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| Planning for an Uncertain Future, Part Eight |
| Bill Hudson | 7/30/10 |
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| Back to the News Summaries |
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Read Part One
After the adjournment of the Wednesday night Community Water Resources Group meeting — a fascinating meeting I hope to write about in Monday’s Editorial piece — developer Will Neder was talking to a small group of us, and apologized for having to drop out of this water supply task force. He explained that most of his paying work was now taking place in Denver, and it had become too expensive to continue commuting from Pagosa. He implied that the move was temporary — well, who would want to voluntarily move away from Pagosa Springs?
Neder had been, for me at least, a welcome part of our “facilitator-challenged” water group — a calm voice of reason in the midst of sometimes stormy debate. I will personally miss his participation, in the water group and in the community as a whole.
 Neder’s development project, TreeTops of Pagosa, went through a series of somewhat controversial approval processes during the past few years. In 2007, Neder and his parents, Susan and Mike Neder, with a group of investors, sought approval for 176 dwellings and 140,000 square feet of commercial space to be located on a rural 52-acre parcel four miles north of town on Piedra Road. The project featured townhomes, cottages, mixed-use condominiums, apartment complexes, a hotel, and retail and office space.
The sketch plan of the initial design was never presented to the public, but approved by a junior planner. Then-commissioner Ronnie Zaday was one of the investors in and advocates for the project. The Planning Commission refused to okay TreeTops in 2007, and requested a more detailed presentation.
In 2008, Neder and his group sought a change in zoning which would have increased the development potential of the property from one unit per five acres to five units per acre. Again the Planning Commission refused to grant a zoning change without a detailed developers agreement in place.
TreeTops has proposed to incorporate many of the things that contemporary city planners applaud — mixed commercial and residential use, local ownership, clustering, open space, pedestrian shopping, on-site services for retirees. But TreeTops also brought forth neighborhood opposition due to its increased density, and its commercial development miles north of Highway 160, plus complaints about significant additional traffic to and from its larger-than-City-Market-Plaza commercial space on a poorly designed and poorly maintained Piedra Road.
As a mixed-use concept, TreeTops was thoroughly modern, and quite innovative by Pagosa Springs standards. But its neighbors were furious to see a high-density development proposed for a currently open and scenic rural area of the county. As I mentioned yesterday, the community planning tools that have been put in place by our local governments over the past couple of decades — zoning, land use codes, planning departments — have instilled in us, the residents of Archuleta County, the conviction that historic land uses are somehow sacred. We tend to view zoning as a promise from our government leaders that our neighborhoods will never change in their essential character — and more importantly, ought never to change.
“The development does not encourage the preservation of agricultural land," wrote TreeTops neighbor Ed King in the Daily Post in 2007. "An overwhelming support for the preservation of agricultural activity, scenic areas and wildlife habitat was demonstrated at public workshops throughout the creation of the Community Plan. The Community Plan states that the preferred growth scenario would be to develop ‘village centers’ at Arboles, Aspen Springs and Chromo, to provide residents in outlying areas with small, nearby shopping and services.
“The proposed Blue Sky Village [at the east side of downtown Pagosa] has been delayed for one primary reason: because it is incompatible with the surrounding area. But from what I have seen, Blue Sky is more compatible with its surroundings than TreeTops, which is proposing a 140,000 square foot commercial area despite the fact that it is surrounded by single family residences from three miles in all directions. If TreeTops slides through, the County is leaving itself wide open for lawsuits from other developers who have been working to comply with the County and Town community plans.”
Mr. King’s prediction about lawsuits did, in fact, prove accurate, although the lawsuit was filed by a neighborhood attorney, not by a disgruntled developer. After the TreeTops project received a very unconventional “conceptual plan approval” with certain vested rights attached from the current County commissioners in last August — in the midst of possible foreclosure proceedings on the TreeTops property — one of Will Neder’s neighbors, attorney William Darling, filed a suit challenging the BoCC’s approval process. That suit is in process, and will likely not be heard until 2011.
Now I hear that Will Neder is headed for Denver, where the potential for actually completing a proposed development project is perhaps higher? Because it certainly doesn't seem very high here in Pagosa.
Based on my sometimes-faulty memory, I can think of six major proposed subdivision projects that have received some kind of government approval over the past few years — and all are now stagnant or in foreclosure: TreeTops, Blue Sky Village, Blue Sky Ranch, Sawmill Place, Reservoir River Ranch, and Mountain Crossing. Probably there are others I can’t bring to mind at the moment.
At our Community Water Resources Work Group meeting on Wednesday, local realtor Jim Smith was putting forth a proposal that the group recommend to the Pagosa Area Water and Sanitation board a one-year moratorium on all development fees. This proposal would align somewhat with the current fee waivers available from the Town of Pagosa Springs and from Archuleta County.
“I think we elected two PAWSD directors [last May] based on the belief that PAWSD fees were hampering the economy. And we’re sick and tired of having impact fees which are astronomical, and if the fees were removed, then [this water group] wouldn’t have any pressure [to come to a hasty decision.] Roght now those fees are in place. People don’t build. Builders and subcontractors can’t feed their families. Painters can’t paint.
“It’s fact: impact fees hurt the economy, and they hurt growth. We are in a desperate situation in this town. We are losing people left and right. And I think this issue [of the impact fees] is the issue that got two board members elected. So I want this water group to make a recommendation that PAWSD put everything on hold for one year, or until the work group submits a recommendation, whichever comes first.”
So there, it's been said aloud. We are losing people left and right. Many of us are feeling that way lately: that our friends and neighbors are leaving town, or are getting ready to leave town.
There is a certain psychological threshold, I think, that can be experienced when a town is losing population due to the closing of a mill, a factory, the loss of some major industry. At a certain point, there are so many empty commercial and residential buildings that we begin to feel we are living in a ghost town. I don’t think Pagosa Springs has come close to that point, yet. We are still flying on the fumes from two decades of inordinately rapid growth, and we honestly can’t believe that things won’t pick back up. Maybe in 2011. Maybe in 2012.
Things will start getting back to normal.
In the meantime, Will Neder is headed for Denver. My friend Cyndi is headed for Oregon. Pam is headed for Durango. But a lot of friends are still here, hanging on and hoping for an economic miracle.
Is that really the best approach? To be “hanging on and hoping for a miracle”?
I think we need to talk about toilets.
Read Part Nine... |
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