On April 8, the Pagosa Springs Planning Commission met for a work session to review the procedures and application processes for the proposed Pagosa West subdivision, which, if approved, would be directly across U.S. 160 from the shopping center that houses City Market.
The work session came in the wake of the planning commission’s choice to delay a final decision on a sketch major subdivision application for the development at its last meeting.
At that meeting, planning commissioner Chad Hodges expressed that he “didn’t understand everything” about the subdivision application, adding, “I don’t have the ability to make an educated opinion at the moment.”
The other planning commissioners agreed.
The choice to delay the decision on the matter was also influenced by a packed-house audience at the meeting, mostly expressing concerns about or opposition to the 100-acre subdivision.
Since no decision can be made at a work session, the commission will next consider the Pagosa West sketch subdivision application at one of its two May public meetings.
Development Director James Dickhoff was on hand at the work session to help explain to the commission its role in the major subdivision application process, as well as later down the road if and when the proposed development gets to the design review application process.
Dickhoff explained that the planning commission’s main role is to enforce the town’s Land Use and Development Code (LUDC), and to determine if a proposed development fits within the “allowable uses” of the zoning districts laid out in the code.
The 100-acre parcel encompasses three different zoning districts — Mixed-Use Residential (MU-R), Mixed-Use Corridor (MU-C) and Mixed-Use Town-Center (MU-TC) — and any new development would need to adhere to the codes for those specific districts, unless certain sections of the subdivision are rezoned, he explained.
Most commercial business would happen in the MU-C or MU-TC sections of the subdivision, with frontage on the highway, he added.
The applicant for the subdivision, listed as Montrose-based Arena Labs LLC, included in its application some potential businesses, such as a car wash, a gas station and storage unit facility, with these types of businesses meeting opposition from the public at the last meeting.
Dickhoff explained at the work session that the planning commission’s job is to decide if proposed businesses are within the “allowable uses” of a zoning district, not to decide which kinds of businesses go into a subdivision development project.
Planning commissioner Chris Pitcher added, “I think it’s important to clarify that, during the sketch process, we’re not approving a car wash or a day care or any of that. We’re approving the subdivision of this larger parcel, and so those details will come in a separate process. It’s on the developer to think about what those uses will be, so it sizes the infrastructure appropriately, but that’s not our problem to solve … at this point, because there’s nothing that says because we agree with the sketch plan, we agree with a car wash,” Pitcher said.
He added, “I think it’s important to remember that the sketch plan is just the subdivision of the parcel” and any changes to the allowable uses in the zoning code would have to come in the rezoning process, not the sketch subdivision process.
Dickhoff added that the town-adopted Comprehensive Plan from 2018 did not identify this area as a section needing to be rezoned.
“Somebody at some point in the history of this community made the decision” to zone the highway corridor for commercial uses, “so it’s important to think about that, if we’re gonna change it, for whatever reason, why was it zoned that way in the first place?” Pitcher said.
He also reiterated Dickhoff’s point that during the Comprehensive Plan review, “nobody identified that [area’s zoning] as being out of place.”
Dickhoff said, “As far as businesses go, there’s an allowed use in the code of what types of businesses can occur in those districts, so it’s not up to the town to review people’s business plans … Currently we don’t have a limitation on gas stations, for example, in the code. It’s not up to us, it’s up to the developer to make those decisions … a lot of it has to do with the market demand and the ability for a business to convince their investors that this is gonna work at this location.”
Pitcher added, “I’d say that it is up to us, but it’s up to us in a different process that’s already happened, and that’s the community process of determining the zoning map.”
Within the MU-R section of the subdivision, an 88-unit workforce housing apartment complex, called Pagosa Peaks Apartments, is also being proposed.
On this front, the town received a $1,989,000 Colorado Department of Local Affairs (DOLA) More Housing Now Grant award, with this grant aimed at helping with the costs of public infrastructure associated with the workforce housing apartments.
During public comment at the work session there was a question about if the grant is an example of “putting the cart before the horse” since the subdivision has not yet been approved.
Dickhoff replied, “Is the cart before the horse? You need the money first, right? Without the money the project is never gonna happen. There’s limited opportunities for us to get funding for affordable housing, so we brought this to the town council … and we went ahead and applied for it, and we did receive $1,989,000 for public infrastructure, water lines, sewer lines … transit stops, sidewalks, roadways.”
Pitcher added that he is “certainly not making any decision based on that grant.”
During public comment, resident Sharon Carter wondered if changing the location of the workforce housing apartment complex to another part of the parcel would jeopardize the grant in any way, with Dickhoff responding that it would not jeopardize the grant.
Carter then urged the commission to consider asking the developer to relocate the apartments to another section of the parcel so it would not butt up against the Vista San Juan neighborhood, expressing concern that the higher-density housing would be adjacent to “a lower-density, rural neighborhood.”
Dickhoff explained that a big factor in the location of the apartments was the infrastructure, saying it would be expensive for the developer to build the apartments in a location farther away from the sewer and water lines “to serve that lot.”
Carter responded, saying that “sometimes the cheaper location might not be the best location,” with Dickhoff reminding the planning commission that multifamily housing is “an allowable use at that location as it is.”
He added that the developer would be allowed to build up to three stories in that location, but that they are already proposing to do some two-story and some three-story buildings, adding that the apartments would be deed restricted for workforce housing “for at least 30 years.”
He explained that the development would help the town reach some of its public infrastructure goals, particularly constructing missing links to an off-highway “secondary road network” and to the Town-to-Lakes Trail system.
Pitcher added that he thought the work session had been “really helpful in laying out the whole path” of processes that the development would have to go through.
Dickhoff explained that the subdivision process is only the first procedure, and that it includes a “sketch, preliminary and a final” application process, and that this would all need to be followed by the design review process for each development, which also includes three stages — sketch, preliminary and final reviews.
He added that there is the possibility of appealing to the town council if a party believes the LUDC code had not been followed in any of these processes, and that even the council’s decision could be appealed at the district court level.
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