Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Comprehensive Plan topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Coconino County Board reviews draft comprehensive plan update, highlights housing, water and wildfire priorities
Summary
County planners presented a public‑hearing draft of the comprehensive plan, emphasizing rural character, natural‑resource protection, transportation safety and an implementation list of 50 actions. Supervisors pressed for clearer population breakdowns, tribal inclusion, stronger wildfire and broadband priorities and direction on next steps ahead of
Coconino County planners presented the public‑hearing draft of the county’s comprehensive plan and walked the Board of Supervisors through the plan’s shared values, chapter goals and an 50‑item implementation list.
Melissa Shaw, long‑range planner in the Community Development Department, said the draft is organized around three shared values — maintaining a rural lifestyle, stewarding the natural environment, and providing responsive services — and noted the planning commission recommended the draft after a September public hearing. Shaw said required chapters (including water resources and natural environment) were updated to reflect recent events such as the Navajo Generating Station shutdown, drought and major wildfires, and that the draft includes new policy language on forest restoration, fire‑adapted communities and coordination with state and federal land managers.
Why it matters: The comprehensive plan is the county’s guidance document for land‑use decisions and a reference for approving or opposing future development. It also contains the policy framework staff will use to write zoning updates and to prioritize capital and programmatic efforts.
Key details: Shaw highlighted 11 high‑priority implementation actions the comprehensive plan advisory group favored, including a countywide housing‑needs assessment, pursuit of multimodal connectivity funding, targeted public‑works safety countermeasures, grants/strategies for forest fuels reduction and consideration of a transfer‑of‑development‑rights ordinance. She said high priorities are expected to be implemented within 1–2 years of plan adoption; medium priorities 2–4 years; and low priorities within 8 years, subject to board reprioritization.
Board questions focused on scale and scope. Vice Chair Jeronimo Vasquez asked staff to clarify unincorporated population counts; Shaw cited 2020 census totals (county ~145,697; Flagstaff about 77,000; unincorporated balance ~53,000) and agreed to provide a detailed slide with municipal and tribal breakdowns. Supervisors from rural districts warned the plan must respect differences between municipal priorities in Flagstaff and conditions in widely dispersed unincorporated communities.
Staff follow‑up and next steps: Shaw said the public hearing draft will go to a November 18 public hearing; edits will be incorporated after that hearing and additional outreach (including an October 30 open house). The plan will be updated to add the board of supervisors as an implementation partner in the plan’s tracking table, per commissioners’ recommendations. The board did not take a final vote on the plan at the work session but directed staff to prepare the public‑hearing packet and requested clearer demographic slides and a summary of funding and partner roles for high‑priority items.
Sources: Draft comprehensive plan presentation and staff remarks at the board work session, October 2025 (Melissa Shaw, Community Development).
