If there is one thing that every city wishes they had more of, its land. And right now, the City of Fort Collins probably wishes it had more of it.

The City of Fort Collins, like many of its counterparts, has a boundary, called the Growth Management Area,that they cannot grow past. In simple words, there is only so much land the city can develop and they are running out of it. 

Fort Collins will soon reach that limit. The land left inside those boundaries that has not been developed thus far is critically important, especially with the rapidly growing population of Fort Collins.

So is the land that has already been developed and that is why the City of Fort Collins has made major adjustments to its land use code for the first time in almost 25 years. 

The housing that Fort Collins currently has and the land they have left cannot keep up with projected population growth. Throw in current median home and rent prices, and it is the perfect storm.

Fort Collins recently updated their land use code, then repealed it after community concerns. There are those that oppose the land use code and there are those that support it. Both sides have valid reasons for their positions and it has been interesting to see this play out. 

Doing nothing is not an option. If Fort Collins continues on its current trajectory, we will likely not have enough housing and the housing will only get more expensive. It is similar in a lot of ways to other issues like climate change: Doing nothing is not an option but how do we as a community come to a compromise where every party feels they get a seat at the table and walks away feeling like they were actually heard and understood?

Land has always been a point of interest to me. It connects us to one another, whether we want it to or not. We also have a finite amount of it. What we have now is all we will ever have. 

I am from Henderson, Nevada where we are facing similar issues of a dwindling land supply and high home prices. The Las Vegas Valley has grown uncontrollably since before I was born and Southern Nevada is at the same inflection point as Fort Collins: There is a surge in population that looks like it won’t slow down for a while coupled with a limited housing supply and limited land to develop. 

I am curious to learn more about the land use code in Fort Collins, what the community thinks of it and how we can address this issue as a community. 

As I embark on this journey I hope that you will join me. 

Every week I will be providing an update in the form of a blog post, much like this one, to give updates on my findings and to give an inside look at the journalistic process. My process will always be transparent because we are in this together. 

Next week I will take a look at the timeline of the land use code to give you, the reader, a solid understanding of the situation before we take off and really dive in.