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Larimer County reports nearly 3,000 comments as it expands outreach on data-center code work
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Summary
County staff told commissioners they launched a public survey on data centers that has generated almost 3,000 comments and said they will convene advisory boards and stakeholder groups; staff warned the volume may require multiple public meetings or an extension of a moratorium to allow for code options and review.
Larimer County staff said on April 27 they have launched a public engagement process on data centers and are collecting extensive input through the county’s Larimer engagement gateway.
Rebecca Everett, community development director, described plans to brief the planning commission, the agricultural advisory board and the environmental science advisory board, and to convene a focus group of economic stakeholders. Jenny Axmaker reported preliminary engagement metrics: “So we have almost 3,000 comments. We have 500 over 500 subscribers and about, 1,100 participants,” she said, underscoring strong public interest.
Staff said the engagement gateway centralizes responses and provides tools to analyze and organize feedback. Commissioners asked how the county is capturing social-media comments and emails; staff said email submissions and direct inputs are being added to the project record and that they will coordinate with the public information office to collect or redirect social-platform comments into the official engagement channels.
Because of the volume and intensity of input, staff said they may need to design multiple open houses or hearings and could recommend extending the moratorium on certain actions to allow staff time to develop code options. The county has scheduled a transfer-of-development-rights work session with the board on May 18 and a data-center work session on June 15; staff said there will be a follow-up board session to share stakeholder and public input.
What’s next: staff will continue analyzing survey responses and stakeholder input and will return to the board with recommended outreach formats and any code-change options for consideration.
