Chaffee County is launching the creation of its County-centered Sustainable Development Plan.

The Sustainable Development Plan (SDP) will establish strategies and tactics through which the County will fulfill both short-term and long-range sustainability commitments and related deliverables as outlined in the 2020 Chaffee County Comprehensive Plan. It will also incorporate key recommendations and prioritized actions from other local needs assessments and advisory plans.

The Sustainable Development Plan will ultimately reflect the substantial public input and major values-driven themes that elevated measurable sustainability efforts and identified the numerous targeted actions that were included within the 2020 Comprehensive Plan.

In preparation to formally frame up the Sustainable Development Plan, County administrative staff have been working with the Greater Arkansas River Nature Association(GARNA) to investigate the sustainability-focused aspects of the 2020 Comprehensive Plan. These adopted goals will form the starting scope for the County’s SDP. County staff
have also been working with GARNA to finalize the regional recycling needs assessment and update the County waste diversion plan, which will also help inform the SDP scope.

The County is facilitating a planning session on October 1st to line out the framework through which the SDP will be developed and enacted and to establish the Plan’s initial focus areas. These preliminary areas are anticipated to include water, waste, energy, transportation, building/development, food systems, natural environment/lands, community resilience and social impacts.

The County Plan will also draw heavily on the work already invested into recent local guiding documents including the Salida Climate Action Plan, Chaffee Clean Energy Plan, and Chaffee County Waste Diversion Plan and from regional and state plans, while emphasizing county-wide actions that are complementary to and aligned with current and future strategies, community programs, and policy opportunities.

Following the initial planning meeting, the County will share out opportunities for input and involvement, including workgroups for each Plan topic that will drive how the SDP scope and actionable goals are built out.

Interested individuals can get involved by signing up for the County Sustainable Development Plan distribution list at
https://bit.ly/ChaffeeSustainabilityPlan.