Yesterday in Part Four, I shared a story about a recent conversation with Cindi Galabota, Director of the Ruby Sisson Library Foundation, during which I suggested that the proposed expansion of our tax-funded library could easily include the development of some workforce housing, on a portion of the library’s vacant property in downtown Pagosa.
Okay, I shouldn’t use the word, “easily”. Some of us have been urging the creation of more workforce housing for the past 15 years, and have accomplished very little in the way of results. Almost all of the housing built in Archuleta County during the past town years has been anything but ‘workforce housing’. Quite the opposite.
But as someone once said, “If at first you don’t succeed…”
Apparently, the phrase was first used in a book called “Teacher’s Manual” written by Thomas H. Palmer. His original intention to encourage children to do their homework.
The full quote is: “Tis a lesson you should heed, try, try again. If at first you don’t succeed, try, try, and try again.”
In the case of homework, you might have to try, maybe up to three times, according to Mr. Palmer. If you’re trying to turn an economic cruise ship the size of the Titanic, you can plan on trying, and failing, a hundred times. Maybe more?
Which brings us to a meeting on Vista Boulevard, last month.
Mike Davis, the owner of Davis Engineering and one of the local engineers regularly hired by the Town government when they need help designing a street renovation or walking trail, volunteered to join Town Manager Andrea Phillips, PLPOA General Manager Allen Roth, Archuleta School District SD Superintendent Kym LeBlanc-Esparza, and two members of the Pagosa Housing Partners board: Mark Weiler and myself… and walk a 37-acre parcel at the west end of town.
This sizable vacant parcel was donated to the Archuleta School District back in the early 1970s… back when Ralph Eaton and his partners were buying up ranch properties four miles west of Pagosa Springs, and platting what would eventually be the Pagosa Lakes subdivisions — a suburban, 21-square-mile “recreational community” featuring a 27-hole ‘championship’ golf course, a recreation center, recreational lakes, an equestrian ranch subdivision, gravel roads, and running water.
The folks living in the small town of Pagosa Springs — then a working class community where a quarter of the employees worked at the sawmill, at the east end of town — didn’t know quite what to make of this development. Mr. Eaton and his partners were creating a massive residential community without any apparent employment opportunities, other than… well, other than building houses.
But they did donate 37 acres as the site for a future school, or schools. The parcel in question was across the street from the Vista subdivision — the only subdivision in Pagosa Lakes, I believe, that would allow mobile homes. That made a certain kind of sense, because people raising children tend to be younger, and “lower-income” and many of them would probably live in The Vista.
Indeed, that has been the case, historically. But when it came time to propose a new school, due to increased enrollment, the School District picked a site downtown for a new High School. The bonding for that project needed voter approval, and indeed, the voters gave a thumbs up for the new Pagosa Springs High School at the end of S. 8th Street.
Which brings us, in 2021, to a stroll along the asphalt walking trail along the east side of Vista Boulevard.
Will this property ever be the site for a school?
Even if a school were built here one day, is there enough extra property — to build some workforce housing on the property?
Considering the pressing need, in 2021, for workforce housing?