The Town of Pagosa Springs has put considerable effort into their public website over the past couple of years, in terms of making their operations and decision-making processes more transparent. While researching the ‘Town to Lakes Trail’ project for a future Daily Post article, I was pleasantly surprised to find that the Planning Department had posted, to its page, the Rezoning Application for Aspen Village Ventures LLC. This rezoning proposal will be considered at tomorrow’s Town Council meeting, Thursday, March 23. The meeting starts at 5pm at Town Hall.
The application document is 39 pages long. 27 of those pages consist of the Operating Agreement for Aspen Village Ventures LLC, a company registered in Delaware with a Bentonville, Arkansas mailing address. Interesting reading, but not terribly vital to the questions we might hear during tomorrow’s public hearing.
The rezoning, if approved by Town Council, would allow the company to build up to 55 dwellings on about 3 acres of land immediately south of the Walmart store in Aspen Village. The existing zoning limits the entire “Enclave” development to about 48 dwellings. Ten units have already been constructed, and were sold — apparently, at a discount prices — several years ago. The remaining 38 units were never built.
The new proposed plan illustrates slightly smaller units… and slightly more of them: 55 proposed units, instead of 38.
From the Aspen Village Ventures application:
By the time the first ten units were complete, the Great Recession of 2007 had begun, hence, of the original ten townhomes, only one home sold at its initial offering. In an effort to recoup some of the original investment into the Enclave, between 2009 to 2010, the remaining nine townhomes were sold at significant discounts to the original offering prices. An overabundant supply of homes built prior to the recession resulted in a lowering of home prices throughout the Pagosa Springs market for years after. Combined with reduced demand for new housing, no new townhomes have been constructed on the property beyond the original ten.
Beginning in September of 2016, based on anecdotal evidence that a housing shortage now exists in Pagosa Springs, the applicant began to investigate the feasibility of constructing new townhomes on the property with the intent of offering them for sale, or as rentals. The applicant’s research does seem to indicate that there is demand for both new homes for sale, as well as for rental units. Due to the relative small size of Pagosa’s market however, the challenge is to quantify the existing supply and demand for new homes so as to not overbuild the market as was done in the past.
Some of the neighbors, who live in the existing Enclave townhomes, are concerned that smaller, possibly more affordable dwellings in their neighborhood will make life less pleasant — considering, especially, that they already watched (in horror?) as a 93,000-square-foot discount store got built across the street (with the Town’s blessing.)
The page I found most interesting, in the application, included the list of property owners located within 300 feet of the proposed rezoning. Town land use rules require an applicant to mail notices of development proposals to neighboring owners within 300 feet.
The Aspen Village subdivision is one of the few areas outside Pagosa’s historical downtown that has been annexed into the Town boundaries. This means a couple of things for the residents and businesses within the subdivision. The residents can vote in Town elections and can serve on the Town Council. Properties get to pay Town property taxes in addition to County property taxes. Properties must abide by the Town’s Land Use and Development Code, rather than the County’s Land Use Code.
And, interestingly enough, our local U.S. Post Office will not deliver mail to your home or business, if you live within the Town boundaries. You must maintain a PO Box.
With that curious little U.S. Post Office policy in mind, we might consider the 45 property owners who were sent notices of the rezoning hearing. 26 of them, including the Walmart store, have Bentonville, Arkansas addresses. 11 have addresses outside of Colorado. That makes 37. Three have PO Box addresses in Pagosa Springs. The other five Pagosa addresses are located outside of the Aspen Village subdivision.
This might indicate that, out of the 45 property owners who were sent notices about tomorrow’s public hearing (Thursday, March 23 at 5pm) only three actually live full-time in homes located within the Aspen Village subdivision.
I’m not sure how that breakdown might reflect the housing conditions in Pagosa Springs, in a more general way. A recent report published by Region 9 Economic Development District estimated that about 41 percent of the homes in Archuleta County are owned by people with non-Pagosa addresses. This compares with another recent estimate that 60 percent of the privately-owned parcels — including vacant land — are owned by people with non-Pagosa addresses.
As we note in the summary written by the developers, quoted above, there’s anecdotal evidence that a “housing shortage exists in Pagosa Springs.”
But it’s difficult to align that claim with the developer’s other claim, that “… an overabundant supply of homes built prior to the recession resulted in a lowering of home prices throughout the Pagosa Springs market for years after.”
As I assess the situation — from the perspective of a news editor — Pagosa Springs never had an “overabundant supply of homes.” What began to appear during the 2007 Recession was not an overabundant supply of homes, but an under-abundant supply of workers, as they left the community seeking jobs elsewhere. The supply of vacant homes — many of them in foreclosure — then sold “at significant discounts” to investors who have now jacked up the rental prices beyond what a working class family can afford.
Can we find a solution? Before it’s too late?