Cortez shares draft of land use code, encourages input

For the first time in almost 30 years, the city of Cortez is updating its land use code.

“The city has grown and needs have changed,” according to the city website. “The (existing) code contains errors and inconsistencies.”

The work on updating it first began in April 2023.

Since then, there’s been 40 community listening sessions, multiple open houses, presentations, and the formation of a Land Use Code Advisory Committee.

City officials and planners at Logan Simpson, a company the city hired to help with updating the code, agreed they’ve tried to include the public from the start.

“There’s always going to be differences in opinion, but in general we are getting a lot of positive feedback and support,” said McKayla Dunfey, an associate planner at Logan Simpson. “We’ve been hearing that this code feels appropriate for Cortez.”

The most recent attempt at public outreach was with an open house at the Cortez Chamber of Commerce on Dec. 17.

Poster boards distilled the contents of each chapter down to a series of bullet points and included charts and graphics.

The drafted chapters recently released online mimic the simplified contents of the poster boards to make the 260-page document a bit friendlier, Dunfey said.

In fact, a lot of updates to the code are in the name of user-friendliness, and they’ve added visuals, charts and images to do it.

The changes do not alter intent or location of existing zones.

Instead, the changes are in what people and developers can do within the zones, Dunfey said.

“We’re trying to, in a lot of cases, reduce the barriers to building different housing options,” said Dunfey. “Reducing some of these barriers can help with making housing more affordable.”

Which is important in Cortez, where “jobs and population have been increasing more quickly than the housing supply,” according to the city’s 2023 housing needs assessment.

That assessment indicated that more housing types “across the entire continuum” are needed in Cortez, a sentiment that the community echoed.

“The key message and what we’ve heard from the community is the need for more flexibility in housing types,” Dunfey said.

Changes in dimensional standards in Chapter 3, then, “allow for more opportunity for not super-dense, but denser, development,” Dunfey said.

Reducing setbacks on a property is a way to achieve this.

It “allows for more flexibility on where you can situate your building on your property,” which could further “allow you to incorporate more units because there’s more space to place your building,” Dunfey said.

“We like to clarify that we’re not changing the zoning map, we’re changing the rules of what you can do within those zones,” she said.

The draft code also touches on bike lanes, and says they’re “preferred, but not required,” especially protected ones.

In Chapter 5, they’ve proposed to reduce the number of required parking spaces from two to 1½ for new multifamily dwelling units and a number of other housing types, like microhomes and duplexes.

Parking requirements are calculated based on a property’s number of “dwelling units.”

Those reduced parking requirements cost developers less and it gives them more space to build.

One thing the existing land use code does not mention is exterior lighting, so they’ve included “some basic standards” in the updated one.

Dunfey said that people had a lot to say about lighting.

Some wanted the area to become dark sky compliant, while others preferred the existing laissez-faire approach.

They took the “middle ground,” and said that exterior lighting should be downward directed and fully shielded as to not cross property lines.

“In the future, there’s opportunity to build on these standards,” Dunfey said.

With these changes and updates, Dunfey said, “existing units are grandfathered in,” so “It’s not like you’ll have to change anything.”

“It’s just next time you replace your lighting cause it went out, you’ll need to comply with the new code,” Dunfey said.

Lighting, landscaping was a major talking point.

“It hasn’t been an issue, just more of a question,” said Jennifer Gardner, a senior associate planner at Logan Simpson.

The land use code already mentions it, and includes a list of water-wise plants and materials, Gardner said.

The proposed edits go a step further in setting standards and buffer requirements – which don’t apply to single-family or smaller scale developments – for reasons beyond aesthetics.

“The biggest question has been why do we even need landscaping,” Gardner said.

Landscaping deters erosion, improves soil health, and reduces stormwater runoff and “heat island effect,” which is what happens in cityscapes that are devoid of plants: They’re warmer than their rural counterparts.

Trees provide a savings in energy. In the warmer months, they provide shade; in cooler months, they block wintry winds.

Plus, aesthetically, landscaping “mitigate(s) visual conflict between different use types.”

Land use wasn’t the only thing updated in the code; administration and procedures were also revamped.

“So everyone understands process they’ll go through for a development application,” Dunfey said. “The clearer the code is, the easier it is for staff, the planning commission, and City Council to make decisions on development proposals,” she said.

And so Chapter 6 was updated to be a bit less ambiguous.

The code’s penultimate Chapter 7 is new and concerns historic preservation.

A lot of that content is the same and used to be in Chapter 6, but was split off to its own section because historic preservation has little to do with administration and procedures.

Looking ahead, first look below to find the next steps in adopting the proposed code, taken from the city of Cortez’s website:

The public is encouraged to provide feedback and input before Feb. 18.

Contact Community and Economic Development Director Rachael Marchbanks: rmarchbanks@cortezco.gov or (970) 564-4046, or contact Community & Economic Development Specialist Helen West: hwest@cortezco.gov or (970) 331-0213.

Use this online form to submit comments directly to the city.