Resident urges flexibility on 1,500-square-foot home-size rule for Eldorado Springs town site

A resident of Eldorado Springs told Boulder County commissioners on Oct. 2 that a proposed 1,500-square-foot house-size limit for town-site parcels does not account for the area’s varied lot sizes and asked the county for more flexible zoning tied to parcel size.

Eric Sween, who said he lives in the Eldorado Springs town site and has participated in planning conversations, summarized decades of local planning work and urged completion of an earlier community-driven implementation process. He recounted a town-site initiative and a detailed 40-page community plan developed around 2008–2009 that included tiered setbacks and floor-area-ratio guidelines; he said the second phase of implementation was never enacted after staff and volunteers were diverted by fire and flood events.

Sween explained that many town-site parcels are substantially larger than others—he said his lot is about a half-acre while some neighbors’ parcels are over an acre—so a uniform 1,500-square-foot cap would allow the same house size on parcels of very different sizes. “Right now, the way this 1,500 square foot rule runs, I can build the same amount as one of my smaller neighbors, and my parcel is 20 times as big as his,” Sween said, urging the county to consider a sliding scale or to complete the previously drafted implementation work.

Sween said he had spoken with county planning staff and with Hannah Hippoly (planning staff) about the history and possible reasons for the stalled implementation, including staff workloads tied to wildfire response and the 2013 flood.

The county took no formal action on the comment; the remarks were made during public comment and were presented as background and an appeal for staff to pursue a more tailored solution.

Provenance: Remarks on Eldorado Springs town-site history and the 1,500-square-foot rule were delivered by Eric Sween (00:13:33–00:17:21) during public comment.