Carbon County has adopted its new comprehensive plan and greenway trails and open space plan.

The commissioners approved the two plans following a presentation from Tim Staub, project manager for HRG Inc., the company hired to complete the plans.

Last month, Staub presented the proposed plans to the Carbon County Planning Commission, which made the recommendation to approve the documents.

The 90-page comprehensive plan is a 10-year road map to help “guide and development the county for the benefit of residents and visitors.” It was last updated in 2013.

In conjunction with this plan, the 77-page greenways, trails and open space plan aims to “create a comprehensive framework that guides the development, enhancement and preservation of green spaces, trails and natural corridors” within Carbon County, while also ensuring that these natural areas are “connected, accessible and effectively managed to provide recreational, environmental and economic benefits to the community.”

Staub said that over the last year, his team has collected data from residents through a survey, businesses and organizations to compile the information found in the two plans.

“We did discovery and outreach phase, which led to visioning and building capacity for implementation, preparing the plan, development and now we’re at the final stage where we are looking for adoption,” he said.

Staub outlined the findings within the documents, noting that a lot have been common themes over the years, including housing demands within the county, infrastructure needs and regional impacts, childcare costs increasing and recreational amenities.

In the housing and childcare fields, Staub noted that the county is losing housing stock because people from outside Carbon County are buying secondary homes, which are driving up the costs for family dwellings and decreasing inventory.

The findings also showed that over the last five years, the price of childcare has gone up by 12% for a family and up to 40% for a single parent.

One interesting fact about the recreational abundance and tourism, which Carbon County depends heavily on for its economy, is that based on cellphone data, approximately 16% of visitors are actually coming from farther than 50 miles away.

“This tells us that the majority of the people that use the county recreational facilities are close to home and county residents.”

Based on these findings, the two plans now outline projections on what to do for the next 10 years to meet the needs of the communities within Carbon County.

The comprehensive plan is broken down into themes — housing, outdoor economy, infrastructure and place making; while the open space plan include themes in the areas of connected, protected, plentiful, celebrating successes, having fun and invigorating the tourism economy.

The plans also provide implementation tables to give county officials goals and objectives, as well as grant and funding opportunities, as the county moves through the next decade.

Following Staub’s presentation, the commissioners adopted the plans.

Commissioner Wayne Nothstein suggested county residents take a look at the two plans, which are both posted on the Carbon County website under the Planning and Development department page.

“Go online, look at them,” he said. “We welcome any comments you have.”