Citizens Learn How to Have Their "Say"

Planning and development issues are frequently controversial in Summit County, CO, where development of world-class ski resorts and the lure of natural beauty have fueled rapid growth.

Colorado State University Extension is using education to help defuse dicey community conversations about growth and development.

In 1999, Summit County Extension began offering a Citizen Planning Academy designed to help people who were interested in participating in community planning better understand the process. The underlying premise was that by demystifying the process, people would be more likely to participate and less likely to feel disenfranchised. Written by Extension County Director Brian McAleer, the seven-week course is offered each fall to anyone interested in a primer on planning.

"It provides an overview of current and long-term planning processes so that local residents and leaders have the information necessary to provide meaningful input on and make comprehensive decisions regarding planning growth and development," McAleer explained.

Participants can opt to take the entire course or just specific sessions. Professionals both inside and outside government planning organizations teach the sessions. Municipal and private planners, landscape architects, natural resource consultants and other professionals speak to topics that include community planning, zoning, subdivision, code enactment, compliance and enforcement, reviewing site plans, meeting procedures, citizen participation and natural resources planning.

Students, too, come from diverse backgrounds. "A variety of different types of people take the course for a variety of different reasons," McAleer said. "Some are professionals in their own right. Some are citizens just interested in learning more about the planning process. Some are people who either aspire to be planning commissioners or are on the planning commission and want to hone their skills and learn more."

Breckenridge resident Lisa Annaheim said she took the course because she wanted to learn more about how the process works. As director of finance and administration for Vail Resorts Development Co., which is working to develop 300 acres it owns within Breckenridge, Annaheim spends a lot of time working with the town's planners and planning commissioners.

Participating in the Citizen Planning Academy gave her a lot of insight into how towns develop master plans, she said. "I think they did a good job of laying out the process of how it all works and the interaction with the staff from the town as well as getting public input from the community."

The Citizen Planning Academy has its roots in the efforts of a now-defunct nonprofit organization called Shaping Our Summit, McAleer said. That organization sought to boost citizen involvement in community issues.

"We had a growth symposium sponsored by Shaping Our Summit. Because we got tremendous attendance at the growth forum, it was obvious that people were looking for ways to participate but sometimes felt disenfranchised by the process."

Working in partnership with Shaping Our Summit, McAleer sought first to close the information gap. He wrote a book that walks people through the planning process. The book, titled Plan on It, became the text for the Citizen Planning Academy. Shaping Our Summit has since disbanded, "But the momentum was there for the planning academy," McAleer said.

In Summit County, where each municipality has a planning commission and the county itself has five planning commissions at work, there are ample supplies of potential students for the planning academy, planning academy graduate Rodney Allen pointed out.

Allen estimated there are some 80 planning commissioners throughout the county and that most could benefit from the information the academy provides. A member of the county's upper Blue River Basin planning commission, Allen is a Breckenridge-area resident and buyer-broker for Exclusive Mountain Retreats Real Estate.

Allen said he took the course because he wanted to enhance his knowledge, despite the fact that he'd already served as a planning commissioner for nearly a year when he signed up for the academy in fall, 2000.

"Quite honestly, half the stuff in the course I already knew, but that didn't bother me because it's always good to refresh. I thought it was really helpful to members of the public who are frustrated with growth and development and trying to figure out why it happens, how decisions are made and how they can have a say in it."

Allen said he appreciated the detail offered in the sessions and that he learned a lot about working with the public as a member of an official planning entity.

"There was a session on chairing and controlling meetings, handling difficult members of the public, maintaining order, and giving the public their say. I found that quite helpful."

McAleer said the success of the Citizen Planning Academy is a result of help from a number of Summit County partners including Colorado Mountain College, who handles registration through their spring catalog, but also in part through evaluations provided by participants. Over the years the course has evolved in response to those evaluations. "In 2001, I don't think we had any negative comments on any evaluations, which is very gratifying," he said.

There may be other indicators of the program's success, McAleer said. "We do see increased participation in public meetings. It's hard to know whether that's a result of people feeling more knowledgeable and comfortable because of the Planning Academy or because there may be controversy over issues being brought up. It may be a combination of both. But certainly we're seeing an increase in participation."

--Sue Lenthe

For more information, contact your local Colorado State University Extension office.

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Uploaded Tuesday, September 25, 2007

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