December 2025 Draft Document - Public Review Feedback

December 2025 Draft Comprehensive Plan Document - Public Review Feedback

Below is a live summary of feedback and themes received by City staff during the draft document review period (November 21 - December 15). This summary will be regularly updated to give the public a sense of feedback on the draft document. A final summary will be posted at the end of the public review period and included in the Planning Commission and City Council public hearing packets.

This feedback will be used to inform the draft Comprehensive Plan document. The public is encourage to review this document to ensure City staff have accurately captured their feedback and can contact planningshared@cityofgolden.net with any additional ideas, questions or concerns.

Chapter 1 - Introduction

• General Public Feedback
  • Extend the RTD Gold Line into Golden at 311 10th Street (repeated for every chapter)
  • (Pg 15) Reword 'Don't feel isolated as a driving light household.' It was unclear exactly what is being conveyed
  • Use new picture for 'City is Fiscally Responsible'
  • Improve consistent of statements so they read the same (some read as a direct quote and others as summary statements.
  • More specific mention of local industry (e.g. NREL) and population makeup and changes over the years.
  • Downtown is the place to be, but there are so many special places across town not captured here (e.g. Cannonball area, South Golden).
• Planning Commission
  • Add some discussion of senior residents

Chapter 2 - How to Use the Comprehensive Plan

• General Public Feedback
  • Be more specific about how general public and residents will use the plan. Land use is a big word that doesn't mean much to the average person.
• Planning Commission
  • Confirm the 2011 plan is the same as 2017 plan sans the housing chapter (outside of any document edits here)
  • Is there a weighting system to the enhance/revise/incompatible framework?
    • Currently focused on 'substantially complies with the Plan' language in code

Chapter 3 - The System of Plans in Golden

• General Public Feedback
  • (Pg 25) Grammar mistake
  • (Pg 26) Clarify when Comprehensive Plan is abbreviated as 'the Plan.'
  • In the interactions section include a graphic instead of text
  • Note when each plan is set to be updated
  • Move towards a GIS-based way of keeping these plans versus PDF documents.
• Planning Commission
  • Minor grammar edits

Chapter 4 - Housing in Golden

• General Public Feedback
  • Expand the Boyd/SH58 interchange (repeated for all subsequent chapters)
  • Nothing directly written about Beverly Heights which has been impacted by new housing for Mines. There is only one way out of the neighborhood in the event of a wildfire. This needs to be addressed in this section.
  • (Pg 44) Unclear grammar related to banking under the growth ordinance
  • Get rid of all parking minimums (not just for affordable housing) and get rid of the growth cap.
  • Add more emphasis on how more housing positively affects transportation, sustainability, inclusivity and affordability.
  • Address the 'informal' housing marking (e.g. co-living, not illegal) which is often created via Facebook and word of mouth. Not sure how this translates into policy support, potentially things like reducing or abolishing the minimums for ADUs.
• Planning Commission
  • Add explicit state planning guidance; distinction between HNA, Housing Action Plan and Comprehensive Plan
  • Conversion of existing market rate to affordable housing - see DOLA definition of affordable housing conversion (also see Prop 123)
    • Pull this out separate from our current housing dichotomy (build affordable, build new, preserve existing)
    • Copper Gold is an example of this'
  • Wording change - distinguish between Comp Plan and future HAP approval process (who 'approves' who 'adopts)
  • Add generation equity to the REDI added language, add some data behind this
  • Goal H-5. The 'promote mixed-income ' - maybe wordsmith a bit more
    • Bit unclear on the goal. Need to make sure we have adequate public services, water, etc. Likely need more discussion both in the Plan and at Planning Commission
    • Discussion of how this complements Goal H.4

Chapter 5 - Regional Partnerships

• General Public Feedback
  • (Pg 56) Clarify what 'town-gown' means, not everyone knows this term.
  • Mines claiming exemption from City zoning is becoming a problem. Who has final say when enough is enough? The increase in dorms and students and the poorly designed US6/19th Street overpass is increasing traffic. The City and community should assert when enough is enough.
  • Address NREL, Clayworks, Coors (turn all of their parking lots into usable space). Coors should have a larger commitment to the Golden community such as funding a RTD Gold Line extension.
  • Tired of hearing residents complain about Mines, they are a part of our community and the City needs to flip the script on 'what can Mines do for Golden' to how can we accommodate students and residents.
• Planning Commission
  • Add more info on Mines housing construction, and how it opens up housing community-wide
  • Add some info on how we work with Jeffco Public Schools

Chapter 6 - Economic Vitality and Development

• General Public Feedback
  • Have a wider focus than just downtown Golden
  • More mention around active and sustainable transportation methods, how will we connect these areas of the City.
• Planning Commission
  • Clarify the ‘story’ we’re trying to tell a bit more. Maybe too focused on manufacturing solely – split out into individual goals? Unbundle different business types and uses in the community
  • Add more about our visitor based economy/community marketing and how it’s morphing currently
  • Incorporate business outreach on plan document
  • Add discussion of focus on serving local businesses and limiting more resource-intensive land uses (e.g. data centers) that consume energy and water

Chapter 7 - Historic Preservation

• General Public Feedback
  • Historic preservation should not impede Golden's affordable housing goals.
• Planning Commission
  • Add more discussion of Past Forward implementation next steps to give general policy support
    • Recognize in the text that it’s an ongoing process
  • Excited for the historic preservation changes; generally supportive of HPB’s recommended edits
  • See PC member's separate packet for specific information and potential goals
    • Preservation v. rehabilitation v. restoration – need to recognize these technical distinctions and position the chapter and discussion
      • Lauren’s ongoing work is specifically addressing a lot of this, City staff to work on putting that effort into context within this chapter.
      • PC mentioned just adding a few sentences to achieve this; general PC support for this.
      • Tie together local, state and national efforts. Different than other parts of the plan, state has less role, more of a pass-through for national programs
    • Expand discussion of certified local government status and meaning/impact
      • Recognize all the uncertainty surrounding this topic at national level, interaction with SHPO
      • Add an implementation action for locally-grown historic programs, how we can backfill national gaps; general PC support for this
    • Use more active language for the current goals; general PC support for this
    • Education et al
      • Creating buy-in from residents living in the districts and landmarks
    • Equity based historic preservation
      • This conversation starts to fall outside of a general equity lens – warrants additional internal conversation; Lauren detailed Indigenous Peoples reporting and where it’s currently living (e.g. museum)
      • Do we need to address historic preservation and housing chapter blending on some topics?
      • PC would like more discussion on this topic but generally seems supportive
  • Add language pointing folks to relevant information on specific tools and guidance
  • Ensure all of this is in Chapter 3 – System of Plans

Chapter 8 - Strategic Growth and Water Conservation

• General Public Feedback
  • Limit growth to 1% as previously voted upon
  • We should be pushing for true infill rather that open space development on the fringes of the community (e.g. Canyon Point, Jeffco) to provide density.
  • (Pg 70) Grammar mistake
  • (Pg 70) Emphasis statement about majority of housing and population growth expected to come from non-single family developments. This is great information.
  • (Pg 81) The indoor water use timeframe is 2020-24 while the outdoor water use timeframe is 2020-2040. Either use the same date range or make them two separate graphs
• Planning Commission
  • Supportive of resetting the ‘areas of change/areas of stability’ dichotomy; do not want a map
  • Add a definition of ‘greenfield’ and ‘infill’; do we expand this to brownfield, et al?
  • Strengthen link between water and land use planning
  • Update GLO Park narrative after state moving forward with multi-household development, uncertainty around NREL plans

Chapter 9 - Goals and Implementation Actions

• General Public Feedback
  • No feedback to date
• Planning Commission
  • Add discussion of why some goals have implementation actions and why others don’t.
  • Add some ‘shall’ language to the goals; suggestion to look at what we want to achieve and modify that into an implementation action
  • Add discussion of how neighborhood plan goals built up mass support for the form-based zoning code update
  • Review capitalization and other grammatical stuff to make it easier to read