JCOS Master Plan 2013

Jefferson County Open Space updates their Master Plan every five years. The last Master Plan was adopted in 2008, see Open Space Master Plans.

The process for the 2013 update started with a series of public meetings in May at which time comments from the public were solicited. June 6, at the OSAC retreat, staff presented philosophy that was being used to develop the master plan. This philosophy was for the plan to be brief and it would cover all four divisions (Fairgrounds, Boettcher Mansion, CSU Extension, and Open Space) within the Parks Department. A number of OSAC members expressed concern that the missions of the four divisions were different enough that it would be difficult to write a statement that was meaningful. Good points were that metrics were included for Open Space objectives in the next five years.

Between June 6 and the August 1 OSAC meeting, staff decided to develop a separate master plan for Open Space. A brief outline of a Master Plan was presented at the OSAC meeting. Again a number of the OSAC members expressed concern that the outlined plan did not focus on the main roles of open space, but on social issues.

An expanded draft Master Plan was posted on the web August 8 see http://www.planjeffco.org/open-spaceoversight_ open-space-master-plans.html. Public meetings were held during the weeks of August 19 and 26. Comments on the plan were being received by Open Space through September 6. PLAN Jeffco submitted a long series of comments, feeling that the draft plan did not include many items that should be in a comprehensive master plan includes information that was not shown to be relevant to the plan. It is expected that additional information will be provided to OSAC prior to their September 19 meeting. If available, we will post this information on planjeffco.org under Open Space Involvement. This will be the regular September meeting. If there is another draft that will be open for public comment after September 19, we will post notice on planjeffco.org under Open Space Involvement.