2005 Neighborhood Revitalization Strategy (NRS)

In 2005, City Council adopted the Neighborhood Revitalization Strategy (NRS) Report, Repositioning Wheat Ridge, and adopted its findings and recommendations as guiding principles for revitalizing the City. Creation of the document took approximately seven months, during which time the project team evaluated the state of the city, the population and housing trends, job and retail sales trends, housing market and commercial inventory. The purpose of the effort was to restore the City to a community of choice for homeowners and businesses.

Revitalization Process Objectives

The City's objectives in the 2005 revitalization process were:

Attract and retain strong households
Increase homeownership
Grow existing businesses
Add new businesses
Attract shoppers

Recommendations

The three recommendations of the 2005 report were to:

Implement all 10 proposed strategies
Transform how the city and residents manage change
Create Localworks (formerly Wheat Ridge 2020) a public, non-profit corporation, to facilitate and encourage appropriate development in Wheat Ridge

Managing Change

The second recommendation of the Repositioning Wheat Ridge report reads "Wheat Ridge must overhaul how the city and residents manage change," and the NRS provided these key factors:

Key Factors for the City to Successfully Manage Change

Updated zoning and related codes (ongoing)
Updated Comprehensive Plan (adopted in 2009)
New "Open For Business" attitude
Rapid response capacity in planning

Key Factors for the Residents to Manage Change

Understanding of city planning terminology
Participation in planning processes by more citizens
Investment in leadership development and volunteerism
Leadership in Wheat Ridge marketing efforts
Compliance with high property maintenance standards