Thank you to everyone who completed the online survey and shared feedback on the four key topics presented at our recent open house events. If you’d like to view the survey results, they’re available here under the Documents section (sidebar).

Over the spring and summer the Land Use Code team has been hard at work incorporating your feedback from open houses, focus groups and stakeholder meetings. We’re now drafting updates to the Land Use Code based on the project’s four guiding principles—and we’re excited to share a first draft with you soon! Keep an eye out for it in the coming weeks.

Focus Groups: Second Round Recap

This spring marked the completion of our second and final round of focus groups. These small-group sessions offered valuable, in-depth insights from stakeholders who work regularly with the Land Use Code. Their feedback is helping us identify specific areas for improvement.

The summary report from the second round is available here under the Documents section (sidebar).

City Council Work Session Update

On Tuesday, July 8, staff presented the latest project updates to City Council during a Work Session. If you’re interested in how your feedback is already shaping the discussion, you can view the recording below:

Watch the City Council Work Session

The presentation slides shared with Council are also available on the project website under Documents.

The summary report from April's open house events is now available online on our project website! If you weren’t able to attend—or just want a refresher—you can check out the full recap of what we shared and what we heard.

Still haven’t taken the survey? There’s still time!

For those who weren’t able to join us at April's open house events, we’d still love to hear from you! You can take this survey on the project website to answer the same questions we asked at the open house events. The survey is still open and only takes a few minutes to complete.

All open house materials remain available on the project website, so you can catch up and participate whenever it’s convenient for you.

Focus Group Recap

We've also completed the first round of focus groups earlier this year. These small-group discussions provided valuable insights into how the current Land Use Code is working—and where improvements are needed.

The focus group summary report is now available on the project website.

City Council Work Session

We also recently presented this project at a City Council Work Session. If you’re interested in seeing how community feedback is already informing the conversation, you can view the recording and materials here:

City Council Work Session Video Recording

Your voice matters—thank you for being part of this important conversation!

Join the City’s Land Use Code team for a chance to provide valuable feedback on the draft direction of the current Land Use Code and help shape its future. Two upcoming Open Houses, one virtual and one in-person, will focus on gathering community input on four key topics that could lead to better outcomes for our city – giving you an opportunity to ask questions and share your thoughts before the language of the Land Use Code is drafted for public review.

During each Open House, we will discuss the following four topics:

Event details:

Additional Information:

We look forward to your participation in shaping the future of our commercial corridors and centers!

Fall Community Engagement Recap

Thank you to everyone who shared feedback with us this fall about the future of our commercial corridors and centers! Your feedback and engagement are crucial to ensuring these Land Use Code updates reflect the priorities of our residents and businesses.

In October six neighborhood visits were held, engaging over 50 residents across all six City Council districts to discuss key issues like accessibility, walkability and zoning. Participants shared feedback on the strengths and challenges of local commercial spaces, highlighting a preference for more pedestrian-friendly designs, mixed-use development and improved safety features. Our webpage’s interactive online map also revealed strong community support for reducing car-centric infrastructure and increasing connectivity for cyclists and pedestrians.

A business engagement event was held in partnership with the Chamber of Commerce to discuss how local businesses can contribute to shaping the Land Use Code updates, with 35 business leaders participating.

The Community Forum held on Nov. 18 at Northside Aztlan Community Center was a successful conclusion to the fall engagement efforts for this project. 70 people attended the forum, where they had the opportunity to learn more about the project and hear a summary of the feedback collected so far through online engagement and neighborhood visits. This forum served as the culmination of a series of public events designed to engage the community at different levels and provide multiple ways for community members to share their thoughts.

New Guiding Principles

The guiding principles for The Future of Commercial Corridors and Centers: Land Use Code Updates reflect key priorities for shaping the future of Fort Collins' commercial and residential development moving forward, ensuring they align with community needs and support sustainable growth. Following a November Work Session with City Council, the Guiding Principles were refined based on Council feedback:

Draft Guiding Principle: Enable more housing and mixed-use buildings, especially along roads with frequent bus service. To address this principle, potential updates to the Land Use Code include evaluating permitted uses and intensities near transit, considering whether the allowed uses in these areas promote or hinder mixed-use development, and reviewing process requirements to understand timing and barriers to achieving the intended outcomes. Additionally, analyzing various parking requirement scenarios and their impact on the development of mixed-use projects will be considered.

Draft Guiding Principle: Create resilient commercial and employment centers that are adaptable to future needs. Potential updates to the Land Use Code for this guiding principle include examining the required ratios of primary employment uses versus secondary supporting uses (such as residential, retail, and childcare). There will also be an examination of any barriers to mixed-use development within the Employment and Harmony Corridor zones, including process-based, form-based, or other code-related impediments.

Draft Guiding Principle: Create clearer building and site design standards that promote transit use, walking, and rolling along roads with frequent bus service. To support this principle, potential Land Use Code updates include exploring and developing form-based standards for non-residential structures. Additionally, developing standards that focus on public realm, pedestrian, and multimodal site design and orientation will be considered. There will also be an analysis of multimodal connectivity standards to ensure connectivity to public infrastructure such as transit, bike lanes, and pedestrian walkways.

Draft Guiding Principle: Improve predictability of the Land Use Code, especially to support small business owners. Potential updates to address this guiding principle include revising the change-of-use process for existing sites and buildings. Strategies will also be explored to help ensure that sites are brought up to modern standards over time without discouraging new business formation.

What’s Next

Following this initial period of public engagement, this project will now move into focus group conversations to gather very specific feedback on technical aspects of the Land Use Code and begin to shape actual changes to recommend to the City’s Land Use Code for commercial zones as the output of this project. By Spring 2025, a Community Engagement Info Session will be held to engage the community in the initial draft of recommendations from the project’s focus groups.

The following is an illustration of the remainder of this project’s timeline: