At a March 12 meeting, the Pagosa Area Water and Sanitation District (PAWSD) Board of Directors voted 3-2 to approve capital investment fee (CIF) waivers for five affordable homes the Pagosa Springs Community Development Corporation (PSCDC) is constructing, assuming the people those homes are sold to meet certain income criteria.
The PAWSD board previously voted 3-2 to reject granting CIF waivers for the project, located in the Chris Mountain Village II subdivision, when asked by the PSCDC for them in September 2025. The waivers are approximately $26,000 per home.
At the March 12 meeting, the board heard a request from Archuleta County, represented by county commissioners Warren Brown and John Ranson, to reconsider providing the waivers.
Brown spoke first to present the request, thanking the PAWSD board for its previous support of affordable housing and noting the county’s extensive investments in affordable housing, including donating property for the PSCDC project, funding a remodel of Casa De Los Arcos, supporting the Rose Mountain Townhomes project in downtown Pagosa Springs and other work.
He highlighted that the $1.9 million grant the county helped secure for the development of roads and infrastructure in Chris Mountain Village II also led to 30 new homes in the area being built by private individuals, providing PAWSD with approximately $900,000 in fee revenue.
“To me, this isn’t about homes,” Brown said. “It’s about our children’s teachers that we discuss at dinner in the evening, our local fishing guide generating revenue to support his or her family but also support our tourism industry, our dispatchers who come home to a safe place after working shift work dealing with one emergency after another, our moms, our dads and our neighbors who we meet standing in line at the local grocery store. They’re the ones who live in these homes now. This simply would not have existed, possibly for years, if we hadn’t come together to help make Archuleta County a better place to live, to work, to grow and to prosper.”
He then asked that PAWSD provide a waiver of the CIFs for the five homes in the current phase of the PSCDC’s housing project.
Brown added that these homes would be sold to buyers between 80 percent and 100 percent of the area median income (AMI), which would meet the affordability requirements for Colorado’s Proposition 123 affordable housing funding that is partially supporting the project.
He noted that the homes represent workforce stability, economic resiliency and “our community’s credibility with the state of Colorado.”
In response to a question from PAWSD board member Alex Boehmer, Brown stated that the Proposition 123 funding requires that housing be built between 80 percent and 100 percent AMI.
Ranson then spoke, noting the praise that the PSCDC’s project has received in the state and the value of the work being done by PSCDC Executive Director Emily Lashbrooke.
He also highlighted the extensive building occurring in the Chris Mountain Village area and stated his belief that affordable housing projects like this are part of economic development.
Ranson also stated that he would potentially support waivers of county fees if PAWSD requested them in the future for things like dumping items in the county landfill.
PAWSD board chairman Gene Tautges then opened the issue for board discussion.
PAWSD board member Bill Hudson spoke in favor of the idea that certain housing projects will not happen without waivers of CIFs and that he favors providing support to projects that serve people below 80 percent AMI.
He noted that the project before the board would likely provide housing for people above 80 percent AMI and commented, “So, I have a hard time subsidizing a relatively well-off family with our customer’s fees.”
PAWSD board member Bruce Jones spoke in support of providing waivers for projects at 80 percent AMI or below, but that he would have difficulty supporting a project serving people above this threshold, although he noted he did not mean this as a comment on the PSCDC’s efforts or to say that its work is not valuable.
PAWSD board member Glenn Walsh then spoke, noting that he supported granting the waivers last time, but that he would also prefer housing closer to 80 percent AMI.
He also noted that Brown’s argument that the PSCDC’s work is opening up economic development in the general area was highly convincing.
Walsh suggested that the board should potentially form a subcommittee to discuss a potential arrangement with the county to provide waivers in exchange for forgiveness on county fees or some other benefits.
Tautges spoke, noting that his comments were “a little more generic” and “not real popular.”
He praised the work the county, the PSCDC and other entities are doing in terms of economic development and emphasized the importance of growing the economy and creating new jobs.
He noted that, at a recent meeting, Ranson complained about the county receiving regular requests for money and commented that the county has done a good job with affordable housing.
“But, I would say that’s because you’re supposed to; it’s in your court,” he said. “It’s not in PAWSD’s court. We are a water and sanitation district. People try to make us become a recreation district, a piscatorial district, an agricultural district. We’re not.”
He noted that PAWSD has also incurred expenses related to other community concerns, like doing testing on fire hydrants in 2025.
Tautges then spoke about his view that the community needs more apartment construction to serve people who will not be able to qualify to buy a home.
He also noted the future expenses that PAWSD faces with regulatorily required upgrades to its wastewater treatment plant.
“Last year, when we started talking about all of this, the people I hang with, it was … almost overwhelmingly against waivers like this and, for those of you who don’t know, the only way we could afford to give these waivers is to enact the water and wastewater surcharges,” he said. “That is the piggy bank that pays those, and it was nearly overwhelmingly for the folks I hang with that said, ‘No.’”
Tautges commented that there are ways to support others outside of monetary support before repeating his statement that PAWSD is a water and wastewater district.
“It’s not in our court,” he said. “It is in yours, so you’re doing what you should be doing, and you ought to be thanked for it.”
Ranson noted that he has been in contact with Archuleta Housing Corporation and other entities on the prospect of developing more rental units in the community.
“Let’s get a dozen more behind ‘em,” Tautges replied.
Boehmer noted that he and Hudson do not frequently agree on affordable housing issues, but that he felt Hudson effectively summed up his feelings on the current situation.
“I don’t think that going forward with the [PSCDC] is the best partner for us to work with,” he said. “That’s my personal opinion. There’s been a lot of misunderstandings, a lot of issues that have taken up a lot of staff time, a lot of board member’s time, to try and get to the bottom of.”
He noted that he supports work in the area and the work Habitat for Humanity is doing building homes in the subdivision.
He added that Lashbrooke should get credit for improvements to the overall subdivision, which PAWSD, Archuleta County and others also contributed to.
“But, going forward, I’m just not interested in working with this partner,” he said. “I think it’s taking too much of our staff time, and I don’t think it’s beneficial to our ratepayers at the end of the day. I know that’s not a popular opinion, but it is what it is.”
Walsh noted that he and Ranson had previously protested PAWSD’s fee structure together, prior to Walsh’s time on the PAWSD board, and noted that Ranson could potentially request that PAWSD reconsider its fee structure to better account for differences in size between different types of housing and how this might have different impacts on water use.
Brown then spoke in response to Boehmer’s comments, explaining that the PSCDC became involved in affordable housing due to concerns from business owners in 2022 that a lack of housing was impeding their ability to hire and retain employees.
He added that the county and the Town of Pagosa Springs then asked the PSCDC to work on expanding affordable housing.
Brown stated that the project up for consideration is not a PSCDC project, but that the PSCDC is acting as an agent for the county and town.
Following these comments, Tautges then attempted to move on to the next item on the PAWSD board’s agenda, but was interrupted by Hudson, who asked him if he wanted to ask for a motion on the waivers since the board did not vote on them.
Tautges then asked for a motion and Hudson moved to grant the CIF waivers for any homes built in the current PSCDC project that are sold to families below 80 percent AMI.
Walsh seconded Hudson’s motion, but noted that he does not think “we’re going to see them” and suggested that the issue might not be sufficiently mature to vote on.
However, he added that he is supportive of waivers for housing at 80 percent AMI and below.
The board voted 3-2 to approve the motion, with Hudson, Walsh and Jones voting in support, and Tautges and Boehmer voting against.
josh@pagosasun.com
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