Liz Copan / ecopan@summitdaily.com
FRISCO — Frisco Town Council officially adopted the 2019 Frisco Community Plan at its meeting last week, setting a broad framework for town officials to outline policy priorities, community values and strategies to implement the plan.
The town has been working on updating its community plan — as is required by state and town statutes — for more than a year beginning with a July 2018 kickoff meeting, which brought more than 300 community members to the Adventure Park Day Lodge to voice their visions for Frisco’s future. Since then, the town has engaged in a fairly extensive public outreach process, including a number of work sessions and open houses aimed at eliciting as much community feedback as possible.
On Aug. 13, following a final public open house and planning commission review in July, the Town Council unanimously voted to adopt the document.
The plan dives into a detailed look at the town’s policy framework split into six guiding principles:
- Inclusive community
- Thriving economy
- Quality core services
- Mobility
- Vibrant recreation
- Sustainable environment
The plan update also provides insight into how the town can deal with imminent growth in the community along with an action plan that lists specific short- and long-term goals and strategies to accomplish them.
“In anticipation of this, there were a lot of conversations about how this was going to be applied, and watching the process come together, it’s exciting to be a part of it,” Councilman Dan Fallon said. “This is going to be a great document to help guide policy making. I really love the way it came out and the way it was structured. I think it’s going to resonate throughout.”
Inclusive community
Maintaining an inclusive community, the first guiding principle outlined in the community plan, largely revolves around holding on to the community’s character as the town continues to grow and diversify, including reinforcing Main Street’s position as the focal point of the community and efforts to preserve and enhance the town’s historic resources.
Perhaps the biggest pieces of the principle are protecting the livability of residential neighborhoods and promoting a diversity of housing options. The plan outlines broad goals for both, including creating an appropriate balance of full-time residents with second-home owners and short-term rentals, developing a variety of housing types and working with partners to expand the reach of Frisco’s workforce housing.
Thriving economy
The economy is the next subject breached in the plan, as the town considers how best to support year-round opportunities, become more resistant to economic downturns and promote incremental changes to help preserve the town’s character.
To that end, the plan details a desire for Frisco to remain the region’s hub for year-round commercial and service industries, creating an environment that encourages small, local businesses to expand, and continuing to attract and retain businesses that help with the town’s tourism revenue.
Quality core services
Quality core services largely touches on maintaining and improving public infrastructure in regard to everything from child care to public safety.
The goal notes improving infrastructure such as roads, sidewalks and municipal utilities as keys to the plan, along with a supporting private sector investment in telecommunications to improve network reliability. The goal also includes providing more opportunities for residents and local businesses to engage with town staff on important community decisions and continuing to build relationships with nonprofits in the area.
Mobility
Given that the previous section of the plan deals with infrastructure components like roads, the mobility section deals more with promoting a multimodal transportation system and encouraging residents to use their cars less.
The plan calls for policies to prioritize bike and pedestrian options by improving year-round connections between neighborhoods and commercial areas using the town’s trails and county recpath system. The section also explores how the town can take on a more active roll in planning and design for future improvements to Colorado Highway 9 and Interstate 70 as well as efforts collaborate with local partners to improve operations of public transit in town.
Vibrant recreation
It’s no secret that one of the primary draws to Frisco is its recreational amenities — everything from the trail system and parks to the newly upgraded marina — and maintaining and enhancing those amenities is one of the town’s main focuses.
The plan touches on this in a number of ways, primarily in continuing to invest in existing resources to adapt to changing community needs and diversifying the recreational opportunities available. But the plan also calls for new town-run programs to encourage residents to get out and live healthy lifestyles.
Sustainable environment
The final guiding principle identified in the plan is to become more sustainable and act as a leader in the region combat and adapt to the impacts of climate change.
The plan outlines a variety of initiatives in the realm of environmentalism, including the implementation of the town’s Climate Action Plan, expanded waste reduction and recycling efforts, and further educational efforts for residents, businesses and visitors. The plan also addresses continued collaboration with regional partners to assure the town is resilient to potential disasters like a wildfire and developing strategies to reduce wildlife conflicts with humans in the area.
In addition to the guiding principles, which will serve as the driving force behind the Community Plan, the document also goes on to provide an outline of the town’s growth framework — touching on topics like future land use and infill opportunities — along with an action plan that provides specific strategies for implementing sections of the plan.
But as the community continues to evolve, the town is hoping the plan will remain dynamic and able to evolve along side it.
“It’s not something that sits on a shelf,” Frisco community development director Joyce Allgaier said. “The statute requires us to amend it every five years, but there’s no reason we can’t make changes to it before then. We’d like to keep it alive in that way. I think it’s a product we can be proud of and that really reflects the community.”
2019 Frisco Community Plan