The private, non-profit Community Development Corporation — which draws nearly all of its annual income from Archuleta County taxpayers — posted a ‘survey’ recently, asking certain community members to give their opinion about a citizen-generated ballot measure that will appear on the April 5, 2022 Town of Pagosa Springs ballot.
The CDC survey begins like this:
We want your opinion on a proposed Short Term Rental Tax.
Recently there has been a citizen-led effort for a Town Charter amendment that creates a short-term rental tax dedicated to workforce housing. See the ballot language below. We would like to hear from our business community how this will affect you and your business.
(Actually, it’s not a “Short Term Rental Tax”. It’s a “Fee”, as is clearly stated in the ballot language.)
Please take a few minutes and take this short survey. The answers will be compiled and shared with our Town Council. Please see the ballot language below.
“Commencing June 1, 2022, the Town of Pagosa Springs shall collect a Workforce Housing Fee from Short-Term Rentals (STRs) located within Town limits, amounting to at least $150 per month for each permitted bedroom, except no Workforce Housing Fee shall be due when an STR owner resides full-time on the STR property at least nine (9) months of the year. All Workforce Housing Fees shall be dedicated to the creation and sustainability of workforce housing aimed at households earning no more than 100% of Area Median Income.”
1. Do you think this proposed Town Charter amendment is good for business in Pagosa Springs? Please briefly explain Why or why not?
The Mailchimp survey includes a range of sometimes vague questions that offer the survey participant, in some cases, limited opportunity to express a honest opinion — and in other cases, practically enough room to write an entire a non-fiction book.
You can take the survey here. But only registered voters living within the town limits will be allowed to vote on the actual ballot measure on April 5.
It would appear that the CDC survey is aimed specifically at “the business community”. (“We would like to hear from our business community how this will affect you and your business….”)
It’s not clear why a non-profit Community Development Corporation would have less interest in the “non-business community” — since that group comprises, by far, the majority of voters living in Archuleta County.
And although I happen to be a business owner, I did not hear about this survey from the CDC — so perhaps they don’t want to hear from our entire business community? (Or perhaps I was neglected because I helped circulate the petition that placed this Town Charter proposal on the ballot. Who knows?)
I learned about the CDC survey in a article by Terri House, publisher of the weekly Pagosa Springs SUN, in yesterday’s paper. The article quoted a local businessman, Jason Cox, speaking at a January 12 CDC meeting. Mr. Cox, while representing the CDC, has managed to solicit hundreds of thousands of tax dollars from the Board of County Commissioners and the Town Council, to support “economic development” projects conducted by the CDC.
Here is one of Mr. Cox’ quoted statements from the SUN article:
I think the ballot language is somewhat vague and abstract and I don’t see any way in the world anyone could pass it, but the problem is, it is a referendum and so we are going to be out there with whatever information and misinformation people want to put out there. Believe me, I have plenty of workforce and they need homes, and I am all on board of on [sic] working on a solution, but I think this is a really poorly written ballot initiative and I hope it doesn’t go and the business community will be fighting its butt off to not make it go.
(Actually, it’s not a referendum. It’s an initiative.)
The SUN article refers to Mr. Cox as a “local businessman” but does not include the (significant?) information that Mr. Cox himself operates at least one vacation rental within the town limits. But since we are also talking about ‘misinformation’, we might wish to consider some additional comments quoted in the SUN.
I am filling out my survey and I am going to share it with the downtown business group as well. I know many of the players in this and I know it’s well-intended and I think there’s some legs to it here; there’s some positive parts, but I also think there are some fatal flaws. First and foremost, the way that the ballot language is written makes no provision at all for commercial properties that have a use by right to do short-term rental. Thus, it becomes extremely punitive for anyone in a commercially zoned district.
The second is on the same commercial zoning: We pay three times the same taxes that residential rates pay right now for the same usage and a use by right. Residential is not a use by right; it is a privilege. So, that is not even covered at all in the ballot language.
Is this ‘misinformation’? Or is Mr. Cox simply confused about how the world works?
According to the Archuleta County Assessor’s office (where I paid a visit yesterday) a Short-Term Rental — STR, vacation rental — is a residential use, no matter where it is located in the community. As such, an STR pays a ‘residential’ property tax assessment rate of 7.15% — the residential rate in Colorado — even though it is functioning as a commercial operation. The hotel right next door, however, pays a ‘commercial’ property tax assessment rate of 29%, even though it provides essentially the same service as the STR.
All other commercial businesses in Archuleta County also pay the higher 29% tax rate. (Agriculture is a different animal altogether.)
Mr. Cox may be confused, but the facts are simple. It makes no difference whether the STR is located in a commercial district or in a residential district — each STR in Colorado gets a huge property tax discount, relative to its actual commercial use. The vacation rental industry, with active support from Colorado’s real estate industry, has managed an end-run around Colorado tax law that has saved them, literally, billions of dollars in commercial tax payments — and in the process, has helped to drive real estate prices in Archuleta County through the ceiling.
The proposed Town Charter amendment will give STR owners an opportunity — finally — to contribute to our community’s financial and economic health, commensurate with the businesses located next door.
But that important benefit was not addressed in the CDC survey. Sadly enough.
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.