Last night, March 23, at about 6pm, the Pagosa Springs Town Council kicked off their public hearing on a proposal to rezone three acres within the Aspen Village subdivision, from “medium density R-12” (maximum 12 dwelling units per acre) to “high density R-22” (maximum 22 dwelling units per acre.)
At the hearing, developer Emil Wanatka of Durango represented Aspen Village Ventures LLC — the partnership that began building out “The Enclave” townhomes back in 2007, and then stopped after completing only 10 of the 48 units approved for that development. We also heard one member of the public speak in support of the rezoning proposal, and another opposing it.
Mr. Wanatka’s Powerpoint presentation was thorough, and detailed, and included a few photos of housing projects he has completed in Durango. More about that presentation in a moment.
Town staff had brought forth a proposed ordinance that aligned with a recommendation from the Town Planning Commission, approving the requested density increase but prohibiting the construction of apartments within the three acres. (There was a bit of confusion about whether the ordinance language also prohibited the construction of condominiums, and we never got a clear answer to that question.)
Basically, the Council was deciding between two approaches to Pagosa’s future.
1. Keep Pagosa Pagosa
…Or…
2. Keep Pagosa Pagosa
As an amateur student of Pagosa history, I have the impression that “government planning” had very little to do with how our little rural town assembled itself between 1883 and approximately 1990. Generally speaking, individuals who bought property along the main highway built commercial buildings, and individuals who bought property back from the main highway built residential homes. The buildings were built in the style of the day, and it’s pretty obvious that Pagosa Springs built out slowly, over many decades — unlike many of the mining towns in Colorado that sprang up in a matter of months during the hasty development of nearby mining operations. A walk down any Pagosa street reveals architecture from most every decade, between about 1920 and 1990.
It wasn’t until about 1990 — and more actively, beginning in about 2000 — that the municipal government took on the role of Centralized Designer of the Community. Various planning professionals were hired, as consultants or on salary, to help create laws and regulations, purportedly to make Pagosa Springs a “better” place to live.
But the planners were also supposed to preserve the “small town character” of the town.
Curiously enough, the people of Pagosa Springs — many of them, without even a high school education — had created that same, attractive “small town character” without much help from government planners. But for some reason, the Town government had lost faith in the people of Pagosa, and determined that the only way to keep the community from changing too much, while also forcing it to change in the right direction, was to spend tens of thousands of tax dollars on professional planners with college degrees. (Or in some cases, on professional planners without much experience at all.)
Four of the seven members of the Council were present to vote on Thursday night: Mayor Don Volger, Tracy Bunning, David Schanzenbaker and Nicole DeMarco. The choice before them was challenging.
1. Keep Pagosa Pagosa, by denying the Aspen Village Ventures’ application for the density increase. Developer Emil Wanatka suggested, during his presentation, that denial of the application would likely discourage residential development from taking place at the site. He carefully explained that market forces, combined with the high cost of construction in remote rural communities like Pagosa Springs, make it impossible to sell the style of homes his company had envisioned back in 2005. (He didn’t mention that the homes, as envisioned back in 2005, had views of the northern range of the San Juan Mountains. The properties now have a view of the Walmart loading docks.) But the Town Council did have the option, last night, of denying the density increase, and of “keeping Pagosa Pagosa.” Which is to say, keep Pagosa undeveloped and suffering from a shortage of workforce housing.
2. Keep Pagosa Pagosa, by allowing entrepreneurial individuals relatively free reign to build the types of homes they believe will suit the community’s needs, while providing a paycheck to the carpenters and a profit to the company. This approach would place minimal restraints on the developer, with the assumption that he (or she) will, sensibly, build homes that are attractive enough to be saleable on the open market — or that feature rents cheap enough to serve Pagosa’s population.
Sort of the way Pagosa used to be, before the “planning professionals” took over the government. Before our governments decided to become Centralized Designers of the Community.
At the conclusion of his appeal to the Council, Mr. Wanatka did his best to sell the idea that Pagosa desperately needs more, and more affordable, rental apartments to serve our working class families and individuals.
Watching the slide presentation, I understood that Mr. Wanatka was attempting to convince the Council that an average working class household in Pagosa should spend — according to U.S. Housing and Urban Development (HUD) guidelines — up to about $845 a month for rent or mortgage. The payments on a median-priced Pagosa home come to about $1,400 a month.
As he explained, those numbers don’t match up very well for the working class.
The solution he proposed closely resembled the solutions that have been promoted by the Archuleta County Affordable Housing Workgroup over the past nine months: a mix of small single-family homes, townhomes and apartments.
But the density-increase ordinance written by Town staff specifically prohibited apartments.
The Council could have changed the ordinance. But in the end, the Council voted to keep Pagosa Pagosa, by approving the staff-written ordinance. Only Mayor Don Volger voted against the ordinance.
Whether this Council decision will encourage something to be built in Aspen Village, or whether Mr. Wanatka will head back to Durango feeling discouraged about his prospects, and decide to leave the Enclave property vacant for another decade… we will have to wait and see.