Rural areas in Park County are now under both a new land use plan, approved last year, and the first batch of amended development standards and regulations, both of which are already having an effect. 

At the Oct. 7 meeting of the Park County commissioners, the first in which the county is now working under DSR phase 1 — which went into effect last week — commissioners held five public hearings on land use issues and noted the 2024 land use plan in approving the first one. 

The owners of a new four-lot subdivision going in at Lane 9 1/2 and Road 7 1/2 first got approval from commissioners to rezone the property from industrial to General Rural-Powell, which allows lots as small as 1 acre (these lots will each be a few acres larger). 

Planner Kim Dillivan said that lines up with the new land use plan, which identified that land as being primed for development, whether as commercial, industrial or residential. 

Of course, the GR-P zoning district could be changing once the second round of DSR is completed, which includes a restructuring of zoning areas. 

Work on that process is ongoing between consultants Logan Simpson, Park County Planning and Zoning commissioners and the technical working group to sift through the mountains of comments received over a number of public input methods over the last few months, from an online survey to in-person workshops. 

“There’s a lot,” Chair Dossie Overfield said. “It may take a significant bit of time before it comes out to the public.” 

It’s a long process, as once all of the info is sifted through and released to the public, people will then have another chance to weigh in on what the groups have been working on based on the initial rounds of input. 

Commissioner Lloyd Thiel encouraged people to be involved as DSR 2 continues after asking the owners of the land slated for the new Powell subdivision how long the process of rezoning took: at
least four months. 

“That should hopefully encourage people to get involved and get their property where they want it to be,” he said. 

DSR two includes work on determining zoning areas, appropriate land uses in certain areas and other such crucial questions that, as County Planning Director Joy Hill has said previously, is where individual property owners could be affected. 

Summary information from previous public events is available at engageparkcounty.com.