The map above highlights Pagosa’s existing ‘wilderness park’ — Reservoir Hill Park — located south of the downtown stretch of Highway 160,
It currently features a volunteer-maintained disc golf course, mountain bike trails, and once upon a time, served as the site for two major music festivals.
If you look closely, your can see a gravel road winding through the large forested parcel to the south of the Park. This roadway serves as access to what is presently a “tree farm” on a 207-acre parcel owned by Fairway Land Trust.
In Colorado, property owners of large parcels can obtain a special property tax rate by claiming an ‘agricultural use’ of their property, and a ‘tree farm’ qualifies as an agricultural use. The 207-acre Reservoir Hill parcel owned by Fairway Land Trust last year owed $514 in property taxes — a fraction of what I paid in property tax on my modest downtown house.
Fairway Land Trust also owns another 284 acres adjacent to the 207 acres, for a total of about 491 acres. Last year, they owed $827 in property taxes on the additional 284 acres, presumably because they run cattle on it and it’s thus ‘agricultural’.
A couple of decades ago, the Fairway Land Trust approached the Town of Pagosa Springs, requesting to have the 491 acres annexed into the Town. Their plan was to develop luxury housing on most of the property, with a corner reserved for ‘workforce housing’. We already knew, back in 2006, that Pagosa was running short of workforce housing.
The Great Recession arrived, however, and the Pagosa housing market crashed. Reservoir Ranch was never developed.
Those of us living in the little rural town of Pagosa Springs — and perhaps also, out-of-town folks owning vast acreages in Pagosa Springs — have various needs and desires. And maybe, various obsessions.
For instance, I enjoy learning about my hometown, and writing about what I’ve seen and heard. This could even be classified as an ‘obsession’.
On April 7, I attended a work session at Town hall where the Pagosa Springs Town Council and some of the Town staff discussed a proposal to purchase additional land south of the downtown core on Reservoir Hill. The staff had prepared a PowerPoint slide show to illustrate some of the key concerns. Possibly 491 acres, as a minimally-developed extension of the existing park?
According to the Archuleta County mapping website, our current Reservoir Hill Park includes about 143 acres. Basically, wilderness acres. About 15 years ago, the Pagosa Springs Town Council had plans to fund a $4 million amusement park on Reservoir Hill, as a tourist amenity, but the downtown voters amended the Town’s Home Rule Charter to require voter approval for any mechanical equipment installed in the Park. That basically put the kibosh on the amusement park plans.
Now the Town Council has a different idea about Reservoir Hill. Expansion, but as wilderness. A place to walk in the woods, and listen to the birds singing.
The Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) is probably America’s most important program to conserve irreplaceable lands and improve outdoor recreation opportunities throughout the nation, and one of the competitive grant programs funded by LWCF is the Forest Legacy
Here’s Town Parks & Recreation Director Darren Lewis explaining the plan to the Council, and the requirements for a Forest Legacy grant.
“As you all recall, when we started talking about the land acquisition on Res Hill, there’s 491 acres up there…”
(In reality, only a fraction of the 491 acres is “up there” atop the forested hill. The majority of the 491 acres is barren hillside or low-lands meadow without significant tree coverage… But hey, who’s counting…)
(Maybe the Town staff is counting?)
Mr. Lewis:
“Some of the qualifications for the Forest Legacy Grant are that 75% of the amount of acreage you were going to purchase had to be forest. So we carved out about 300 acres up there. And last Friday, we were notified that there was $300 million worth of projects proposed, and $86 million was accepted to the President’s List. Which included 11 projects. And Reservoir Hill was one of them.
“And that funding would be for $5,875,000.
“Now, that doesn’t mean we have it. It means it’s a great first step. It still has to go to Congress, and hopefully the entire package gets approved.”
As some folks have noticed, the current administration in Washington DC has been surprisingly reluctant, over the past year, to provide grant funding to “blue states”. For whatever reasons. Maybe they think we would waste the money? Or use it fraudulently? You can come up with your own explanation.
From the LWCF website:
The Forest Legacy Program (FLP) is administered by the USDA Forest Service in cooperation with state partners. The Program is voluntary, designed to provide conservation value to working forests in the face of development pressure. Using funds from LWCF, the program provides grants to states to permanently protect forested properties through conservation easements or direct acquisition. FLP projects typically restrict development, require sustainable forestry practices, and protect other public values like clean water, wildlife habitat, carbon sequestration, and public access for hunters and anglers and other recreation enthusiasts…
The Town had submitted “over 25 letters of support” when applying for the FLP grant, according to Town Recreation Supervisor Amanda Gadomski.
Presumably, many of those letters had come from local recreationalists.
I first heard the term “recreationalist” a few years ago, and understood it to mean “a person who places access to recreational activities above most any other activity.”
It seems to me that the majority of the members currently serving on the Pagosa Springs Town Council are recreationalists. Not all, but a majority.
It could be that a majority of our entire community are recreationalists…