Recently, the Chaffee County Planning Commission unilaterally changed the County’s Comprehensive Plan by eliminating the minimum two-acre lot size requirement for building a house. This change, made without much public input, contrasts sharply with the original Comprehensive Plan, which was approved in 2020 after extensive community engagement.
The Comprehensive Plan is meant to guide the development of the Land Use Code (LUC). The recent change to the Comprehensive Plan suggests that the Planning Commission envisions a future with higher housing density. My neighbors and I fear that this shift will erode the rural character of our county. What happened to keeping the city in the city and the country in the country?
The Planning Commission consists of volunteers appointed by our current County Commissioners. Their mission is to develop a new LUC—a process that has taken over two years, leaving the County under a development moratorium. Once finalized, the LUC must be reviewed and approved by the County Commissioners before becoming law.
In a recent Mountain Mail article, Democratic County Commissioner candidates Dave Armstrong and Gina Lucrezi expressed frustration over the slow progress of the LUC’s development. They pointed to process delays but didn’t acknowledge that these delays are the responsibility of the Planning Commission—appointed and overseen by the current Democratic majority of County Commissioners.
Lucrezi emphasized the importance of gathering stakeholder and community feedback, stressing that transparency and communication should be priorities. Yet, the Planning Commission made significant changes to the Comprehensive Plan without much public input, and the website intended to update the community on the LUC’s progress hasn’t been updated in over a year.
Lucrezi also claimed the LUC is nearly complete. However, when I submitted an open records request for the “entire current draft of the Chaffee County Land Use Code,” I received only four chapters. The previous LUC had nine sections. This discrepancy raises questions about the actual progress of this crucial document.
It’s troubling that Armstrong and Lucrezi, the Democratic candidates, are now positioning themselves as the solution to the problems created by the current Democratic majority. We cannot expect them to fix what their own party’s leadership caused. The rural character of our community is at stake, and it’s up to us to ensure our voices are heard.
