El Paso County, Colorado, Expands Using Place-Based Planning and Geospatial Technology

Approximately 750,000 people call El Paso County, Colorado, home. Spanning over 2,100 square miles, the county is diverse, with urban neighborhoods, agricultural lands, rural communities, military installations, natural landscapes, and mountain ranges. This makes it one of the most desirable places to live in the United States. El Paso is growing—and fast. The population is expected to increase by 33 percent (or 250,000 people) in the next 30 years. Managing this growth while overcoming community fears of change and ensuring that valued natural resources remain intact for a prosperous future is no easy task for decision-makers.

For growth management, the Your El Paso Master Plan was created and led by Esri partner Houseal Lavigne. It provides guidance to protect and enhance valued resources. This place-based approach focuses on places within the community rather than individual land use. The plan also coordinates essential elements that are reflective of community values, priorities, and livability. In short it is an expression of the community and provides decision-makers with a framework for new projects and policies.

The planning team behind Your El Paso Master Plan was recognized in 2022 with a Colorado APA Merit Award for General Planning Project. The team's work serves as an innovative and repeatable example of a responsive and data-driven process. Built on a foundation of what residents and stakeholders value most, the plan embraces the integrity of the natural environment and the overall character and quality of life that define the area they call home. For the first time, the plan provides El Paso County with a vision and clear direction for future growth.

The team's approaches and techniques have applicability in nearly all planning projects. How the El Paso County plan was developed serves as a model for other growing regions in the US that are looking to balance unprecedented growth and the desire to protect the natural environment and sense of place.

For planners, engaging El Paso's largely dispersed population for input on the vision and future of the county was a challenging process. Initial community outreach captured information about existing issues and opportunities within the county. Further community engagement helped identify what members felt was the direction of the county's future and to provide feedback regarding the location and character of future place types—e.g., rural, commercial, residential, mountain interface and military. Using ArcGIS Survey123, planning staff could obtain additional feedback from the community as the plan was developed and, later, at critical junctions.

Another way the planning team engaged county residents was through a transparent open-data site. Planning staff used ArcGIS Hub to deploy the official project website in coordination with other map outreach and engagement applications. Thousands of residents and stakeholders used the hub site as an online one-stop shop for all things pertaining to the Your El Paso Master Plan. The site was critical to engaging the community every step of the way. From providing educational and promotional materials to obtaining feedback during development, as well as posting calendars and calls for participation, the Hub approach inspired civic inclusion. Residents had multiple opportunities and ways to be informed of and respond to the plan. Upon adoption, the comprehensive plan was published online as an ArcGIS StoryMaps story, providing an accessible, easy-to-understand interactive plan experience. 

Accurate information was essential for the planning team to establish a starting point. Additionally, the team needed to collect input from thousands of residents and the information that is more typically mapped and analyzed, like land use and environmental conditions.

To achieve this, the team behind the El Paso County comprehensive plan utilized ArcGIS Pro, a single-desktop geographic information system (GIS) application, to analyze, map, visualize, and share county data. County data included owner and rental housing attainability, housing disparity, access to healthy food via transit, water supply and projected area-specific water demand, park service area analysis, and wildfire burn perimeter.

A comprehensive approach was applied to a range of data analyses to ensure that all the unique and varied conditions of the county were considered. By mapping and analyzing conditions with ArcGIS Pro, decision-makers were provided a geographically based plan that showed where and how to plan for 250,000 more people coming to the environmentally diverse region. This analysis of existing conditions, opportunities, and projections allowed the planning team to identify early on the areas designated for change and the areas anticipated to remain the same over the next two decades. This was an essential first step in mapping and the analytics that informed plan making.

For the planning team, a conservation mindset was at the forefront of the land-use and place type planning process. Staff used ArcGIS Pro to map key areas and areas of change by category. The team factored in variables such as environmental features, protected and managed lands, existing developed areas, areas likely to be annexed, military installations, proximity to infrastructure, and watersheds. With these maps, the planning team identified areas suitable and appropriate for new development.

Through this process, it became clear that 90 percent of the county's land would change little or not at all in the next 20 years. Planners designated only 10 percent of the county's land area for new or transitional development. This revelation helped win public support for the plan because environmentally valued areas and the rural character and lifestyle of the county were prioritized, protected, and enhanced. 

By adopting a place-based approach, the Your El Paso Master Plan consolidated a history of fragmented and often contradictory small area plans into a cohesive growth strategy for the entire county. This provided both greater flexibility and guidance while responding to changing market conditions. By focusing on a place-based approach, rather than a traditional land-use approach to comprehensive planning, the county created a place-based typology of land-use character areas.

For example, El Paso County's place-based approaches to residential growth focused on places such as rural areas and urban neighborhoods, rather than on traditional single-family and multifamily residential land uses. In total, 12 place types were created to guide county growth and development while safeguarding the natural environment. Using ArcGIS Pro, these distinct place types were mapped over the expansive planning area to identify appropriate development areas and areas of conservation.

The planning team knew that 3D modeling software could be a powerful tool for creating immersive and interactive environments that effectively communicated data and concepts. Team members utilized ArcGIS CityEngine to procedurally model the 12 distinct place types that composed the heart of the Your El Paso Master Plan. The highly detailed 3D CityEngine models conveyed the unique characteristics of each place type while also demonstrating the undeniable interconnection of all areas of the county.

Each place type was presented in 3D, and all 12 were shared in a continuous transect to better demonstrate the adjacency and transition from one place type to another across the full spectrum of the vast county. This modern approach made efforts to communicate and analyze the proposed changes easier for all residents, administrators, and stakeholders involved.

"Through the use of ArcGIS, the county and Houseal Lavigne were able to strike a balance between the need to plan for significant growth and the desire to protect and preserve those areas of the county that make it unique and a desirable place to live, work, and play," said Craig Dossey, former executive director of the El Paso County Planning and Community Development Department.

"The graphical depictions created for each place type not only noticeably enhanced the public's engagement in the planning process, but [they] also resonated with our elected and appointed officials by being much more informative and real than pages of text full of technical planning concepts," added Dossey.

The planning team behind Your El Paso Master Plan was recognized in 2022 with a Colorado APA Merit Award for General Planning Project. The team's work serves as an innovative and repeatable example of a responsive and data-driven process. Built on a foundation of what residents and stakeholders value most, the plan embraces the integrity of the natural environment and the overall character and quality of life that define the area they call home. For the first time, the plan provides El Paso County with a vision and clear direction for future growth.

The team's approaches and techniques have applicability in nearly all planning projects. How the El Paso County plan was developed serves as a model for other growing regions in the US that are looking to balance unprecedented growth and the desire to protect the natural environment and sense of place.