First Reading. An ordinance shall be introduced and considered for first reading at a Council meeting. The ordinance may be read by title only if copies of the ordinance are available to the public upon request; otherwise, ordinances shall be read in full at the meeting…
— from the Town of Pagosa Springs Home Rule Charter
About 17 minutes into the April 2 meeting of the Town Council, Mayor Shari Pierce noted the next item on the agenda.
“So now we’ll move on, to the real meat of the meeting… the Unfinished Business…”
She chuckled. A slightly uncomfortable chuckle?
“…Ordinance 1004, first reading. Purchase of the property located at 229 U.S. Hwy 84, # A.”
This was the ‘first reading’ of the ordinance, which would allocate $850,000 of taxpayer revenue from the Town’s General Fund to the purchase of about 12 acres of mostly (but not entirely) vacant property across the highway from the County Fairgrounds — just around the corner from downtown’s East End — for no clearly defined use.
Housing? A Reservoir Hill Park trailhead? A municipal parking lot?
“Workforce camping”?
The property is currently zoned Mixed-Use Corridor (MU-C), a commercial district which allows a wide range of allowable uses. Town Council members have expressed their interest in various ideas for the property, including: Workforce Housing, Workforce Camping, and Recreation, and Remote Parking for the East End.
The Town Home Rule Charter requires two ‘readings’ of an ordinance, to take place at two separate meetings, to allow citizens time to review a proposed ordinance before it becomes law. The Council typically conducts a public hearing on an ordinance, to hear suggestions and concerns from the general public.
The ‘second reading’ of Ordinance 1004 will take place this evening, Thursday April 18, at the 5pm meeting of the Town Council, at Town Hall.
VIII. UNFINISHED BUSINESS
1. Ordinance 1004, Second Reading, Authorizing the Acquisition of Real Property Known as 229 U.S. Hwy 84 #A in Pagosa Springs, Colorado from the Robert P. Goodman Revocable Trust
The property in question is located uphill from the Tractor Supply store in Highway 84.
A few years ago, the Town Council began taking a serious look at purchasing vacant property in the downtown area for a couple of specific purposes: affordable housing, and recreation. To facilitate those purchases, the Town contracted with a prominent real estate company, CBRE, with offices in Boulder, Colorado Springs, Denver Downtown, Denver Tech Center and Fort Collins.
In the case of the Goodman property, CBRE estimated the value of the (mostly vacant) parcel at about $8 to $10 per square foot, which would put the parcel’s value at around $3.5 million.
The asking price of $850,000 suggests a price of about $2 per square foot.
The meeting tonight will include a public hearing, in case the taxpayers have concerns about the purchase.
I blame mainly myself for this situation. When the Council began expressing a desire to acquire vacant property to help address our local housing crisis, and hired a Denver real estate firm to help them in that process, I suspected that an out-of-town firm would probably not know where to look, in our community, for the best deals.
Two years ago, in May 2022, I presented the Council with a map of the Goodman property, along with a set of photographs I’d taken of the property. On the map I included a few identifying labels.
Here are some of the photos I provided the Council and staff..
I specifically promoted the property, to the Council, as a site for future workforce housing, due to its location within walking distance of employment opportunities — and all the other amenities offered by downtown Pagosa Springs.
The Council was mildly interested at the time, but ended up purchasing 3 acres adjacent to Walmart, in the Aspen Village subdivision — a parcel with existing infrastructure — as the site for a planned workforce housing project.
That Aspen Village project is currently in a holding pattern.
But it appears likely that the Council will vote to purchase the Goodman property at tonight’s meeting.
On April 2, not everyone on the Council voted to approve the ‘first reading’ of Ordinance 1004. Two Council members offered arguments against the purchase.
Here’s Mayor Shari Pierce:
“I know I’m going to be out-voted, but I just can’t let this go without saying, this is a lot like the $1.2 million riverfront property, where staff looked at the budget and told us they wouldn’t recommend spending more than $500,000 out of the budget, and we were looking at spending significantly more than that.
“When we approved our budget for this year, we already acknowledged that we were going to be unbalanced in our budget by $138,000.
“This proposal was not part of that. So we’re getting close to $1 million out-of-balance in our budget for this year. I just don’t think that’s a good way to do business.
“We heard in our last Sanitation District meeting, that the engineering for the Vista Treatment Plant upgrades is going to be $900,000, and we voted to cover our share of that. But then [Council member Leonard Martinez] asked what the total cost of the upgrades would be, and we were told, $4 to $5 million. We’re on the hook for 25% of that cost. And we have to look at where that money would come from…”
She noted that the $850,000 purchase price for the Goodman property would be only the beginning. Any use of the property — as a trailhead, or parking lot, or housing development — will incur additional costs.
Her arguments did not, however, sway the Council. The ‘first reading’ was approved by a 4-2 vote.
The ‘second reading’ will take place tonight at 5pm at Town Hall.