Introduction
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Q:Do I need a conceptual review or preliminary design review?
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A: If you are unsure which to choose, contact a Planner.
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Your first meeting with the City's Development Review team will be at either a conceptual review or preliminary design review. Conceptual review is designed for less complex projects and larger projects will choose preliminary design review. Conceptual review is a free service. There is a charge of $500 for a preliminary design review. After your initial review, but before submitting a formal application, some projects will need to hold a neighborhood meeting based on the uses proposed and the zone district. Your project planner will inform you at your initial review whether a neighborhood meeting will be needed.
Free Conceptual Review Anyone with a viable development idea can schedule a conceptual review meeting to get feedback on their idea. Conceptual review is a free City service to assist developers in understanding what will be required of them during development review. At conceptual review, several City staff members from various departments involved in development review will offer comments on your proposed project.
Three forty-five (45) minute conceptual review meetings are scheduled between 9:30 a.m. - 11:00 a.m., for three Monday mornings per month on a "first come, first served" basis. Once the three allocated time slots are filled on a particular conceptual review date, additional conceptual reviews will not be accepted for that date.
To be eligable for a conceptual review date, you must submit an application, available at fcgov.com/developmentreview/applications.php, as well as a sketch plan showing the project vicinity and development concept to City Staff two Tuesdays prior to the Monday conceptual review meeting. A complete application and site plan (sketch plan) are required to reserve your time slot, once again on a first come, first served basis, up to the cut off of two Tuesdays before the desired Conceptual Review date.
The sketch plan should include the location of the proposed development project, major streets and other significant features in the vicinity. Photos of the area are not required, but are often useful. Presentation drawings can range from informal sketches to fully rendered drawings. The more information you provide staff based on the research you did in Step 1, the more detailed feedback you will get from City staff at the meeting.
At the meeting, you will recieve a comment letter summarizing City staff comments and providing telephone and email contact information for each staff member involved in the review of your project. The comments are offered by staff to assist you in preparing the detailed components of your formal project application for development review. There is no approval or denial of development proposals associated with conceptual review. At conceptual review, your project planner will provide you with a comment letter as you leave the meeting that day. 
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Schedule a PDR
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PDRs are Wednesday mornings from 8:30 a.m. to 10:00 a.m., by appointment, and can last 90 minutes. Consult with a City Planner at 970-221-6750 to determine if PDR is right for your project.
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What's been said about PDRs
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"I think the amount of diligence that we received from staff will allow us to iron out our primary issues prior to submittal. I truly think that this amount of coordination this early, although time consuming for City staff, will surely save everyone time ultimately through the review process." "I was particularly impressed with the level of detail and research that staff members had done prior to the meeting" "We all came away saying that it was $500 well-spent."
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$500 Preliminary Design Review (PDR)
Preliminary design review (PDR) meetings offer an alternative process to the standard conceptual review for larger projects requiring a greater level of collaboration and problem solving. Our approach to PDR is akin to the design charrette model; where we work with you to identify and begin to resolve complex challenges together collaboratively.
For a $500 application fee and more detailed submittal package; including preliminary civil plans, site plans, renderings, photos of existing conditions on the site, and detailed project ideas; City staff members from various City departments involved in development review will research the site, offer comments, provide answers to specific questions and offer possible solutions to difficult design challenges. Applications are available at fcgov.com/developmentreview/applications.php.
As with the standard conceptual review, one week after the meeting, a City planner will follow-up with you in writing, summarizing City staff comments and providing telephone and email contact information for each staff member involved in the review of your project. In addition, a PDR will result in a list of critical project issues, strategies for resolution of those issues and answers to specific questions that you posed to us about your proposal. These comments are offered by staff to assist you in preparing the detailed components of the project application and in identifying critical issues involved in the project. There is no approval or denial of development proposals associated with the PDR.
City Staff Involved in Development Review
Many City departments will review your development proposal, as will numerous outside agencies and the public. Current Planning serves as the coordinating department. Every development proposal application is assigned a project planner from this department who serves as the primary point of contact for the development review process. Every project is also assigned a project engineer as well, who coordinates the final step of development review.
Go to contacts for a listing of the city staff involved in development review. Staff is assigned to your project is based on the scope of your project, so not all staff are involved in every project.
Please note: Designs are generated by you, the property owner, or your hired consultants. Though many City staff members in development review have advanced degrees in or are fully licensed in their field and capable of design work, this is not what we are paid to do—please refrain from asking us to perform design work--we must be good stewards of the tax and fee money which supports our development review work.
Neighborhood Meetings
A neighborhood meeting allows developers to communicate their proposal plans to citizens of the impacted or adjacent neighborhood early in the design process and for citizens to communicate their questions and opinions about the proposal to the developer and City staff.
Before City Plan and the Land Use Code (pre-1997), development in Fort Collins was subject to the less prescriptive Land Development Guidance System (LDGS). LDGS allowed developers and neighbors to negotiate what types of uses and building types would be allowed on any given parcel. (Refer to fcgov.com/drc/history.php for a history of planning in Fort Collins.) City Plan, adopted in 1997, is a more prescriptive comprehensive plan that focuses on predictability. It benefits developers to know at the outset whether what they propose will be allowed. If you meet LUC standards, it is likely your project will be approved. It benefits neighbors because they know what types of development are allowed and not allowed in any given area. High quality standards for architecture, compatibility and buffering are codified and predictable.
The regulatory arm of City Plan, the Land Use Code, ensures we are carrying out the community’s vision for its future. As an expected result, citizens feel less of a burden in tracking and monitoring development in our community. However, it’s just human nature that change is difficult. Community members may not always like what is proposed in their neighborhoods. City staff conducts neighborhood meetings in the spirit though we may not always agree, we will at least keep open channels of communication. If there is a win-win solution to be found to an issue, we want to provide an opportunity to discover it. It is not uncommon for developers to voluntarily adapt their plans once they are aware of neighborhood concerns and think about viable alternatives.
Neighborhood meetings are required for certain types of development proposals. During your conceptual review or preliminary design review, your project planner will advise you if a neighborhood meeting is required. Once you are close to submitting your formal development application, contact your planner to schedule the neighborhood meeting. The planner will coordinate the logistics of the neighborhood meeting.
Two weeks before the meeting, your planner will send out notification letters property owners within a minimum of 800 feet from the proposed development (See Land Use Code Section 2.2.6(D) for specific requirements at http://www.colocode.com/ftcollins/landuse/article2.htm#div2d2). You will need to provide printed mailing labels for these letters when you submit your formal application. If the neighborhood meeting is held before the formal submittal, please arrange to drop off a set of labels at least two weeks plus one day before the neighborhood meeting. To create your labels, use FCMaps at http://gis.fcgov.com/fcmaps/fcmap.aspx.
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landscape plan
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schematic civil design plan
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elevations or perspectives
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photographs
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architectural model
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At the meeting, your project planner facilitates, opening with a brief introduction to development review in Fort Collins and the purpose of the meeting. Then the developer describes the proposal to the audience using whatever resources best describe the proposal, typically including one or more of the following, see list to the right.
Lastly, the planner will facilitate a Q&A session between the developer or consultants and the meeting attendees. The meeting continues as long as there are questions or comments to be answered, but not longer than 2 hours. On occasion, a project is sufficiently controversial to warrant a second neighborhood meeting further along in the development review process.
Your project planner prepares a written summary of the neighborhood meeting and adds it to your project file. The written summary is included in the staff report provided to the decision-maker at the time of the public hearing for the decision-maker’s review.
submit application
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