Comprehensive Plan

A comprehensive plan (often called “master plan,” “general plan,” or “community plan”) is a long-range planning document that expresses a community’s overarching vision, goals, objectives, policies, and strategies for the future growth (or smart shrinkage), development, and preservation of the community, protection of community assets, and provision of services. Comprehensive plans are used to:

• Garner broad community input and determine development visions and goals;
• Justify city decision-making, local regulations, and capital improvement projects;
• Guide individual development approvals; and
• Open new funding opportunities and grants.

Colorado statutes authorize local governments to prepare master plans to serve as guiding documents. In some cases, local governments are required to prepare master plans. C.R.S. § 30-28- 106(4)(a) requires counties with more than 10,000 in population and meeting defined growth percentages to adopt a master plan. Similarly, C.R.S. § 31-23-206(4)(a) requires municipalities with a population of 2,000 people or greater in a qualifying county to prepare and adopt a master plan (House Bill 01S2-1006, 2011).

Comprehensive plans vary in terms of their overall organizational structure, the number and types of elements addressed, and the degree to which specific action items are threaded throughout the guiding policies. A traditional comprehensive plan is organized by element, with each element given a unique chapter or section of the plan. Common elements included in comprehensive plans include:

• Land use
• Transportation
• Housing
• Economy
• Environment
• Governance
• Parks and open space
• Recreation and tourism (only required element per state statutes)
• Community design and character

Within each of these elements, most comprehensive plans contain the following components, or some variation:

• Vision: What is the community’s underlying vision for the future?
• Goals: Within each element, what are the goals the community seeks to achieve?
• Policies: Within each goal, how can the community address the issue to achieve desired results?
• Strategies or actions: What are the specific steps a community can take to address a stated issue?
• Mapping: What are the desired future land use scenarios, and how do existing and future conditions change based on the other elements addressed in the plan?

Thematic Planning

Communities are increasingly organizing their comprehensive plans thematically, which emphasizes the interrelatedness of plan elements as compared to traditional approaches. For example, the City of Longmont identifies one of its plan themes and guiding principles as being a “safe, healthy and adaptable community,” which combines elements of the environment, public health and safety, and climate change planning. Fort Collins’ recent plan update called “City Plan” has a unique organizational framework. The plan illustrates the interconnectedness of each of the planning themes (Neighborhood Livability and Social Health, Culture and Recreation, etc.), explores the “triple bottom line” of sustainability throughout, and is tied to the city’s “budgeting for outcomes” process.

Communities increasingly address sustainability, energy, climate, and resilience in their comprehensive plans. Home rule communities have broad authority to address these and many other subjects in their plans and regulations. Statutory communities also have authority to address hazard areas in master plans. Specifically, C.R.S. § 30-28-106 (for counties) and § 31-23-206 (for municipalities) requires planning commissions to consider “the areas containing steep slopes, geological hazards, endangered or threatened species, wetlands, floodplains, floodways, and flood risk zones, highly erodible land or unstable soils, and wildfire hazards” (House Bill 12-1317, 2012).

Evaluating Your Comprehensive Plan

Is your community considering updating its comprehensive plan? The following are 8 questions that you can use to evaluate your plan and planning process to understand how it engages with issues related to natural hazards:

1. Planning Team – research shows that comprehensive planning teams that include diverse expertise tend to produce plans that more effectively engage with complex problems like natural hazards. How well does your planning team that guided the development of this comprehensive plan reflect the expertise needed for mitigating hazards and integrating risk reduction across other community plans and programs?

2. Fact Base – one of the first steps for comprehensive planning is to gather and analyze relevant data, or the “fact base.” The fact base is foundational to the plan because it is what the subsequent planning vision, goals and policies are based on. Review your plan’s fact base with regards to natural hazards and physical/social vulnerability. How well does the fact base of your plan account for natural hazards and vulnerability? You can use your community’s hazard mitigation plan to build your natural hazard and vulnerability fact base.

3. Public Engagement – the comprehensive planning process is an opportunity for the local government to broadly engage its citizenry in discussions about the future of the community. It is also an opportunity to educate the public about issues like land-use planning and natural hazard mitigation. How well does your planning process engage the public around questions of natural hazard mitigation?

4. Vision Statement – The comprehensive plan’s vision is the foundation for the land-use goals, policies and strategies that follow. Does the vision statement accommodate hazard mitigation?  

5. Goals and Strategies – the goals and strategies in the comprehensive plan turn the vision into actionable steps. How effectively do your plan’s goals and strategies address hazard mitigation? Do they align with, or incorporate, related goals and strategies in your community’s hazard mitigation plan?

6. Overall – how well does this comprehensive plan envision land-use and development decisions that will mitigate risk to natural hazards?

Link the Comprehensive Plan and Local Hazard Mitigation Plan

A good place to start when folding hazards into the comprehensive plan is to review your local hazard mitigation plan. Under the Disaster Mitigation Act of 2000, local jurisdictions are required to develop hazard mitigation plans in order to gain eligibility for federal funding of mitigation projects. Local hazard mitigation plans are required (per C.R.F. 201.6) to both import information and data from a community’s planning framework and to export the results of mitigation plan into other community planning mechanisms. However, more often than not, hazard mitigation plans are disconnected from other local planning efforts. Yet, local hazard mitigation plans can include a wealth of information that is useful in the comprehensive planning process.

Mitigation plans are inherently spatial because they identify hazard zones and  specify projects to reduce exposure to hazards. For those reasons, they are an invaluable place to start when including hazards within the comprehensive plan. Begin by incorporating language directly from the local hazard mitigation plan and more specifically the Hazard Identification and Risk Assessment (HIRA) (or just “risk assessment in many plans). The HIRA describes the hazards that could impact the community, identifies specific geographic areas with higher risk, and may consider the impacts on vulnerable populations. Communities can also incorporate specific mitigation actions from the local hazard mitigation plan by aligning them with related plan policies and actions.

Attach the Hazard Identification and Risk Assessment (HIRA) to the Comprehensive Plan

Another approach to ensure direct coordination between the local hazard mitigation plan and the comprehensive plan is to directly attach the HIRA portion of the hazard mitigation plan to the comprehensive plan as an appendix. This ensures that as local legislators adopt policies and implement strategies, hazard risk is at the forefront of the community’s overall planning policy document.

However, there are some unique challenges associated with this approach:

• The local hazard mitigation plan is on a five-year time horizon, so updates are typically done at regular intervals. The comprehensive plan may have longer timeframes, so the hazard identification and risk assessment may have to be adopted as a separate amendment to the comprehensive plan upon FEMA approval of the updated local hazard mitigation plan.
• The hazard identification and risk assessment can be lengthy. Your community may wish to create a summary of the HIRA to ensure that the document does not overwhelm the comprehensive plan itself.

Integrating hazard mitigation into a comprehensive plan can occur as a stand-alone section of the plan or integrated throughout as a consideration within all of the plan elements. In either strategy, incorporating hazard information into the future land use map ensures that future development and growth decisions are aligned with known hazard risks and vulnerability.

Integrate Hazard Mitigation throughout the Comprehensive Plan

Often, hazard mitigation is not given individual emphasis in a comprehensive plan but is integrated throughout the plan elements. If a separate hazard element is not included in the plan, the model goals, policies, and strategies from the previous section could be tailored to support other plan elements. Sample considerations and questions to ask for various plan elements are provided below, based in part on issues noted in the FEMA and APA references cited at the conclusion of this section.

• Land Use – Establish land-use policies that discourage development or redevelopment within natural hazard areas. Provide adequate space for expected future growth in areas located outside natural hazard areas. Ensure that safety is explicitly included in the plan’s growth and development policies.
• Transportation – Provide adequate primary, secondary, and emergency connections within and between subdivisions. Ensure road layouts and connections support response requirements for emergency services. Consider whether transportation policy is used to guide growth to safe locations.
• Conservation/Resource Protection – Identify areas that are community and natural assets and also that, when protected or restricted to development, would reduce risk to natural hazards. For example, avoiding development in forested areas provides a tangible resource to the community while also reducing exposure of people and structures to wildfires.
• Economic Development – Communicate the short- and long-term economic benefits of planning for hazards and developing resilient communities (e.g., lower long-term infrastructure repair costs). Evaluate whether economic development policies promote commercial or industrial expansion in areas vulnerable to hazards. Make community resilience a key feature in attracting, expanding, and retaining businesses and industry.
• Public Facilities – Identify appropriate locations for all public facilities, but especially critical facilities whose continued operation is essential during or following a major hazard event. For example, police and fire stations, hospitals, water treatment plants, and community centers are important facilities that should not be located in hazardous areas.
• Housing – Ensuring that the location and design of new or improved housing complies not only with existing building codes, but with potential hazards in mind. Identify opportunities to strengthen or replace structures identified as vulnerable to hazards. Consider whether a disproportionate amount of affordable housing is located within known hazard areas. Consider location criteria for public housing, affordable housing, and rental housing outside of hazard risk areas. Address the challenges communities face in locating dense residential areas away from hazards. One particular challenge to consider is that some of the most desirable places to live can often be near or within hazard areas (forests, oceans, slopes, and rivers).
• Recreation and Tourism – Areas that serve as recreation opportunities (such as trails and bike paths) can also serve hazard mitigation purposes by limiting development. This element could also include recommendations for land acquisition. Recreation and tourism, especially as it relates to hazard mitigation, can also be addressed in parks and open space or natural resources elements depending on the plan organization. 

Based on current research, more Colorado communities emphasize hazard mitigation as a discrete section in their comprehensive plans than choose to weave hazard mitigation through various plan elements. Additional examples of communities around the state that incorporate hazard mitigation into their comprehensive plans are:

• City of Durango
• Plan Manitou (Manitou Springs)
• Town of Green Mountain Falls

The Douglas County 2035 Comprehensive Master Plan (2014) addresses geologic hazards, flooding, and wildfire. There are a series of goals and policies related to hazards in the environmental quality sections, and additional relevant policies scattered throughout the plan. For example, wildfire is addressed in the urban land use section of the plan, the non-urban section of the plan, and in the environmental quality section of the plan (where an entire subsection is dedicated to wildfire) (Douglas County 2035 Comprehensive Master Plan, 2014). As with Adams County, the hazard components of the plan are accompanied by a map, providing additional justification for future land use decisions.

Include a Dedicated Hazard Mitigation Element

One effective way to focus attention on the importance of hazard mitigation in a comprehensive plan is to give the subject its own dedicated section, either as a stand-alone plan element or a subsection of another element (such as land use or environmental protection). The hazards element should include a description of known hazards to the community. For example, “the community’s primary hazard threats are from floods, wildfires, and hazardous materials transport.” These statements can be supported by maps of hazard areas and more detailed descriptions of the risk.

Following the description of the hazards and risk, the hazards element should identify a hierarchy of goals, policies, strategies, and actions tailored to the specific hazard risks in the jurisdiction. While these will vary by community, a range of sample language is included below representing common approaches seen throughout Colorado:

• Example Goals
  • Reduce the impacts from [insert hazards] on [insert community] residents.
  • Reduce the risk of natural hazards on people, property, and the environment.
  • Increase public awareness of hazard risks.
• Example Policies
  • Limit building in high-risk areas.
  • Direct future growth to low-risk areas.
  • Limit community facilities to low-risk areas.
  • Improve public education and awareness campaigns as well as proactive warnings for natural hazards.
  • Review and designate appropriate uses and intensities of land uses within known hazard areas.
  • Improve mapping of hazard risk.
  • Planning staff should coordinate regularly with emergency management staff to identify cross-beneficial projects and avoid any potentially conflicting goals or strategies.
• Example Strategies and Actions
  • Expand mapping, regulations, and loss-prevention for areas with high risk to hazards. Update subdivision regulations to include criteria for potential hazard areas.
  • Identify data needs to effectively identify high-risk areas and better manage development and activities within the community.
  • Update zoning code to reflect appropriate land uses and intensities within known hazard areas.
  • Update development application submittal requirements to address hazard-related technical reports and mapping analysis.
  • Prevent development on geologically unstable areas or steep slopes.
  • Update subdivision regulations to require defensible space when developing near the wildland-urban interface.
  • Adopt a local wetland ordinance that provides an appropriate buffer distance from water bodies.
  • Revise development regulations to prevent development on slopes greater than 30 percent.
  • Revise development regulations to require adequate mitigation prior to approval of development applications.
  • Require new development to be within a fire district with adequate fire protection facilities, equipment, and service capabilities.
  • Discourage development within areas of high potential for heaving bedrock, as identified on the steeply dipping/heaving bedrock map.
  • Require engineering designs for improvements to roads and utilities to address mitigation of geologic hazards during the subdivision review process.

Adams County is an example of a community that incorporated a specific hazard mitigation section in its comprehensive plan, Imagine Adams County (2012). In that section, the county identifies three primary policies:

• Reduce risk and effects of natural and industrial hazards;
• Increase public awareness of hazard risks; and
• Limit building in high-risk areas and improve disaster prevention.

The county also integrated their Hazard Identification and Risk Assessment (HIRA) into the plan, as an appendix. That HIRA includes an in-depth analysis of land uses and their relation to hazards. With a particular focus on hazardous materials, the HIRA appendix compares future land use designations to the number of hazardous materials facilities (Imagine Adams County, 2012).

Identify Hazards on the Future Land Use Map

The future land use map illustrates how the community intends to grow over time. It identifies appropriate areas for growth and development, often accompanied by supporting details such as types of land uses and appropriate densities. Future land use maps can be helpful tools to guide community officials when making decisions about development proposals. A clear future land use map can also set the stage for regulatory changes that support the stated policies of the comprehensive plan. Showing known hazard areas on the future land use map provides maximum transparency to a community’s citizens and decision-makers.

Future land use maps are typically either parcel-specific or character-based. Parcel-specific land use maps show the desirable types of land uses for specific detailed sites. These can be helpful for making future zoning and planning decisions, but they require upfront evaluation of specific areas that may not be possible as part of a broad, community-wide planning process. Character-based maps show conceptually which general areas, nodes, or corridors within a community are appropriate for various types of uses. They are less detailed than parcel-specific maps in describing specific uses and parcels; that allows for more flexibility to evaluate specific development proposals, but also provides less predictability.

It is important to ensure that future development patterns are consistent with known hazard areas. The goal usually is not to restrict all development in hazard areas, but rather to use the best available data to determine the severity of the risk, mitigation requirements for development, and appropriate use of land within or near different hazard areas. For example, areas marked for “higher density residential development” should not overlap with floodplains, the wildland-urban interface, or areas with steep slopes. The future land use map can work in concert with an adopted hazard mitigation plan to ensure that the map promotes safe growth and reconciles any conflicts between development strategies and mitigation strategies.

However, including hazard areas on a future land use map can be challenging, both technically and practically. There are multiple variables and criteria typically reviewed to determine land development suitability.

• Adams County is an example of a community that has prepared a future land use map that explicitly addresses hazard risks. The Imagine Adams County Plan future land use overlays floodplains, the wildland-urban interface, and flammable gas hazard areas with future land use.

Address Hazards in Subarea Plans

Many communities prepare area-specific plans as a supplement to their jurisdiction-wide comprehensive plans. Subarea plans are geographically based and can be at various scales.  Subarea plans can include neighborhood plans, district plans, downtown plans, corridor plans, etc. Additionally, subarea plans are prepared for a variety of reasons. For example, a neighborhood plan might address housing issues, whereas a corridor plan might address mobility and economic development. Some area plans are created with the primary purpose of protecting environmentally-sensitive areas or to ensure appropriate hazard mitigation.

One such example is the Snake River Master Plan in Summit County. Adopted in 2010, the plan addresses flooding, avalanche hazards, steep slopes and other geologic hazards, wildfire, and hazardous materials transport in various sections. Even the affordable workforce housing element addresses wildfire hazard by stating that “development [in Keystone Gulch] should occur in a manner that to the extent reasonable: mitigates wildfire hazard…” (p. 36).

Appendix C in the Snake River Master Plan includes architectural and environmental design standards for the basin. The first goal in that appendix includes a policy that development shall generally seek to avoid slopes over 30 percent and 100-year floodplains. Maps that accompany the Snake River Master Plan also identify hazardous areas.

Because the comprehensive plan serves as the overarching policy guidance document for the community, there are several advantages for developing a plan that integrates hazard mitigation:

• The planning process typically involves a large audience, including the general public, interdepartmental staff, and other stakeholders from the community, allowing for increased public outreach and engagement on hazards.
• The process typically looks at future land uses to determine what is best for the community.
• Compliance with the comprehensive plan is often tied to approval criteria for development applications.
• It allows for integration of other policy documents that address hazards into one unified location.

• The comprehensive planning process is an all-encompassing document; therefore, communities have to strike a balance between including policies related to every topic, and maintaining a user-friendly and concise document.
• Comprehensive plans must be updated periodically to match shifts in policy direction related to specific elements, including hazard mitigation.