The COVID pandemic is not the biggest problem facing Pagosa Springs in 2021.
And no, the biggest problem is not the affordable housing crisis — people living in vehicles, without running water or toilet facilities… nor are hungry children and families our biggest problem, although that’s also a problem.
Nor is the practically-unchecked distribution of heroin, opioids, and meth our biggest problem.
Our deteriorating road system is definitely a problem, but not the biggest one.
And it’s not the so-called “Megadrought” — a bogeyman that the Colorado water industry has recently invented in hopes of frightening us about future water supplies. Yes, Colorado has suffered “megadroughts” in the distant past, and we might suffer from one in the future, but what’s currently happening, right now, is not a “megadrought”.
Nor is ever-increasing local government debt our biggest problem… nor is it a shortage of pickleball courts… nor the poor condition of the grass in our municipal parks.
The biggest problem facing us, in 2021, is ordinary human selfishness — in particular, the selfishness that drives us to fatten our own wallets at the expense of our neighbor.
My daughter, Ursala, phrases it differently. “Entitled white women.” But I disagree. Males are just as likely to feel selfish entitlement as females.
It’s the same problem that stretches across America, from sea to shining sea. We are digging ourselves into a hole made of money.
The cold, hard truth — that entitled selfishness is our biggest problem — was patently clear on Tuesday afternoon, April 20, during a public hearing hosted by our three Republican County Commissioners, Alvin Schaaf, Ronnie Maez and Warren Brown. The hearing concerned a number of proposed changes to the County Land Use Regulations (LURs) — some of which were not at all controversial, and some of which concerned what is perhaps the most controversial issue in all, in Colorado’s tourism communities: the impacts of the vacation rental industry, and ways to mitigate those impacts.
(According to this morning’s Pagosa Springs SUN, the BOCC failed to properly notice the public hearing on Tuesday, and therefore has scheduled another public hearing on May 18, to vote once again in certain proposed changes to the County Land Use Regulations.)
Pagosa Springs — like most communities — has always had its share of “haves” and “have-nots”. But the situation for the “have-nots” has become more dire recently… especially over the past five or six years.
Selfish entitlement is not the only reason for the increasing dismal picture, but it’s probably the most important reason.
Following the Tuesday, April 20, Archuleta BOCC meeting, I received a thoughtful email from a Daily Post reader, questioning the public testimony I had offered the commissioners that afternoon. I was attempting to address a recommendation from the County Planning Commission, urging the BOCC to create a 5% cap on the number of vacation rentals allowed in the unincorporated county.
The audience on Tuesday had just finished listening to all three commissioners express their lack of support for the 5% cap, proposed by the Planning Commission.
By some happy accident, I was the first person allowed to testify on Tuesday. Here’s what I shared with the commissioners during public comment:
“I’d like to first of all express my gratitude to the [County] Planning Commission and to the Planning Department. I don’t recall ever seeing this kind of effort, by one of our local governments, to make this many changes to land use regulations at a single meeting. I’m very impressed with the work they’ve done — looking at all the issues, looking at how things get enforced, and at how we can protect our neighborhoods. I just want to thank them for all their work, and I’d like to thank the commissioners for allowing 180 people to attend this meeting, and for welcoming comments from us.”
“I’ve been researching, and serving on task forces for the past eight years, looking at affordable housing issues specifically, and I know that a lot of communities have determined that the vacation rental industry has some kind of impact on the availability of housing. Commissioner Brown mentioned that there are about 9,250 homes in Archuleta County — and the AirDNA website lists 1,100 vacation rentals here. I’m not sure if that number is accurate, but if that’s true, then more than 10% of our homes have already been converted into vacation rentals.
“I’ve also done some research into how other communities are trying to address this, and as you know very well, every community is doing it differently. Everyone has come up with their own plan, for how to balance a ‘livable’ community with a ‘tourism’ community.
“The City of Santa Fe is a pretty active tourism community. I think a lot of their wealth comes from tourism. Just wanted to let you know, their cap on vacation rentals is 2.7%.
“I wanted to let you know that the City of Salida — another active tourism community — as a cap of 3.5%
“Another very active tourism community, is the City of Manitou Springs. Their cap is 2%.
“The City of Durango has limited vacation rentals to 119 rentals, total, within the city.
“The Town of Telluride does not allow you to book a short term rental for more than 29 days per year.
“So there are all kinds of ways that communities are struggling to prevent the worsening of our housing crisis. And I looks to me like the communities who have put caps in place are not afraid of a 5% cap. These are all tourism communities, and they have gone way below 5%, with their caps…”
At this point, my allotted “three minutes” had run out, and the commissioners moved on to the next member of the public.
I thought the information I’d shared with the commissioners might be useful. I believed my information was accurate — that the Town and County governments have already allowed 10% of our existing residential homes to be converted into mini-motels. The AirDNA website certainly appears to suggest exactly that. (You can visit the AirDNA website here.)
According to the data presented on that website on April 21, 2021, the zip code 81147 offers up the following Short-Term Rental opportunities:
Twenty-two (22) Studio Apartments
One hundred eighty-five (185) One Bedroom Rentals
Three hundred twenty-six (326) Two Bedroom Rentals
Three hundred fifty-four (354) Three Bedroom Rentals
One hundred thirty-two (132) Four Bedroom Rentals
Seventy-six (76) Five+ Bedroom Rentals
That totals 1,095 vacation rentals, in a community with about 9,250 homes total.
AirDNA also claims that, at the start of 2018, there were 689 vacation rentals within the 81147 zip code. Apparently, in three years’ time, the industry has nearly doubled.
Is it time to put a density cap in place, to try and preserve what small measure of “neighborhood character” still remains in certain subdivisions? Like, for example, the 5% cap recommended by the County Planning Commission?
Apparently not.
Apparently, the rich will get richer, and the poor will… well, probably, they will simply have to leave.