AN ORDINANCE AMENDING THE MEEKER MUNICIPAL CODE
TITLE 18 – SUBDIVISION AND ZONING
WHEREAS, the Board of Trustees has determined it to be reasonable and necessary to amend the Town of Meeker Municipal Code, Title 18 – Subdivision and Zoning; and
WHEREAS, the Board of Trustees discussed amendments to the Municipal Code at a public meeting on February 4, 2025 and conducted a public hearing on this request on February 18, 2025; and
WHEREAS, the Board of Trustees has determined that such amendments and updates are in the best interests of the citizens of the Town of Meeker to promote the legitimate public purposes of the health, safety, and welfare of the Town of Meeker and the inhabitants thereof.
NOW THEREFORE, BE IT ORDAINED BY THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF THE TOWN OF MEEKER AS FOLLOWS:
- Section 18.1.5 – Rural Residential shall be amended to add a minimum building width requirement of 24 feet.
- Section 18.1.6 – Single Family Residential shall be amended to add a minimum building width requirement of 24 feet.
- Section 18.1.7 – Mixed Residential shall be amended to add a minimum building width requirement of 10 feet.
- Section 18.1.8 – Mobile Home Park shall be amended to add a minimum building width requirement of 8 feet.
- Section 18.1.9 – Town Core shall be amended to add a minimum building width requirement of 10 feet.
- Section 18.1.9 – Town Core shall be amended to add Accessory Building dimensional requirements of 1,000 square feet maximum ground floor area and 25 feet maximum overall height.
- Section 18.1.10 – Highway Corridor shall be amended to add a minimum building width requirement of 10 feet.
- Section 18.1.11 – Industrial shall be amended to add a minimum building width requirement of 10 feet.
- Section 18.1.12 – Community Facilities shall be amended to add a minimum building width requirement of 10 feet.
- Section 18.1.9 – Town Core shall be amended to add a Dimensional Requirements Chart as presented in Exhibit A.
- Section 18.1.2 – Definitions shall be amended as follows:
- a) A change in definition for Energy Production Facility to read as “A facility with the primary purpose of producing for-sale energy, including but not limited to coal, natural gas, nuclear, and oil energy.”
- b) A change in definition for Renewable Energy System to read as “A product, system, device, or interacting group of devises that is permanently affixed to real property as an accessory use and that produces energy from one or more replenishable resources such as the sun, wind, biomass, hydro, or geothermal activity.”
- c) Addition of the following definitions:
AGRIVOLTAIC SYSTEM: A system designed for the simultaneous use of areas of land for both ground-mounted solar collectors and agriculture
BATTERY ENERGY STORAGE SYSTEM (BESS): A rechargeable energy storage system consisting of batteries, battery charges, controls, power conditioning systems and associated electrical equipment designed to provide electrical power to a building or to provide electrical grid-related services. Battery energy storage systems designed and operated for a single residential household shall not be included in the definition.
GEOTHERMAL LOOP or DIRECT USE: A system that uses geothermal energy and/or temperatures for water heating or space heating or cooling in a single building, or in more than one building through a pipeline network.
GEOTHERMAL POWER PLANT: A facility designed, constructed, and operated to generate power by geothermal energy. A geothermal power plant may use conventional hydrothermal reservoirs, or enhanced geothermal systems reservoirs, to produce geothermal fluids for power generation across differing power plant configurations.
HUB: The part of the wind turbine to which the blades are attached, together creating the rotor.
HUB HEIGHT: The distance measured from ground level to the center of the turbine hub.
MET TOWER: A meteorological tower used for the measurement of wind speed.
PUBLIC UTILITY: An entity as defined by C.R.S. 40-1-103.
RENEWABLE ENERGY: Renewable energy is energy derived from natural sources that are not depleted when used.
RENEWABLE ENERGY FACILITY: The use of land for:
- Solar collectors or other devices or structural design features of a structure that relies upon sunshine as an energy source and is capable of collecting, distributing, or storing the sun’s radiant energy for commercial use;
- Land area and equipment for the conversion of natural geothermal or hydroelectric energy into energy for commercial use; or
- Wind turbines or other devices or structural design features of a structure that relies upon wind as an energy source and is capable of collecting or distributing the energy for commercial use.
RENEWABLE ENERGY PRODUCTION UNIT: A device used for the conversion of renewable energy into electricity, including but not limited to, solar collector or wind turbine.
SOLAR COLLECTOR: A photovoltaic (PV) panel, array of panels or other solar energy device, the primary purpose of which is to provide for the collection, inversion, storage, and distribution of solar energy for electricity generation, space heating, space cooling, or water heating.
SOLAR COLLECTOR FACILITY: All necessary devices that collectively convert solar energy into electricity.
SYSTEM HEIGHT: The combined height of the tower, the wind turbine and any blade extend at its highest point, measured from the ground level.
TRANSMISSION LINES: Electric lines designed and operating at voltage levels above the public utility’s voltages for distribution and generation facilities, including but not limited to related substation facilities such as transformers, capacitor banks, or breakers that are integral to the circuitry of the public utility’s transmission system.
WIND ENERGY FACILITY (WEF): All necessary devices that collectively convert wind energy into electricity, including the rotor, nacelle, generator, tower, electrical components, foundation, transformer, and electrical cabling from the tower to the substation(s). MET towers are considered a WEF.
WIND TURBINE: A wind energy conversion system that converts wind energy into electricity through the use of a wind turbine generator. The term “wind turbine” shall include the turbine, blade, tower, base and pad transformer.
- Section 18.1.16 – Supplemental Regulations shall be amended to add the following new section:
15) Renewable Energy Systems (permitted as a use by right in all zone districts)
- Visual Impacts: The applicant shall provide a visual impact statement, site plan and written description of plan to minimize the visual impacts of the proposed Renewable Energy System. The plan shall be in compliance with the following standards:
- Any required clearing shall be designed to create a natural appearance that blends with surrounding vegetation by using variations in clearing width.
- Avoid the creation of access scars.
iii. Preserve as much as possible the natural landscape.
- Minimize alteration of the natural slope.
- Accessory Geothermal Energy Systems
- Underground geothermal energy systems must be contained solely within the property to which they will service unless written permission is granted from a neighboring property owner.
- Underground systems shall be setback from the nearest property lines not less than two (2) feet.
- Above-ground regulating, collection, distribution or utility equipment required for the operation of the facility shall:
- Be located in a primary or accessory structure permitted in the zoning district where the property is located, or shall be screened as described in Section 18.1.16(14) Fences.
- Shall comply with all setbacks applicable to accessory structures in the zoning district where the use is located.
- Accessory Solar Collectors
- Accessory solar collectors shall only be located in side or rear yards or on rooftops.
- Any rooftop solar must meet the snow load requirements of the Towns adopted Building Code.
iii. If the solar collector is not flush with the roof the applicant shall minimize the visibility of the collector from a public street, park, or open space to the most reasonable extent possible without prohibiting the installation.
- Ground-mounted collectors are allowed as an accessory structure within the required setback.
- Ground-mounted accessory solar collectors shall not exceed the height of the primary structure on the lot or parcel, or the maximum height allowed in the zone district.
Accessory Wind Energy Systems
- An individual wind system shall be set back from any property line and the primary structure at least 1.5 times the height of the turbine.
- An individual wind system shall not exceed the maximum building height of a primary structure of the applicable zone district by twenty (20) feet.
- Chapter 18.1 shall be amended to add Section 18.1.17 which shall read as is set forth in the Exhibit B. This will alter the numbering sequence of the subsequent sections within the Chapter, but these sections will remain intact in their entirety, with the exception of the new section numbers that will read as follows:
18.1.18 – General Uses
18.1.19 – Conditional Uses
18.1.20 – Nonconforming Uses
18.1.21 – Variance and Appeal
18.1.22 – Amendments and Additions to the Official Zoning Map and Zoning Regulations
18.1.23 – Enforcement and Administration
18.1.24 – Fees and Costs
- Except as specifically modified herein the remaining provisions of the Meeker Municipal Code shall remain in full force and effect.
- If any section, subsection, sentence, clause, phrase, or portion of this Ordinance is, for any reason, held to be invalid or unconstitutional by the final decision of any court of competent jurisdiction, such decision shall not affect the validity of the remaining portions of this Ordinance.
EFFECTIVE DATE This Ordinance shall take effect thirty days after its publication as provided in C.R.S. §31-16-105.
INTRODUCED, PASSED, APPROVED AND ADOPTED by the Board of Trustees of the Town of Meeker, Colorado on February 18, 2025 by a vote of 5 for and 0 against, and ordered published in full in the Rio Blanco Herald Times.
TOWN OF MEEKER
/s/Travis Day, Mayor
ATTEST
/s/Lisa Cook, Town Clerk