Yesterday, I wrote briefly about an application by BWD Construction, to increase the density of a proposed residential subdivision from R-6 (six units per acres) to R-12 (twelve units per acre). The Town Planning Commission and the Town Council both endorsed the requested density increase.
As I recall, I was the only member of the general public to speak in favor of that zoning change. Several other members of the public testifying at the hearings, last summer and fall, were opposed to a density increase.
If the Planning Commission and the Council had made their decision based on the percentage of public testimony ‘for’ and ‘against’, the zoning change would never have happened. But we have, here in Pagosa and in the US in general, chosen a representative form of democracy, where we elect citizens from among us to sit in judgement and consider deeply the best possible laws and policies. Hearing from so-called “experts’ is part of the decision-making process. Hearing from Town staff is another part. Personal, independent research is yet another. Listening to developers and business owners is typically part of the process.
Hearing from the general public is often the final step… but still important?
When I applied for a seat on the Town Planning Commission, I had a couple of definite goals in mind. My primary goal was to encourage greater participation by that volunteer board in formulating and improving Town policies related to development and housing. It was clear to everyone that the Town’s paid Planning Department staff was burdened with day-to-day applications and grant writing, and that they could use help in updating the ‘Land Use and Development Code’, to better align with the new Town Comprehensive Plan and to better address issues that have made themselves apparent since the last LUDC update back in 2011.
This personal goal of mine was aligned — I believed — with the duties and responsibilities assigned to the Planning Commission, in the LUDC itself. Especially:
1. Develop and recommend to the Town Council new policies, ordinances, administrative procedures, and other means that allow expansion to be accomplished in a coordinated and efficient manner…
My other key goal, when I volunteered was to discourage government overreach and corruption. That’s a goal which I also pursue with my writing efforts here at the Daily Post.
Recently, the Alley House Restaurant was approved for an expansion project, to better serve their clients. I observed that approval from the Planning Commission audience; I had not yet been appointed. One of the ongoing problems yet to be resolved by the Town Planning staff and the Planning Commission concerns downtown parking.
The current LUDC has certain (outdated? inappropriate?) rules about commercial development and the amount of on-site parking that a new development must create. The current rules were — as far as I can tell — copied from someone else’s land use code, in some other city or town, and may not be the best possible choice for our historical downtown business district. One-size-fits-all regulations are not necessarily the best was to approach an historical downtown.
We don’t want our downtown to become a ‘desert’ of parking lots, as we’ve seen happen in downtown Denver and other Colorado cities and towns, and I think there’s a general consensus about that among Town officials. What we want, eventually, is a safe, friendly, walkable downtown, full of vibrant small businesses that serve locals and visitors alike.
Some of our current policies may be discouraging that from happening. Some of our current parking rules, for example, may be encouraging exactly the opposite outcome.
Changing the direction of a government bureaucracy is not a task for the faint of heart. Making change of any kind is not easy. Although everyone involved in Town government knows that we need to update the LUDC, it has taken the Planning Commission more than six months to begin the process — to begin the process — of looking at changes to one small section of that 280-page document: the parking regulations.
Even the answer to the simplest question — do we have a parking problem in downtown? — has not yet been agreed upon by the Commission.
But we’ve made slight headway, with emphasis on the word, ‘slight’.
To return to the Alley House. Downtown Pagosa Springs was platted in 1883, before the invention of the automobile, and even more significantly, before the mass production of the automobile. Our downtown business district, schools, and residential neighborhoods, and our street layouts, reflect a town where people rode horses and walked.
Pagosa’s buinesses, churches, and schools were historically clustered on the 300 and 400 blocks of Pagosa Street and Lewis Street, and the 400 and 500 blocks of San Juan Street (both now part of Highway 160). The rest of downtown was residential, including the Alley House neighborhood. (The Alley House itself was, of course, originally built as a family residence.) None of these businesses, schools, churches or homes needed big parking lots… because people walked and rode horses.
Now, many of downtown’s residential homesites have become commercial business locations, and most of our local residents live four miles away to the west in Pagosa Lakes or Alpha or Meadows, or even farther away in Aspen Springs, or to the south along Highway 84. Our governments have also spent vast sums encouraging a tourism economy.
We’ve built a town based on car traffic, while also desiring a walkable, pedestrian-friendly downtown that emulates the small-town character so many of us moved here to enjoy.
What we have is a dilemma. But maybe sowething we can solve, through cooperative effort?
As I mentioned, one of my primary goals in joining the Planning Commission was to encourage positive changes to the Town’s planning policies and regulations. That was a personal agenda. It seemed like several other members of the Commission also embraced the same agenda.
Then, everything seemed to go to hell — the cooperation, the joint effort — just as Jack Searle’s River Rock Estates subdivision application arrived on the scene.
Coincidence?
Bill Hudson began sharing his opinions in the Pagosa Daily Post in 2004 and can’t seem to break the habit. He claims that, in Pagosa Springs, opinions are like pickup trucks: everybody has one.