CITY OF GRAND JUNCTION, COLORADO

 

ORDINANCE NO. 4406

 

 

AN ORDINANCE ADOPTING THE GRAND JUNCTION COMPREHENSIVE PLAN

 

THE COMPREHENSIVE PLAN IS FOR THE AREA GENERALLY LOCATED BETWEEN THE FRUITA AND PALISADE BUFFERS (21 ROAD AND 34 ROAD) AND FROM THE BOOKCLIFFS TO WHITEWATER

 

THE COMPREHENSIVE PLAN AND ORDINANCE

TO BE PUBLISHED IN PAMPHLET FORM

 

Recitals.

 

The City of Grand Junction and Mesa County Planning Commissions, a Comprehensive Plan Steering Committee made up of many representatives from the community and City and County staffs and elected officials have diligently worked jointly and cooperatively to prepare a Comprehensive Plan for the urban area of the Grand Valley. The action followed more than 285 meetings and events during the planning process with hundreds of people participating. After thirty months of extensive public involvement and deliberation, the City Planning Commission forwards its recommendation of adoption of a plan for the future growth of lands within the Comprehensive Plan planning area.

 

The Comprehensive Planning area includes Grand Junction, Clifton, Whitewater, Redlands, Fruitvale, Pear Park, Orchard Mesa and the Appleton Areas.

 

The Grand Junction Comprehensive Plan does the following:

 

1.  Establishes a vision for the community. That vision is to “To become the most livable community west of the Rockies”;

 

2.  Identifies six Guiding Principles that will shape the community’s growth. Those Principles are:

•  Concentrated Centers

•  Sustainable Growth Pattern

•  Housing Variety

•  A Grand Green System of Connected Recreational Opportunities

•  Balanced Transportation

•  A Regional Center

 

3.  Establishes twelve goals and thirty policies that will help the community achieve the vision.

 

4.  Recommends more efficient growth patterns within the urban area, emphasizing more compact growth and higher densities in “Centers” with emphasis on growth in the “City Center;”

 

5.  Reserves land for future urban development;

 

6.  Protects valued community assets (such as neighborhoods, parks, open space, the rivers); and

 

7.  Respects individual property rights.

 

The Grand Junction Comprehensive Plan will replace the City of Grand Junction’s Growth Plan. It will also sunset the 2000 Orchard Mesa Neighborhood Plan and the 1998 North Central Valley Plan and the policies, implementation guidelines and corridor plans referred to in the Growth Plan. To the extent those are inconsistent with the Comprehensive Plan the same are hereby repealed.

 

The Comprehensive Plan will control when area plans, adopted prior to the Comprehensive Plan, are inconsistent with the Comprehensive Plan (e.g., the 2002 Redlands Neighborhood Plan, 2004 Pear Park Neighborhood Plan and 2006 Clifton/Fruitvale Community Plan).

 

The Grand Junction Comprehensive Plan will serve as a guide to public and private growth decisions through the year 2035. Besides a statement of the community’s vision for its own future and a road map providing direction to achieve that vision; the Comprehensive Plan is shaped by the community’s values, ideals and aspirations about the management of the community’s resources.

 

In addition to defining the community’s view of its future, the Comprehensive Plan describes goals and policies the community can implement to achieve the desired future. The Comprehensive Plan is thus a tool for managing community change to achieve the desired quality of life. The Comprehensive Plan is innovative in the use of discretionary authority to review and approve uses. Under the Comprehensive Plan the Director of Public Works and Planning is charged with certain decision making that will streamline development processes to the community’s benefit.

 

The Planning Commission is charged with the legal duty to prepare and recommend for adoption to City Council master plans for the City.

 

The Grand Junction Comprehensive Plan was heard in a public hearing jointly with Mesa County Planning Commission on January 12, 2010 where the Comprehensive Plan was recommended to be adopted by the Mesa County Planning Commission. At that hearing the Grand Junction Planning Commission recommended that the City Council adopt the Comprehensive Plan.

 

 

NOW THEREFORE, BE IT ORDAINED BY THE CITY COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF GRAND JUNCTION:

 

 

That the Grand Junction Comprehensive Plan, City of Grand Junction, Colorado, in the form of the document attached hereto, and as recommended for adoption by the Grand Junction Planning Commission is hereby adopted.

 

Furthermore be it ordained that the 1996 Growth Plan and the policies, implementation guidelines and corridor plans thereof are hereby repealed.

 

The full text of this Ordinance, including the text of the Comprehensive Plan, in accordance with paragraph 51 of the Charter of the City of Grand Junction, shall be published in pamphlet form with notice published in accordance with the Charter.

 

INTRODUCED on first reading the 1st day of February, 2010 and ordered published in pamphlet form.

 

PASSED and ADOPTED on second reading the 17th day of February, 2010 and ordered published in pamphlet form.

 

 

/s/ Bruce Hill          

President of City Council

 

 

 

ATTEST:

 

 

/s/ Stephanie Tuin          

City Clerk