KFFR Forum Question 1: Growth and the Future of Grand County
I joined Commissioner George, Liz Newsom, and Clerk Linke for a forum at the KFFR studios on Thursday, September 17. We each answered prepared questions in front of a studio audience. The event was broadcast live, streamed, and recorded.
Here is the first question of the evening:
Grand County continues to face development pressure while also dealing with housing needs, infrastructure demands, water concerns, wildfire risk, and the desire to preserve the character of our communities.
How should the county manage growth while protecting water resources, reducing wildfire risk, maintaining infrastructure, and preserving the rural and scenic character of Grand County?
And my response:
I believe the most impactful way to address this is by updating our land-use and zoning rules to prioritize viewsheds, open spaces, and working lands, and allow for greater density in areas which already have the infrastructure to handle growth. My background in landscape-scale conservation has taught me how to balance these priorities with foresight. Whenever a new development project comes up, I will want to know the anticipated impact on our natural resources, like water, on our infrastructure, like roads and energy distribution, and even on wildlife migration, looking at the rural and scenic character of Grand County.
We can’t close the gate on Berthoud Pass. People are going to continue to move here. We do need more housing, but not everyone wants their own acre and single-family home. Plenty of people just want to live here and have the ability to get out of town to recreate, explore, or work on the land. By updating our rules, we can create the opportunity for more types of housing, reducing housing costs while also reducing the impact of sprawl on our open spaces and stress on our infrastructure.
We can also work more with the Wildfire Council and other groups to make existing properties safer, especially in neighborhoods that border the forests.
To that end, we need to invest in smart forest management. We can use our forest resources to support the local economy while building wildfire resiliency. Having lived through the East Troublesome Fire myself, I know firsthand how destructive wildfires are. I am committed to finding smart, creative solutions to keep our community safe and thriving.
You can listen to the full forum here: https://kffr.org/elections/
