You’ve got to change your evil ways, baby
Before I stop lovin’ you…
— Evil Ways, by Clarence Arthur Henry, recorded by Santana in 1969
Today in Part Five, we will look a bit more closely at “community character” and consider how new County regulations and plans will have to walk a difficult line between promoting “economic development” and the desire to ensure that “new development is compatible with community character and heritage.”
The two key areas of concern expressed by the Colorado legislature with SB24-174 — singed into law in 2024 — were the housing crisis and the water crisis. As far as I can tell, nearly every community in Colorado is struggling with the housing issue, but the crisis is especially acute in certain mountain resort communities.
And we’ve all heard, I hope, about the crisis going on with the Colorado River.
How can our economies grow, without sufficient housing and without sufficient water?
When I come home, baby
My house is dark and my pots are cold…
Pagosa Springs has been eagerly “growing its economy” for the past 30 years, and one of the things that’s grown the fastest is the cost of living here. But hardly anyone asks, “Are we heading in the wrong direction?”
The community — through its Town and County leadership — approved a new ‘Housing Needs Assessment’ last year, as required by the state legislature in SB24-174. This is not, however, the first ‘Housing Needs Assessment’ conducted in our community. Denver-based consultants Economic & Planning Systems performed a housing needs assessment in 2008, and again in 2017. Both of those reports made recommendations for addressing the housing crisis; the Town government made some minor policy changes; the Board of County Commissioners did very little, apparently thinking that the “market” would self-correct.
Non-profit Pagosa Housing Partners created a‘Roadmap to Affordable Housing’ in 2019, based on a survey of employers and employees. Once again, the Town made some policy changes. Once again, the County did little to address the problem.
When we look at the County’s 2017 Community Plan — which in turn guides the requirements written into the County’s Land Use Regulations — we find a desired outcome specifically stated:
Archuleta County should retain its outstanding scenic and natural qualities while providing quality employment, housing, education, and recreation to its residents. Tourism, recreation, and agriculture will remain major segments of the economy, but attempts will be made to diversify and encourage other types of economic development. The majority of youth should be able to have a career and eventually raise a family without being forced to leave. A healthy and vibrant community will continue to evolve, and the rural character and small town atmosphere will be preserved.
Let’s consider that last sentence.
A healthy and vibrant community will continue to evolve, and the rural character and small town atmosphere will be preserved…
Here, we have two obviously conflicting ideas in the same sentence. A community that “continues to evolve” and a community where its historical character “will be preserved.”
If we want to be honest, the rural character and small town atmosphere of Pagosa Springs was based, historically, on poverty. People struggled to get by based on ranching and a timber industry — two challenging ways to earn a living. Homes were modest. The properties in town were typically 1/6 acre parcels. To balance the lack of financial wealth, families looked after one another, and made do without ‘big city’ amenities. Hunting and locally-raised livestock and backyard gardens provided sustenance.
People didn’t need to work out at the gym, because they got plenty of exercise just trying to survive.
Then the developers arrived, and began buying up ranches and putting in suburban subdivisions aimed at retirees and second-home buyers. The developers built substandard roads and installed substandard infrastructure, but no one minded, at first, because the community still felt like a rural, small town — a place were you didn’t expect your roads or your water infrastructure to be perfectly maintained.
The population doubled between 1970 and 1990… and then doubled again between 1990 and 2000.
I’m gettin’ tired of waiting and fooling around
I want somebody who won’t make me feel like a clown…
The poorly installed ‘rural, small town’ roads began to fall apart. Home prices slowly rose beyond the means of incoming workers. The County expanded its public airport to accommodate the jet planes owned by our wealthiest residents. Businesses found it harder and harder to find reliable employees. The tourism industry flourished, with the help of government subsidies, and continued to generate low-wage jobs.
As older, wealthier residents arrived — full-time or part-time — government taxes and fees increased.
When the County Community Plan was updated in 2017, our community leaders still believed that we could go right along “preserving” our small town, rural character — in spite of the fact that it no longer existed. We’d become a mountain resort.
We’re sharing the text of the speech, in an article this morning, given by our state’s Colorado River negotiator Becky Mitchell. From that speech given at the Colorado Water Congress in January:
“Do we align the rules with the river we actually have — or keep clinging to a past that no longer exists?”
She’s talking about a river that no longer provides a surplus of water for the Basin states to squander.
A community can also be squandered.
What developers created here, between 1970 and 2000, is a dysfunctional suburban landscape without any “urban” to be “suburban” to. By doing so, they caused the population to more than quadruple… which was seen by political and business leaders as an improvement.
I’ve shared a few lines from a song made famous in 1969 by Santana: ‘Evil Ways’. I don’t believe the growth of Pagosa Springs from a struggling rural community into a somewhat dysfunctional suburban retirement community resulted from evil intent on anyone’s part. But the question is, are we going to keep doing what we’ve been doing, and expect things to get better?
This can’t go on
Lord knows you’ve got to change…