SOUTH FORK — A capacity-crowd at the 2019 Upper Rio Grande Economic Development annual dinner meeting made a statement about the importance of the San Luis Valley’s economy.

With the Rio Grande Club serving as the picturesque background for the event, attendees got to hear a message about the importance of land use codes and development to local economies from Joe De Luca, Project Manger for the Crabtree Group, Inc.

De Luca opened his remarks by giving a brief history of how land use codes have changed over the past few centuries. He cited Napoleon’s revitalization of 1700’s Paris as a turning point in the way cities began to develop their building codes.

The trend of compact streets and businesses being interspersed with residences continued well into the late 1800’s, through the turn of the century. After the 1950’s, development sites became much more open and spread out.

De Luca noted that these trends caused changes in the economy that were not always positive. “Density became bad,” he said. He further noted that these changes also brought increased infrastructure challenges. He then turned his attention to how land use codes are still very relevant in today’s world.

As a Chaffee County commissioner from 2001-2005, De Luca learned just how critical land use planning is for the future. He noted that good planning can make an area attractive to business owners and that the opposite is just as true. De Luca cited the importance of affordable and available housing to the economies of areas that have smaller populations. He used the City of Salida and Chaffee County as an example of a housing shortage challenge that’s only projected to increase, again pointing to the critical nature of planning.

De Luca considers himself a capitalist. “The private sector can make more of an impact than the government,” he said when it comes to addressing housing, land use and development.

De Luca concluded his message with several takeaways. The first was that economic development means an increased workforce and increased prices for real estate and quality of living. The second was that land use codes should be manageable. Thirdly, growth can be hard to predict. “Learning where land use codes work and where they don’t is paramount,” he explained.

Finally, the sooner codes are improved, the better off a community can be. He encouraged those in the audience to be proactive and work to prepare for the seemingly inevitable growth that is coming.