Back in July 2022, the Archuleta Board of County Commissioners were under a bit of pressure.
They had been allowing unrestricted growth of the Short Term Rental industry… to the delight of certain Pagosa realtors and STR management companies… and to the dismay of full-time residents who were watching their neighborhoods turn into commercial motel districts — or worse yet, causing the eviction of full-time residents from long-term rentals as the properties were converted to STRs.
Mountain resort communities across Colorado have been putting STR ‘density caps’ in place… and levying additional fees and taxes, in some cases, to help fund workforce housing initiatives.
The Archuleta County government have thus far done nothing of the kind, and as a result, has watched its STR industry mushroom during the COVID pandemic, as home prices and rental rates skyrocketed, as employers struggled to find workers, and as Region 9 Economic Development District calculated that Archuleta County had become the most expensive place to live in southwest Colorado.
Perhaps in reaction to the negative impacts that were becoming more obvious, the BOCC voted last July to institute a six-month moratorium on new STR permits, with the moratorium beginning on September 1, 2022.
County Manager Derek Woodman was directed to form a task force to study possible STR policy changes that might save the community from economic disintegration, with a December deadline for delivering those policy suggestions. A December delivery date would have given the BOCC time to share the proposed recommendations with the community, get feedback, and vote on policy changes prior to the expiration of the moratorium.
The general idea seemed to be to develop policies that would mitigate the worse effects of the STR industry, without impacting Pagosa’s tourism economy too drastically. Policy recommendations would potentially include density limits, setback distances, new fees or taxes, and management requirements.
The recommendations from Mr. Woodman’s group have still not been presented… and according to my reckoning, the moratorium should have expired on March 1, 2023.
The task force that County Manager Woodman assembled has been meeting behind closed doors, isolated from public view, and has been dominated by people involved the tourism and STR industries. I know this because I served on the task force for its first three meetings, and have, since then, received regular updates on the task force discussions.
Reportedly, the task force will be making a presentation (finally?) on March 14 at a regular BOCC meeting, at 1:30pm.
Will they recommend an extension of the STR moratorium?
On February 27, the BOCC did receive a recommendation to extend that moratorium, from a separate “STR Study Group’… a group of local citizens who have been meeting publicly since December, working on policy recommendations that might better reflect all the various demographic groups that live and work in Pagosa Springs.
Disclosure: I have been acting as facilitator for this citizen-led study group.
Below is the first page of the 10-page presentation (which you can download here). 24 local citizens participated in numerous discussions, in person and online.
This citizens STR Study Group began its conversations based upon three “Agreed Upon Priorities” that the BOCC had established with their Planning Department last year, and which resulted in a 23-page summary of “Vacation Rental Policy Options” in June, 2022. Those policy options were discussed in several public meetings in June and July, but none of the options have yet been adopted by the BOCC.
The “Agreed Upon Priorities”:
- It is a priority to support tourism as a key contributor to economy and jobs in the County.
- It is a priority to preserve the small town, rural, quality of life for residents of the County.
- It is a priority to move the needle regarding affordable workforce housing availability in the County.
The document states: “New STR Policies Should Be Guided by these Priorities”.
You can download the document here.
In terms of policies that might “support tourism as a key contributor” to the Pagosa Springs economy, one of the concepts suggested by the Planning Department was “Keeping Lodging Dollars in the County”. Currently, more than 80% of the STRs in Archuleta County are owned by investors who do not live in the community. The Planning Department report focused on possible ways to encourage more “local” ownership within the STR industry, so that the profits from vacation rental operations remained circulating in Archuleta County, rather than flowing out of the community.
The 2022 Planning Department report suggests that those profits, that are now leaving Archuleta County, are significant.
Last month’s STR Study Group report did not address this particular aspect of the STR industry. But the report did recommend that all existing STR permits be “grandfathered” — allowed to be renewed indefinitely into the future, so long as the property ownership doesn’t change hands.
Current County policy requires a new STR permit application when a property is sold, so this would not be a new requirement.
The STR Study Group suggested that 10% density caps be established within subdivisions, with slightly more generous caps allowed in condos and town homes — 15% — due to the fact that condos and town homes in Pagosa Springs have traditionally been purchased as vacation properties. Most subdivisions in Archuleta County are currently below the 10% cap. This policy would limit new STRs in subdivisions that already exceed the 10% limit — in San Juan River Village, for example — but would allow STR growth in most subdivision neighborhoods, up to the density cap. (Some homeowners associations have already prohibited new STRs, so this policy would have no effect in those subdivisions.)
The density caps would not apply in AE and AR zoning — these are the larger agricultural properties located outside of subdivisions. Also, density caps would not apply to “owner-occupied” STR, where the property owner lives full-time (at least 9 months of the year) on the same property.
According to these recommendations, STRs would not be permitted in apartment buildings.
The citizens Study Group also addressed ‘setbacks’… required distances between STRs…
Read Part Two..
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.