What's going around here? Urban Planners Know!

Wondering where all the strange rules about pink flamingos in front lawns and excessive showings of flags originate? Maybe these pesky details of town code irk you, but they’ve been put in place for a reason, or at least what someone called a reason. And you have your town urban planners to blame.

But on the other hand, if you’re looking to change your communities relationship with its land, its goals for development, industry, community, you’ll be headed to the same people: your town planners. If you wonder where your town sees itself in ten or twenty years, you can check out the master plans – it’s all about, ‘Wouldn’t it be nice if…’ and frankly, that sounds like a cool place to be involved, which is why urban planning is interesting to me.

My rough idea of city or town planners related them to building codes, zoning, and permits, sort of the policemen of the built environment. On the details, I was pretty clueless. Fortunately, I know one of Breckenridge’s town planners, Chris Neubecker, so last week we sat down for a coffee and chatted about urban planning in Breckenridge, which we’ll soon find out, is somewhat unusual.

For those of you annoyed by seemingly strange rules and permit requirements, consider the overarching purpose of the planning department: enhance community value. And while this is really the goal for the entire municipal government, the planners make positive change determining how the town uses its land. So how do town planners achieve this vague but admirable goal? It starts with a town mission statement and master plan. This gets broken down into more concrete goals, according to different sections of the mission statement. In Breckenridge, town planners work on current and long term development, land use (zoning), historic district standards, arts district development, affordable housing, childcare, open space and trails (recreation areas and forest health). They develop and amend town policy and code, both for long and short term development. about the type of use (commercial, residential, etc.), architecture, site planning, landscaping, etc. (how the project looks and is used, and less to do with safety issues.)

Chris explained that he worked on current planning: developers approach the town with an idea, with anything from small things – a home owner installing solar panels – to huge developments – Vail Resorts building a massive hotel. With the smaller projects, the planning department may say, ‘Great, you’re good to go!’ if everything’s up to code. With the larger projects however, the long term planning department will work with the Home Owners Association, the Town Manager, and the development crew (architects, contractors, engineers) to ensure compliance with the town code and accordance with the town’s vision for development. In some cases, say affordable housing, where the town recognizes community improvement, allowances are made with developers to enable financial viability. Don’t go thinking such compromises are given out willy-nilly though: they all go through extended reviewing processes with the planning department, the town council, as well as discussion in open-to-public planning meetings, with the content to be discussed available before the meeting as well.

To some extent, this sort of give and take is built into the town code, which is what makes Breckenridge’s zoning methods nationally unusual. They use what’s called performance or flex zoning, where plans are awarded points for positive developments, and penalized for not-so-good stuff. The system allowed for easy integration of code promoting sustainability… which brought us to what really interested me: making change in the community.

One of the reasons Chris enjoys urban planning, and one which directed him towards the field in the first place, was the ability to make change in the community. It turns out this influence is mostly enacted through a constantly changing code. How does it change? Through the year, the department keeps tabs on issues, and continually updates a Top 10 list prioritizing developments. Planners can’t just introduce random code changes though, like all houses must be red. In lawyer speak, they must have a rational nexus: basically, there needs to be a reason for passing based on improving public good. Apparently planners will often have to find studies and examples from other towns to back up their decisions. And the performance point values will occasionally be reviewed and adjusted. The process is admittedly complex and requires constant attention, which is why it hasn’t been widely adopted, but Chris believes that it is succeeding quite well in Breckenridge, because of good staff on the planning department and overall community support. Apparently, bigger municipalities lead to more politically-driven decisions, as opposed to true commitment to bettering the city. When I meet more people in other cities, I’ll discover first-hand if this is true, but it certainly seems probable.

So the next time you find yourself wondering where the town is headed, or hoping the town would improve bike lanes, or keep some land free from development, or keep national chains off Main Street, head over to your planning department. They’re the ones designing the future of your town.