For years, the Park County Planning and Zoning Commission held evening meetings on the third Tuesday of the month; public hearings on controversial subdivisions and developments would sometimes run late into the night.

But no more.

The planning board has been staying plenty busy, but since October, it’s been meeting in the early afternoon — and starting this month, the meetings are being held at 1 p.m. on the third Wednesday of the month. (Tuesdays became too tricky because Park County commissioners have temporarily set up shop in the Alternate EOC Room used by the board.)

Earlier this month, Commissioner Lloyd Thiel wondered if moving the gatherings to midday would make it tougher for people to attend. But Park County Planning Director Joy Hill said so far, so good.

Following a test run of earlier meetings, Hill said planning staff found that “we had just as much public available in the afternoon time slot as we did in the evenings.”

The times will be revisited if problems come up, she said.

January’s planning meeting is set to begin at 1 p.m. Wednesday in the courthouse basement. Two public hearings are on the agenda.

Will Ambrose is looking to convert a pasture that sits across from the Powell Golf Course (along Road 5) into a 14-lot subdivision. The project has been in the planning stages for more than a decade and won county approval in 2009 and 2018. However, the development stalled out both times and Ambrose is being required to go back through the review process for a third time.

The other item on Wednesday’s agenda is a proposal to subdivide a 5-acre parcel that sits just west of Powell city limits into four separate lots. The property, which sits on the north side of Lane 9, currently holds one residence and formerly held Rick Martin’s Straw Igloo shop.

Planner Hill said that her office has been keeping busy; by early January, the planning board’s February agenda was already filling up.

“The weather’s really been helping keep people busy,” Hill added. For example, the office issued building permits for 13 new homes last month, up from seven in December 2019.

Upcoming projects that will go before the planning board include a proposed 23-lot subdivision between Powell and Cody near Buck Creek, a rebuild of the Good2Go convenience store and gas station in Ralston and a special use permit for a South Fork dude ranch that Hill said has “some neighbor agreement and some neighbor disagreement.”

With development in rural Park County increasing, and the workload in the planning office growing, county commissioners allowed Hill to add another position in November. That staffer started last week, making for a total of five employees in the office.