Photo: Dave and Heidi Dragoo at a Town Planning Commission ‘Sketch Plan’ hearing for ‘Pagosa West’, April 2025. The plan was tabled to allow the Dragoos to bring back an improved version.
As a member of the Pagosa Area Water and Sanitation District board of directors, I had some concerns about how PAWSD was portrayed by architect Brad Ash during a public presentation on August 21 at the Ross Aragon Community Center. The presentation concerned the proposed 100-acre ‘Pagosa West’ mixed use subdivision.
Disclosure: I currently serve as a volunteer board member for PAWSD, but this editorial reflects only my own opinions and not necessarily the opinions of the PAWSD board and staff.
As we’ve discussed previously in this editorial series, the most recent “design” for the development is not a design, in any real sense. It shows only a couple of the necessary subdivision roads, and only two marked parcels, at the far west end of the map. For the rest of the development, we are apparently expected to believe that no design whatsoever is necessary to get the ‘Sketch Plan’ approved by the Town Planning Commission.
Mr. Ash discussed the idea of saving mature trees within the development, in a rather vague manner. He referred to “tree sanctuaries” but the audience pointed out that least one of the indicated “tree sanctuaries” contains no mature trees at all.
He then mentioned PAWSD. Again, the information was vague — and in fact, seems to have been a complete fabrication.
Brad Ash: “This was a previous [design for the development].”
Mr. Ash: “What we considered this to be, was just the ‘overlay’ of what we were asked for from our utility companies. All of those are still in process. We still don’t have any answers from PAWSD, so we don’t really know what those impacts are, or what those costs are, so to say what our density is today. We don’t know. There is going to be some balance to the understanding of what’s going to go into this.”
I don’t often use the word “bullshit” to refer to a public presentation by a trained professional, but that’s probably the best phrase to use in this instance.
For one thing, the map show above was not “just the overlay” of what some “utility companies” asked for. It is the actual plan that was submitted to the Town Planning Commission last April by Dave and Heidi Dragoo, as the evidence for a hoped-for ‘Sketch Plan’ approval.
The Planning Commission declined to approve the plan, and sent the Dragoos back to the drawing board.
The entire Town of Pagosa Springs — which includes the 100 acres here in question — is defined by zoning districts. The three zoning types existing on this 100-acre parcel are Mixed-Use Town Center, Mixed-Use Town Corridor, and Mixed Use Residential. Each zoning districts defines the maximum density allowed in each type of neighborhood. Typically, a developer will make every attempt to maximize the density, because that should yield the highest profit margin.
The Pinnacle Design plan above, which was declined by the Planning Commission, appears to be an attempt to do exactly that — maximize the density within the Mixed-Use Residential area in terms of single-family lots.
It’s quite true that, in order to have existing vacant land served by PAWSD — if the property is within the PAWSD service area, which ‘Pagosa West’ is — the developer must request a water model and a sewer model, to confirm whether PAWSD pipes are large enough to service the proposed subdivision. If the pipes are too small, or non-existent, the developer will have to pay for any needed improvements.
Based on information I received directly from PAWSD — and contrary to the statements made by Mr. Ash on August 21 — the developers, ArenaLabs LLC, have never paid the necessary fees to begin the modeling, nor have they submitted the necessary ‘please proceed’ forms.
PAWSD has reportedly sent multiple follow-up emails, asking the developers what they want PAWSD to do. No responses have been received, to the emails sent by PAWSD.
As we might guess, more people in the subdivision mean larger pipe sizes. If a ‘maximum density’ would require — say — $1 million in PAWSD upgrades, the developer has the option of reducing the density to allow the existing pipes to remain. If residential parcels are selling for — say — $50,000 each, the developer would need to sell at least 20 lots to pay for a $1 million PAWSD upgrade.
Sadly enough, there were additional statements made by Mr. Ash that struck me as misleading.
Mr. Ash made it very clear that the developers intend to submit a plan to the Planning Commission for ‘sketch plan approval’ that is not a plan in any sense of the word.
Following Mr. Ash’s vague, misleading, and relatively uninformative presentation, I asked Town Community Development Director James Dickhoff: “Okay, real quick; am I off base that every Sketch Plan I’ve ever seen has shown where the [individual] parcels are located?”
Mr. Dickhoff: “Conceptually. What I would say is… I think, ‘conceptually’.
“But what I would say is, that every single project, in the end, changes all the property lines. Because it’s all market driven. So every project has a ‘Phase One’. They want to get off the ground with, you know, to help pay for infrastructure… and this is no different than anything else. Every time, Phase Two, they’re changing things around. Phase Three they’re changing things. Because it’s all dictated by the Market…”
Except that this plan is indeed different from the previous subdivision applications. All the previous sketch plans that have come before the Planning Commission have shown — conceptually — all the roads and all the individual parcels.
The whole idea of a Sketch Plan is to approve a “concept”. You can’t approve a “concept” when there is no “concept.”
And this plan is also different in another sense. Mr. Dickhoff and his department collaborated with ArenaLabs LLC on applying for a $1.9 million ‘More Housing Now’ grant from the state of Colorado, and were successful in obtaining that grant.
So the Town Community Development Department now has a vested interest in seeing the development move forward.
The Town government has no business having a vested interest in a developer’s concept. Especially when no real concept exists.