How Arvada Plans for the Next 20 Years

Long-range planner Paul Donegan joins us to discuss how Arvada’s comprehensive plan update will shape the next 20 years, from housing and transportation to parks, water, and neighborhood quality of life. Paul explains how the city turns a shared vision into real projects, why this update takes 18 to 20 months, and how community members can weigh in early and often. 

Included in this episode: 

• What a comprehensive plan is and why it matters 
• Why Arvada updates the plan on a regular cycle and what has changed since 2014 
• The difference between the Comprehensive Plan and the Land Development Code and zoning 
• Real examples of comprehensive planning outcomes like G Line access and park walkability goals 
• Ways to join the process through the advisory group, events, surveys, meetings, and email updates 
• The four-phase timeline, scenario analysis, and how the final plan gets adopted 
• Misconceptions we hear most, including zoning confusion and requests for specific retailers 
• Quick trivia on Arvada planning history and build-out projections 
  
  

You can stay in touch with us a number of different ways using the link in the top of the show notes to text us. You can also email us at podcast at Arvada.org. 

News and events: 

• The City’s Volunteer Appreciation Event is Saturday, May 16 from 10 a.m. to noon at Allen House Pavilion. To learn more, visit arvadaco.gov/volunteer and sign up for our volunteer email list. 
• The Ralston Central Splash Pad is set to open Memorial Day weekend, Saturday, May 23. The Splash Pad uses recycled water, like a swimming pool, so the operating hours will not be impacted by the City’s drought restrictions. However, the Olde Town Fountain does not use recycled water – it uses treated water – therefore it will only be on during special events this summer, such as the Farmer’s Market and Second Saturdays, while Stage 1 restrictions are in place. 
• The second annual Arvada Summerfest is coming up on Saturday, June 6 from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. at Ralston Park Addition, just north of Arvada West High School. This is a community-driven event featuring live music, fundraising, kids activities and more. Like all the City festivals, it’s free to attend. Learn more at arvadaco.gov/summerfest. 
• The annual Arvada Kids Fishing Contest is coming up on Saturday, June 13 from 7 to 11 a.m. at Arvada-Blunn Reservoir. The event is free and open to kids age 14 and younger, along with their families. The fishing contest includes prizes for each age division, along with a free lunch and raffle. Learn more at arvadaco.gov/fishing-contest. 
• Next bulky item drop off event is Saturday, June 6 from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the North Area Athletic Complex (NAAC). Be sure to bring proof of residency and check the list of acceptable items on our website arvadaco.gov/bulkyitems

Visit us at arvadaco.gov/podcast or email us at podcast@arvada.org.

Transcript

Welcome And Guest Introduction

SPEAKER_01 0:01

Hello and welcome to Inside Arvada, the official podcast of the City of Arvada. I'm Sean Starr, one of your hosts. Thank you so much for tuning in to today's episode. We'll be talking about Arvada's comprehensive plan update with senior long-range planner Paul Donnegan. Paul is the city's project manager on the comp plan update. He's been with the city for seven months now after previously serving as a project manager for the City of Denver's downtown area plan update. And before that, he worked for almost a decade as a consultant on planning and zoning projects with communities in Colorado throughout the Mountain West. As always, I'm joined by my co-host Katie Patterson. Hi, Katie.

Katie 0:35

Hey, Sean. Yeah. And hi, Paul. Thanks for joining us.

SPEAKER_01 0:38

Yeah, thanks for having me.

Katie 0:39

So start us off, just tell us a little bit about what you do here at the city.

SPEAKER_02 0:43

Yeah, I am a long-range planner. So we've got a whole planning department here at the city, but we have a small but mighty two-person long-range team. And our job is really to think about what Arvada needs to be considering in terms of how we're thinking about the next five, 10, 20, longer even than that year, so that we're really putting in place plans that consider the future needs of the community. How will we grow? How will we change, and making sure that we're doing that wisely.

Katie 1:13

Yeah. And as the info infrastructure nerd of the group, I think, or at least I know I am, you may be as well. I know we just had Kelly on to talk about transportation system plan, also like a long-range plan, essentially. Like these things are so connected. And so excited to dig into this conversation and learn more about the comp plan.

SPEAKER_01 1:32

Awesome. And so the city loves a good plan. We've had guests on talking transportation system plan, climate action and sustainability plan, among others. But the comprehensive plan is kind of the plan of all plans, right? So to help folks understand a little bit more about what a comprehensive plan is.

SPEAKER_02 1:48

Yeah, that's a great question. It is, I think, something that can get can get confusing because it's also a weird word, comprehensive. What does that all mean? So the comprehensive plan, it is really asking the primarily the main question, which is what do we want our VATA to be like in 20 years from now? Just to pick a number. And then we really also use the plan to start answering that question. And it's really high-level, long range thinking about, you know, how do we get to that vision? We just talked about, you know, like this is what we want our VAT to be like in 20 years. Well, how do we get there? And we start laying out the groundwork for how we get there. It is comprehensive, so it you know, it touches on a lot of topics: housing and growth, obviously, transportation, parks, recreation, infrastructure, water, obviously a huge topic right now with the lack of snow that we all had this last year. Um so it starts thinking about like, all right, if we're expecting, you know, a certain number of people to move to Arvada in the next 20 years, where should they live? How will they get around town? Do we have the infrastructure to serve them? Do we have the parks nearby that will give them a great quality of life? Um, and I think that's a big part of that. You mean Arvada really does have a great quality of life. And so we want to make sure that as we're growing and changing, we're preserving all the great things that make Arvada special.

Why Arvada Updates The Plan

SPEAKER_01 3:09

Aaron Powell And this is a planned update, correctly. We do it about every 10 years. It's not that we just wanted to do certain projects, and so we're like, oh, let's get a comp plan in there to fit what we want to do. No, this is kind of a regular scheduled update. Aaron Powell Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 3:20

Yeah. And so we do most cities do at least we actually Arvada checks in on the comprehensive plan every year and provides an update of like what did we accomplish um from our plan this last year? We've gotten to the point now that we have accomplished a lot of the things that were set out in the previous plan, which was updated in 2014. But honestly, it really goes back to a plan from 2005. And so we're kind of at this point where, you know, we think enough change has happened in Arvada that we do want to sort of like come at this with like a new perspective, open eyes, no assumptions, um, and really like chat with everyone in the community and get a clear idea of their vision. And I think that that's a little bit different than you know, a pure update where we might just go in and be like, all right, does this still check out? Is this policy or goal still relevant? And honestly, I would imagine some of them will be, you know, like there's some things that are in the plan that just say, hey, we need to use water more wisely. And I think that will continue to be something that we'll I would imagine people will care about. But but yeah, I think that we're we're open to new and different ideas about what the future of our looks like.

Comp Plan Versus Zoning Code

Katie 4:30

Aaron Powell And you brought up the word policy there. And so I wanted to ask that the city also has a land development code. So when we're talking about the comp plan, we're really talking about kind of what you said about goals, visions, big picture. And then when it comes to policy or regulations, that's a little bit more land development code. Can you explain the difference? What's the land development code?

SPEAKER_02 4:53

Yeah, that is a great question. So the comprehensive plan and the even the land use portion of the comprehensive plan, it is about establishing that community vision. We do kind of want to really have this sort of like common idea about what we're trying to achieve as a community. And that's really helpful to like to ground everything we do. But we also need to have the tools to implement that vision. And the land development code and the zoning map, if you've heard of zoning, land development code, those are kind of interchangeable in our in our world. Those are really tools that sort of say, hey, the plan says we want neighborhoods that are like this. We want, you know, development to achieve these benefits for the community. The code really gets into the nitty-gritty of that. And so like I think a good example, or I guess I maybe a fun anecdote, would be, you know, if we're we're thinking about, you know, we're making, we're making a meal, you know, for Arvada, the cookbook in general, that's that's our comprehensive plan. That's we're we're picking which cookbook we want to go with. And then we, in order to like make the meal, we we need to follow some detailed recipes. You know, we need to make sure it's a teaspoon of cayenne, not a tablespoon. You know, so we need to like get those details right. And that's really where the land development code and the zoning map get into the details and the specifics. Um and and maybe another good example that you know if if we have a goal or a policy in the plan that says, hey, we want our neighborhoods to be really accessible to people with disabilities, we want everyone to be able to get around the neighborhood easily, that that would be a great policy or goal. And then the land development code says, hey, when development comes in or when the city gets grant funding or budget to dedicate towards this, let's focus on widening sidewalks and improving crossings. And so that's kind of where the details come in.

What The 2014 Plan Delivered

SPEAKER_01 6:47

Great. And then so kind of as you mentioned, the last major comprehensive plan update was in 2014. I think we did some updates along the way, smile, small updates here and there, but 2014 was kind of like the last major comp plan update. So for folks to kind of understand kind of how a comp plan will play out in actuality and the visions will turn turn into reality. Are there some examples from that 2014 comp plan update that have come to fruition over the past decade plus here in Narvada? Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 7:12

There's a lot, yeah. As I mentioned earlier, we've substantively implemented a lot of that 2014 comp plan. And it's always hard to remember, you know, what was life like in 2014? Well, it I thought it was interesting that the G-line, which now feels like a bit of a mainstay in terms of like, that's part of how Arvada works and functions, wasn't open until 2019. And so a lot of the work that was happening on that 2014 comp plan was was really sort of like, all right, this this train line is coming. We knew it was happening, the work had been done to plan for it. So we were starting to think about in the plan how do we improve connections to two stations so that people can can get there, whether they're parking or driving and parking, whether they're walking, whether they're biking, we need to start thinking about that now. So the plan really helped achieve that. And even some policy things that are happening now, where I mean, we see scooters around town, those are really dedicated to like help connect people that last distance from the transit station to their house or the or where they work or where they're planning on shopping to help build those connections.

Katie 8:19

It all is kind of involved in in updating the comp plan. Even taking that example, like we'll kind of see, you know, this vision has started to come to life in this one area. We'll start to kind of continue that vision. What do we want it look like going forward? But but what's what all are we gonna do here in the next few years?

SPEAKER_02 8:39

Yeah, that's a great question. Like I said before, I mean, we really want to like come at this project without assumptions about what the community wants. We want to have a lot of conversations with folks to understand their needs, their desires, their priorities. That'll be a big part of this process. We'll be doing a lot of community engagement around that. Um but yeah, I think we don't know exactly what that's gonna look like because we're not entering with assumptions. And so there may not be a ton of change from the current plan. You know, like there may be things in the current plan that we're like, wow, like that is still true for Arvada. Arvada still wants to have a high quality of life and lots of park access. Let's not change that. But there may be some things that we hear from people where they're like, hey, like it's getting harder to move around in this part of town. Like, what can we think about in terms of helping people move more efficiently through this area? So I it may not change in some ways, it may change in other ways. And I think that that'll be part of this process, which I don't think I've mentioned. It's like an 18 to 20 month process. So the goal is to have lots of opportunities for people to be engaged between now and the fall of 2027. So, you know, not the train hasn't fully left the station at this point. We're we're kicking this project off. Um, and so, you know, as as as listeners are are are tuning in, it's really a great opportunity to start paying attention and there will be opportunities to get involved throughout the process.

Katie 10:09

I can see how like there's these shared values too, right, at the base of this that are like we all love the outdoors and being in nature and parks and all of those things. And how do those come to those visions not changing, right? That's kind of like a core tenant, probably most people agree with. And then we want to be able to get where we want to go safely, similarly. But what does that look like to someone who's in a wheelchair, right? Like how do we vision for that too? And like maybe where the goal's always been the same, how do we like further elevate for who? And I know you all have been doing some youth engagement already, too. And that's another audience that I think is really exciting one to incorporate from the planning perspective, knowing they'll be the folks who live here 10, 20, 30 years from now.

SPEAKER_02 10:54

Totally. Yeah. No, I think that's that's a great point. I think and that sort of is the benefit of doing these updates or re-looking at the plan periodically. We can look back at sort of what was done in the last plan. Like, were there different communities that didn't get involved, that didn't have their voices heard? Um and and so I think that's a a big point of emphasis for the city with this process. You know, we want the we want this process to be really accessible, transparent. It's really a trust-building exercise with you know, members of the community that have been here for a long time, that haven't been here that long, that were involved in the last plan, that weren't involved in the last plan. Maybe this is the first time they've heard of a comprehensive plan, which we've been sort of shortening to comp plan, because it's even even in its name, it's a little bit of a of a difficult thing to grasp. But yeah, I think that's a that's a great point. And I can talk a little bit more about the youth engagement stuff too, if you're interested.

How To Get Involved Now

SPEAKER_01 11:51

Share a little bit about kind of how folks can get involved, at least you know, initial stages right now about the community engagement aspect. There's a great webpage already stood up, arbataco.gov slash comp slash plan slash update. We can link that in the show notes, or you can just Google Arbata Comp plan update. You can see there. But there's initial opportunities right now to what join an advisory group to be part of the planning process.

SPEAKER_02 12:11

Yeah, that's right. We have an opportunity. We're accepting applications until May 15th for anyone that's interested in joining the community advisory group.

Katie 12:20

It's just days around the corner after we get on a quick.

SPEAKER_02 12:26

Pause the podcast, go to the website, return to the podcast, finish listening. But yeah, coming up soon. And we are, you know, it won it won't be we won't be able to like have everyone who applies be able to join. But we are really int interested and intentional about getting a diversity of voices in the room. We want to make sure that it's a group that isn't, you know, a bunch of, you know, yes people that are gonna say, yeah, everything the city does, we totally agree with, which we wouldn't get anyways if we tried because you know people have uh different uh different opinions, and and that's what is gonna make this plan successful, is we want different opinions, different ideas, different perspectives, life experiences, different parts of town to be represented. And so that'll be one one way that people can get involved. And because that's gonna be sort of a smaller group, it needs to, we need to be able to bounce ideas off of each other in this sort of like brainstorming environment with that group. There's going to be a ton of other ways that people can get involved. We're gonna be at events that are, you know, existing community events. We were at Kite Festival recently, we're gonna be at Summerfest, all these community events. You'll see a City of Arvada tent that will have some planners hanging out underneath there that'll be, you know, sometimes having activities or specific questions we'd like to hear. We'll be doing online surveys, we'll be doing public meetings, we'll be doing workshops, we're gonna be doing youth-focused activities, we're gonna be talking with seniors, we're gonna be I mean, I'm gonna run out of like things that we can do.

Katie 13:53

But as comprehensive as you can be able to engage the plan.

SPEAKER_02 13:58

And that's I think really essential. Like we don't wanna get to the end of the process and have a bunch of people show up and say, Well, you never heard about this. And so we're doing everything we can to get the word out. So you'll see updates in the Arvada report. And also on our website, you can sign up for our email list. Which I was gonna say, yep. Great, yeah. I totally forgot about that part. But yeah, and we promise not to spam you and in part because I don't want to like write tons of emails like constantly, but we're gonna be doing some like updates. So you can expect if you sign up on our website to get regular updates about what's going on anytime we have an opportunity coming up that we want people to know about to be involved, that we'll we'll we'll get the word out on that as best as we can.

Katie 14:40

Yeah, I think if you have a choice way of getting information from the city, whether it's the Arvada report, the Arvada News, which is our e-newsletter, our social media, the website directly, your newsletter directly, we'll I think it'll get well promoted when there's opportunities out there. I know the the comms team will be on top of it.

Sub-Area Plans And Other Master Plans

SPEAKER_01 14:59

Yes, yes, for sure. There's also sub-area plans that the city does. How are those related or maybe different from the comp plan?

SPEAKER_02 15:08

Yeah, that's great. There are sub-area plans. And so we have a lot of those around the G line transit stations, but there are some others as well. And those specifically came out from the need of like, all right, like we're gonna have this new piece of infrastructure. Um what should this area be like? Some of those areas, you know, were maybe industrial space or gravel pit or you know, like things that weren't in a parking lot, you know, things that weren't necessarily adding a lot of like activity and vibrancy to the city. And so we those those plans were part of that was sort of like, all right, like in our in our comprehensive plan, let's make a goal to like you know, set up these other smaller plans that are going to provide us even more detailed structure and and more opportunities for feedback, honestly. We with every plan, there's a lot of community engagement and gathering feedback that goes into it.

Katie 16:02

Do you anticipate and it may be hard to know at that this point, but that's okay. And that's okay if more sub-area plans might come out as a goal of this plan.

SPEAKER_02 16:10

Aaron Powell I don't know for sure, but I would imagine, yes. It's likely. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And I think that I mean we've already been talking with a lot of the other departments at the city. And I can you know provide an example too about, you know, like the last comp plan said we need a dedicated parks, trails, and open space plan. And we've already been talking with the the folks in vibrant communities and neighborhoods, um, which is our parks well, among other things, they they're Sean's gig.

Katie 16:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 16:41

Yeah, they focus on the park. So there'll be sort of this, I I think they're they're talking about doing an update to that plan as well. And that'll be part of this of sort of saying, like, hey, you know, like that plan needs to be updated. So I think we'll I would imagine there will be. There's usually something that comes out of the process where we hear from people like, cool, we love that you guys are thinking about the city overall, but this area, we need some like dedicated special thoughts on like what to do here.

SPEAKER_01 17:07

I think, yeah, the 2014 comp plan said, hey, you need a parks, trails, and open space master plan. And so then two years later, 2016, we have our first parks and up, you know, open space master plan. Now it's time to update that. But I think coming out of that first parks master plan was the the need to connect every resident within a 10-minute walk of a park. And I think because of the master plan, we went from like 90 percent to now we're like 96 percent. So there's kind of that planning in action.

SPEAKER_02 17:31

So yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:32

And then we're we're due for an update here that we just initially started kind of scoping that that would be coming the next, you know, 12 months of kind of setting forth that and calling out a consultant to do that and bring that on board, but the company will come first.

Katie 17:43

So that was a really great through line. I just need to point that out. Like that was just the best through line example of like that came out very naturally. Here's how it happened. Yeah, great example.

SPEAKER_02 17:54

And then, yeah, I mean, that's where we are now. And that is like such an amazing. I don't I don't uh the listeners may to the podcast may be like really familiar with Arvada, but like having worked in a lot of other communities, to have 96% of residents within a 10-minute walk of a park is incredible. What a cool achievement. And I feel like the the work is not done there, you know, but but it's it's really cool to see, you know, these plans, which you know, it's a document. So it, you know, it could be just ignored by folks. But the city of Arabada has done a really amazing job of like following up on the things that come out of the plan. And so hopefully that's something that listeners can take home as well. That like the things that we put in the plan, we intend to follow up on and we intend to implement. And you know, like it's it's not just an exercise. We're we're fundamentally doing this so that we can you know improve, improve the city, improve people's lives.

Timeline Phases And Growth Scenarios

SPEAKER_01 18:46

Aaron Powell Yeah, we call it our Bible kind of around the park shop there of like, all right, what does a master plan say? Because and it's always great to go back and it gives you a great just kind of quick overview if you're not familiar about just the entire system and all the amenities and insights that we have. And so kind of going back a little bit to the timeline. You mentioned 18 to 20 months, so we're just kind of at the beginning of that. If all goes well, kind of what are the major milestones and where's the finish line for the comprehensive plan?

SPEAKER_02 19:10

Yeah, that's great. We kind of have four phases and they're they're generally organized. Like our first phase that we're really kicking off now is kind of looking back in history of like what makes Arvada the way it is now? Like who are we as a city? And so a lot of that is gonna be probably less involved for the public. These first few months, like, you know, I want folks to know, you know, like as we're we're excited, we're starting the project. You may not hear from us, you know, with a great level of detail yet, because we want to look back at sort of like how has Arvada grown over time? What big decisions have been made in the past that have either improved or not improved Arvada? What can we learn from that? What are the existing conditions? And maybe that's maybe the second phase is looking at like, all right, who are we now? Like what's what's what is Arvada? Because it's different than what it was in the past. So it's always been changing, we'll always be changing because that's just how things work, for better or worse. And so that second phase will be reporting back to people, collecting more information from people about their her histories and experiences with Arvada and telling, you know, telling folks what we've learned from this this study. And then after that, and that probably is, you know, brings us into the summer, looking into the fall and into 2027, that's where the work kind of turns, and we start using all of that data and information and feedback and insight that we've gotten from the community, and we start uh planning, I guess, which is which is, you know, I I always say tell people that like, you know, it's an 18 to 20 month process. It's not because it takes that amount of time to write the policies and the goals, like that. We can do that like easy. We need that feedback. We need all the data and analysis that's gonna go into it. Like that just makes it so much better. And it it I think it lets folks know that we're we're doing our homework, we're not making this up as we go along. But yeah, I think as we as we head into 2027, that's where we start coming up with those sort of like plans. And we're actually gonna be doing some scenario analysis. So we're gonna build in some assumptions into a model that says, hey, if our VAT is gonna grow by this many people, where do those people live? How do they get around? How could we do it differently? We'll have, I think, two or three different scenarios that we can look at, and then we'll be bringing those scenarios to the community to say, like, which scenario do you like best? You know, which one do you think makes the most sense for our VAT? And there's gonna be pros and cons to everything. And that'll be that's where everything, you know, I think gets uh you know, tricky and and will be really valuable to have a lot of community feedback is we want to make sure that you know we're building consensus around that. We won't necessarily have agreement. We won't have a hundred percent of people say this is the best way to do it. But we want to have a consensus of like this way. Is going to be the best for Arvada. And that will be sort of our North Star. And then that final piece is sort of like implementation. How are we going to do it? What are the steps? What happens first? We need to do this before we can do this, even though that's where we want to go. And so that's kind of the phasing out of the process the process. Hopefully that's not too much detail. No, no, it's a marathon project.

SPEAKER_01 22:20

That's the beginning of the podcast, right? As much detail as you need. So that's the same thing.5 speed. Eventually it'll go to council, right? And they'll adopt it officially.

SPEAKER_02 22:32

Yeah, it is. It's adopted by the Planning Commission and then ratified by the city council. So there will be at the end as well. I mean, we're gonna have lots of public meetings and opportunities as well. But at the end as well, we want to get to a point where we're going into those adoption hearings and no one's surprised about it. We want to have the communication and the input be so so thorough that people are like, all right, like I don't love a hundred percent of it, but I like where this ended up and I understand where this ended up and why. And so we're gonna, you know, adopt it, and that's what makes it stick. Once it's adopted, and we're like, great. Like that that gives all the departments their marching orders. That's like, all right, get out there and implement. Yeah.

Common Misconceptions About Planning

Katie 23:17

Excited for this to get underway and see see all of this come to fruition. Yeah. Last question what I'm sure you have tons of misconceptions and questions that come up in the world of planning and development and more generally. And so what are a couple of questions or misconceptions we can address?

SPEAKER_02 23:37

Yeah, that's a great one. I think one we talked about a little bit already was that the comp plan is the same as the land development code or zoning. Um and just to reiterate, they're not, they're different. One's the high-level policy, the vision, what do we want to achieve? And then the other is really those specific tools of of how we in the nitty-gritty, in the regulations, get there. One says, and one being the comprehensive plan says, this is what we should have. This is what we should strive for. And then the land development code says, this shall happen. It is a little bit, you know, it's like it's the law of the land, like this is what happens. And whether it's you know, new development, a brand new neighborhood that's being that's being built, or it's an existing neighborhood and somebody is, you know, planning on redeveloping or expanding or changing the their use or their activity on their land, that's where those regulations come in that say, hey, we we met as a community about this. We spent 18 to 20 months, you know, like hopefully getting along really well, you know, but disagreeing kindly with each other. And we came up with this sort of consensus. And so now this these regulations are going to help us achieve that. And we're we can't bend the rules or or or or change our tune for this because this is something that our community has has buy-in for.

SPEAKER_01 24:58

And then also the comp plan is the purpose is not to say, hey, community, do you want a Trader Joe's or do you want a Costco or do you want X, a Y, or Z business? That's kind of not included in the Trevor Burrus.

SPEAKER_02 25:10

No, I mean that's a great one. That's I feel like that's something that comes up a lot. And and you know, I we we take that feedback in because it's like it's good to know that people want a Trader Joe's in their neighborhood or whatever. But I think that where the comp plan comes into play is that we we can't tell a business to go somewhere that's just like not within the city's abilities, um, any city, any city's abilities. So we can't say we're bringing Trader Joe's to Arvada. But what we can do and what the comp plan can do is provide this like direction that we say, hey, we need commercial development here. We need grocery stores generally here. What can we do to sort of like make those businesses successful? Um, and that might be that like, you know, well, no one lives in this part of town, or not enough people live in this part of town to support that. So we do want some more development here so that we can have these great services and amenities that that people would love to live near. So it's really about setting that up. And and similarly, like our economic development folks, they use the comprehensive plan and some of our sub-area plans to to work on their strategies for so they can recruit businesses. So they might they can't say, Trader Joes, you come here, this is the location we want you at, but they can say, hey, Trader Joe's, we would love for you to move to Arvada. We've got this not a commercial for Trader Joe's, unfortunately. But any crochet to Arvada. Yeah, exactly. But here's here's what Arvada brings to the table. Here's why we're a great community, here's our vision. This these are the places that we think that you would be successful. And we've done a lot of work and analysis to figure out like why that is. And that really makes those businesses that are that are new, that we're attracting, you know, be more successful. But we also use it for existing businesses as well. I don't want to throw throw throw out the existing businesses because they're they're central to this plan as well. We'll be meeting a lot with the Chamber of Commerce and the Business Improvement Districts and the Economic Development Authority, all these folks that are also looking out for the interests of our local businesses.

Comprehensive Plan Trivia

SPEAKER_01 27:20

Absolutely. All right. Well, we'll move on to our final segment here. We've got a little trivia. Oh. Comp plan-related trivia. So three questions. I think they're all multiple choice. So Appreciate that.

Katie 27:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:30

What decade was Arvada's first comprehensive plan? Was it the 1950s, the 60s, 70s, or 80s?

Katie 27:40

Um I'm going to say 60s.

SPEAKER_02 27:42

I was going to say sixties too, but I'll go with 50s just to mix it up. Yeah, 60s is uh good column.

Katie 27:50

It was largely built between the 60s and 80s. So that was my train of plan. That makes sense.

SPEAKER_01 27:54

According to the 2014 comp plan, this is about as specific as I could get as the city's first comprehensive plan dates back to the 60s. Okay. I mean, it's been about every 10 years that we've updated since. All right, question two. Speaking about the 2014 comp plan, it was divided into three main chapters. I'm not including like the intro and then like the final implementation chapter. Which of the following was not one of the chapters? Growth and economic development, multimodal transportation, vibrant community and neighborhoods, or safe community and sustainability. Which one was not included?

Katie 28:24

In the original, is that what you said?

SPEAKER_01 28:25

In the 2014.

Katie 28:26

Oh, 2014.

SPEAKER_01 28:27

Yeah.

Katie 28:27

Same again.

SPEAKER_01 28:29

Growth and economic development, multimodal transportation, vibrant community and neighborhoods, safe community and sustainability. I'm gonna go with safe community and sustainability.

Katie 28:42

Multimodal?

SPEAKER_01 28:44

Safe community and sustainability. Those were kind of folded into the vibrant community and neighborhoods chapter, along with housing, education, arts and culture, and utilities and public facilities. So the VCN portion of the 2014 comp plan was quite thorough. Yeah. All right. Final question. According to that 2014 plan, what year is Arvada expected to reach build-out, essentially when the city can't develop anymore according to the plan? Is it 2025, 2030, 2035, or 2050? 2050.

Katie 29:17

35?

SPEAKER_02 29:18

I was gonna say, I think we're close. Yeah, 2025. Maybe we've have we hit it? Not quite, 2035.

SPEAKER_01 29:25

According to the 2014 plan, if we look use all the land as its kind of zone to be used, 2035 based on like population expected growth, that's when we'll reach build-out, which would put our population at about 153,000 people. I think we're about like 120 right now. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 29:41

So we're we're getting there pretty close. So yeah. For sure. All right.

SPEAKER_01 29:45

Well great job on trivia. You won.

SPEAKER_02 29:49

Is there an award? Um too. Yeah. Okay. Yeah.

City Updates And Listener Contact

SPEAKER_01 29:53

Well, thank you so much, Paul. Like you said, lots of ways to get involved and appreciate you coming on the show. Yeah, thanks for having me. This was really great. As a reminder, we love hearing from our listeners. You can stay in touch with us a number of different ways using the link in the top of the show notes to text us. You can also email us at podcast at Arvada.org. We really like hearing feedback from our listeners about what you enjoy, what you'd like to see differently, ideas for episodes in the future, and even just kind of general questions about what's going on in the city. Speaking about what's going on, we have the city's volunteer appreciation event coming up on Saturday, May 16th from 10 a.m. to noon at Allen House Pavilion. To learn more, visit the city's volunteer page at arvataco.gov slash volunteer and sign up for the volunteer email list. The Ralston Central splash pad is set to open for the season on Memorial Day weekend, which means it'll start running on Saturday, May 23rd. The splash pad uses recycled water like a swimming pool, so it will remain operating during normal hours this summer, despite the drought restrictions currently going on. However, the Old Town Fountain will be limited to just special events because it uses treated water, meaning that we would waste a lot of water if we had to continually keep that on during normal hours. Second annual Arvada Summerfest is coming up on Saturday, June 6th from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. at Ralston Park Edition, just north of Arvada West High School. This is a community-driven event featuring live music, fundraising, kids' activities, and more. Like all city festivals, it's free to attend, and you can learn more at Arvadaco.gov slash summerfest.

Katie 31:24

And the annual Arvada Kids Fishing Contest is coming up on Saturday, June 13th from 7 a.m. to 11 a.m. at the Arvada Blend Reservoir. The event is free and open to kids aged 14 and younger along with their families. The fishing contest includes prizes for each age division, along with a free lunch and raffle. Learn more at Arvatico.gov slash fishing dash contest. And the next bulky item drop-off event is Saturday, June 6th from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the North Area Athletic Complex or the NAC. Be sure to bring a proof of residency and check the list of acceptable items on the website arvatico.gov slash bulky items. And they will be only allowing entry for westbound or left turn traffic off of 64th Parkway going forward. So there won't be a north or an eastbound entry as a note. And thank you again today to our guest, Paul Donnegan. Be sure to listen to our next episode with Festival's Commission member Brittany Medina talking about all things Summerfest, which is coming up on June 6th. Today's podcast was edited and recorded by Arvada Media Services.

SPEAKER_01 32:32

Today's fun fact is that Arvada's population has grown by about 100,000 people since the first comp plan in the 1960s, going from roughly 19,000 people to more than 120,000 people today.