Land-use code revised to add new ag zone

Land-use code revised to add new ag zone

Nov. 2, 2000

By Jim Mimiaga
Journal Staff Writer

Amendments to the Montezuma County Land-Use Code that would clarify some language and provide for smaller agricultural zones were hashed out last week by the county planning commission.

The additions were recommended for approval by the planning commission last Thursday, and will be presented to the county commissioners at a public hearing at 2 p.m. on Monday, Nov. 6.

The reason for the changes is to clean up code language and to accommodate landowners with smaller parcels who prefer a strict agricultural zone for their land, said Planning Director Karen Welch.

"We found, as with all new documents, that it needed some fine-tuning," she said. "The revisions were mainly phrasing so that it flows better and is more user-friendly."

The major change is the introduction of a new Agriculture Zone (Agz) to the menu of zoning options available to landowners in unincorporated areas of the county. The zone is for landowners wanting a strict ag-use designation for tracts between 35 and 80 acres. The idea is to protect farm and ranch operations in the county against residential-subdivision encroachment and related conflicts.

A problem with the two-year-old code recently came to light regarding parcels between 35 acres and 80 acres whose owners want to protect agricultural uses for the future on the entire tract.

"We did not have anything here for strictly agricultural use for land in that acreage, so this new zone takes care of that discrepancy," Welch said. "For instance, some orchards and vineyards are on smaller acreages."

Currently owners with large agricultural tracts wanting only that use have basically two choices that fit the bill. They can zone their parcels AR-35+ (for Agricultural-Residential), which requires a minimum parcel of 35 acres with the potential prospect of limited development. Or they can choose A-80, which requires a minimum of 80 acres with no plans for the property that are not agriculture-related.

Owners of smaller agricultural parcels with prospects for residential development can request an AR 10-34 zone.

But that theoretically left out smaller-scale farmers and ranchers with less than the 80-acre minimum for an A-80 zone, the only strictly agricultural zone option right now. Those farm and ranch operators do not want AR-35 or AR 10-34 zone because they do not plan to develop their property for non-ag, or residential, purposes, as those zones allow.

Because the A-80 zone clearly denotes agricultural use only, during the sign-up process planners allowed landowners below the 80-acre minimum to have that zoning preference for lack of a better solution. Those zones will stay as they are.

"Unless the landowner wants to go through a public hearing to change it, whatever was zoned we are keeping as such," Welch said. "The (A-80) zones are intended to protect the ag value. We basically used the same criteria for the (new) ag zone as with A-80; it is just another option."

The other significant change in the code was changing the term "letter permit" to "permit application." Letter permits are filed with the county for proposed or existing businesses. The concern was that owners of existing commercial or industrial businesses might interpret their approved letter permit to mean additional businesses or expansion on their parcel were already "permitted" per se and hence did not require a public hearing, even if the plans exceeded threshold standards (i.e., traffic, noise, utility, septic, hours of operation) established in the land-use code.

"The letter permit is a record of use for that specific business as it is," said County Administrator Tom Weaver recently. "It does not mean the landowner has a permit to zone the entire, say, 10-acre plot as a commercial zone just because there is one business (with a letter permit on file) taking up a portion of it."

Any development that creates impacts exceeding the threshold standards requires a public hearing and a development plan. The planning commission makes that determination when the letter permit is applied for.

Described as a "two-year old child" recently by Commissioner Kent Lindsay, the land-use code and its companion, Landowner-Initiated Zoning, is indeed a work in progress.

"You have to straighten it out a bit," Welch said. "But we feel good about it. The changes filled some pretty big gaping holes."