When the former Chair of the Pagosa Springs Community Development Corporation — Jason Cox — made his pitch for $200,000 in local taxpayer subsidies, as the first installment in a government-funded Broadband project for Archuleta County, he was unable to give us detailed information about the project. He did, however, promise that the resulting improvements to Internet delivery would affect maybe 1,000 households in the community.
We also heard that some initial Broadband improvements would take place in the Cloman Industrial Park.
To fully understand Mr. Cox’ promise, we probably need to make a clear distinction between “homes” and “households.” According to the research I’ve read about housing in Archuleta County — notably, the 100-page 2017 Archuleta County Housing Needs Study written by Denver-based Economic and Planning Systems (EPS) — much of the housing constructed in our community since 2000 has been in the form of ‘second homes.’
From that study, on page 8:
Based on a January 2016 report prepared for Region 9, an estimated 41 percent of residential properties in Archuleta County are owned by people whose primary residence is outside the County. In a survey of these homeowners, 12 percent of these homes were reported as part- time rentals and 11 percent as full-time rentals. …
…Another indication of second home and speculative housing construction can be found by comparing the growth in households (equivalent to an occupied housing unit) to growth in housing units. Historically, 35 to 40 percent of housing units across the County have been vacant. While a small percentage of these are vacant while for rent or for sale, most are likely second homes.
Between 2000 and 2010, the County added 2,550 housing units but only 1,287 households, indicating that 50 percent of new housing units were second homes. From 2010 to 2016 this proportion increased as the County added only 187 households but 468 housing units — 60 percent of new housing units were second homes. These data points indicate that the share of second homes in the market is growing.
Adding those totals, we see that between 2000 and 2016, our community added 3,000 homes… but only 1,490 households. More than half of the houses built since 2000 appear to have been ‘second homes.’
More than half.
These visitor families pay property taxes like the rest of us, but otherwise make only limited contributions to our local economy, generally speaking. They don’t pay year-round sales tax like the permanent residents do, nor do they work at productive jobs, or volunteer for our non-profit organizations. Generally speaking.
I don’t mean this as a criticism. Just stating the facts. And noting that when Mr. Cox makes the claim that faster Internet speeds delivered to 1,000 households will affect 2,600 people (at 2.6 persons per household) he’s neglecting to tell us that 40 percent of those households are probably vacant for at least 9 months of the year.
Yesterday in Part Four, I discussed a map section, from a larger national map developed by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC.) The map shows, outlined in magenta, a Census Block that includes no residential homes. The Block does, however, include the Town Hall, the Bank of the San Juans, and the Springs Resort. It also includes a vacant 27-acre parcel owned by the Springs Partners LLC.
The FCC map also provided information about which Internet Service Providers (ISPs) were delivering (at least theoretically) service to this particular Census Block. I can’t vouch for the accuracy of the FCC’s list, but knowing what little I do about our local ISPs and about the various Internet speeds in various neighborhoods in downtown Pagosa Springs — where I’ve lived pretty much continuously since 1993 — I think the list looks reasonably accurate.
If you lived in this Census Block (which you can’t, because there are no residential homes there, yet) you might be able purchase Internet speeds twice as fast as the benchmark speeds promoted by the FCC: “25/3.” 25Mbps down, and 3Mbps up.
(We would want faster download speeds than upload speeds, of course, because the video content comes from above. Generally speaking.)
A different Census Block — 080079743002025 — located about a mile south of downtown, to the east of Trujillo Road (County Road 500.)
Those of you who are familiar with Trujillo Road understand that this particular area is a very rural, low-density ranching area. Viewing the Block on the County Assessor’s map, it looks like there might be four homes within the Census Block. These four homes (theoretically) have access to satellite Internet from three carriers, including high-speed delivery from dishNet Holding, LLC. But they don’t have the same 60Mbps speeds from the local ‘fixed providers’ as we saw along Hot Springs Boulevard. They’re lucky if they can get 6Mbps.
6Mbps is not bad, however, considering only four homes are located in this Block. (I use 3Mbps for my home downtown.) I can’t say, for certain, whether these four homes are occupied by permanent residents or if they sit vacant for 9 months of the year.
Statistically speaking, we can guess that only two of them are occupied full-time.
A map for an adjacent Census Block, right next door, on the opposite side of Trujillo Road shows the speeds available, per the FCC study.
As we see here, Census Block 080079404002006 has the usual satellite services available. But the residents in this very rural neighborhood, where the only sound is the occasional lowing of cattle, also appear to have access to Internet speeds up to 1 Gig down (987Mbps) and 35Mbps up, through the Comcast Corporation.
Why does this rural and fairly isolated Census Block have very-high-speed Internet available? More than ten times faster than our Town Hall and our premier mineral springs resort? And more than 100 times faster than the folks on the other side of the road?
I don’t know. I hope the Pagosa Springs CDC knows, because they are asking for $200,000 in taxpayer subsidies for 2019, to improve Internet speeds in the community. Unfortunately, there is practically zero Broadband information available on the CDC website, so I’m unable to report on that topic.
Before we go, we’ll consider one more Block from the FCC map — Census Block 080079404002019. This rural Block lies directly south of Block 080079404002006, the Block mentioned above with speeds 10 times faster than almost anyone else in the community.
I don’t know who lives in this Census Block… nor do I understand why their fastest ‘fixed provider’ happens to be Visionary Communications Inc. (Skywerx, at 3Mbps)… or why CenturyLink provides only relatively second-rate speeds (1.5Mbps) to these folks, compared to other customers in the community.
It’s a complicated story. Do our local government leaders understand it? Do they understand it well enough to know that a $200,000 investment of local taxes, in 2019, will truly serve the people who pay those taxes?
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.