We are killing our community with regulations. That’s my premise. You can decide for yourself if you agree.
The regulations to which I am referring are government land use regulations adopted to ‘protect’ property owners from unpleasant developments in their neighborhoods. But what the regulations end up promoting is greed, and selfishness.
I spent some time, this morning, learning about the average size of homes in America. I wanted to understand — if possible — why the Arizona-based developers who created the Lake Pagosa Park subdivision in the 1970s established a requirement that all single family homes must measure at least 800 square.
That’s a crucial measurement, for property owners Liz and Roger Horton: 800 square feet. They’d recently purchased a small “patio lot” at 33 S. Debonaire Court, in a residential neighborhood near Lake Pagosa. A very small lot, by subdivision standards — it’s about half the size of a typical residential lot in downtown Pagosa, for example.
Too small to have a single family home legally built on it?
Google lists hundreds of interesting articles about the history of single family homes in America. Apparently, back in the 1930s, the average American household included about 4.1 people — let’s call it 4. Typically, at least one grandparent lived in the house. The average single family home, meanwhile, measured around 1,100 square feet.
These are averages, of course. Some families, in 1930, included a dozen members or more; some households consisted of a single individual. Some single family homes in America measured 300 square feet; some measured 10,000 square feet.
In 1930, we needed and wanted a variety of houses, in a variety of sizes and at a variety of price points, to serve all segments of our communities.
In 1970, the Archuleta Board of County Commissioners approved the Lake Pagosa Park subdivision. That approval included an agreement between the County and the developers on the (various) size of the lots in that subdivision, and the (various) rules that would define the type of dwelling that could be built on each lot.
As we can see in the following drawing, the developers established a range of lot sizes in this subdivision — although this map doesn’t accurately portray that original variety, because some property owners have purchased two or more lots and consolidated them, to allow for larger homes and/or larger yards. A succession of County commissioners have allowed those consolidations.
Several lots were designated for “Single Family Patio Residences.” These single family homes were intended to be very small, with very small front and back yards. Presumably, they would be suitable for a certain segment of the Pagosa Springs community. The light blue rectangle in the map above indicates the small lot on S. Debonaire Court owned by the Hortons.
We are here listening to local architect Courtney King, presenting a problem before the three County commissioners on Tuesday, August 7, at the continuation of a public hearing on two land use variances requested by Liz and Roger Horton — a height variance request and a setback variance request.
“I’d like to thank for continuing this hearing, We thought it would be better to get the [Pagosa Lakes Property Owners Association] approval before asking for your consideration. So we have that approval now, and we hope you’ll examine this request closely, because there are a lot of issues.”
Note: As amny of our readers are aware, projects within the Pagosa Lakes subdivision are subject to regulation by both the PLPOA and the County. The PLPOA had recently approved the Horton’s plan for a small house on their property, however, based upon the principle that a property owner has an innate right to build a home on their private parcel.
Ms. King:
“The biggest issue [with this particular parcel] is that PLPOA requires that all homes have 800 square feet of living space. In addition to that, a garage is required.
“And I just want to mention that this request is very similar to two other requests that you heard from me, in 2017, in the same neighborhood, where the County and the PLPOA approved height variances for those two homes.”
The regulations for “Single Family Patio Residences” limit the homes to one story, but some of those lots actually require two-story homes, if they are to meet the 800-square-foot minimum size.
Ms. King:
“This property is even more challenging. In addition to the need for a height variance, the lot is not as deep… and I’d like us to take a close look at the build envelope plan.”
The following drawing was projected on the large flat-screens in the Commissioners’ meeting room:
“Here we see the lot with the setbacks as required by the PLPOA. The front setback [requirement] is 25 feet. The rear setback is 20 feet. That leaves about 18 feet of depth for a building.”
About the length of a pickup truck, that is.
“These are patio lots. We can build right up to the side property lines. But this would create some [County] building code issues, and some fire department [access] issues… So the planning department wouldn’t support us taking the building to the zero lot line.
“So the building envelope that’s created with the setbacks is only 778 square feet. So, for one thing, we can’t even meet the minimum square footage required, and that doesn’t even take into account the need for a garage.”
“So let’s think about the garage for a minute… Even if we were able to build a garage within this building envelope, it would be [about 18 feet deep.]… I don’t know how many of you have trucks, but a standard vehicle wouldn’t even fit inside of that garage.”
Clearly, this parcel requires everyone to think outside the box, if a home is going to be allowed. Ms. King and her clients were indeed thinking outside the box, and so was PLPOA. Here’s the footprint of the proposed home, as designed by Ms. King to fit onto this very small parcel:
And here are elevation views:
Perhaps some of our readers would find this home offensive, if it were built next door to your house.
Certainly, the neighbors living in the S. Debonaire Court neighborhood found it offensive. No less than 17 families signed a petition — apparently circulated by the Horton’s next-door neighbors Gwen and Tim Taylor — urging the Board of County Commissioners to reject the requested height and set-back variances on July 7.