Park County’s land use plan consultants feel they have enough feedback on most issues raised during this process to move forward on presenting county commissioners with options in a plan ­— the first draft of which is already being worked on. 

Clarion consultant Darcie White and Matt Prosser with Economic and Planning Systems spoke to commissioners last Tuesday on the results of the latest round of in person and online surveys.

In general, a majority of county residents want at least some if not a lot more county involvement in protecting ag land, open space and wildlife. They also want much more regulation before renewable energy projects can build in the county. 

Commissioner Joe Tilden said he was concerned people may be in favor of more regulation until it affects them personally. 

“The people that you’ve talked to and the comments that you’ve gotten, it’s very apparent from what you’ve told us today that the majority of people want to be very proactive when it comes to development,” Tilden said. “And my concern is, when you want to protect wildlife, that’s great. You want to protect open space, you want to protect agricultural land. That’s great. But I guess my question is, did people really realize what the potential is to their private property rights when you start protecting these areas and get extremely proactive on development?”

White said the draft plan will clear some of that up as people realize the regulations needed to be behind some of the changes they would like to see. 

“So that’s part of the process, exploring things from a really high level, ‘what do you care about?’ to, ‘what does it actually mean to you and your property?’” White said. “And I think people are just gonna have to review the recommendations and think about those issues when they have those additional specifics and if it changes their perspective.”

White said the plan is for a draft land use plan to be given to commissioners and staff in early December. They would then have a change to review the plan, add input ahead of a public plan to be revealed in January. The public would then have a chance to add input that the consultants would use to prepare a final plan in the spring.