By Katherine Weadley
Redstone Review

LYONS – It’s important to decide what your goals are and then create a plan to realize them. That is the idea behind the Town of Lyons updated Comprehensive Plan. The comprehensive plan, or comp plan, acts as a road map for the community.

Comp plans are usually created by the whole community as a group, and act as a directive for town boards and city councils when they make decisions and set policy for communities. These plans continue to be a resource.

The current Lyons comp plan is more than ten years old and many of its goals have been reached. Now more than ever the town needs a new direction to follow.

According to Jacque Watson, Economic Development and Community Relations Manager and Deputy Town Clerk, the biggest issue with the current comp plan is that it is heavy on residential development.

“In 1998, that was the biggest issue facing Lyons and there weren’t a lot of regulations in place to address that. Since then the town has developed subdivision improvement regulations, infrastructure plans, storm drainage plans, etc. Now we have only the Lyons Valley Park subdivision left and we are at a point where commercial development is the direction the town must head in order to remain sustainable. The 1998 comp plan does not address commercial development in detail, and some of the goals listed in that plan have changed, especially in the eastern corridor,” she said.

Now, through the public process, the Town of Lyons is going to update the old comp plan. According to the Web site www.iminlyons.com the Lyons Comprehensive Plan will provide the framework for decisions that affect the town’s physical, social and economic realm. Because the plan represents the goals of the majority of Lyons’ residents, rather than those of individuals or special interest groups, it provides a strong foundation for policy direction, land-use decisions and public investments. It can also help the town prioritize and direct resources to specific actions that will help achieve the community’s goals.

Dana Ortiz is the new town planner in Lyons. She’s also a principal in the firm Civil Resources, CR. Ortiz is not new to the comp plan process and neither is CR, which has been hired to help put the new plan together. CR has worked on comp plans for the City of Fort Lupton (the plan is available at www.ftlupton.org) and the Towns of Nunn and Ault.

“We are currently working with the City of Woodland Park to update its comprehensive plan. If you click on the micro sites for the Ault and Nunn plans from the CR Web site www.civilresources.com you can learn a little bit more about our community engagement process in these communities,” said Ryan McCaw of Civil Resources.

McCaw said he is extremely impressed with the diverse array of talent and expertise spanning numerous interests and backgrounds in Lyons. “I feel extremely fortunate to have so many skilled citizens to tap into. It’s great to see many self-starters in the community that want to be involved and step up to the plate to make a positive contribution to Lyons. I’m just taking it all in and trying to absorb as much as I can,” he said.

CR was formed in 2004. “Three people came together and left larger firms to create CR in order to offer more services at a more competitive price with lower overhead than major firms. Smaller firms also have more flexibility and CR has been able to carve its own niche in the profession,” said McCaw.

The firm currently has eight full-time employees. Six of the employees are civil engineers with expertise in water and wastewater utility design, water resources, geotechnical, and drainage and water modeling. The Principal Civil Engineer at CR has a master’s degree and is Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) accredited. CR also engages in planning, real estate permitting and development and landscape architecture.

In addition CR writes and implements land-use codes based on the Model Land Use Code for Colorado’s Small Communities, co-written by CR Principal and Lyons’ Town Planner Danna Ortiz. They design parks, trails and public spaces, write grant proposals and develop interpretive signage with Paul Moline of Paul Moline Designs. Moline will assist on the proposal and will assist with all graphics related to the Lyons Comprehensive Plan.

Environmental sustainability is important to the firm and is interwoven into all their projects. “We strive to consider and enhance the environment in everything we do, whether it’s permitting a gravel-mining site, designing a trail or writing a community’s comprehensive plan. We apply our diverse educational and real world backgrounds in environmental management, engineering, planning and landscape architecture with cutting-edge theories and implementation practices related to environmental sustainability,” said McCaw. CR is a member of the U.S. Green Building Council and McCaw just passed the LEED exam.

According to McCaw every project is tailored to suit the needs of clients and ensures that CR does not use a formulaic approach. “Every community and client is unique, and it’s imperative that we approach them with an open mind and ability to offer them an unrivaled, unique product to suit their needs. Lyons is no exception.”

In order to capture the unique nature of Lyons, CR and the Town of Lyons are asking people to go to the Web site www.iminlyons.org and take a survey. “We’re hoping to see more contributions to our EnvisionIn’ campaign,” said McCaw. “We are looking for poems, stories, pictures, art work, and video that tell us what is special about Lyons. We can use this information to develop goals and strategies that will preserve and enhance important community assets. Please help us spread the word about the campaign. More can be learned at www.iminlyons.org.”

McCaw added that CR is getting great feedback from the community. “We are very pleased with the number of survey responses (we are approaching 100 responses) we have received,” he said. “Citizens have given us some excellent direction and I’m anxious to dive into the survey results in more depth. We have a ‘community comments’ section for each element of the plan and many of survey respondents’ answers will be included in the plan. In addition, we hope to include the survey results in the appendix of the comprehensive plan. We had excellent attendance at the first workshop and hope to build on this for the second workshop on April 14th, 6 to 9 p.m. at the Lyons Middle Senior High School cafetorium,” said McCaw.

Watson also wants everybody to give an opinion. “We are still going through this process, and would welcome as much public participation as possible.”

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