County Commissioner John Clarke said that the Planning Department is to be commended for its efforts in getting Blayney Dyett on board. I think the Planning Department did an excellent job with that. They worked with Blayney Dyett and were able to get them to reduce their initial bid by half. The role of the technical planning consultant team is to work with County planning staff and other interested parties in developing a new land use system for Larimer County by PLUS's scheduled completion date in September 1996. PLUS will replace the County's current, dysfunctional land use processes with a new, integrated master plan, policies, regulations, and procedures through appropriate community participation.
Cooper is a nationally-recognized ecological expert.
In addition to their work with PLUS, Duncan and Richardson also are currently involved with the City of Fort Collins in City Plan, an update of the City's comprehensive plan. The selection of Blayney Dyett culminates a nationally-advertised request for proposals by Larimer County Planning Department and Board of County Commissioners which began in September. While each of the proposals received by the County was excellent, Blayney Dyett was chosen because of its outstanding reputation in planning and because of its experience in working with Western communities. In the last four years, the team has won three awards from the American Planning Association for comprehensive general plans and has developed plans for a number of Western areas similar to Larimer County, such as Santa Fe, New Mexico, Reno, Nevada, and Jackson Hole, Wyoming. In addition, the Blayney Dyett team has relevant experience working in Colorado, recently having developed comprehensive plans in Aspen, and Eagle and Pitkin Counties, as well as their ongoing work with the City of Fort Collins.