The Pagosa Springs Town Council, sitting as the Urban Renewal Authority (URA) commission, along with some handpicked volunteers, will hear an interesting menu of possible actions tonight at 5pm at Town Hall.
The subject is same topic the URA has discussed for 18 months: the seemingly never-ending bureaucratic butthurt which has followed the overwhelming approval by Town voters of a ballot measure which requires voter approval of large subsidies for developers.
That vote followed the rushed attempt of the Town to create the URA as a vehicle to direct up to $79 million in tax breaks, to two local developers, for a luxury development which offered no wage guarantees and rejected all suggestions that they provide any workforce housing.
The memo/menu, written by former Town Manager Greg Schulte and recently appointed Council member Jeff Posey, is succinct, very well drafted and scrupulously unfair and condescending towards the 74% of Town Voters who approved the charter amendment requiring voter approval. Until we reach option four, which frankly surprised me. (You can read the memo here.)
The first three options: Shrug, Sue or Lie?
Shrug
Option One is entitled “Do Nothing.” Sadly this doesn’t imply respect for the commonsense of Town Voters and acceptance of their right to approve large tax breaks to developers. The authors clearly despair that the URA can create any project which will win voter approval (overly pessimistic in my opinion), and just as clearly hope a developer will file a lawsuit and rid the URA of these meddlesome voters.
Sue
Option Two essentially asks “Why wait for a developer when we can sue our own voters right now?” The authors, while sympathetic to the manuever, seem to understand the bad optics involved when a Town Council sues its own voters, especially in an election year. If the first action the URA and Town Council take after last year’s election is to sue Town Voters I’d expect to see a new ballot measure which simply ends the URA start circulating that same week. Towns across Colorado have voted to disestablish URAs after massive giveaways to developers. That right has never been challenged. In fact, a URA cannot be established without a petition by voters.
Lie
Option Three should be titled “Lying About Lying”. The authors suggest a direct attempt to rescind last year’s charter amendment. Apparently that campaign would attempt to convince the voters they were duped and lied to last year. That campaign: The URA wasn’t created at the request of two local developers? The most beautiful stretch of a downtown Colorado river wasn’t declared a dangerous blight? The developers didn’t request $79.2 million in tax breaks? The development did in fact contain middle class wage guarantees? The development included a single square foot of workforce housing?
That’s an awful lot of lying. Sorry, but it was the Town and County who were duped and wowed by the developers, and the commonsense of Town Voters rebelled against spending $79.2 million for $14/hr jobs and more locals destined to live in recreational vehicles.
Listen?
I shouldn’t have been surprised by Option Four: Amending the Amendment. Local affordable housing advocates have been discussing possible amendments to the ballot amendment this year. A few of us were asked to volunteer to discuss possible amendments with a Town Council subcommittee and Town Administration two months ago. We were never given the courtesy of a phone call. (I did mention bureaucratic butthurt, right?)
The key question: Is the requirement of voter approval at the end of negotiations the best approach? Nothing is more effective at preventing gross giveaways to developers like a requirement of voter approval.
But simply preventing bad projects won’t solve the present workforce housing crisis. We desperately need good projects.
The present workforce housing crisis is dire. Nurses, cops, cooks, teachers, ski area employees — everyone who make this community what it is — can no longer find simple decent places to live which don’t require 40-60% of their after-tax income. 2,000 bedrooms in this County have been turned in mini-motel STRs. People now genuinely fear the end of their present leases. And it’s plausible that voting on a project after a year or more of development isn’t ideal for developing good projects.
Maybe the community benefits a URA is supposed to achieve — solid middle-class jobs and decent workforce housing — should be moved to the start of the URA approval process.
Would Town Voters exchange a vote on individual projects for a requirement that all URA projects require middle-class wages (at least 100% of area median income) and a substantial requirement for workforce housing (40% of commercial and residential dwelling units) in exchange for millions in taxpayer subsidies?
Ask the Voters.
And, maybe this time, respect their decision.