Now more than 20 years old, the Park County Land Use Plan is showing its age. Commissioners intended to start updating the plan this year, but recently decided to delay the project until data from the 2020 Census is available.

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Although eager to overhaul Park County’s decades-old land use plan, county commissioners have decided to hold off for another year.

Commissioners intended to hire a consultant to update the 1998 plan last fall, setting aside $100,000 for the project amid a tight budget year.

However, they had second thoughts after considering how the population, demographics, housing and other data from the 2020 U.S. Census might impact the planning document. On Dec. 17, commissioners voted 3-1 to reject the two proposals they’d received and take the project up again in 2021.

“With the Census coming up, I do believe it’s going to be very important data for the land use plan,” Commissioner Lloyd Thiel said last month. “And I would like to put it off.”

County officials also worried that the region’s planning consultants — who are currently developing separate natural resource plans for counties across the state — are too busy to give the plan the attention it deserves.

“I’m concerned about this land use plan almost being second fiddle. It’s really important,” said Commission Chairman Jake Fulkerson. “I’m excited to get this started, but it’s been 20 years. What’s 21 years?”

Commissioner Joe Tilden cast the lone dissenting vote, preferring to move forward with the low bid the county received — a $88,938 proposal from Ecosystem Resource Group (ERG) of Bozeman, Montana.

“My problem is I don’t see this going anywhere except up in price,” Tilden said, noting that ERG’s bid was “way, way lower” than the $159,773.60 offer from engineering consultant KLJ of Billings.

Park County Planner Joy Hill described herself as “very surprised” that only two firms submitted proposals, wondering if it’s because the region’s consultants are working on so many natural resource plans. The Wyoming Legislature has set aside $50,000 for each county to develop those documents; Park County commissioners recently retained ERG to complete their natural resource management plan at a cost of $49,836.

Once Wyoming’s natural resource plans are complete, “they [contractors] might be a little more hungry” and offer a better price for updating Park County’s land use plan, Thiel suggested.

Commissioner Lee Livingston, meanwhile, saw value in waiting on the information from the Census.

“The better your data, the better your product,” said Livingston. “And if it does cost a little bit more, you’ve still got a better product at the end.”

Park County’s current land use plan was written in 1998 as a 15-year plan, with the idea it would be revised every five years. But the roughly 100-page document has never been updated. The rewrite process will involve collecting a large amount of input from residents across Park County.

The plan’s overarching goal “is to guide the coordinated, efficient and orderly development of Park County that will, based upon the analysis of past trends and future needs, best promote public health, safety and general welfare.” In laying out a vision of where development should occur and under what conditions, the plan can have significant impacts on new businesses, subdivisions and other projects.

As he voted against a delay, Tilden worried that the new land use plan could wind up being shelved indefinitely. When the county puts together its budget for 2021, “my fear is we’re not going to have the money to do it,” Tilden said, and the project will be delayed until “whenever.”

However, other commissioners said they would still make the project a priority.