Photo: Development Director Pam Flowers presenting her semi-annual report to the Archuleta Board of County Commissioners, March 19, 2024.
After twenty years of writing about politics, I’ve come to the conclusion that government legislation comes in essentially two flavors.
Sweet, and Sour.
The Sweet laws grant us the right to do what we wanted to do in the first place, or provide us benefits… waiving fees in certain situations, for example.
The Sour laws prohibit us from doing what we wanted to do, or compel us do something we didn’t want to do, or forcibly extract money from our pockets.
One problem is, what tastes sweet to one person, might taste sour to the guy next door.
But there’s a particular characteristic attached to Sour laws. They need to be enforced. And enforcement, as typically practiced, costs money. The more Sour laws our County government decides to create, the more it costs to enforce them.
Thus, the money extracted from pockets.
Most of my personal interactions with Archuleta County Development Services in recent years have involved discussions about our ongoing housing crisis — and about the vacation rental industry, coming from a concern that investments in Short-Term Rentals (STRs) in Pagosa Springs have contributed to that housing crisis. A study by Root Policy Research, conducted in 2022 on behalf of the Town government, seemed to confirm the negative impacts of converting residential homes into motels.
One the other hand, a recent presentation by Archuleta County staff at a County Planning Commission meeting seemed to discount the effects of STR investors on housing availability.
Nevertheless, Archuleta County has, over the past several years, passed some regulations related to STRs, which include permit fees, licensing requirements, occupancy limits, required parking spaces, and so on. And these regulations require enforcement, record-keeping, and someone to answer the phone.
Enforcement was mentioned during Development Director Pam Flower’s semi-annual report to the Archuleta County commissioners on Tuesday.
Ms. Flowers prefer to have her department use the term ‘Vacation Rentals’ (VR) instead of ‘Short-Term Rentals’ (STRs).
Here’s a slide she shared with the BOCC. As we can see, in 2023, most of the activity, in the Admin division, involved Vacation Rentals.
Ms. Flowers:
“Errol focuses on zoning and nuisance, and then we had three people roll through the [VR enforcement] position last year. We just started with Cody Riojas; he’s in his second week, but he’s learning, and he will be handling most of the Vacation Rental complaints and inspections…”
She then mentioned a few successful grant applications, including two grants to support the development of workforce housing.
“So this year, we’re going to continue to work on workforce housing. We’re going to spend that grant money, and keep looking for more grants that will keep moving those projects forward…”
Her department is also planning to bring forward amendments to the County Land Use Regulations, in particular concerning signs and outdoor storage… and “agri-tourism”.
Apparently, helping with the production of food is becoming a popular tourist activity?
“The state has lots of rules and regulation around agri-tourism, so I’m just going to reference those. But I do want to put that in our code, so it’s clear that we do allow that.”
Our restaurants have become overrun with tourists in recent years, so maybe we can do the same with our ranches and farms.
Ms. Flowers then discussed the ‘focus’ of code enforcement.
“Errol has been telling me for a while, that he wants to shift the focus of code enforcement, and make it more of, ‘Community Engagement and Assistance’. So I’m probably going to look to re-name those positions, so that it’s less ‘enforcement’ focused, and more ‘support’ focused? Obviously, we have to respond when we get complaints, to deal with those, but Errol wants to sort of engage with the community. He had some ideas about this, and then he went to the [International Code Council] Conference a week ago, and he went to a couple of classes led by code enforcement officers from around the state…
“So we are probably going to be bringing you some suggestions about how we want to reframe this office to be less punitive, and more supportive…”
I found that suggestion interesting, because I serve on the Board of Directors at Pagosa Peak Open School, and I’ve watched the (sometimes difficult) transition away from ‘punishment’ for misbehavior, towards what the school refers to as ‘restorative practices’. One of the results of that transition is a student body that now reports an increased sense of feeling safe at the school, and a decreased incidence of bullying.
Certainly, instances arise in a community when ‘enforcement’ is necessary. But what, exactly, are we enforcing? Sweet, or Sour?
For some reason, the famous quote by President George H.W. Bush comes to mind… his “kinder, gentler” speech during his 1989 inauguration.
“America is never wholly herself unless she is engaged in high moral principle. We as a people have such a purpose today. It is to make kinder the face of the nation and gentler the face of the world.”
We might suggest that Archuleta County is never wholly herself unless she is engaged in high moral principle — and in fact, as a regular witness to political decisions that impact our community, I see a general movement towards kindness rather than punishment.
That might be a temporary trend? You never know when a community will lose its temper and bring out the handcuffs. But for the moment, the general direction in Pagosa Springs seems to be towards “more supportive”.
Lord knows, we can all use a little bit of support.
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.