You can’t always get what you want. But I should be clear, that I’m not exactly complaining about the changes made to the Archuleta Count Land Use Regulations (LUR) last week. I applaud the changes, in fact; they appear headed in the right direction. I could have hoped for more, but you can’t always get what you want.
Okay, yes, I’m disappointed that it took two decades to happen. But the journey to a perfectly good little town can’t happen overnight.
Still, we could have done better. In a perfect world.
Here are a couple of other changes to the LUR approved last week. We are looking, here, at the zoning for ‘Mobile Home Parks’:
3.1.2.6 Mobile Home Park
The MH Zoning District is a Residential zoning district intended to provide residential areas specifically for mobile home parks, tiny home villages, as well as tiny homes, tiny houses, and manufactured (HUD) homes on individually owned lots. The integration of manufactured homes factory-built homes is encouraged in areas where adequate services and facilities are available and such development does not impact the essential character of the district or adjacent districts. Commercial development other than home occupations is generally not permitted.
The previous version of the LUR did not mention “tiny home villages”, “tiny homes”, “tiny houses” or “manufactured homes”.
The presumption then was — since they were not mentioned — that they were not allowed. Now they have been specifically allowed.
The term, “mobile home park” has gotten a negative connotation over the years, even though a large percentage of the most affordable homes in Pagosa Springs are “mobile homes” (or as they now like to be called, “manufactured homes”).
We haven’t seen a new mobile home park in Pagosa since the 1980s, in spite of a tripled population.
The reason why we haven’t seen any new mobile home parks is encapsulated in the paragraph above:
…where there are adequate services and such development does not impact the essential character of the district or adjacent districts…
Pagosa people who are happy with their home and property, generally do not want a mobile home park anywhere near their neighborhood. Generally.
So as long as the County enforces my right to say “No” to mobile home parks anywhere near my neighborhood, it’s highly unlikely that Section 3.1.2.6 will have any significant affect on the serious housing situation in which we find ourselves.
But we can always hope?
When I was a kid, my family moved from downtown Oakland, California, out to the suburbs near Walnut Creek. As a result, my father had to battle an hour of suburban freeway traffic to get to work in downtown Oakland, which eventually led to increased psychological and physical ailments.
Eight years later, in 1962, we moved back into Oakland — much to Dad’s relief — and he was able to walk to work. A relaxing 10-minute walk.
But in 1962, the American Planning Profession was becoming ever more enamored of the idea that no one should have to actually have the ability to walk to work, or to shopping, or to the dentist’s office.
In the view of the Planning Profession, every American household ought to have two cars, and access to plenty of paved freeways and highways. One car for Dad to use, to drive to work, and one car for Mom to use, for shopping and dental appointments.
The Planning Profession has sold this idea to us, more or less successfully, and has made it illegal — illegal, folks — for the commercial building where we work to be within walking distance of where we live. From the revised County LUR:
Commercial development other than home occupations is generally not permitted.
As I mentioned last week in Part Three, I live in historic downtown Pagosa Springs, where I am able to walk to the grocery store, the library, the liquor store, the marijuana store, several town parks, numerous restaurants and coffee shops, the bank, the post office, the dentist, and numerous government offices. (Not necessarily in that order.)
But the Planning Profession apparently believes that this type of community should be “generally not permitted.”
Because?
Because we live in a big lunatic asylum?
Nevertheless, the LUR change mentioned above is potentially radical. The BOCC has approved the idea that people can actually live, safely, in “tiny homes” (homes, generally under 300-square feet in size, built upon a wheeled chassis), and in “tiny houses” (homes generally under 400-square-feet, but built on a permanent foundation.)
But only, mind you, if it fits into the neighborhood.. After all, we paid good money for our houses and we might not want ‘little houses’ and ‘manufactured houses’ springing up all around us, lowering our property values.
Thus, an all-important stipulation:
…such development does not impact the essential character of the district or adjacent districts…
The “essential character”, presumably having more to do with property values than with whether a community is actually functioning, economically and socially.
Here’s another newly updated section of the LUR:
5.6.7.10 Sewage Disposal.
(1) Mobile Home Parks must be served by a public sanitation district, by a centralized OWTS, or by individual OWTSs adequate to serve each Manufactured Home space. Each Manufactured home space shall be provided with at least a four (4) inch sewer connection. The sewer connection shall be closed when not linked to a Manufactured Home and shall be capped so as to prevent escape of odors. The Manufactured Home drain shall be water-tight and self-draining. This drain shall be constructed in accordance with state and local regulations. All plumbing in the Mobile Home Park shall comply with state and local regulations.
(2) Tiny Home Villages may be served by a public sanitation district, by a centralized On-site Wastewater Treatment System (OWTS), or by individual OWTSs adequate to serve each Tiny Home space. If a Tiny Home Village will allow Park Model/Park Trailers, appropriate connections for sewage will be required at such home sites. The number of Tiny Home spaces to be occupied in a Tiny Home Village shall be limited to the capacity of permitted OWTS(s) available to ensure compliance with requirements. All OWTS must be compliant with state and local regulations.
As some of our readers are aware, Archuleta County is in the process of forming its own, independent ‘Water Quality Department’… as the existing water quality department at San Juan Basin Public Health gets slowly dismantled.
We don’t know yet if this new County department will be willing to fight the good fight, in terms of allowing innovative (that is, less expensive but equally safe) wastewater treatment systems to be installed in our community.
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.