Project Description:

The Town of Minturn is proudly “funky”. While it cannot be denied that there is significant civic pride in the Town, what “funky” means, and the impacts it has on the built environment, were open to debate. A few years ago, a significant redevelopment project in the Town’s “funky” downtown was struggling to generate community support. This project uncovered a disconnect between town regulations, design standards, the community’s vision, and what the market would support. CPS was brought in to assist a team of community members and consultants to attempt to solve this conundrum. The project team facilitated a strong community-based approach to understanding these tensions and conducted two site walks, a multi-day design charette, and multiple breakout group discussions. This effort resulted in a better understanding and appreciation for the various perspectives and challenges at play in Minturn. Community members better understood the realities of development and redevelopment, and the developer better understood the community’s concerns and vision of what it meant to keep Minturn “funky”.

This project is another example of CPS’s successful implementation of community-based facilitation as a means of informing community members, building consensus, and increasing understanding of abstract land use and development issues.