As of January 1, 2019, there shall be an application process, as more fully set forth below, for the memorialization of Improperly Divided Parcels of real property less than 35 acres in size and situated in Archuleta County, Colorado. Provided, further, this Resolution is necessary to the immediate preservation of the public health, safety and welfare due to the immediate impact upon surrounding property owners as well as the impact on those owners of parcels less than 35 acres in size, including, but not limited to, their inability to develop or otherwise construct on those parcels.
— from Archuleta County Improperly Divided Parcels (IDP) Exemption Interim Resolution 2018-54
You are hereby on notice, owners of Improperly Divided Parcels (IDPs). Beginning yesterday, you have one year to register your bastard parcels.
The Archuleta County government had struggled a bit, lately, to find the correct appellation for the illegitimate parcels born in the unincorporated county over the past 48 years. For many years, the County planning department had been ‘looking the other way’ when dealing with these illegitimate parcels, and had been treating them as perfectly suitable sites for homes and various outbuildings. But recently, the owners of these bastard parcels have run into refusals, from the County building and planning departments, to issue building permits for these previously-divided lots.
The County staff had been various considering the terms, “illegal” and “improperly divided.”
From a memo written by County Attorney Todd Starr last month:
In Archuleta County, we have an estimated 400+ lots that were created in violation of this statutory scheme, in that they are 34.999 acres in size or less and do not satisfy any of the exceptions enumerated in [Colorado Revised Statutes 30-28-101 et seq.]
On May 5, 1972 — near the end of yet another contentious legislative session —the newly-passed Senate Bill 35 became effective. SB 35 had been enacted to provide some regulation of land subdivisions in Colorado, and it required counties to pass regulations to control parcels of land smaller than 35 acres and preclude property owners — in most circumstances — from unilaterally subdividing their property without complying with SB 35, as codified in CRS 30-28-101.
Following the passage of SB 35, different counties came up with different subdivision regulations, and different ways of publicizing and enforcing those regulations. Out here in the Wild West — Archuleta County — some folks failed to hear about SB 35, or chose to ignore the new rules. (In fact, I’m not entirely clear whether the Archuleta County government fulfilled its obligation to create new subdivision rules back in 1972. Something I need to research.)
Anyway, it would appear — from the text of Archuleta County Board of County Commissioners Resolution 2018-54, passed last month — that we have more than 500 bastard parcels here in the unincorporated county. (The Town of Pagosa Springs has its own subdivision regulations and processes, which are not the subject of this editorial installment.)
It’s not easy being a bastard.
Apparently, the word “bastard” comes from the Old French, and is somehow related to the phrase “fils de bast” which can be translated as “Child of the Packsaddle.” The implication is that a traveler (who would, of course, have a packsaddle) had stopped by for the evening and then continued on his merry way, and nine months later… well, you get the picture. The English adopted the word from the French (or rather, had the word imposed by the French, following their conquest of what is now Great Britain.) Previous to the French invasion, the Anglo Saxons didn’t seem to care all that much who a child’s father was or wasn’t, but I guess the conquering Catholics had to make a big deal of the whole matter.
By defining certain children as “bastards” the French caused all kinds of family problems, because a bastard son was no longer legally entitled to inherit his share of the family land or fortune. This became especially important (historically speaking) in the case of the Royal Bastard — the child of a reigning monarch born out of wedlock — when a king might have a child with a mistress, or when the legitimacy of a marriage might be questioned for whatever reason.
At any rate, we can blame the French for the suffering of bastard children, born in innocence into a world that defined them as a “illegitimate” or otherwise “improper.”
And we can blame the Colorado General Assembly for defining a certain kind of subdivision parcel — less than 35 acres, when subdivided from a larger parcel without going through an official subdivision process — as illegal or improper. We can also understand why the General Assembly made the law, because in the 1960s, Colorado had seen an infestation of subdivision developers, buying up large agricultural properties and chopping them up into tiny, highly-profitable parcels that may have lacked proper road access and in many cases lacked proper water and wastewater services. (Our poster child, here in Archuleta County, is the Aspen Springs subdivision, which still lacks water and wastewater services 50 years later.)
One article I came across this morning implied that, under CRS 30-28-101, it’s a misdemeanor to sell a parcel that does not comply with county subdivision regulations.
For the past couple of years, the Archuleta Board of County Commissioners have been studying this problem, which became more urgent when the planning department began refusing to issue building permits. And the solution (at the moment) is Resolution 2018-54, passed last month by the BOCC.
From that resolution:
1.04.2 Applications for Designation of Legal Lot. The Archuleta County Planning Department shall receive and process all applications by record title owners for a designation that their parcel of real property consisting of less than 35 acres is entitled to receive a Designation of Legal Lot Status pursuant to the terms, provisions and conditions of this Resolution. Such Applications may be received between January 1, 2019 and December 31, 2019.
The application process is slightly different, dependent upon three different situations. The simplest application applies to bastard parcels upon which no structure has yet been erected. The next simplest application applies to bastard parcels where one or more structures have been built and where those structures were issued an official building permit by the County government.
The most complicated application applies to bastard parcels where buildings were erected without an official County building permit.
You can download the full 11-page Resolution here.
Presumably, the Archuleta County building and planning departments are now ready and willing to accept applications, it being January 2, 2019. You can find the application on the Archuleta County website, here. If you are looking for information about your particular parcel and find out if your parcel qualifies as one of the 50o or so “improperly divided parcels,” I did not find that information on the website. You can probably call the County Planning Department for more information. Try (970) 264-1390.