Over the next year, the Town of Pagosa Springs and the Archuleta County governments, together, plan to spend well over $1 million subsidizing tourism and recreational activities in our community.
At tonight’s 5pm Town Council meeting, the ‘Blueprint 2.0’ report from the CU Boulder graduate students will be considered. Perhaps the report will be praised and its recommendations embraced by the Council. Those recommendations were summarized by the Town staff in the meeting packet.
1. Promote the development of our 30-year-old Cloman Industrial Park by subsidizing infrastructure improvements, including broadband internet.
2. Leverage Existing Assets. “The same reason Pagosa is attractive as a tourism destination is what can be used to attract primary job creators. Recommendations for business-oriented attraction include the availability of geothermal heating, biomass facilities, and a sustainability-focused place to call home.”
3. Establish an Economic Development Coordinator to serves as a liaison across sectors of the community — dedicated to the “primary purpose of business and outdoor recreation attraction.”
4. Build upon “the existing robust tourism marketing strategy, creating an integrated marketing campaign including economic development creates a unified vision and communications strategy.”
5. Develop strong partnerships and collaborate locally and regionally.
Both local governments just finished approving their budgets for 2019, and I’m not clear whether the above recommendations — any of them — could be subsidized by the Town or County, with their 2019 funding as currently allocated. We all know that the Board of County Commissioners have their sights set on a fancy new jail, which probably cannot be considered a “primary job creator”… even if the current ‘Plan B’ would cost the taxpayers in excess of $1.8 million a year in operations and debt service.
But, as I said, the Town and County will still be spending a tidy sum next year promoting the “outdoor recreation economy” in general. Like, more than $1 million.
Also at tonight’s Town Council meeting at 5pm, the non-profit Pagosa Housing Partners (PHP) will be presenting a plan for the future of our community, based upon the somewhat novel idea that local residents need homes to live in.
As with the 37-page ‘Blueprint 2.0’ report from the CU Boulder graduate students promoting additional government investments in recreation and tourism, the Council will possibly vote to officially accept the PHP report, “Roadmap to Affordable Housing 2019-2025.”
You can download the 56-page “Roadmap” here.
From the report’s executive summary:
Local governments, non-profits, community members, faith organizations and concerned residents have come together to respond to the shortage of housing choices in the community. Pagosa Housing Partners has been the lead agency in facilitating these conversations and creating this plan.
The plan sets a goal of creating 100 affordable homes for sale and for rent by 2025, and provides the principles that will guide the work. The plan envisions a need for numerous partnerships and collaborations, and spells out basic roles and responsibilities…
The plan provides key action steps, with timing and responsibilities assigned. The action steps draw from a diverse array of incentives, regulations, funding, and partnerships tailored to be responsive to conditions in the Pagosa Springs/ Archuleta County area. Public/private partnerships are considered to be one of the key tools and an inventory of appropriate land and funding opportunities for those partnerships is also included in the plan…
[My emphasis]
While the Blueprint 2.0 report resulted from research by a group of Boulder graduate students over a three-month period, based mainly on input from two local government employees…
… the “Roadmap to Affordable Housing 2019-2025” is the result of research over the past three years by four local teams, with input from a full complement of local leaders and activists. (At least 47, as listed in the acknowledgements.)
I would here stress the word, “local.”
But we will once again note that the Town and County have already approved their 2019 budgets, and we’re not clear whether sufficient funding will be available to address any of the numerous recommendations in the “Roadmap to Affordable Housing 2019-2015.”
We know that, in recent speeches and discussions, two of our three County Commissioners — Ronnie Maez and Steve Wadley — have thoroughly rejected the idea of contributing money in 2019 towards solving the community’s housing crisis. (They have their own style of “housing” to focus on, it seems.) So it’s probable that no funding will be available from the County’s side, to help implement PHP’s ambitious six-year plan.
We know that the Town Council allotted about $50,000 in their 2019 budget, towards solving the community’s housing crisis. Some of that funding appears to be earmarked for the Durango-based non-profit, HomesFund.
Did I mention that the Town and County together will spend more than $1 million in 2019, promoting recreation and tourism?
I think I did.