In Part One, I drew a distinction between, on the one hand, the incorporated Town of Pagosa Springs — its government, and the people living within its boundaries — and on the other hand, Archuleta County — its government and the people living outside the Town boundaries but still considering themselves a part of the Pagosa Springs community.
Although we share so many things — our kids attend the same schools, we shop at the same stores, we get treatment from the same doctors, we attend the same churches — there are a couple of important things we don’t share. People living within the Town boundaries can vote in Town Council elections, and on amendments to the Home Rule Charter. People living within the Town boundaries can serve on the Town Council. Non-town residents cannot.
And, as we noted in Part One, people owning property located within the Town boundaries have their property rights controlled by the Pagosa Springs Land Use and Development Code — typically referred to, around Town Hall, as “the LUDC”. Out in the unincorporated county, property rights are controlled by the Archuleta County Land Use Regulations, and often by a property owners association as well.
As a member of the Town Planning Commission, I’m particularly interested in the Town’s LUDC — the guiding document for many Planning Commission decisions. But I’m also interested in property rights as an ordinary Town resident and property owner, because the LUDC, in many ways, defines the physical spaces Town residents live in, the ways we move about, and the neighborhood relationships that blossom — or fail to blossom — between our various households.
During the last quarter of the 20th century, Archuleta County saw some remarkable population growth, if you measure in percentages. The county population in 1970 was 2,733 — most of whom lived within the incorporated Town of Pagosa Springs. By the year 2000, the population had nearly quadrupled to 9,898 — with nearly everyone now living outside the Town of Pagosa Springs… thanks to a class of entrepreneurs known as developers… working closely with another class of entrepreneurs known as ranchers. The ranchers had claimed or purchased vast parcels of mostly grazing land during the first 70 years of the 20th century, and had been scraping by, selling sheep and cattle. Then the developers came along and offered what must have been attractive prices — and some of the ranches were converted into ‘subdivisions’…
…Vast parcels of what was once ranchland — chopped up into tiny lots, or larger lots, with dirt roads running here and there, and in some cases, water and sewer services — and sold to individual families at a nice profit.
Each subdivision was given a colorful name that evoked Nature, Scenic Views, and perhaps a sense that you were moving into a real Neighborhood. A village, perhaps?
Meadows II. Pagosa in the Pines. Twincreek Village. Martinez Mountain Estates. Coyote Cove. San Juan River Village. Aspen Springs. Vista. Lake Forest Estates.
These were not “villages” in any real sense of the word, however. They were suburban tracts of homes built among the pine trees. They included no commercial activities at all — commercial activities were, in fact, specifically prohibited — so any shopping or employment required you to climb into your car and drive out of your neighborhood.
Here’s a photo I found on the real estate website OwnPagosa.com — showing an aerial view of a typical subdivision neighborhood in Archuleta County.
While all this somewhat fabulous change was happening in Archuleta County, the little incorporated town of Pagosa Springs was staying pretty much the same as it was in 1940. (I mentioned yesterday that the US Census population of Pagosa Springs in 1940 was the same — 1,591 — as the population in the year 2000.)
The lack of change in Pagosa’s historical downtown was due, at least partially, to the lack of subdivision opportunities. The townsite had been platted in 1883, and the streets and parcels had been delineated long before the arrival of the subdivision developers.
There was no easy money to be made, inside the town limits. A few developers, over the years, had proposed the subdivision of a rather large, 72-acre travertine-rock meadow just south and west of the Great Pagosa Hot Spring, but no one seemed to have the heart, or the pocketbook, to actually pull it off.
As for the rest of the downtown, it had been chopped up into tiny parcels 120 years earlier.
But during the first decade of the 21st century, developers began proposing large subdivisions just outside the town limits — where they could potentially hook up to the Town sewer system.
The State of Colorado had grown leery of large subdivision developments with substandard sewer systems and poorly constructed roads, and the rules for sewer treatment and road construction had grown more onerous. At the same time, the popularity of the suburban lifestyle had taken a hit, and people were growing more fond of “walkable, mixed use communities”.
Suddenly, the historical downtown’s quaint, small town vibe — and its functional sewer system — were looking more attractive to subdivision developers, and several projects were brought to the Town Planning Department between 2000 and 2008.
Mountain Crossing. Blue Sky Village. Reservoir River Ranch. Pradera Point. Blue Sky Ranch.
But in order to hook up to the Town sewer system, these proposed subdivisions would need to be annexed into the Town. Which would mean, they would now be subject to the Town’s LUDC. The Land Use and Development Code.
The reason I find all this history interesting is because — while America did have a passionate love affair with suburban living between 1950 and 2000 — the bloom is now somewhat off the rose. Urban planners all across the country are telling communities to stop allowing 20th century-style suburban development, and start building real, connected, walkable, multi-use neighborhoods.
The type of neighborhoods we find, for example, in downtown Pagosa Springs.
The reasons are economic, and social, and environmental. And I believe all those reasons have driven the design of the Town’s LUDC…