a public outreach period in July–August and anticipate P&Z adoption and BOCC approval in the fall.

Staff flagged other near-term and concurrent initiatives that will intersect with Vision 2050 work, including: implementation of updated building and energy codes (noted as going into effect next week), a study and potential update of the employee housing impact fee (informed by employment generation rates), short-term-rental impact studies (a consultant has been selected), wildfire resiliency code requirements coming from the state, and proposed rezoning of state and federal lands into the county’s resource zone district. Staff cautioned commissioners that drafting and adopting land use and building codes will be a separate and likely lengthy process and said it is unlikely to be finished by winter 2025.

Commissioners asked a range of clarifying questions: several asked how the county’s approach fits with regional climate and building-code efforts, whether embodied carbon can be meaningfully addressed in a rural residential context, how tourism-related traffic and intensity are being incorporated into analyses, and whether the county will be able to implement electrification goals given local electrical-service constraints. Staff said they have coordinated with regional climate groups and neighboring jurisdictions and emphasized the purpose of the technical studies is to test growth-committee recommendations and inform policies that will later be translated into code.

Staff asked for and received direction to return to the BOCC on May 20 for a focused briefing on housing outside the urban growth boundary and the county’s water analysis, and to tee up a July joint BOCC–P&Z meeting to preview a full draft comprehensive plan before public outreach. That public-engagement phase will run through the summer, followed by P&Z hearings and final BOCC action in the fall under the county’s statutory adoption path.

The presentation and discussion emphasized that Vision 2050 remains values-driven (the board previously reaffirmed a vision to pursue bold climate action while balancing the economy, preserving rural and wild lands, and supporting equity and affordability) and that staff aim to ground policy options in the data studies that are now being completed.