Photo: Archuleta County government and non-profit leaders meet with Colorado Department of Local Affairs, Division of Housing staff on May 20, 2025.
As one of the people advocating for more government involvement in Pagosa’s housing crisis for the past 20 years, I’ve watched a transition take place among our local elected and appointed leaders, as they’ve gradually come to accept that ‘The Housing Market’ — the housing built, financed, and sold by the construction industry, the banking industry, and the real estate industry — has consistently failed to address the crisis.
It’s also apparent that ‘The Market’ will continue to fail to address it, going forward.
That may explain why, at the May 20 meeting and tour hosted by the Colorado Department of Local Government, Division of Housing, no one representing the construction industry, the financial industry or the real estate industry was in attendance. The participants represented numerous government and non-profit entities, but not the business community.
Seemingly, we have come to the conclusion that if anyone is going to address the crisis, it will be governments and non-profits.
Our elected and appointed leaders, in the past, have contributed to the worsening crisis, by putting in place policies and regulations aimed at forcing homes to meet higher and higher standards in terms of safety, appearance, and energy use. One of the aims of our past leaders, was the enhancement of property values — by limiting or outright prohibiting the most affordable (but still livable) types of dwellings.
And indeed, our property values have been enhanced!
My property taxes, a few years ago, were $1,200 a year. This year, the bill was $2,800. Same house, on the same poorly maintained street.
Unfortunately, my income has not increased at the same rate. Not even close.
So government can be seen as the rescuer, the hero, the Good Samaritan in this situation, as we heard from Pagosa Springs Community Development Corporation (CDC) executive director Emily Lashbrooke in Part One.
But the second comment from the audience, at the May 20 meeting, suggested that government can also be part of the problem.
Here’s Archuleta County Planning Director Pam Flowers:
“I’ve been paying attention to a lot of the things going on at the state level, and I’m very concerned about how the energy code and the WUI code, and things like that, are going to be forced down on us, and are going to make it… I mean, Emily can tell you about how she barely penciled her projects as ‘affordable’. And any more pressure is going to make that even more difficult.
“Is there talk about exceptions for affordable housing? Or anything like that?”
Homes that meet a strict energy code use less heating and cooling energy, and save money over the long run, but can be more expensive to build, and the initial purchase price can be higher.
Similarly, homes built to be fire resistant are more suitable for a place like Pagosa Springs, where the WUI — the Wildland Urban Interface — faces thousands of acres of scenic forests and grasslands just waiting to burst into flame. But a fire-resistant home or apartment building is sometimes more expensive to build.
Shirley Diaz, Division of Housing Housing Development Specialist for the Southwest Region, fielded Ms. Flowers’ question, and spoke about how the housing grants are administered.
“We do have a competitive scoring system now, and so there are points for energy efficiency, but we have already found that some of the things that have come down from the state level are difficult in the rural areas, and on top of that, particularly at high altitudes. So there is an awareness about that.
“So scoring isn’t the only component that’s utilized.
“We always encourage our applicants to put information in their applications, to explain why they are using [certain materials or methods]. So that when people are looking at it, to do scoring, they realized that, okay, for these rural projects it can’t be apples to apples, compared to the Front Range projects.
One of the state housing experts (whose name I didn’t catch) commented on the problems faced in South Fork, on the other side of the Continental Divide.
“I think the push for all-electric homes is great in theory, but we’re already seeing, like, in a project that we funded over in South Fork, having to make concessions on the allowance for a wood stove. If you your heat was all-electric, your heating bill is going to be, like, $500 a month.
“I think the more we can hear from, like, rural communities… because it’s not a one-size-fits-all situation. And hopefully people start listening.”
County Commissioner Veronica Medina brought up the difficulties currently faced by the CDC, in finding qualified buyers for the ‘workforce’ homes they built last year, on parcels donated by the County government.
“As some of you may know, we have a great product, we have beautiful homes ready to go. But they haven’t sold. And that’s part of the problem. People are right there on the cusp of qualifying for a home, but they can’t… by $500 is the example I think Emily uses. So we need help with that.
“The CDC has three homes sold, out of ten…”
Emily Lashbrooke offered a correction:
“Four. We closed on the fourth home last Thursday.”
Commissioner Medina:
“So we still have too many homes available. And what we’ve seen, out of our Housing Needs Assessment, is we need more rentals…”
Here we have an interesting situation. The state programs that have resulted from voter approval of Proposition 123 in 2023 are supporting two basic types of housing.
1. Single-family homes, sold to qualifying households.
2. Apartment buildings, owned by private corporations and non-profits, and rented to working households.
Commissioner Medina has been making the suggestion that subsidized single-family homes — such as the ones the CDC is trying to sell — could be owned by landlords, who agree to rent them to qualifying households… or alternately, that subsidized single-family homes could be owned by local employers and rented to their employees.
But with the inflation of construction costs over the past decade, and with interest rates now at nearly 7%, you can’t easily build a new single-family home and then rent it affordably to a working household — and still pay the mortgage.
Meanwhile, one problem with apartments in Archuleta County, is that they are prohibited in 99% of the county, due to either the County government’s own regulations, or to Pagosa Lakes Property Owners Association (PLPOA) rules.
There are other housing types that our state and local governments have not yet agreed to subsidize, but which could be more affordable.
1. Manufactured homes, otherwise known as mobile homes.
2. Cooperatively-owned condominiums.
3. Tiny homes on wheels.