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Community Plan

Supporting our core community values.

Adopted July 2025, the CP provides a roadmap to maintain, grow, and support Crested Butte's full-time community while preserving its character. It identifies zoning tools and incentives so the free market can play a larger role in producing housing and commercial spaces that serve the community. Key priorities include supporting diverse, community-serving housing and encouraging community-serving commercial spaces like local businesses, nonprofits, eateries, and gathering places. Now the Community Plan is being implemented through the zoning code update and complimentary 5-year housing and community spaces strategies.

Here's What' Happening Next: 

Zoning Code Update and 5-Year Complimentary Strategies

Zoning Code Update: Launching last fall to clarify rules, reduce inconsistencies, apply the CP identified incentives, and guide development toward community-serving housing and commercial spaces.  Thank you to everyone who participated in the introductory webinars and feedback survey! 

CLICK HERE FOR A SUMMARY OF THE SURVEY RESULTS. 

Up next:  

  • Feb 2, 5 pm: Joint Town Council/BOZAR Work Session – Residential Districts
  • March 2, 5 pm: Joint Town Council/BOZAR Work Session – Commercial Districts
  • March 11, 4pm (confirm time): Open House at the Center for the Arts – Zoning Code and Design Standards Update

 

To listen to the introductory webinar recordings, please see the tab below in the Resource Library.  

 

 

 

5-year Housing and Community Spaces

Community Housing Strategy: A tactical plan to advance housing goals by assessing our current portfolio and programs, identifying gaps and needs, and prioritizing projects, programs, and funding that align with the updated zoning code. 

  • Up Next: January 20 Town Council Work Session
  • This Winter: Strategy Development and convening of a housing taskforce 

Community Spaces Strategy: A strategic framework to support community-serving businesses and organizations, evaluate current gaps and challenges, and set metrics for ongoing success. 

  • Recently: December 15 Town Council Work Session
  • This Winter: Strategy Development and convening of a community spaces working group

 

 

View Community Plan

For questions reach out to planning@crestedbutte-co.gov

Resource Library 

FAQ

FAQs:

Why is the code being updated and what’s guiding it? 

The Community Plan sets a long-term vision to keep Crested Butte, Crested Butte, preserving the people, places, and values that define the community while addressing pressing challenges. Crested Butte faces an escalating affordability crisis, a concentrated and vulnerable economy, and a decline in its percentage of full-time residency. Current zoning regulations have not produced enough of the housing, services, and infrastructure residents need, with new development producing amenities catering to tourism and part-time residents outpacing these needs. At the same time, community members have expressed strong concern about losing access to locally rooted businesses, nonprofits, and affordable gathering places that make daily life possible and strengthen the connections that contribute to Crested Butte’s sense of community. 

To respond, the Community Plan established a vision and guiding principles for updating the zoning code: 

1. Simplify the Code: Make the zoning code and development review process easier to understand and navigate.
Success could look like: A clearer, more user-friendly code for property owners, developers, staff, and decision-makers.

2. Retain Small-Town Feel: Celebrate the character of Crested Butte from the look and feel of our buildings to the people and moments that make this place feel like home. Keep zoning tools like Floor Area Ratio (FAR) limit that help neighborhoods stay authentic and approachable while allowing flexibility that supports connected, neighborly lifestyle. 
Success could look like: New buildings and updates feel like they belong and reinforce the small-town character that defines Crested Butte.

3. Strengthen Historic Preservation: Implement the Historic Preservation Plan recommendations to create a new Early Recreation Era period of significance, and continue to maintain historic preservation for the historic core/Mining Era period of significance.
Success could look like: Strong, enforceable protections for both the established historic core and a new overlay for Early Recreation Era properties currently being surveyed.

4. Integrate Land Use with Transportation and Climate Action: Update land use regulations to support community-serving housing and commercial spaces, and climate and mobility goals, to provide more opportunities for people to live closer to where they work.
Success could look like: Allowing ADUs and multi-family homes as permitted uses instead of conditional uses, which would reduce process barriers but maintain design standards.

5. Link Zoning to Community Benefits: Implement the zoning incentives identified in the Community Plan in exchange for public benefits like community-serving housing and spaces, and improved mobility. Recommendations from the Community Plan include:

  • Residential Zones: Revamp incentives for ADUs, enable micro-lot subdivisions, and modernize the home occupation definition.

  • R4 Zone: Preserve and support compatible multi-family housing

  • Commercial Zone (Belleview): Provide flexibility on height and setbacks in exchange for a higher requirement of deed restricted commercial space and/or housing. Set the corridor up for improved pedestrian connectivity.

  • Business 2 Zone (Sixth Street): Improve the PUD process with clearer expectations and community benefits. Instead of incentivizing underground parking, tie incentives to community-serving housing and spaces instead.

  • Mobile Home Zone: Allow modular or stick-built units in exchange for permanent deed restrictions.

  • Town-Wide: Expand trails and sidewalk connections identified in the Transportation Mobility Plan, reduce parking requirements where appropriate, and maintain space for the realities of snow storage.

Success could look like: Zoning incentives that reflects the character of each area while providing clear community benefits.

What will this process look like? 

This is just the beginning.  

  • Over the summer 2025, Town Staff, its attorney, BOZAR, and the Town Council conducted an initial review to refine guiding strategies, assess the current code, and draft an updated framework.
  • Through fall 2025 and early winter 2026, staff hosted introductory webinars for each zone district, followed by a survey for public to share feedback.
  • Winter and spring 2026, we will take your input to refine a draft and return for additional outreach and engagement. 
Webinar Recordings

INTRODUCTORY WEBINAR RECORDINGS: