Photo: Acres of vacant land are available in the Aspen Village subdivision.
In Shakespeare’s comedy, As You Like It, the heroine Rosalind flees persecution in her uncle’s court, to find safety and, eventually, love, in the Forest of Arden.
Rosalind poses a question, in Act 4, Scene 1.
Why then, can one desire too much of a good thing?
Some of us might suspect that one can, indeed, desire too much of a good thing. Or even, of a not-so-good thing.
The public packet for yesterday’s Archuleta Board of County Commissioners meeting, for example, was unusually large. 651 pages. About 200 of those pages concerned requests for property tax abatement from folks who hoped to pay less in property taxes. None of the appeals for lower taxes were approved by the BOCC.
Another item related to property ownership appeared at the end of the agenda, under New Business.
A. Purchase And Sale Agreement With ArenaLabs, LLC
This agenda item is to approve a Purchase and Sale Agreement to go under contract with ArenaLabs, LLC for the purchase of approximately 5 acres of land located at X W Highway 160, Pagosa Springs, CO 81147 for the purpose of constructing a new County administration building.
The Purchase and Sale Agreement mentioned a price of $10 per square foot. The actual size of the parcel was not clearly specified, but the estimated price is $2.178 million. Let’s call it $2.2 million.
2.1 The purchase price of the Real Property shall be Ten Dollars ($10.00) per square foot of property contained in the Sale Parcel, currently estimated to be 217,800 square feet, resulting in a purchase price of Two-Million, One-Hundred Seventy-Eight Thousand Dollars and No/100 ($2,178,00.00) (“Purchase Price”). The final price will be determined per the lot size outlined in section 9.4.
The packet contained this map:
The yellow parcel has been offered to the BOCC, as the site for a future administration office. It’s directly across the street (Soutn Pagosa Boulevard) from the Pagosa Springs Medical Center.
Commissioner Veronica Medina vigorously advocated for this purchase back in June, as the best location for a new County Administration Building.
The entire 99 acre parcel is listed for sale at $6.9 million. So the BOCC, yesterday, was considering the idea of paying $10 per square foot for undeveloped land — no infrastructure or utilities — from a developer who is apparently paying less than $2 per square foot for undeveloped land.
The realtor representing the proposed seller — Shelley Low with EXIT Realty — stands to make over $400,000 on the sale of the 99 acres to ArenaLabs LLC, if she gets the standard 6% commission.
Because Commissioner Veronica Medina is an agent with EXIT Realty, her advocacy of the purchase back in June, and her vote in favor of the purchase, may have violated Colorado law, and has generated a recall petition, which is currently being circulated.
At the beginning of yesterday’s BOCC meeting, Chair Medina opened the floor for public comments (limited to three minutes each.). Local activist Marybeth Snyder asked the BOCC to table the purchasing decision and “do a little more homework”. Local activist Dale Schmidt made the same request. County Commissioner candidate John Ranson also asked the BOCC to avoid rushing into the purchasing decision, considering the property tax reduction measures that will appear on the November ballot. Local Daily Post editor Bill Hudson (me) questioned the $2,2 million price tag, and urged the commissioner to take more time to consider options. A gentleman named Richard Larsen asked the commissioner to slow down on the land purchase, and noted that the 99 acres is priced at about $1,60 per square foot, but the parcel offered to the County is priced at $10 a square foot (without any utilities in place, nor even an access road.) He suggested a lower price could be negotiated.
No one stood up to the microphone to support the proposed $2,2 million purchase.
Three and a half hours later — following a lengthy closed-door executive session — the commissioners voted unanimously to table the property purchase decision until September 3.
They then voted to enter into negotiations with interim County Manager Jack Harper II for the permanent County Manager position.
A couple of thoughts concerning too much of a good thing, or of a not-so-good thing.
Back in June, Commissioner Medina was urging her fellow commissioners to facilitate a large property sale to developer Doug Dragoo — by agreeing to purchase five acres of the 99 acres being brokered by EXIT Realty, where Commissioner Medina works as an agent. She stated that the County would be an “anchor property to start some development that we absolutely need in this community which would then drive sales tax, also drive other small businesses to start and then also have those … other services available for locals.”
Half a mile east of this proposed mixed-use subdivision is another mixed-use subdivision: Aspen Village, developed in 2006. Approximately the same size, and still 70% vacant, in spite of having an “anchor tenant” — Walmart — that attracts hundreds of shoppers daily. Maybe thousands?
We have a problem here in Archuleta County. Our elected leaders have allowed developers to build out large subdivisions and then hand off the roads and water system and sewer system and the rest of the infrastructure to the taxpayers.
Then the subdivisions sit mostly vacant for 30 years or longer, while the surrounding taxpayers pay for upkeep of the infrastructure.
A more sensible approach to operating a financially-viable community would be to avoid approving new subdivisions until the existing subdivisions were reasonably full and paying for their own infrastructure maintenance.
This is not an approach that’s been practiced by our Town or County leaders during the 30 years I’ve lived here.
Is that because the real estate industry is running the show? Assuring us that “more development is good development…”?
A side note. The reason the BOCC is slightly desperate to build a new multi-million-dollar administration building — with money they don’t have — is because they sold the old County Courthouse for $550,000 without having an alternate location for the County offices that have been operating there since 1928.
The old County Courthouse is apparently back on the market, Offered at $6 million.
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.