After a final meeting last Wednesday to hash out changes to the adoption draft, a number spurred by a public hearing the week before, the Park County Planning and Zoning Commission recommended approval of the 2027 Development Standards and Regulations draft. 

Commission Chair Brian Peters will be delivering that message to county commissioners during a special meeting Tuesday morning, after which the next phase of the process will begin. 

If everything goes well today (Tuesday), there's a possibility the adoption draft could be released on Thursday, Oct. 1, Park County Planning and Zoning Director Joy Hill said. 

However, if the commissioners decide more review is needed or more tweaks need to be made — and depending on county attorney review of changes — the adoption draft may be released later. 

Whenever it is released, that will kick off a 45-day review, after which the commissioners will have their own public hearing on the draft prior to a final vote. 

“We're trying to get the document out as early as possible, so that when they have their public hearing, either November or December, that will give them plenty of time to make any final changes to the document with the hopes of a Jan. 1 adoption date,” Hill said. “Because it's nice to start off the year with … new regulations.

“So we’re trying to stay on some sort of schedule.”

Of course, for the county planning department, the adoption of new regulations is only the beginning. Hill said they are already looking at ways to inform many of the people who will be running into these regulations the most, such as developers, builders and real estate agents, how the new rules change the existing regulations. 

One important caveat some people still need to know, Hill noted, is that this is largely just changing the existing regulations, not creating new ones. For instance, she said the department was quick to correct a real estate agent who spoke up at the mid September P&Z hearing to say the new regulations would be a big deal because previously in the county you’ve only needed a permit for a septic system. 

“We of course quickly corrected that statement by saying ‘no, you know we've actually had building permit requirements since 1967,’” Hill recalled, adding it's far from the first time she's dealt with people who didn't know building permits were needed. 

She said he’s now working with the Northwest Wyoming Board of Realtors to help with agent training on the new regulations. 

It’s not just that. While she said the discourse on the regulations has improved a lot recently — from general comments on not liking regulations from people she said hadn’t read them, to people asking the finer points of specific sections — there will still be work needed to educate people, and Hill is happy to be part of the process. 

“People think because we did a full rewrite that we've completely changed the way Park County is regulating, and that's just not true,” she said. “I mean, a lot of what we're doing is the same. It's just called something different. Or we may have a little bit different process, but people still will need permits. We'll still have processes. 

“It's not like we're inventing something incredibly new here. It's just we're kind of coming into the modern world a little bit.”

Hill also pushed back on the comments of some throughout the land use and regulations process who say regulations are overly burdensome. 

"We are not an over regulatory county. You can step into a lot of other places and be very fearful for what they require,” she said. “A lot of what Park County requires is common sense, and asking people for legal access and water and sewer, all those things — that's not overreaching, that's common sense.

“We just want people to have reasonable expectations to keep their neighbors and the public safe. That's it.”