Commerce City Council will consider significant updates to the City’s Land Development Code (“LDC”) in Fall 2025. FGMC has been tracking the proposed changes on behalf of our Commerce City clients. Provided below is a high-level summary of the most substantive changes to the Code. These changes reflect the City’s desire to simplify the regulatory environment for property owners and development teams, as well as reinforce the intended outcomes of the updated Comprehensive Plan 2045 (“2045 Plan”). The City will continue working through revisions to the draft this summer.
The LDC is a set of rules that guide how land in the City can be used and developed, and includes zoning and land use regulations, site design and building standards, subdivision standards, and procedures related to development review and enforcement. The code regulates the form, use, and intensity of future development to ensure it aligns with the community’s vision for its built environment, as established in the 2045 Plan. The 2045 Plan vision creates the foundation for alignment between the City’s vision for growth and its regulatory framework for future development.
Goals of the LDC Update:
The goals for the Commerce City Land Development Code (LDC) update are as follows:
- Modernize the development code to better align with the community’s current needs, goals, and best practices.
- Implement the policies and objectives of the Comprehensive Plan and other existing plans.
- Organize the regulations into a simplified, logical code.
- Tailor the development standards to achieve quality, resilient outcomes.
- Streamline the review procedures to be clearer, illustrated, and less time-intensive.
- Create a more user-friendly development code, including more graphics and tables.
Key Changes to the LDC
Organization: The updated LDC leans on cross-referenced graphics and tables associated with new and updated zone districts and development standards, a substantially different approach from the current LDC document. The update aligns with expectations for development and land use in the unique community character areas outlined in the 2045 Plan, reinforcing the City’s effort to work with the community to reach intended planning outcomes through a new regulatory framework.
- Development Options: New organizing framework to tailor development regulations based on overall development context. These Development Options incorporate building forms and appropriate zone districts and land uses that align with the community character areas in the 2045 Plan.
- Updated base Zone Districts to implement the 2045 Plan: The Zone District tables provide multiple cross-reference links to relevant building form and land use tables.
- Building Forms and Building Types: Building Forms speak to the context as well as form and bulk standards associated with each Zone District. The update incorporates multiple descriptive graphics to accompany neighborhood context descriptions with appropriate Building Forms and Types to reflect those characteristics.
- Open Space Requirements: The update includes a spectrum of open space requirements associated with Development Options. Open space design standards are differentiated among site-specific development improvements, larger common open space in a development, and civic spaces. Different characteristics of these types of open space are valued with different multipliers toward meeting open space and amenity requirements.
- Use Standards and Categories: The update includes characteristics for each Use Category and lists the most possible primary uses with room for the Director of Community Planning and Development to interpret similar uses. The Use Table is significantly shorter than what is identified in the current LDC. In addition, Use Regulations have been clarified to (1) remove special review for By Right uses; (2) recategorize Use by Permit as Limited Uses which have standards for all uses, but will now only require administrative approval and be tied to the land; and (3) updates Conditional Uses, still requiring City Council action but now including standards for all uses and a requirement that the approval be tied to the land. Additionally, the new LDC provides for the Zoning Use Permit (“ZUP”) which informs the property owner as to the compliance of existing uses and site elements with this LDC.
- Evolution of the use of Planned Unit Development Districts: Similar to the intent of the PUD in the current LDC, the purpose of the Planned Unit Development District (“PUD District”) is to allow projects of innovative design and layout that would not otherwise be permitted under the LDC due to strict application of zoning district or general development standards. However, the City’s updated districts and alignment with the 2045 Plan reflect an intent to move away from the use of PUDs. The update offers significant changes to PUD standards.
- The PUD District is proposed to function more as an overlay. While the underlying zoning remains in place, the PUD District overlay may modify certain standards to encourage flexibility.
- Sites proposed for the application of a PUD District must be at least 20 acres unless the following conditions are met:
- PUD District zone documents meet at least two of the 2045 Plan’s Economic Development Goals or
- Primarily mixed-use development is proposed.
- Additionally, the updated PUD standards prohibit street design or other public improvements that are contrary to the City’s Subdivision Standards and the Storm Drainage Design and Technical Criteria Manual.
- Amendments to previously approved and recorded PUD zone documents are exempt from the minimum size standard.
- Process and Procedures: The update consolidates references to elements (i.e., notification, public hearings) common to many or most review procedures to reduce chances for duplication and inconsistencies. The update also increases opportunity for administrative decision-making and clarifies decision-making roles and requirements for different application types in one Development Review Summary table.
Overall, the proposed update to the Land Development Code reflects a response to concerns shared by the development community about the complexity of code administration for both citizens and staff. The updated LDC favors a simplified format with more opportunity for better coordination across agencies in order to implement the Code and other relevant city regulations more effectively.
Effective Date: Upon passage expected in Fall 2025, applications submitted prior to the Effective Date will be reviewed in accordance with the code in effect on the date the application is deemed complete. This clarification takes the guesswork out of the process for pending applications moving through the process. Following additional public discourse, the update effort is expected to reach Planning Commission in September 2025, with hearings before City Council in November 2025.
Video Link: Commerce City Land Development Code Update Summary July 2025.mp4
If you would like more information about the proposed changes to the Commerce City Land Development Code, please reach out to the FGMC Land Use and Real Estate team.