On Oct. 20, the Pagosa Springs Town Council passed the first reading of an ordinance approving a planned development agreement (PD) with a developer proposing to build the Ponderosa Mountain subdivision.
The subdivision would have its main access point off of U.S. 160 and Great West Avenue, west of downtown.
This decision came after the council voted to continue the matter at its Oct. 6 meeting, with council members suggesting denying the application, but that they needed more clarity on the criteria for which the denial decision would be based upon.
Two of the council members who ended up supporting the ordinance, Madeline Bergon and Gary Williams, were absent from the Oct. 6 meeting.
The developer, listed as Modern Community Builders LLC, a California- and Nevada-based company, came before the council seeking approval of the PD and a zoning map amendment.
Both of these items came before the Pagosa Springs Planning Commission on Sept. 8, where the planning commission recommended approval to the council.
The town’s planning commission also approved the sketch major subdivision application for the development at that meeting.
At the Oct. 6 council meeting, Development Director James Dickhoff urged the council members that if it wanted to deny the application, it should cite a reasoning that is based on the town’s development guidelines, the Land Use and Development Code (LUDC) and comprehensive plan.
This came after council members Leonard Martinez and Mat deGraaf expressed opposition to the development based more on dislike of the development than specific criteria based on codes and guidelines.
DeGraaf had expressed that he opposed it based on “a feeling” that this “was not the right fit for our community.”
Martinez expressed that his opposition was based on the timing of the development, and that the council could reconsider it later, when it gets all of its infrastructure priorities in order.
Both Dickhoff and Planning Manager Owen O’Dell explained that modeling for utilities comes in a future approval phase of the process, not during the sketch phase of the application.
Phil Williams, the civil engineer for the project, also explained that the modeling for utilities comes “only after the approval of the sketch plan.”
The sketch approval is “a critical step that has to happen first,” before the developer spends all that money on utilities modeling, he explained.
However, he added that the developer has “spent a lot of time with” La Plata Electric Association and the Pagosa Area Water and Sanitation District and received “will-serve letters” from both of them.
But members of the public expressed broad opposition to the development, citing stressed infrastructure, too much density for that area, traffic congestion, increased tourism and a general lack of trust for the developers, who one commenter called “outsiders from Beverly Hills.”
Some commenters expressed that the comprehensive plan, approved in 2018, is “outdated” and needed to be revised.
Martinez also expressed that he would be in favor of revising the comprehensive plan.
“We got work to do to reflect what we’ve learned and where we are now and who we want to be,” he said.
Dickhoff and O’Dell reminded everyone that the town’s staff can only go off of what is currently in its codes and guidelines.
Revising the code or the comprehensive plan would have to take place in a different public process, they explained.
At the previous meeting, developer Jonathan Fink explained that he planned to fully develop the 70-acre site in phases, with a mix of residential and commercial lodging units.
Fink explained that phase one would include building 82 for-sale residential homes and 82 stand-alone cabins for commercial lodging, equipped with a clubhouse, pickleball courts and a swimming pool.
He explained that 30 homes, out of the total of 82, would “qualify as workforce housing” and would be deed restricted in perpetuity.
In the future phases of development, which would take place over about a 10-year period, 12 percent of the remaining homes would be dedicated to workforce housing for the community, he explained.
“There will be no difference in quality between the workforce dedicated homes and the market price homes,” he explained.
This balance of adding for-sale workforce housing to the housing supply, versus more commercial lodging and the increase of potential second homes in the area, was at the center of the council’s weighing of its decision on Tuesday.
Describing himself as a sixth generation resident of the area, Martinez suggested that the decisions the council makes now will impact “six generations from now, and if we make this decision in the affirmative now, I feel it would be a wrong decision …This is not the right time.”
He also stressed that the town should diversify its economy beyond tourism, which he called “a single point of failure,” and expressed concern that this development would weigh too heavily on increased tourism.
But council member Vahid Shabro saw it differently, saying that the project “has real community benefits that the town has been seeking.”
He pointed to the significant increase in for-sale workforce housing, which could attract and retain younger families in the community.
He also suggested the development is consistent with the town’s LUDC and comprehensive plan “for this type of development on that parcel.”
“Even though the affordable housing will not be at the lowest level of price range, it will still provide affordable housing that will, in the end, help bring the cost of living down,” he said.
He added, “Any extra supply of workforce housing on the market is going to help, on that front, in my opinion.”
Ultimately, he noted, there were some real concerns expressed by the public, but that the council’s role is “narrower, to approve what’s legal and based on the town’s documents.”
Emily Lashbrooke, the executive director of the Pagosa Springs Community Development Corporation (PSCDC), explained to the council that there are currently 1,276 vacant jobs in the community.
She explained that her conversations with local business owners revealed that the top reason for this shortage is “the lack of housing” for employees.
“We are moving more into a crisis than we’ve already been in,” she added, saying that 17 percent of “our peak time jobs are going unfilled.”
Public commenter Shane Jones pointed out that he knows professionals, such as school teachers, who have left the community because of the housing situation.
“They’ve been stuck in the rental market,” he said, and since “we don’t have a lot of product” in their price range, they are leaving to find a place they can afford to buy and own a home in, he added.
Council member Bergon suggested she wants to make sure that the balance between the workforce housing and the commercial and second-home aspects of the development leaned more toward the workforce housing.
She asked a question about the “fractional ownership” model being proposed by the developer for some of the homes.
Council member Brooks Lindner also wanted clarification on this point, saying “I’m confused now, are the 18 fractional ownership units part of the 82 lodging units or part of the 82 residential units?”
Fink explained that “we are building 30 workforce houses out of 54 houses that will be permanent residential homes.”
Some of the homes, 18 of them, will be deed restricted for fractional ownership, which means they will be shared in ownership “by three families,” Fisk explained.
Bergon likened this to a “time-share,” saying that she “took issue with that” and “it was not made clear in the documents.”
Dickhoff explained that “the developer is here to negotiate,” and that if the council wished to add “some other changes to the PD agreement, maybe there is a medium that can be reached for the developer.”
Bergon stated, “I’ve already said that the ratio of commercial to residential units, I’m uncomfortable with that, and now with these fractional units in the mix too, I’m even more uncomfortable.”
Lindner replied to Martinez’s concern about the utilities, particularly the town’s sewer capacity.
“This could actually help us as far as the sewer,” he said, “by the revenue that comes from a development like this.”
He added, “And we have to remember, if the utility says that it can’t be built, then they’re not going to be able to build it.”
A motion was made by Martinez to deny the PD agreement, and it was seconded by deGraaf, but did not receive a majority vote.
When a later motion was made to approve the first reading of the ordinance, approving the PD, it passed in a roll call vote 5-2, with Martinez and deGraaf voting “nay.”
“I feel like, for this town, the model being proposed, I don’t like it. The demographic that it’s being catered to? I don’t like it. The scale of the development? I don’t like it,” DeGraaf said, adding, “As leaders, we should step outside the bounds to make decisions, because that’s what leaders have to do.”
Mayor Shari Pierce expressed concern that denying a development that meets all the code and guideline requirements would set a precedent that says, “Well, they have rules, but they’re not following them.”
“How is that gonna hurt our community down the road?” she asked, adding, “Honestly, this isn’t my favorite development, but I feel like we have rules in place for a reason, and what are the implications if we don’t follow those rules?”
Lindner added, “This is why we do have the rules.”
Bergon suggested it would cause confusion to “deny things without citing specific references to criteria.”
The motion was to approve the first reading of the ordinance with conditions.
Those conditions include that the applicant must depict and provide a transit stop for the MET public transit on the submission of their preliminary plan review, that the applicant must own the property before the PD agreement is executed, to add maximum square footage cap of 2,800 square feet on housing, and to formalize that lodging units cannot be sold individually unless subdivided, which would then mean more units would be allocated to workforce housing.
As of press time Wednesday, a second reading of the ordinance had not yet been scheduled.
derek@pagosasun.com
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