Montrose Citizens for Responsible Growth

Citizen Land use meeting at Bluff Harbor Clubhouse (across from DMEA, 6300 Rd.)

BOCC meeting at County land use Bldg. (across from dowtown City Mkt.).

Daily Press Editorial
February 11, 2007
Bill Patterson, Western Colorado Congress

The fact that the Montrose County Planning Commission is developing a questionnaire after months of public meetings seems ill timed at best.

It’s not that a supplementary questionnaire is a bad idea, but it should have been developed and implemented months ago. At this stage, it can easily slow the process to aid a long overdue master plan update.

Questionnaires take time and resources. The questionnaire would go out to roughly 11,400 county residents, but why not make it available to everyone? Planning Commission member Bill Fritz has also said that if 2,500 people returned questionnaires (22 percent return), he’d consider it a good turnout. Generally, a 7 percent return can be expected for any survey â€â€? and that’s considered a good response. (more…)

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To the Montrose County Planning Commission, Montrose Board of Commissioners, and the County Land Use Staff;

Recently a number of residents have expressed their concerns – indeed, opposition – to the county’s effort to update and revise the land use provisions of our Master Plan. We are now commenting to respond to that opposition. The Master Plan – while imperfect and outdated – is the only plan we have. It is precisely because of its imperfection and lack of updating – (mandated, but ignored for many years) – that we are now engaged in this difficult process.

In the face of relentless, unmanaged growth, a multitude of citizens have expressed concerns to the county over the contradiction between our Master Plans’ provisions and this indiscriminate growth. Consequently, the county determined that our Master Plan was outdated and lacking in “sufficient exactitude” and therefore unusable without updating/revision.

To the county’s credit – and under the direction of our professional land use planners – this revision process was begun last fall (2006). The county was sectioned into several areas, and citizen meetings were scheduled with multiple advance notices for each area. Any resident was encouraged to attend and comment at any meeting. Additionally, comments were solicited from anyone unable to attend.

The Rural Alliance for Private Property Rights circulated flyers to encourage supporters to attend the meetings – which they did, and forcefully expressed their views. Now – apparently dissatisfied with the results (which are hardly finalized), this group has submitted a letter – basically calling the process “unethical” and asking the county to suspend or cancel the whole process… (more…)

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11 January 2007

Steve White
Jon Waschbusch
Montrose County Land Use Department
317 South Second Street
Montrose, CO 81401

Dear Steve and Jon:

We are writing in regards to your initiative to update the county’s master plan and zoning regulations. Together, our organizations represent approximately 500 local citizens who care deeply about the quality of life in the Uncompahgre Valley. We appreciate your efforts and applaud you for undertaking this important process in the community.

Rather than fill-in the mock zoning maps you distributed at the public meetings, which we found to be very difficult, we opted instead to offer our written input and suggestions in the form of this letter. (more…)

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Montrose Citizens for Responsible Growth recently retained an independent, Colorado-based, nationally-recognized research firm for the purpose of obtaining input from Montrose county citizens on our Master Plan. In the interest of making the survey as useful as possible, we consulted with our county’s professional land use department, and incorporated its input into the design of the questions. The survey was conducted via telephone between 23-25 October 2006.

Three hundred and fifty three(353) interviews were accomplished- which produced results with a 95% confidence level, or an accuracy of +/- 5%. The respondents were randomly chosen from the county’s active, registered voter roles (voters who participated in the 2004 general election). The questions and responses follow: (more…)