Park County is closing in on an adoption draft for the second, and final, round of development standards and regulations amendments. 

That means a years-long process that began with the painstaking work to develop a new land use plan, followed by DSR updates, could be wrapped up by the end of the year. 

Commissioners and planning and zoning members have met multiple times in the last couple weeks to make changes to the latest draft zoning map and use tables following the recent round of in person and online public comment. 

“We have kind of come to a consensus on zoning areas for the most part,” commissioner Dossie Overfield said at a meeting last Tuesday. 

One area that is still up in the air is in General Rural 5, a zoning area that covers large swathes  of the county, especially the land between Powell and Cody that used to be GR-P. 

She said after discussions between commissioners and P&Z members, they asked county Planning Director Joy Hill to put together a map that would include two different GR-5 designations, the standard one and one with some more limited uses to be Rural Residential 5 acre. 

“We did hear quite a bit from the public that they don't like a lot of the, let's say, commercial type uses in some of the residential areas, so we're trying to figure out a way to differentiate between those two,” Overfield said. 

Planning and zoning members are set to meet Wednesday to go over the changes and determine if any more are needed, and the commissioners will do the same at their July 21 meeting with the intention of closing in on an adoption draft, which would then be published for public review for a period before the planning and zoning commission would be able to vote on it. 

If P&Z passes it, the draft would then be available for public review once again for a period of time before the county commissioners would meet to potentially approve the adoption draft. 

Of course, at either meeting board members could decide to hold off on a vote, as the commissioners have done at the first meetings both to approve the new land use plan and first round of DSR amendments after large public comment expressing concerns. 

Request declined for land north of Cody to  be more dense

County commissioners and planning and zoning members have said that, if possible, they’re willing to ensure property owners are in a zoning area they prefer. 

That happened many times during a June meeting as members went through a number of planning areas and largely were able to move certain parcels to a neighboring zoning area (the county doesn’t spot zone) in their next updated draft zoning maps. 

For instance, a farmer northeast of Cody who wants to be able to carve off pivot corners as small lots via lot size averaging, asked for and was granted his land being put into GR5. 

However, in Cody local, board members turned down a request by one of the county’s largest private landowners to make a large chunk of land north of town into a high density area. 

Trail Creek Partners owns thousands of acres along Wyo. Highway 120N northwest of Cody. In the current regulations some of that land is in Residential Rural 2 Acre and the rest is in GR5. 

Representatives from Trail Creek requested all of the land be moved to 2 acre aside from a strip along the highway of commercial. 

They also asked for a grouping bonus to remain, which, Park County Planning Director Joy Hill said, is a seldom used rule to allow for even more density in a subdivision if all of the lots are grouped into a small area — board members declined to include that. 

Hill urged the board members to not agree with Trail Creek and make the land more dense as, she said, the land will still be able to be broken up into many lots with lot size averaging in GR5. 

“You have solid reasons for saying no,” Hill said, adding, “I will never recommend you go dense over here.”

Additionally, she said as the area is slated for future Cody annexation — the city has eyed the area around the Cody Shooting Complex land for a new water tower to serve future lots — that if the county allows too much density before annexation it could hamper the city’s future plans. 

Board members agreed to keep it all at GR5 aside from some land around the highway for commercial as Trail Creek had asked for.