As the former president of one of the most financially successful companies in Pagosa Springs, and as a former Town Council member and a current Town Planning Commission member, I am deeply concerned about two related, and serious, problems in our community.
According to data in the regional housing study conducted by Root Policy Research last summer, it appears that we had 1,290 residential homes in Archuleta County already converted into small commercial motels — that is, into vacation rentals. I suspect the number has only increased.
Recent data shared by the Town of Pagosa Springs suggests that most of vacation rentals in our community are two- and three-bedroom residential homes. These are the size homes also most in demand by the working families who keep our economy functioning.
Multiplying 1,290 vacation homes by an average of 2.5 bedrooms, one can estimate over 3,200 vacation rental bedrooms. During my first ten years living in Pagosa Springs, before the vacation rental industry so severely impacted our housing market, our town had plenty of tourism, served mainly by the Wyndham timeshares and by about 600 hotel and motel rooms.
Our community is now well beyond our capacity to serve tourists properly and professionally.
Nearly every business owner I talk to is struggling to find employees, for many reasons. One of the primary reason is a lack of workforce housing in our community, and the price of any housing still available to working families. Six years ago, the average monthly rent for a three-bedroom house in Archuleta County was around $1,000 a month. That rate has now doubled, leaving our working families in financial distress. Many have been forced to leave town. Many others are living in tents or RVs.
The Root Policy study also suggests that Archuleta County needs to build an additional 800 residential dwelling units to accommodate our workforce.
Since the Town and County governments began seriously looking at our housing crisis, in 2016, we have added fewer than 50 affordable workforce housing units. Yet both governments acknowledged, even back then, that we needed a permanent, dedicated funding stream, as stated in the Town’s official housing plan and as unanimously recommended by the Town Planning Commission last summer. We desperately need that funding stream dedicated to workforce housing, now, but our local governments have yet to establish any such a dedicated revenue source.
Ballot Question A, which will appear on the Town’s April 5 ballot, creates a dedicated funding stream that will facilitate long-range planning and multi-year financial instruments in the service of of working families. The funding will come from vacation rental owners who — due to a loophole in Colorado property tax laws — pay only one quarter of the property tax rate as all other commercial businesses in Archuleta County.
We need to give the vacation industry a chance to contribute equitably to the community that supports them.
I urge my Town neighbors to vote “Yes” on Ballot Question A when it arrives in the mail.
Mark Weiler
Pagosa Springs, CO
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