The San Miguel Board of County Commissioners (BOCC) will consider proposed amendments to the CH Zone at their May 15, 2024, BOCC meeting. Your input is crucial in this process, and to ensure your comments are included in the packet for consideration, please send any letters or emails longer than 1 “page” no later than Monday, May 6, to planning@sanmiguelcountyco.gov

It is essential to understand what changes the Planning Commission proposed and what changes were not.  The redlined amendments are here, but this is a quick summary:

  • The Planning Commission recommends removing the language that a CH Zone project “shall” be considered compatible with all surrounding uses. Instead, the Commission suggests that “different densities and intensity of uses are not in and of themselves incompatible” with surrounding uses.
  • Rather than granting 20 units per acre as a matter of right upon rezoning, the Planning Commission suggests allowing a discretionary review approval of up to 15 acres per unit.

However, the suggested changes fail to address what many in the community see as the CH Zone’s fundamental design defect:  the uncertainty about the scale of the development at the rezoning stage and an extremely truncated development application review process.

When created, the CH Zone was a half-baked idea designed to obtain quick approval for Diamond Ridge. It “unhitched” the traditional requirement that development plans be submitted with a rezoning application, which is the serious and fundamental defect.

The CH Zone language contemplates that a parcel may first be “rezoned” as CH with no development plans provided. Then, the anticipated later step is to submit a “development” application allowing the County to review and approve the actual project.

But at the rezoning phase, the CH Zone essentially eliminates all review factors for issues such as traffic, compatibility with surrounding uses, environment, or wildlife, leaving only technical review standards such as water and sewer provisions. We suspect this was done to allow the County to claim at the rezoning stage that no consideration of impacts is necessary since “this is only a rezoning” and will have no actual impact. The County stated this line many times during the Diamond Ridge hearings.

However, once rezoning is granted for a parcel, the development review standards of LUC 5-324 (H) do not allow the Planning Commission or the BOCC to consider most of those same issues as part of the development phase either and here is why.

First, it is entirely unclear what documents are required for a CH development application. Traditionally, the County applies a five-step process for larger developments, and the Code has very specific document requirements addressing traffic, the environment, wildlife, architectural plans, plats, and more. The CH Zone is expressly a two-step process, so these five-step sections do not apply.

It appears that only LUC § 4-6 “Major Development Applications” might be applicable.  Under this section, the Code requires the same minimal documents already submitted for the rezoning but adds one new requirement to the development application: “the applicant shall provide printed copies of the proposed plat or plan, map of the roads proposed to be accepted by the County. . .”

Can it really be the owner needs only provide a plat or plan to obtain a development permit for a CH Zone parcel?  Along with this apparently minimal documentation, the CH Zone 5-324 (H) development review standards also do not include the review of the following issues are reviewed in all other zone district development applications:

  • CH does not require review of consistency with the Master Plan.
  • CH does not require review of consistency with the Land Use Policies in Section 2.
  • CH does not require review for any level of consistency of the development with the surrounding area.

While the County does look at consistency with the Master Plan and the Land Use policies at the rezoning phase, such review is not part of the development review standards under 5-324 (H).  Therefore, it appears the County cannot revisit its prior determination of consistency, even though made before any development plans were submitted.

It seems that when applying for CH “rezoning,” it is too early to discuss issues such as density, traffic, compatibility with surrounding uses, and environmental or wildlife impacts. However, at the development phase, it is too late to discuss most of those issues or review the project’s consistency with the Master Plan or Land Use Policies.

No wonder people have serious and realistic concerns about the development scale when CH rezoning is given to a parcel, since (1) the required documentation for development review is minimal or at least very unclear, and (2) the development review standards are limited with no consideration of surrounding uses or consistency with the Master Plan or Land Use policies.

The CH Zone’s planning was half-baked in 2022 and remains so today. We strongly encourage everyone to email their thoughts on this subject to the County before the Monday, May 6 deadline.