Mountain Village to launch Comprehensive Plan amendment process with input from the community and key stakeholders
Nearly a decade after the Town of Mountain Village Comprehensive Plan was developed and adopted, the Town will soon begin an amendment process to update the Comprehensive Plan to make it more flexible.
The Comprehensive Plan, adopted in 2011, was written to be a 30-year roadmap envisioning the future use and needs of the community. Mountain Village Town Council's goal at the time was to encourage future development while controlling growth within reasonable boundaries.
However, since its adoption, Town Council and the community have noted that the plan is overly prescriptive and complicated in certain respects.
“The Comprehensive Plan does not reflect current economic realities, including VRBO and AirBNB, that have transformed communities such as ours,” said Mountain Village Mayor Laila Benitez. “As such, we need to amend the Comprehensive Plan to provide future Town Councils, property owners and community members solid, yet flexible guidance to inform and support the critical decisions they will face in years to come.”
In October of 2020, the Town launched a public request for proposals to hire a firm to oversee the process. In December, the Town selected MIG, a national firm with extensive experience developing and updating comprehensive plans for resort communities to reassess portions of the Comprehensive Plan.
“We are extremely excited to bring our experience from around Colorado and throughout the country to help Mountain Village dial in the right level of detail in their plan to promote the community’s vision while allowing a degree of creativity in how that vision is realized,” said MIG Principal-in-Charge and Director of Planning and Design Services Jay Renkens. “This update will be very targeted and strategic but should have pretty large benefits in coordinating development and other improvements moving forward.”
Over the next seven months, MIG will work with Town staff to gather input from the community, businesses, key stakeholders, the Mountain Village Design Review Board and town council via virtual public forums, a survey, interviews and public meetings and present an amendment to the Comprehensive Plan for Town Council consideration for adoption and potential approval.
“A Comprehensive Plan should withstand the test of time and provide a solid visionary document with an eye towards desired development patterns and growth in the future,” said Mountain Village Director of Planning and Development Services Michelle Haynes. “The Town does not anticipate major changes to the Comprehensive Plan with this amendment process, but a simplification of the Comprehensive Plan that reflects changes to the real economic growth model since 2011.”
Through this process, the town expects to:
- Simplify and modernize the Comprehensive Plan to serve as a guiding document versus a regulatory document, which is more in line with traditional community comprehensive plans
- Align the Comprehensive Plan with the Town’s Community Development Code
- Reexamine Mountain Village’s economic model
- Review our contemplated growth model
- Remove overly prescriptive tables, formulas, and measures that have been a barrier to future land use
To learn more about the process and sign up for dedicated newsletters and updates regarding the process, please visit townofmountainvillage.com/comp-plan.
