City of Breckenridge to host Open House on May 27 for Strategic Plan update, proposed changes to Zoning Ordinance
By Carla McKeown/Breckenridge Texan
The City of Breckenridge will host an Open House on Tuesday, May 27, from 5:30 to 7 p.m. in the newly renovated City Commission chambers at City Hall.
The purpose of the open house is to provide information on what the City has done, as well as what they are in the process of doing, and to get feedback in preparation for continuing to implement the Strategic Plan. The City has updated its Comprehensive Development Plan and the next step in that plan is to update Breckenridge’s Zoning Ordinance.
City Manager Cynthia Northrop said the City staff will be presenting a draft of the Zoning Plan and looking for feedback at the open house event.
At the May 6 City Commission meeting, Northrop explained that, as the City staff and commissioners prepare to work on next year’s budget, they want to get input from local residents.
“Our next step, as far as it concerns our budget and strategic planning, like we did when we first initiated the strategic plan, we went out to the citizens after we had talked to staff and after we had talked to you guys, and we’re going to be going back to them May 27,” she said. “(We’ll be) going over, basically, where we’ve been, the progress that we’ve made, looking at our strategic plan, making sure, just getting input from the citizens — are these still the priorities? — and getting that feedback. We will also do a citizens’ survey, as well, and get that feedback.”
The City staff has been working on updating the Zoning Ordinance and will present the updated ordinance at the open house.
“That’s going to be a major update,” Northrop said at the May 6 meeting. “Every citizen … will be mailed on that to let them know what that proposed updated zoning plan is. But before that happens, we’re going to present it to the citizens in a public meeting. So we’ll have the consultants there. We’ll have graphics there. People can see the changes.”
Northrop said one of the main changes will be in the way that properties are labeled in the Zoning Ordinance. “For instance, right now, we have R1, R2 R3 and R4 for residential,” she said. “We’re going to update that to “Single Family,” and then it will have the square footage of that property. So it would be SF5000, SF6000, SF7500, and that denotes the size of the piece of property in the zoning.”
After the open house, the changes to the Zoning Ordinance will be presented to the Planning and Zoning committee, and there will be a public hearing and eventually a vote by the City Commission.
The open house will be open to the public and will be a come-and-go event. Those attending should enter through the door on the north side of the building, at 105 N. Rose Ave., which leads into the City Commission Chambers.
