Yesterday in Part Three, we considered the idea that, in 2020, the Town appointed a ‘steering committee’ to help draft an updated LUDC… the municipal rules about how private property can be developed…
The ‘steering committee’ consists of local volunteers with experience in various aspects of development, and were expected to give locally-relevant advice on the proposed changes.
But the authors of the draft regulations have not discussed the pending changes with the steering committee for more than a year. Then, last week, the Community Development staff apparently wanted to run some pretty complicated concepts past the Planning Commission and Council… without first getting input from that steering committee.
I was encouraged to see the Town staff discussing the LUDC updates with the Town Council and the Town Planning Commission, in joint session, on April 27. (You can download the 29-page PDF here.) But I have to ask (because I can’t help myself) if the Town Council and the Town Planning Commission are the municipal groups best qualified to be giving advice about the proposed changes?
Needless to say, there’s been a slight delay in finishing this project, started in 2020. The Town Community Development Department has been busy with other important things, and the LUDC updates were put on the back burner.
Nevertheless, the public presentation has been made, and we (the taxpayers) have a chance to look at some key issues. So let’s dig into a couple of them.
Like, for example, “upzoning”.
We’re sharing a thoughtful article this morning by StrongTowns.org co-founder and senior editor Daniel Herriges, where he has been a regular contributor since 2015. The article concerns “upzoning”… a hot topic in places with serious housing shortages… which is to say, in every city and town that is even halfway attractive.
He writes:
The funny thing I’ve witnessed is that a lot of people who don’t harbor any hostility toward apartments, toward denser forms of development, toward walkable places, are nonetheless deeply suspicious of zoning reforms that would make it legal to build more of those things, which are currently illegal in somewhere upwards of 70% of all American neighborhoods.
Here in Archuleta County, the percentage is even worse than 70%.
If I’m not mistaken, apartments (and similar dense forms of development) are currently prohibited in 95% of our community — either by County zoning rules, by homeowner association restrictions, or by the Town of Pagosa Springs’ Land Use and Development Code (LUDC).
The result? Archuleta County now boasts the highest cost of living in southwest Colorado — higher even than Durango — mainly due to the cost of housing.
Our community leaders and development companies concluded, years ago, that affordable housing should be discouraged whenever possible. To preserve ‘property values’.
Now we’re all paying the price, so to speak.
Okay, yes, the lack of apartments is not due solely to regulations and restrictions. It’s also due to other factors, such as a lack of construction companies and investors with an interest in building apartments.
But the regulations and the related government red tape haven’t helped matters.
At the April 27 joint meeting, Senior Planner Karl Onsager asked for ideas from the Council and Planning Commission on whether apartments, cottage courts, and intentionally small homes ought to be allowed in more town neighborhoods. In other words, should we “upzone” our residential districts within the town limits?
Apartments have never been a dominant housing type in Archuleta County. We have certain neighborhoods where condos and town homes are reasonably common… but rental apartments have remained a rare item. And our community leaders have built their regulations around the idea that “if a neighborhood is mostly single-family homes, we ought to make sure it stays that way…”
Which means, you use regulations and restrictions to forbid larger, denser, (more affordable) housing types, and strive for ‘single-family suburban’ neighborhoods.
This approach — intentionally preserving a housing pattern that reflects America’s economic reality during the 1900s — has been beneficial to ‘property values’ generally, because it has kept land and home values moving steadily upwards. If you are lucky enough to own a house (or multiple houses) in Pagosa Springs, the rules and regulations established by your home owners association and by your municipal and county government have helped to triple the value of your home since 2011.
The cost of a modest Pagosa Lakes home has doubled since its previous peak in 2007, and more than tripled since the recent low point in 2011. (According to local realtor Lee Riley.)
What happened here?
Was this price increase driven by investors snapping up Pagosa homes and converting them to STR operations? Depends on what you want to believe. The Archuleta County Vacation Rental Task Force proposed that the skyrocketing price of homes in Pagosa may have been caused by low interest rates. From page 10 of their recent report:
As we all know (or should know) correlation is not the same as causation. The chart above purports that to show that the number of homes sold in Pagosa Springs was somehow related to the interest rate. But as I’ve pointed out previously, the number of properties sold in 2020 (638) when the interest rate was below 3%, does not come close to the number of parcels sold annually in Pagosa Springs between 1995 and about 2002, when the mortgage interest rate averaged about 6%.
Fact is, the (typically) unaffordable cost of living in Pagosa Springs as a working family or working individual, in 2023, has resulted from a whole slew of causes.
Shall we list them?
Land use regulations aimed at preserving property values by discouraging dense, affordable housing types.
A local economy built largely upon low-wage tourism industry jobs.
Baby boomers hitting retirement age and seeking an attractive community in which to spend their final years, funded by comfortable pension plans.
The decimation of the Pagosa construction industry during the Great Recession.
The explosion of Pagosa’s vacation rental industry during the COVID crisis.
Time to take a long, hard look at how our governments control, and direct, development?