The Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944, also known as the GI Bill of Rights, was signed into law by President Franklin Roosevelt on June 22, 1944. The original GI Bill provided education and training, rehabilitation and job placement, and home loans that required no money down. During the postwar economic boom, Veterans started families and bought homes using their VA Home Loan benefit.
Although we are not experiencing anything like the economic boom that followed World War II — especially, not in Pagosa Springs — we still have a dire need for housing assistance in the U.S.
And not only for Veterans. The need extends to a huge segment of the Pagosa Springs workforce who cannot find decent housing they can reasonably afford.
As mentioned yesterday in Part Two, the Daily Post has been advocating for more workforce housing in Pagosa Springs.
We’ve been advocating that for about 20 years, in fact.
I believe the lack of housing that local workers and retirees can afford is the number one impediment to a healthy Archuleta Springs economy and social structure. Our local governments have adopted a similar concern, and are making an effort to address the housing crisis. But there are ethical ways to address a crisis, as well to less ethical ways.
As mentioned in Part Two, yesterday, I’ve also been writing for 20 years about apparent government overreach, incompetence, and lack of fairness.
Imagine, for a moment, that a developer — not a homeowner, but a developer — has promised to construct four three-story apartments, comprising 88 units, at the western edge of a proposed mixed-use project, with rents ‘affordable’ to the average family… but let’s also imagine that the proposed development is unattractive to the surrounding residential neighborhood.
Now, imagine that the Town Community Development department has already endorsed this development by applying for, and being awarded, a $2 million grant… but the development has not gone through a legal approval process. Nor does the developer own the property.
The packed audience at the March 25 Town Planning Commission hearing was overwhelmingly critical of the ‘Pagosa West’ Sketch Plan, citing apparent disregard for the community values described in the Pagosa Springs Comprehensive Plan and in the Town’s Land Use and Development Code.
The Town staff and the Town Council had put the Planning Commission in an awkward position. The Community Development department had applied for, and was awarded, a $2 million grant from DOLA to “assist with bringing public infrastructure to the proposed workforce housing site.” In the drawing below, the proposed ‘workforce housing’ is shown in orange:
From the March 25 agenda packet:
The project provides 88 workforce housing rental apartment units serving 60%-140% (averaging below 90%) of AMI in phase one, with additional rental apartments and single-family housing options in future phases…
When the Town applied for the $2 million grant from DOLA (Colorado Department of Local Affairs) the ‘workforce housing’ was planned for a location further to the east, and the area where the three-story apartments are now shown was designated as the location of a new Archuleta County administration building. The Board of County Commissioners later rejected that location, and decided to purchase a vacant parcel in the Aspen Village subdivision, closer to downtown. The ‘Pagosa West’ developers — the Dragoo family — then sited the ‘workforce housing’ farther to the west in their Sketch Plan drawings.
My concern is that — because the Town Council has already obtained a grant to support this not-yet-approved development — the Planning Commission is under pressure to approve the entire development, even if it does not comply with the Comprehensive Plan, and even if the surrounding neighbors have raised numerous questions and concerns about the project.
The Town got the cart before the horse, so to speak.
We should also note that ‘Phase Three’ of the proposed development, shown in gray, suggests about 130 smallish, densely-packed residential lots, backing up to much more ‘rural residential’ neighborhoods.
Although some Daily Post readers may object to local governments — and state governments, and federal governments — subsidizing housing during a housing crisis, I suspect very few of our readers have an objection to the VA Loan program, which subsidizes homes for Veterans. But many non-Veterans are struggling to survive in Pagosa Springs.
Without intelligent, thoughtful government assistance, I can’t see how we will ever put a dent in our local housing crisis.
I’m not sure the $2 million DOLA grant for ‘Pagosa West’ was thoughtfully and intelligently conceived.
Meanwhile, very little of the housing planned for neighboring Aspen Village — approved in 2006 — has been built, as of 2025. The Pagosa Lakes subdivisions — platted in 1970 — still have numerous residential lots available. Aspen Springs — platted in 1968 — is not yet built out. Even downtown Pagosa, platted in 1883, is not fully built out — and we can include in that analysis the numerous vacant commercial lots in the downtown core, facing on Highway 160 and along Hot Springs Boulevard.
Do we ‘need’ another mixed-use subdivision? Do we need to destroy our last remaining urban pine forest — to build storage units and gas stations and car washes?
Do we need more streets and infrastructure for the taxpayers to maintain, while parcels sit vacant for 50 years?
Just asking.
I understand that the Town created a ‘Community Development’ department because our elected leaders determined that ‘government-regulated development’ was necessary for a thriving economy.
Where, exactly, has that philosophy gotten us? It’s created an economy that, by any reasonable measure, is now basically dysfunctional.
Albert Einstein expressed many intelligent thoughts during his time on earth, but there’s no evidence that he said the following:
Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
According to Quote Investigator, this phrase was probably first spoken at an Al-Anon meeting in 1981, two decades after Professor Einstein’s soul departed for places unknown.
Nevertheless, it’s a powerful quote.
How many times does our Town leadership need to spend time, money and energy on new “mixed-use” developments that only make our economy worse than before?
Just asking.