Yesterday, local resident Roger Horton and his wife appeared before the Archuleta County Board of County Commissioners, asking for special permission to build an 816 square foot home on their small parcel near Lake Pagosa. They wanted their home to be two-stories high — like many of the other homes in the same neighborhood.
Their next-door neighbors turned out in force, armed with enlarged photographs and a neighborhood petition, and carefully constructed arguments as to why Mr. and Ms. Horton should be denied the right to build a small home that would look something like this:
The Board of County Commissioners — Steve Wadley, Michael Whiting and Ronnie Maez — listened to the arguments on both sides. Then Commissioner Whiting made a motion to deny Mr. and Ms. Horton’s request, and that motion was approved by Commissioners Wadley and Whiting, with commissioner Maez voting in opposition.
Before we dig too deeply into why this proposal, to build a cute little house in a residential neighborhood, might be rejected as “illegal” by our elected County leaders, I’d like to discuss a different situation, in my own neighborhood.
I don’t live in Pagosa Lakes, where the neighbors turn out in force to try and prevent the construction of cute, little houses. I live in downtown Pagosa, where we generally maintain a ‘live and let live’ attitude.
For example. My friends Steve and Jen are building two new housing units on the lot across the street.
This small, two-story, two-dwelling-unit building is currently just a shell, and the exterior stairway that will soon access the second-story unit is not yet constructed. I refer to it as a “small” dwelling, although in some other countries, in some other cultures, it might qualify as “large.” Each unit measures about 400 square feet, which is about twice the size of a typical “Tiny Home” — the very small houses, usually built on trailers, that have been making their appearance in many US communities lately.
This new stucture has obtained an official building permit from the Town of Pagosa Springs Planning Department, based on the drawn plans, and based on our neighborhood zoning. The smallest dwelling you can legally build within the Town limits is 400 square feet.
So the units Steve and Jen are building are “legal.” At least, they’re legal here in downtown.
It’s possible, of course, to live in a dwelling that measures less than 400 square feet. Many people in Archuleta County are living in cars or vans, or in truck-bed campers. The ‘living space’ inside a medium-sized delivery van is maybe 70 square feet, at the most? I’m not sure how you’d calculate the square footage of a Subaru.
At any rate, our neighborhood is officially zoned ‘R-22’ by the Town government, which means that Steve and Jen can construct up to four dwelling units on their 1/6 acre lot, as long as they can provide parking spaces for each unit. Typically, anyone thinking of building four units on a 1/6 acre parcel would think in terms of a four-plex apartment, but we’re talking here about the old part of downtown Pagosa, where we have — as I mentioned — something of a ‘live and let live’ approach. When Steve and Jen bought this property, it already had two dwelling units on the property. One unit, withmaybe 800 square feet of living space, dates back to the early 1900s.
The other unit was built by a previous owner about 20 years ago. This three-story structure includes two garages on the first level, and living spaces above. I’m guessing the total square footage might be 800 square feet, not including the garages.
There’s nothing particularly consistent about the architectural design of these three buildings on one single parcel… and that actually makes sense, because the three structures were build by three different families during three different periods of Pagosa’s history.
Some people might view this lack of coherent architectural design as “ugly.”
Some might consider it “quaint.”
But as far as I know, a lack of architectural consistency is not “illegal.” At least, not in our downtown neighborhood.
But the Pagosa Lakes subdivisions are — well, different. Many of the people in Pagosa Lakes don’t see themselves as living in neighborhoods; rather, they occupy real estate investments. When you occupy a real estate investment, you must be vigilant about what your surrounding neighbors are doing with their properties, because it might affect your investment.
But let’s get down to the actual story. It’s Tuesday, August 7. We are in a very crowded meeting room on Lewis Street — the County Administration building’s meeting room. Extra chairs have been brought out, but there are still a dozen people standing in the back of the room. Not everyone has come to protest the application by Mr. and Ms. Horton — in fact, there are at least three controversial items on the agenda which affect different Archuelta County neighborhoods.
Seated on the dais are the three County commissioners, and at the moment, standing at the podium, is architect Courtney King, hoping to explain the difficult situation in which her clients have found themselves, and why they are asking for a variance from certain County Land Use regulations.
Ms. King has designed an 800-square-foot home for Mr. and Ms. Horton, who are seated in the chairs directly behind the podium. The proposed house is 800 square feet because — in this particular area of Pagosa Lakes — real estate investments must measure at least 800 square feet, according to the covenants and restrictions put in place by the original developers back in the 1970s.
I’ve personally very familiar with that particular measurement, because I lived for 20 years in an 800-square-foot home in Alaska, with my wife and three children. Yes, it was cozy at times, especially during the wet, rainy winter months, and yes, there were times when we suffered from cabin fever. But everyone suffers from cabin fever in Alaska. Goes with the territory.
The house that Ms. King has designed, and which the three County commissioners are considering, is only partially “legal.” Yes, it meets the Pagosa Lakes covenants in terms of square footage. But it’s challenged by a couple of Land Use Regulation issues. For one thing, it’s two stories high. And for another thing, it sits too close to its own property lines, on two sides.
That is to say, it’s an illegal design. Necessarily, illegal.
Bill Hudson began sharing his opinions in the Pagosa Daily Post in 2004 and can’t seem to break the habit. He claims that, in Pagosa Springs, opinions are like pickup trucks: everybody has one.