Pagosa Springs? (homes, live in, zoning)

[duster1979]

Originally Posted by vexed weasel

PS actually now has a full service hospital, no more ambulance to Mercy in Bayfield. Tomorrow they will announce that Walmart is building a big box in Pagosa. No need to drive to Durango. In fact, a bit more of this and there is no reason to to leave a city for Pagosa.
I may have a very nice home for sale there soon.

Sad to hear. I mean, the hospital is obviously a good thing, but Wal Mart? If you can't get it at Alco, you probably don't need it.

We had the pleasure of visiting Pagosa twice back in 2003 thanks to a trial Fairfield (now Wyndham) membership and fell in love with it. It reminded me of Estes Park before it got all commercial.

[jazzlover]

In my opinion, Pagosa is suffering from the same cancer that ruined Durango starting about 30 years ago. Pagosa has gone from being a quiet small town in the Rockies to being a place increasingly infested with pretentious transplanted yuppies who bring their corrosive metropolitan "Look at me, I'm cool" attitude with them. I know quite a few Pagosa natives--most of them have left because of how the town has changed.

As for Wal-mart, it couldn't do much more damage to Pagosa than has already been done. The Main St. business district is now pretty much a bunch of tourist trinket shops with the main retail area now scattered out over 5 miles west of town--such that residents are utterly auto-dependent to do even the most basic shopping--just like suburbia. Of course, that's the model it emulates--not a small-town retail environment. Not surprising, either, since most of the current residents came from suburbia and that is the only living model that they can understand. Too bad they insist on transplanting it into formerly beautiful mountain towns.

[ColoTroutlHntr]

These natives could have done something about curtailing crappy sprawl. Instead of selling out their land and crying about the changes as they left town they could have planned, zoned, etc.to maintain a small town charm. In nearly every nice town in the Rockies it's the same. Old locals cry about new arrivals and change. However, instead of accepting responsibility for maintaining the very things they claim to miss they take the money instead.

[jazzlover]

Originally Posted by ColoTroutlHntr

These natives could have done something about curtailing crappy sprawl. Instead of selling out their land and crying about the changes as they left town they could have planned, zoned, etc.to maintain a small town charm. In nearly every nice town in the Rockies it's the same. Old locals cry about new arrivals and change. However, instead of accepting responsibility for maintaining the very things they claim to miss they take the money instead.

That is sadly true. Pagosa is a little different in that much of the development has occurred on some very large ranch holdings that were sold to out-of-state interests way back in the early 1960's, before the idea of "land use" and planning was even really widespread. It took the "growth cancer" decades to metastasize into the ugly developmental mess that now graces Pagosa. And, yes, there are still people selling out to the vultures.

One can not discount the fact that Colorado politics has long been dominated by the real estate development interests, so much of Colorado land use law is absolutely biased in favor of the developers and structured to privatize the profits of land development and socialize its costs upon the taxpayers. It is one of the reasons that Colorado is now such a fiscal mess.

[wanneroo]

Originally Posted by ColoTroutlHntr

These natives could have done something about curtailing crappy sprawl. Instead of selling out their land and crying about the changes as they left town they could have planned, zoned, etc.to maintain a small town charm. In nearly every nice town in the Rockies it's the same. Old locals cry about new arrivals and change. However, instead of accepting responsibility for maintaining the very things they claim to miss they take the money instead.

Everything always changes. If I live to 2070, everything will be very different by then and it will be different in 2150 as well.

I think some development is good in these towns. Jazz always talks about the world running out of oil tomorrow, but to me there is nothing wrong with a few more Wal Marts or box stores or new gas stations or new restaurants. It just means in that living in those areas I am less likely to have to drive 2-3 hours away to do shopping if I can at least get some of my needs fulfilled locally, thereby saving gasoline and hence saving the world from armageddon.

When I first moved to Vail in 1999, the local Wal Mart was a cramped, over priced store and City Market nearly monopolized the local supermarket business. So I did trips to 2 hours down to Denver to shop.

Over the years there was more retail development in the Vail area, Summit County and down in Glenwood Springs, which cut prices locally and brought more choice which meant any trip to Denver was purely just to get out of the mountains and to ease cabin fever. It wasn't a necessity to drive 2 hours to do any shopping.

So it's not all a bad thing it's made out to be because most of the people that complain don't have to live locally with it. There are always a few marxists envirototalitarians in these towns that don't want anything, but most people in these towns don't mind a bit of reasonable development.

The wheels of capitalism need to keep turning and under the Jazz model, most of these towns would stagnate and die, along with the elder, inbred population.

And I think the whole "small town charm" thing is an illusion and total BS. I think people have been watching too many movies. I've lived in towns in Colorado and Connecticut that were considered charming little towns and right now I live in what is considered one of the nicest small towns in the USA. All of these places have their own issues and needs and ultimately to have a nice small town, you've got to have jobs and economic development.

[Idunn]

Pagosa Springs is far enough removed from anywhere else of any size to warrant some shopping. Driving all the way over Wolf Creek Pass will only deliver the small town of South Fork, nor a whole lot beyond that all the way to Alamosa. In the other direction a few smaller towns until your real regional shopping center in Durango and nearby Farmington, NM. To the north a lot of high mountains, and if flying as a crow on the far side lots of scenery but only Creede. To the south only a blip on the border, and then what might be a better local if wishing more peace, quiet, and lack of development, in Chama, NM.

BUT, if the fine citizens of Pagosa Springs feel progress lies in emulating Estes Park, then they may wish to reconsider. News has it that Rocky Mountain National Park, and Estes Park by extension, entertained a near record 3.3 million visitors last year. Anyone having visited Estes Park in its more of a small town aspect in January, versus July, will appreciate what ten times more of anything can mean, or what RMNP and environs might have been like in 1917 at inception when but about 30,000 visitors.

There are surely business interests in Estes Park who favor such a trend, and would still be looking for more even if that now ten times over at 30,000,000. They have no sense of balance. Nor do many Americans. But one reason why our national debt is currently $15 trillion and climbing, and a good deal of Wall Street is based upon a Ponzi scheme. But as unfortunately the underpinning of a good part of our economy, their actions only reflective of the greater mindset where more is never enough.

Animas City is a ghost town because the ore ran out. Or in any event that easily extracted at a given price. Aspen might be sharing the same fate save it resides in a more amenable location for settlement, but also in having adapted itself for an economy based on skiing and tourism, and the money of the affluent. There is no way any of these towns can remain exactly the same, some will grow, some die, and all change.

But it is beyond fallacy to think that a Ponzi based economy is sustainable. Any different than the citizens of a once thriving Leadville should not have realized that much of its prosperity based upon a depleting resource.

Animas City and the mines in the Silverton area still pollute otherwise clean mountain waters, long after their shelf life expired. Pagosa Springs is large enough to offer many services that people in the region surely value. And at a certain size larger, much that they would not in all it brings.

[Pagosan]

It appears, and is reported by some as a done deal, that Walmart is coming to Pagosa Springs.
This is a very noisy issue right now, with many against and many for the development. The root issue is tax revenue for the city and county. It is estimated that some 2 million dollars in sales taxes that currently finds its way to Durango and Farmington, will be kept at 'home'.
OTOH, many think that Walmart will bring a end to 'downtown'. I kind of doubt it. There will be some dislocations, but downtown doesn't really cater to locals, it caters to tourists who are here for a great number of reasons.
I have to say, though, that the proposed location is at possibly half the issue. It is currently in a half (or less) built out commercial district in the prettiest part of Pagosa Lakes. I'd sure like to see it built further out of town or on the hill between Pagosa Springs and the area know as Pagosa Lakes, to the west.

[lalahartma]

Walmart didn't get any tax incentives, did it?

[brightdoglover]

If downtown Pagosa barely caters to locals, but to tourists, so Walmart wouldn't hurt much, isn't the Walmart the end process of the original changes? I mean, did Pagosa have a "normal" downtown that did serve the local population and the surrounding rural people? Where did that go?

[Pagosan]

Originally Posted by lalahartma

Walmart didn't get any tax incentives, did it?

Not that I have heard. In fact, just the opposite. And Walmart is facing a good deal of resistance. They claim that they will generate 150 new jobs, but I seriously doubt that that number wll be 'net'. They will probably cannibalize a good many jobs from existing local businesses.

As for the subject of the thread, Pagosa is still in the doldrums. The economy has flattened, and there are a few more housing starts this year than last (5 vs 1), but the glory days are gone.

The number of houses has apparently shrunk as the foreclosure market has been slowly drying up. It looks to me as if those houses are going from banks to speculators who expect to make a killing in the future. Problem is, no one knows when or if that bet will play out. I do suggest that anyone considering retiring here move here and rent first. Living at 7500 feet elevation is not for everyone, nor are our winters.