Your Town Workshop
Weld County, Colorado
May 17-19, 2007

		Weld County, Colorado, is directly north of Denver, stretching from the foothills of the Rockies north to Wyoming and east across the plains. Twice the size of Delaware, the county includes 31 incorporated towns and 225,000 inhabitants.
Western subdivision sprawl
		The county is in one of the fastest growing regions of the country: the Front Range of the Rockies. Weld County is in one of 20 or so "megapolitan" areas that will absorb many of the next 100 million Americans. According to a recent edition of the Rocky Mountain News, along the Front Range north of Denver, "building projects are springing up like mushrooms after heavy rain."
House proliferation in the West
		Weld County agriculture is primarily irrigated farming, feed lots, and cattle grazing. Weld County is the most productive agricultural area in Colorado and the fifth most agriculturally productive county in the United States. Since the 19th century, Weld County has tapped into and depended on the relatively rich water resources of the South Platte River Basin.
Farming and subdivisions coexist in Weld County
		The threat to Weld's agricultural future is not from the subdivisions and shopping centers so much as the ability of distant urban consumers to acquire water rights from Weld County property owners. Personal property rights, such as water ownership, run deep in the history and politics of the western United States. As areas of Weld County urbanize, questions have arisen concerning the relative importance of traditional values, flexibility in accommodating change, and planning needed for efficient provision of infrastructure and services.
Weld County water issues
		Weld County is currently updating its Comprehensive Plan. The Your Town workshop fit integrally into the update process, bringing together all 15 members of the plan's Technical Advisory Committee as well as county commissioners, municipal mayors, and other local leaders. Principal issues that the workshop addressed included: Towns in Transition — community identifiers and separators; how to preserve the identity of Weld County's historic towns; Rural Residences — the design of 9-lot rural subdivisions, allowed by right in rural areas, versus traditional farms; and Watering Crops and Towns — the competing water interests of urban and non-urban uses.
Farming on the edge
		Developing maximum understanding of the changing environment is critical. How could farms of the future be developed and/or preserved where water use is increasingly creating a checkerboard landscape of farmed and fallow land? What policies, economic opportunities, and programs exist or could be created to resolve the paradox of farmers who (1) collectively want to preserve a viable farming industry but (2) individually may want to preserve development rights ("farmers' retirement option")?
Residential clustering amidst farm plots
		During the last ten years, many of Weld County's towns and cities have found their borders or planning areas in conflict with other jurisdictions. One possibility might be to set aside land between jurisdictions as community separators that would preserve local identities and avoid their simply running together. What form could community separators take? Would they require land preservation? Would they be compatible with suburban development? What possibilities or limitations would they create for landowners?
Land up for grabs
		Many land-use decisions are driven by availability or lack of water. Because of physical conditions and water-rights transfer options, usable land may abut land that cannot be developed or farmed, creating haphazard land-use patterns. Are there ways to coordinate water usage? Can water losses be aggregated so that viable farming regions can remain intact and productive?
Irrigated agriculture and subdivisions sometimes compete for water
		At the end of the day, participants were challenged to apply what they had learned to the implementation of the design solutions they had undoubtedly developed. For more information, e-mail info@yourtowndesign.org.
A scenario for Weld County's future