Protecting Sensitive Areas

The protection of environmentally sensitive areas is a high priority for many communities in Colorado. These areas offer a variety of benefits including beautiful scenery, opportunities for outdoor recreation, and plant and animal habitat, to name a few. Preserving sensitive areas often provides an additional benefit of protecting citizens and property against natural hazards. For example, protection of floodplains and the wildland urban interface not only safeguard natural resources; they also help reduce vulnerability to flood and wildfire hazards. Additionally, protecting natural areas helps meet other community goals such as providing for open space, parks and recreation, and habitat conservation.

Protecting sensitive areas can be accomplished through mandatory tools (such as zoning and subdivision regulations) or through incentive-based approaches (such as optional cluster subdivisions). Generally, protecting sensitive areas can be accomplished at various stages of the planning and entitlement process, including:

• Comprehensive plan. The plan identifies sensitive areas, hazard areas, and other locations that may be unsuitable or less suitable for development, and offers a chance to prioritize protection of such areas alongside other important community goals.
• Zoning district designation (and subsequent rezonings). A property’s zoning district designation identifies the land use activities that may take place on the site. Placing an initial zoning district designation on a site, and also subsequent rezonings of the property, are important opportunities for the community to reflect on and implement the comprehensive plan and other supporting plans and policies. If sensitive areas are marked for preservation, then their zoning classifications should only allow appropriate densities and uses. This step is critical for establishing limitations on development of sensitive areas.
• Subdivision. Once an area has been zoned, subdivision and development can occur. Although the zoning of a property prescribes the density and intensity of development, subdivision regulations provide an additional opportunity to ensure appropriate layout of individual sites, including lot and block design, street layout, and connections to surrounding areas. Planners can apply special standards to subdivisions of sensitive areas (such as allowing cluster development to preserve sensitive areas, or requiring multiple points of egress for emergency vehicles).
• Building permits. Once a development has been approved, the building permitting process is another chance for communities to make sure that sensitive areas are protected. Permits must demonstrate how a proposed building complies with zoning and subdivision regulations and any other applicable health and safety codes (such as building and fire).
• Maintenance. After a property is developed, communities and landowners have to be diligent to ensure that sensitive areas are continually protected from risk to hazards. For example, maintaining defensible space for a home in the wildland-urban interface means continuing to prune trees and remove brush to prevent build-up of fuels. This requires attention by landowners, but also from the community through ongoing enforcement of maintenance requirements.

​This section identifies some of the planning tools that can be used to protect hazard areas while still allowing for a landowner to make economically beneficial use of their land.