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Road Show in Aspen Springs, Part One |
Bill Hudson | 3/1/10
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Archuleta County planner Cindy Schultz stood beside the easel, ready to mark audience comments on several large blank panels with various questions pre-printed at their tops:
“What do you love about Aspen Springs?”
“What do you dislike and wish could be changed?”
“Should camping be allowed in Aspen Springs?”
The small meeting room at one end of a metal shop building — the Aspen Springs Metro District maintenance garage — was packed to overflowing, with numerous people left standing out in the tiny Metro District office next door, trying as best they could to hear the sometimes emotional discussion. Outside, the muddy parking lot and road was lined with vehicles — mostly pickup trucks, it seemed to me. Continued...
County planner Cindy Schultz clarifies a question posed to the Aspen Springs audience.
The Aspen Springs Metro District meeting room overflowed into the next room during the two hour "fact-finding" session. |
This was Meeting Number Two of the “County Road Show,” an attempt by the County Department of Development Services to gather input from the outlying residential areas in Archuleta County. The first “Road Show” meeting had been held in January in Arboles — population, 232 — a tiny village at the farthest southwestern corner of the county near Navajo Reservoir.
The Aspen Springs “Road Show” was held last Thursday, February 25.
As Schultz explained in her introductory overview of the evening’s agenda, this “Road Show” discussion would have almost nothing to do with “Roads.” Instead, what Schultz and the other Development Services staff wanted to hear were the communities’ concerns about current and future Land Use Codes — the rules that govern how property owners may use their land here in Archuleta County. It was a “Road Show” in the sense of “taking the discussion on the road,” getting out beyond the core area of downtown Pagosa Springs, to find out people’s feelings in Arboles, Aspen Springs, Chromo and the Highway 84 area — the more “independent” parts of the county?
At moments during the Aspen Springs meeting, one might have almost had the impression Schultz represented an occupying military force, rather than a county planning department.
 “What we are trying to do is look at some long term goals, some long term visions,” Schultz explained. “We have two ways of doing that. We have a thing called the Community Plan. I don’t have the Community Plan map here tonight, but it’s a broad document that says, ‘Here’s what Archuleta County wants to look like, when it grows up.’ How do we want to look? What do we want our commercial areas to look like? Do we want density here, or density there? Or do we want no density at all?
“Those are the kinds of goals addressed in the Community Plan.
“Now, the major tool we have to achieve those goals is the Land Use Code, the Land Use Regulations — it’s a very thick book, I call it the Bible — and it’s the tool we use at the Planning Department to achieve the goals in the Community Plan. For example, how to you form a subdivision? How do you consolidate two lots into one lot?
“So those are the two things, the Regulations and the Community Plan; one is the tools we use, to achieve the future goals.”
As Schultz moved into the audience participation part of the program, it quickly became apparent that the most important future goal, for many in the room, was to have the County Planning Department simply leave Aspen Springs alone.
“So, what is it that you love about Aspen Springs?” Schultz had asked the audience, her marking pen ready to write on the blank panel.
“No regulations!” shouted one resident.
Indeed, Aspen Springs has been something of a renegade subdivision from its founding in 1973. It was the last subdivision in Colorado to be allowed to split itself into lots smaller than 35 acres without providing central water and sewer services. Since 1973, any subdivision lot smaller than 35 acres must be provided with water and sewer service.
Many of the lots in Aspen Springs are one-acre parcels — barely enough land to build a private septic system — and many residents do not have wells, or have wells with mineral-flavored water. It’s a common sight to see pickup trucks carrying large polyethylene tanks full of drinking water collected from the fill station on Trails Boulevard, about four miles east of Aspen Springs.
This lack of central water and sewer, along with the availability of small parcels, has made Aspen Springs property more affordable than parcels in, say, the Pagosa Lakes area — and thus attractive to working class families, and to folks looking for a life less controlled by Home Owners Associations and government regulations. The lack of HOA covenants — the types of rules that, for example, prohibit the parking of a RV within the Pagosa Lakes subdivision — make Aspen Springs attractive to folks who might not only want to park their RV on their property, but who also want to go right ahead and live in their RV.
And indeed, some of the most emotional discussions during the Aspen Springs “Road Show” centered around residents who had not yet built homes on their land, and who were living in travel trailers — by necessity, or by choice.
Did this constitute “camping” on one’s property? Apparently, “camping” is allowed by the Archuleta County Land Use Code only with a paid permit, and only for a limited time each year. But a few residents at last Thursday’s meeting openly talked about living year round in their trailers.
Schultz tried to make clear that the immediate concerns of the County planning and building departments — together known as the Department of Development Services — were centered on public health and safety. If people were camping, what type of bathroom facilities were they using? Were they contaminating the area’s groundwater?
If people were operating businesses in residential areas, what stresses was that placing on neighborhood traffic patterns, or on neighborhood noise levels? Should Aspen Springs residents have the right to operate certain types of businesses within residential areas — but not other kinds of businesses?
As the crowd addressed individual issues, it became clear that many Aspen Springs residents value individual property rights above any vague concepts of health and safety. Several speakers brought up innovative alternatives to energy, water and sewer needs that are perhaps less commonly accepted by mainstream Pagosa residents.
But when the discussion got down to the nuts and bolts of real-life situations, maybe the priorities weren’t quite so clearly defined.
It was also clear that not all of the County’s Land Use Codes are focused solely on health and safety. Some regulations seem aimed at ‘aesthetic choices’ that might affect a neighbor’s property values more than anyone’s health. Outbuildings, storage areas, and junked cars, for example, seem to me to pose more of an aesthetic ‘problem’ than a health and safety issue — although some try to make the case that nearly any ‘stored object’ can serve as a shelter for rodents. Maybe that’s true.
Nevertheless, is it a proper function of County government to try and preserve property values, through land use regulations and fees — and punitive fines? That question was not discussed, per se, at the Aspen Springs meeting.
As residents had entered the Thursday meeting, a couple of private citizens had handed them xerox copies of some Land Use Code amendments that Schultz’ department had proposed last November — changes that might have altered the way people in Aspen Springs were able to use their property. The Board of County Commissioners had tabled those proposed amendments and had instructed Community Development director Rick Bellis and his staff to get out to the county neighborhoods and find out what the county’s citizens wanted, in the way of regulations.
The Chromo “Road Show” is scheduled for Thursday, March 25 at Fire Station #7, 1495 County Road 382. On Thursday, April 22, the “Road Show” will be held at the Pagosa Lakes Clubhouse, 230 Port Avenue, and on Thursday, May 27 a presentation aimed at the Highway 84 area will be held at the County Fairgrounds Extension Building, 334 Highway 84. A final “Road Show” meeting will take place on Thursday, June 24 at the County Courthouse.
So, what did the Community Development staff find out last Thursday? What do the people of Aspen Springs love about Aspen Springs?
Read Part Two... |
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