County to tighten development rules

Process would no longer be initiated at county’s expense

The Board of County Commissioners is considering changes to the way Special Geographic Areas (SGA) are established in the county to smooth the development process and ensure the applicant, and not taxpayers, are picking up the administrative costs of the process.

The Gunnison County Land Use Resolution (LUR) says that anyone with a “real interest in property,” as long as they own land or reside in the county, can ask the commissioners or the planning department to initiate the process for designating an SGA.
The commissioners were concerned that anyone meeting those broad criteria could initiate the designation process, which can be costly and take several years.
“The LUR says anybody can introduce the idea of designating an SGA and this is how we designate it. It doesn’t say anything about the BOCC making the decision to move forward with the process and it should. That needs to be explicit,” said commissioner Hap Channell at a work session Monday, February 9.
An SGA is an area of the county where special regulations apply to accommodate a particular interest, like the SGA around the coal mines in the North Fork Valley or the commercial district in Crested Butte South.
Part of the concern is that the SGA designation, with its appearance of special consideration and working outside the LUR, could become overused. Once the process starts, county staff spends time and resources reviewing the plans and the county has traditionally picked up the cost.
“It doesn’t make a lot of sense to allow someone that might not even live in the county full time to be able to start this process that will ultimately cost the taxpayers a lot of money,” said Channell.
Commissioner Jim Starr asked Planning Director Joanne Williams to have her staff work on ways the language could be more restrictive, but still allow anyone with a legitimate interest to pursue an SGA designation.
“There has to be a high enough threshold so if people aren’t happy with the requirements of the LUR they can’t just start the SGA process because they want their own regulations. But it has to be open to allow the designation process to work the way it was supposed to,” he said.
Starr said he feared that without additional restrictions, “the use of SGA’s could become a tool that is so accessible that we are flooded with applications.”
Williams pointed out, “It can’t be any easier than it already is.”
She said the planning commission had taken up the task of writing amendments to the LUR restricting the initiation of the SGA process and would explore ways of having the applicant pay for any county resources that are used during the process.
After the amendments have been written, they will go to the county commissioners for final approval. No date has been set.