Case Study: Arapahoe County
Population: 608,310 (U.S. Census Bureau, 2015)
Location: Eastern metro-Denver and into the Eastern Plains
1041 Designations:
- Site Selection of Arterial Highways/Interchanges/Collector Highways
- Site Selection of Rapid/Mass Transit Facilities
- Site Selection/Construction of Major Facilities of a Public Utility
- Site Selection/Construction of Major New Domestic Water and Sewage Treatment Systems
- Major Extensions of Existing Domestic Water and Sewer Treatment Systems
- Site Selection/Development of Solid Waste Disposal Sites
- Site Selection/Development of New Communities
- Site Selection of Airports
Year of 1041 Adoption: 2004; Amended 2006
Number of Permits Approved Since 2004: 6-12
1041 Story
Arapahoe County is the third most populated county in Colorado with a mix of urban, suburban, and rural elements. As a part of the metro-Denver region, Arapahoe County faces a wide array of development pressures and leading up to 2004, bigger developments started appearing in the County.
The County needed more tools to address these new developments and regulate growth, and adopted 1041 Regulations because of their depth and flexibility. In 2006 they amended and readopted their 1041 Regulations, refining the language of the requirements for new water and sewage projects to more effectively address growth.
Developing and Implementing their 1041s
Development of Arapahoe County’s 1041s was done in-house. The county attorney’s office drafted and reviewed the regulations for compliance with the enabling legislation. The planning commission and county commissioners reviewed the regulations and, after the public hearing process, the Board of County Commissioners adopted them as a separate set of regulations under their Land Use Code.
Some Key Features of Arapahoe County’s 1041s
The County has a three-tiered permit review process: Finding of No Significant Impact (FONSI), minor permit review, and major permit review. If a FONSI determination is made, a permit is not required for the project to move forward (Arapahoe County, 2006). Major permit review is triggered when “a significant adverse impact” of two or more approval criteria, or a “severe adverse impact” of one approval criteria is likely (Arapahoe County, 2006, p. 12).
The County drafted their 1041s to require multiple different documents from applicants. All applications, regardless of the type of development, require documentation addressing compliance with all applicable regional water quality management plans, an environmental impact analysis, a traffic
impact analysis, a socio-economic impact study, and engineering studies (Arapahoe County, 2006), amongst other broad requirements. Additional application requirements are also outlined for each designated activity of interest (Arapahoe County, 2006). Similarly, for a permit to be issued, the project must comport with both “General Approval Criteria” (Arapahoe County, 2006, p. 28-30), and additional criteria established for each designated activity of interest (Arapahoe County, 2006).
Effectiveness of the 1041s for Regulating Development
Arapahoe County needed more tools to effectively address its growth. The County’s regulations are effective because they are straight-forward and clearly written, and because the county can ask more questions and get more answers from developers at the outset of a project.
Advice | Tips | Strategies for Adopting 1041s from Arapahoe County
All local governments should adopt 1041s. 1041s give a planning agency the authority to get information from developers that other regulatory tools do not. The regulations are flexible and adaptable, allowing for as much or as little regulation as is needed.
Takeaways
When a community is facing wide ranging development pressures, 1041s provide a layer of control and
protection over development that are not offered in other regulations. Arapahoe County exercises its
control, in part, by requiring the submission of documents and studies that they are not otherwise
necessarily authorized to require.