We’re seeing some strange bed partners develop, as the nationwide housing crisis expands and becomes daily more threatening here in America.
The Pagosa Springs community is not immune — to the crisis, nor to the appearance of strange bed partners.
Recently, Archuleta County Sheriff Rich Valdez informed the Board of County Commissioners (BOCC) that three of his deputies — and their families — have been forced to share a single family home, due to the lack of affordable housing in the community. The Sheriff urged the BOCC to take effective steps to begin addressing the problem.
Two of the strange bed partners we will be addressing in this editorial series are none other than the BOCC itself and the Pagosa Springs Town Council — two local governments who’ve spent the past three years discussing ways they might cooperate on addressing the housing crisis here.
Three years later, they have found themselves unable to fully cooperate in spending a meager $100,000 on this massive problem.
We can start with a little story about the BOCC and their inability to take advice from their own appointed advisors. The Archuleta Board of County Commissioners met on Tuesday afternoon, July 3, to make some routine decisions about our immediate futures, and a couple of non-routine decisions that will likely have long-range implications for the people of Pagosa Springs.
Only two of our three Commissioners were present at that meeting: Steve Wadley and Ronnie Maez.
Commissioner Michael Whiting was on vacation. Mr. Whiting had planned his vacation months ago, not knowing that Commission Chair Steve Wadley would place these two very important decisions about the community’s future on the July 3 agenda, while Mr. Whiting was absent and unable to vote on the issues.
Later that same day, the Pagosa Springs Town Council addressed one of those same issues, and took a somewhat different approach to the problem.
Did the people — the taxpayers, the voters, the residents — have any influence on the two important decisions made by two public boards last Tuesday? Or were the people simply ignored, as has happened occasionally in the past?
Some Archuleta County residents may have decided that they’re not players in the way our community will unfold over the next decade or so. Some might choose to be non-players simply because they don’t have the energy; maybe they’re retired and feel they’ve made their contributions. They might feel that the wheels of government will continue turning in the right direction without their participation. Maybe they feel fearful of being judged or disliked for getting involved in politics.
Some might feel that the system is oppressive and controlled by a few powerful interests, and that it will ignore or subvert whatever input we might choose to make. We might simply feel powerless.
Some of us did not feel powerless on July 3, however. We were determined to publicly speak our minds, and make an effort to change the community for the better.
The first key decision at the BOCC meeting concerned changes to the County Land Use Regulations, to legalize Short Term Rentals — STRs, vacation rentals — in every residential zone in the unincorporated county.
Commissioners Maez and Wadley voted together to approve a new “administrative conditional use” process whereby all STRs in the unincorporated county must pay a $400 annual fee and go through an approval process with the County Planning Department. Vacation rentals operating in the county without obtaining a permit are subject to a base penalty fee of up to $800 plus $100 per day that the rental operates.
We’ll discuss the July 3 STR decision more fully, later on in this article series.
The second key decision at the BOCC meeting concerned recommendations, from three officially appointed groups, to spend several thousand dollars on three ‘strategic priorities’: Early Childhood Education, High Speed Internet, and Affordable Housing.
My personal interest in this situation was focused upon Affordable Housing, and I found myself sadly disappointed in the actions of Commissioners Wadley and Maez.
Several months ago, I participated as part of the official Housing Advisory Committee in the creation of a Request For Proposals (RFP) aimed at finding a local or regional agency, to oversee the development of a coordinated affordable housing strategy. After much study and many lengthy discussions, the Housing Advisory Committee recommended that the Town and County use their dedicated and budgeted funding — up to $100,000 — to underwrite the work of two local organizations.
In their RFP response, the Archuleta County Housing Authority (ACHA; not a part of the County government) had proposed to use $50,000 to begin the process of constructing a Low Income Housing Tax Credit project, sometime on the next few years. LIHTC projects typically take three or four years — at least — to make their way through the state and federal processes, and to completion. ACHA understood that $50,000 would be a drop in the bucket, relative to the amount of money ultimately needed to build a LIHTC housing project, but it would pay for some preliminary consultant studies.
We might pause here, to note that the majority of the money requested by ACHA would be paid to outside consultants, according to their RFP response.
Meanwhile, a brand new non-profit organization, Pagosa Housing Partners (PHP), had proposed to use $50,000 to create a community-wide strategic plan that would help initiate a range of public and private housing projects — and combination ‘public-private’ projects as well, perhaps. PHP is also proposing to help develop funding streams to continue the community’s affordable housing efforts into 2019 and beyond… knowing that it will likely take decades of effort to fully resolve Pagosa’s housing crisis, especially in light of current efforts in Washington DC to reduce federal expenditures on affordable housing. The PHP plan had also been endorsed by the Pagosa Springs Community Development Corporation, which has tentatively agreed to serve as PHP’s fiscal agent.
The official Housing Advisory Committee had recommended — unanimously — that the Town and County cooperate in funding the Archuleta County Housing Authority for up to $50,000. The HAC also recommended funding PHP at up to $50,000 for strategic plan development and funding research.
That recommendation was forwarded to the Joint Strategic Priorities committee, which reviewed the funding plans and approved the same recommendation for housing expenditures.
$50,000 for ACHA, and $50,000 for PHP.
But when those well-vetted recommendations came before Commissioners Maez and Wadley on July 3, the odor of political favoritism began seeping into the room.