Snowmass Town Council approved the Wildfire Resiliency Code on first reading Monday.

This motion follows the approval of the Snowmass Village Planning Commission of the code March 18.

Town Attorney Jeff Conklin presented the code to council, which came out of the 2023 state legislature formation of a State Wildfire Resiliency Code Board tasked with developing a model code to regulate and address wildfire hazards in the woodland urban interface. The Board identified areas within the WUIs categorized as low, moderate or severe wildfire hazard areas, with different requirements attached to the varying levels of hazard in the form of a code.

The code contains two general areas: Structure hardening requirements and site and area requirements.

Last year, the Board adopted the Colorado Wildfire Resiliency Code, requiring local governments with planning and building authority to adopt a code that meets the minimum standards for their area and begin enforcing that code by July 1 of this year.

“All of Snowmass Village is either moderate or severe wildfire hazard area,” Conklin reminded council. “There’s a requirement to comply with all of the structure hardening and site and area requirements.”

Those requirements would only be enforced for new developments, or if a homeowner wanted to replace more than 100 square feet of roof, replace more than 25% of siding or build an addition of more than 500 square feet.

The site and area requirements for new developments are divided into the three zones: Immediate (the first 0-5 feet where code requires a hardscape design), intermediate (5-30 feet where code requires the removal of dead plants and tree spacing) and expanded (30-100 feet where code focuses on tree spacing).

For those replacing more than 25% of the siding on an existing home, they would also have to meet the “immediate” zone requirements, although Conklin noted the first five feet has built-in discretion within the code for building officials to allow for modifications or alterations.

He added, “The model code does allow for a process to essentially seek a variance from the code altogether. If there were a desire of the council to say this element of the code does not make sense for us and we think we can protect the community in an alternative way with an alternative criteria, there’s a variance process to go through with the state.”

At this time, however, Conklin confirmed that is not being sought out.

“I think there’s a desire to get this implemented,” Conklin said. “My recommendation is to proceed. I think we’ve prepared ourselves to start working with this code for better or for worse.”

The town of Snowmass Village’s Chief Building Official Mike Metheny also spoke in favor of beginning implementation.

“I do think that this code may change a little bit as it evolves, but I think this is a good place to start,” Metheny said.

Council Member Tom Fridstein spoke in favor of the local amendments to the code and agreed he wanted to get it rolled out as soon as possible.

“This is really important,” Fridstein said.

Fridstein did bring up the need to address extending the code to existing homes in the future, proposing a timeframe of five to seven years where homeowners could be incentivized to voluntarily upgrade their homes to adhere to the wildfire resiliency code.

Metheny noted that while the next few months will be focused on implementing the code as is, it would be possible to address requirements for existing homes going forward.

“That’s the next step I’d like us to be thinking about,” Fridstein said.

Council Member Britta Gustafson brought up a concern around all new development being required to comply with site and area requirements up to 100 feet, questioning if that meant eliminating all trees in those expanded areas.

“We are a village in the forest,” Gustafson said. “It’s not that I don’t want to do the right thing, I just want to wrap my head around what that looks like.”

Brooke Stott, the new fire marshal for Roaring Fork Fire Rescue Authority following former Fire Marshal John Mele’s retirement, confirmed that the 30-100 feet requirements would not mean clear-cutting the area.

“I would not say we are ever going to clear cut,” Stott said.

Council unanimously supported a motion to approve the first reading. The second reading is scheduled for April 20.