PHOTO: The City of Wheat Ridge, just west of Denver.
The Archuleta Board of County Commissioners held their second meeting of 2023 yesterday at the Administration Office on Lewis Street, with a slightly different team seated on the dais.
At the January 3 meeting, the duties of chair had been handled by outgoing commissioner Alvin Schaaf, who was defeated in his re-election effort by Veronica Medina. Yesterday, the commission consisted of Ms. Medina along with Warren Brown and Ronnie Maez. At the start of the meeting, Commissioner Brown was serving as chair — based on his position as vice chair during 2022. But the first order of business was the election of the BOCC chair for 2023, and Commissioner Brown kicked off the process by offering himself as a candidate for chair, if his fellow commissioners were so inclined.
Commissioner Maez then nominated himself as chair, and the nomination was seconded by Commissioner Medina. The ensuing vote was two in favor, with Commissioner Brown voting ‘nay’.
Commissioner Maez, now serving as chair, asked for nominations for vice chair, and Commissioner Medina nominated Commissioner Brown, but he declined the nomination. So Commissioner Medina was elected vice chair.
These maneuvers will no doubt have some bearing on how the BOCC operates during 2023. I’m personally hoping for some positive steps in the direction of regulating the Short Term Rental (STR) industry in Archuleta County. Many other local residents are hoping for the same.
A friend sent me an email yesterday, and mentioned that, in 2021, the Denver suburb of Wheat Ridge had capped the allowed number of STRs at a very low percentage. The limit, established on an annual basis, is calculated as 2% of the total number of units within single- and two-family dwellings in each district. The restrictions do not apply to owner-occupied short-term rentals nor to short-term rentals in non-residential and non-agricultural zone districts, including mixed use districts and commercial zone districts.
The city website includes this chart:
A 2% limit on STRs is very low, compared to some other Colorado communities, but I understand Wheat Ridge is more a ‘bedroom’ community than a tourism community like Pagosa. If bedrooms for existing urban and suburban workers is the city’s main function, they would have good reasons for this low percentage.
About 16 months ago, the Pagosa Springs Town Council took the STR bull by the horns and put some rather significant controls in place, in hopes of preserving some of the residential character of our downtown neighborhoods, while also allowing a significant number of STRs to operate within the town boundaries.
But maybe ‘the bull by the horns’ is a bit dramatic? The restrictions put in place were actually fairly modest. By adopting Ordinance 958 in September 2021, the Town Council:
1. Required a property owner to demonstrate that they’ve owned the property for at least two years, before they can be eligible for a vacation rental license.
2. Allowed only one vacation rental license per residential property. A home with an accessory dwelling unit will be able to short-term-rent one unit or the other, but not both.
4. Stipulated that no more than 10% of the single-family residential units in each residential-zoned district will be eligible for vacation rental licenses. At the meeting where Ordinance 958 was approved, Town Planning Director James Dickhoff stated that vacation rental licenses in every residential-zoned district already exceed 10%, which suggests that no new licenses can currently be issued. There is no cap on homes located in mixed-use zones.
5. Stipulated that a vacation rental property may not be located within two-hundred and fifty feet (250 ft.) of, or be adjacent to, another vacation rental property. This limitation doesn’t apply to multi-family or townhome short-term vacation properties located in the same multi-family or townhome development — and also doesn’t apply to short-term vacation properties which are occupied year-round by the property owner.
Several members of the community testified for or against the ordinance. Taking that testimony into account, the Council passed Ordinance 958 unanimously.
I believe the BOCC could, without too much fuss, adopt the same cap (10% in ’residential neighborhoods’) and the same exemption for owner-occupied properties. Two years ago, the County Planning Department proposed a 5% cap in all subdivisions, with no cap recommended for rural agricultural properties. The BOCC did not adopt that recommendation.
I suspect a 10% cap might be acceptable to the BOCC, to match what the Town did. According to a housing study performed in 2017, we had about 9,230 homes in Archuleta County in 2016. I’m guessing the number is now closer to 10,000.
AirDNA says we have, at most, 1,300 STRs operating in Archuleta County during the peak tourist season. Which means, maybe 13% of our houses? Maybe 10% would be a more reasonable cap?
And while we’re on the topic of 10%, we might mention that Wheat Ridge voters have imposed a 10% tax on STR rentals.
As we’ve discussed often in the Daily Post, the Archuleta County Assessor treats STR properties as if they were residential homes, rather than as commercial businesses, even though about 89% of Archuleta County STRs are owned by people who don’t even live here. This makes no sense to anyone, but it allows STRs to pay a property tax rate of about 7%, compared to the 29% rate paid by all other commercial businesses in Archuleta County.
I’m personally comfortable with the STRs paying less property tax… IF we can simply impose an STR excise tax commensurate with their tax loophole, and use the money for roads and housing.
That can easily happen, if our Board of County Commissioners want to put such a proposal in front of the voters.
But the BOCC could also — if they were so inclined — collect an impact fee from our local STRs, as many other Colorado communities have done. That would not require a vote of the citizens. It could be done before summer rolls around.