PLAN PURPOSE
The purpose of the 2021 Berthoud Comprehensive Plan is to identify present and future needs of the community and establish preferences and priorities based on those needs. This new comprehensive plan provides guidance to coordinate development to accommodate growth as well as maintain the Town’s distinctive character.
The Berthoud Comprehensive Plan is a statement of how the community views itself, what the Town envisions for the community’s future, and the actions the Town will undertake to implement the vision and and goals of the community.
PLAN OBJECTIVES
Berthoud is one of the fastest growing communities in the north Front Range due to its proximity and ease of access to larger communities such as Denver, Boulder, Greeley and Fort Collins. In 2018 the Town issued building permits for over 500 single family homes, and the population is estimated to more than double from the 2010 to the 2020 census. Much of the rapid growth has occurred since 2016; the Town currently has over 6000 approved residential lots in various stages of development.
Historically, Berthoud was a community built around agriculture and the railroad. Until recently, the Town’s population was concentrated within one mile of the downtown core. Berthoud’s small town character is important to new and old residents alike, and maintaining that character has consistently been identified as an important priority by the Town Board.
The last update to the Town of Berthoud’s comprehensive plan occurred in 2014. While that plan envisioned growth, it did not envision the amount of growth currently being experienced. The Town is interested in establishing a clear new vision for the future of Berthoud that encourages growth in a managed way.
The 2021 Town of Berthoud Comprehensive Plan is intended to meet the following objectives:
- To establish a clear new vision for the future of Berthoud that reflects current community values.
- To overhaul the policy foundation for Berthoud’s growth and development decisions, establishing a new approach for effectively maintaining Berthoud’s small-town character.
- To incorporate new urbanist principles that advance transect development place types and character districts for guiding Berthoud’s physical development.
- To serve as the foundation for land development regulations, capital improvement programming, and more detailed subarea plans and functional studies.
- To restructure the comprehensive plan’s layout for enhanced legibility and navigability.
- To make the comprehensive plan more practical from an implementation standpoint.
- To provide an accountability tool for evaluating progress toward accomplishing the comprehensive plan’s action items.