Healthy Mountain Communities
HMC Newsletter
Happy Holidays!
CONTENTS
I. HEALTHY MOUNTAIN COMMUNITIES NEWS
- Region receives affordable housing grant from Heritage
Planning Grant Program
- HMC to develop Colorado Smart Growth
Scorecard
- Planners and Managers Roundtable
begins
II.
REGIONAL AND STATE NEWS
-
Civic Forum focused on taking snapshot of Mesa County's
health
-
Ski resorts vote to increase teacher salaries
-
Basalt voters overwhelmingly support town open space
district
-
Garfield County gives approval to Spring Valley
project
-
Voters close doors on open space in Lower Roaring Fork
Valley
-
Use tax/bond for open space and affordable housing lose in La Plata
County
-
Steamboat Rejects sales tax for air service
-
Child-care tax nixed
-
Boulder County Civic Forum releases ‘Social Capital’
Report
III.
NATIONAL NEWS
- San Francisco
Supervisor call for Big Box impact review
- Fannie Mae CEO warns
housing too high for many
-
Urban Sprawl Endangers Public Health; New CDC Report Finds
Link
___________________________________________________________________
I. Healthy Mountain Communities
News
Region receives affordable housing grant from Heritage
Planning Grant Program
The Regional Affordable
Housing Authority Initiative was recently received funding ($50,000) from
the Heritage Planning Smart Growth Program. The effort is a collaborative
project between the governments from Basalt to Glenwood Springs to develop
the organizational capacity to administer local affordable housing
programs at a regional level.
Glenwood Springs will administer the grant on behalf of the other
area governments. Healthy
Mountain Communities will coordinate the initiative. HMC welcomes suggestions about
direction and participation. Contact HMC at Colin claird@hmccolorado.org or 963-5502 for more
information.
HMC to develop Colorado Smart Growth
Scorecard
With
support from the Gates Family Foundation and the Orton Family
Foundation, HMC will develop a Colorado Smart
Growth Scorecard during 2002.
The Scorecard will be a community self-assessment tool that helps
citizens identify the drivers of sprawling land use patterns as well as
assess their community's readiness and ability to foster smart
growth. This project builds
upon work done in Vermont by the Orton
Institute and the Vermont Forum on Sprawl by
adapting the scorecard concept for use in Colorado. The Colorado Smart Growth
Scorecard will include a section on the fiscal impacts of growth and be
available in interactive print format. Contact HMC at
claird@hmccolorado.org or 963-5502 for more
information.
Planners and Managers Roundtable begins
HMC
has teamed up with Garfield County Building and Planning to establish a
forum for regional dialogue among managers and planning staff on the
interconnected issues facing the communities of the Roaring Fork and
Colorado River Valleys.
Twenty
planners from land management agencies, local planning
departments, Colorado Mountain
College and non-profit organizations met December 7th to
discuss the formation of a Planners and Managers Roundtable in the Aspen
to Parachute watershed basins at an informal and ad hoc level. The consensus at the meeting was
for regional meetings roughly every 3 months as well as more electronic
networking. To check out a
newsletter summary of the meeting, visit, www.hmccolorado.org/Roundtablepage.htm. The newsletter also describes how
to join a regional planning discussion group. The next meeting will be on March
1, from 2-4 pm at the Carbondale Town Hall.
Contact
Randy Russell, Garfield County Building and Planning at rrussell@garfield-county.com or 945-8212 or HMC claird@hmccolorado.org or 963-5502 for more
information.
II.
Regional and State News
Civic
Forum focused on taking snapshot of Mesa County's
health
Mesa County
Civic Forum begins work on their e 2002 "Mesa County: Our Picture of
Health." with a survey of residents.
It will be the third time since 1994 such a comprehensive report
has been compiled. When it is
completed, the data will be used to help assess Mesa County in areas such
as education, mental health, personal health and well-being, arts and
culture, substance abuse, social environment, economy and spirituality.
From the
1998 edition of “Our Picture of Health” arose concerns about growth,
transportation, youth-risk intervention, mental health and substance
abuse. In response, programs such as Grand Valley Transit and Build A
Generation were started. The
city was one of the few cities in the U.S. over 40,000 without a public
transit system. Grand Valley Transit has been serving the metro area since
2000. For information, call
The Civic Forum at 970-241-1064 or visit their website www.civicforum.org.
www.dailysentinel.com 10.31.01
Ski
resorts vote to increase teacher salaries
Voters
in four high-priced ski communities backed teachers by approving tax
increases to raise salaries and
offset sky-high housing costs and retain experienced teachers. Aspen, Steamboat Springs, and
Summit and Eagle counties each passed citizen initiatives to pay
cost-of-living allowances in pricey resort towns.
In
Eagle County, which has the Vail and Beaver Creek ski resorts, teachers
start at about $30,000. The $3.1 million tax increase will mean $200 to
$800 more a month. Last year,
the school district offered a $1,000 signing bonus to teachers who stayed
another year, but 10 percent left anyway. In Vail and Aspen, the
average cost of a single-family home is more than $1 million and the
average price of a condominium is $518,000.
"Hiring
teachers is a national crisis," said Tom Farrell, Aspen's superintendent
of schools. "My first priority will be to keep the ones I have." The starting salary for a teacher
in Aspen is $27,000, plus a $1,500 bonus. Farrell said he was aiming for a
$35,000 salary for first-year teachers.
www.vaildaily.com 11.08.01
Basalt
voters overwhelmingly support town open space district
Basalt
voters enthusiastically supported increasing the town’s property tax to
generate funds to buy open space and establish riverfront parks. Creation of the town’s own open
space program won by a vote of 350 to 144, or 71 to 29
percent.
Mayor
Rick Stevens said the margin of victory reflected the proposal’s broad
appeal in the community. “Do
we want to make a better community for ourselves? The answer was ‘of
course,’” Stevens said. “It’s great that the community chose to support
itself.” The town’s open
space district was overwhelmingly supported even as midvalley and
downvalley voters decisively defeated a funding proposal for a larger open
space district in the Roaring Fork Valley portions of Eagle and Garfield
counties.
The
question placed on the ballot by the Basalt Town Council asked voters to
approve issuance of a $3 million general obligation bond to purchase land
for open space. Property taxes would be raised by $300,000 annually to pay
off that debt. The program will automatically expire once the debt is
paid, unless renewed by voters.
www.aspentimes.com 11.07.01
Garfield
County gives approval to Spring Valley project
Garfield
County Commissioners, in a 2-1 vote, approved a preliminary plan for the
upscale Spring Valley ranch development on the mesa between Glenwood
Springs and Carbondale. The
577 luxury home development, also known as "Chenoa", will include two golf
courses, plus an equestrian center.
Approval came with a number of conditions, including a $2.4 million
commitment to improve the road from the development to State Highway
82.
The project next
step is to win approval for the final plat, which would allow for the sale
of lots. In the meantime, the
development company must build roads and install infrastructure, a process
expected to take two years.
The Valley Journal
11.09.01
Voters
close doors on open space in Lower Roaring Fork Valley
Voters
soundly rejected a new property tax for the Roaring Fork Open Space, Parks
and Recreation District on election day. The district covers Basalt in
Eagle County and Carbondale and Glenwood Springs in Garfield County. In Garfield County, the tax
question failed by a 60%to 40% split or 2,834 no votes to 1,930 yes
votes. The question failed by
a slimmer margin in the Eagle County section of the Roaring Fork Valley,
656 to 526, or 55.5% against and 44.5 % in favor of the proposal.
The question sought voter approval for a 2.5 mill increase in
property taxes to fund a $10 million bond. Voters approved the creation of
the special district a year ago.
They also elected a board and approved bonding authority, but
turned down a property tax question.
The board and open space activists came back to voters for a second
try this year. The district
asked for the property tax since some communities in the region are
already at the statutory limit on sales tax.
www.postindependent.com 11.07.01
Use
tax/bond for open space and affordable housing lose in La Plata
County
A
proposed use tax to benefit open space and affordable housing was
overwhelmingly defeated as La Plata County voters said they supported the
measure’s ends, but not its means.
"I’m very relieved because it was a bad piece of legislation with a
lot of faults," said Karren Little, coordinator for the Citizens League
Opposed to the Use Tax. "But we still need to get the whole community
involved to see what defines open space and affordable housing, and to
make Durango a better place in the process."
Under
Referendum 1A, a 2 percent tax would have been collected on certain goods
bought outside of La Plata County but used inside the county, including
cars, mobile homes, some building supplies and oil-and-gas production
equipment. About $1.3 million
in revenue was expected the first year, with 70 percent of the money to
have been spent preserving open space, and 30 percent to help create
affordable housing. It was
the fourth time in 26 years that county voters have rejected a use
tax.
www.durangoherald.com 11.07.01
Steamboat
rejects sales tax for air service
Voters
in Steamboat Springs withheld the
boarding pass for a sales tax to fund ski season jet flights. Referendum 2A was defeated after
it received just 42 percent of the vote. Referendum 2A, more commonly
known as the 3-2-1 tax, would have imposed a scale of sales taxes targeted
at tourist industries. The tax could have raised up to $2.8 million next
year. Of the monies
collected, 20 percent — or $500,000, whichever is higher — would have gone
to fund local transit.
The
tax was devised by members of the business community with the intent of
creating a stable source of funds for the flight guarantees. For the past
two years, the Steamboat Springs Chamber Resort Association has sought
voluntary contributions from its members to help the ski corp. reach the
targeted guarantee levels.
Proponents
of the new tax tried to sell it to voters by pointing out that someone who
purchased a season ski pass and spent $2,000 would pay only $50 in
additional sales tax.
Opponents of the 3-2-1 tax didn't assault its provisions directly.
Instead, they framed it in the larger context of the ongoing community
debate about the use of public funds to attract tourists and the role
tourism plays in growth.
www.steamboatpilot.com 11.7.01
Child-care
tax nixed
Steamboat
Springs and Routt County residents overwhelmingly voted
against
tax increases to support a plan to subsidize early childhood education.
The taxes were designed to help child-care agencies that offer early
childhood education for children up to age 5 by providing tuition
assistance and recruiting and retaining more qualified child-care
workers. Both ballot issues —
a countywide property tax increase and a half-cent sale tax increase in
the city — failed decisively, with the Steamboat Springs Referendum 2B
falling by nearly a 5-to-1 margin and Routt County Referendum 1A falling
by a 4-to-1 margin.
Routt
County Referendum 1A asked voters to increase property taxes by one mill,
or $9 per $100,000 of residential property values. The tax increase would have
provided an estimated $600,00 per year for
child-care.
Steamboat
Springs Referendum 2B asked voters to increase sales taxes in the city by
a half-cent. Such an increase would have raised an estimated $1.6 million,
for qualified child-care agencies in Steamboat Springs. Eighty percent of child-care
agencies are in Steamboat Springs.
Opponents
of the child-care taxes questioned how the money would be spent and why
people without children should pay for child care. They also were concerned that if
the measures passed, child-care rates would rise dramatically, from an
average of $32 per day per child to between $40 and $50 per day per
child.
www.steamboatpilot.com 11.07.01
Boulder
County Civic Forum releases ‘Social Capital’
Report
Boulder County Civic
Forum just released findings from its
local social capital survey.
500 Boulder County residents participated in the survey. Social capital has been defined by
Dr. Robert Putnam at the JFK School of Government at Harvard University as
"ways in which our lives are made more productive by social ties." Social capital can take many
forms, ranging form membership in clubs and associations, to informal
interactions with family, friends, and neighbors, to formal participation
in the electoral process.
Social capital is strongly correlated to positive outcomes for
individuals, neighborhoods and communities.
The
Boulder County effort was part of a nation study in which nearly 30,000
people in 41 communities across the U.S. were polled as part of the
largest-ever survey on the civic engagement of
Americans. Participants were asked questions
on a wide range of topics related to social connects and community
involvement.
View
a summary of the report at www.bococivicforum.org and survey questions at www.cfsv.org/communitysurvey.
III.
National News
San Francisco Supervisor
call for Big Box impact review
San Francisco Board of
Supervisor's President Tom Ammiano has proposed a citywide ordinance that
would require retail development projects larger than 50,000 square feet,
with the exception of supermarkets, to undergo an impact review and obtain
a conditional use permit before building. The ordinance would give the city
significantly more leeway to reject big box development. It would also
give officials more leverage to negotiate with developers over such things
as the store design and site plan.
The proposal was prompted in part by Home Depot's plans to build a
140,000 square foot store (about the size of three football fields) on
Bayshore Boulevard off Cortland Street. Home Depot has since backed out of
the project.
A growing number of
communities are addressing this problem by capping the size of retail
stores and/or enacting impact review ordinances. The kinds of impacts
considered vary from one community to the next, but might include such
things as impact on traffic, downtown commerce, community character,
public revenue, and the environment.
For more examples of
impact review laws visit
www.newrules.org/retail/impact.html.
www.newrules.org/hta/index.htm 12.01
Fannie
Mae CEO warns housing too high for many
Many people are paying
twice as much as the recommended percentage of their monthly income for
housing, said Stacey Davis, president and chief executive officer of the
Fannie Mae Foundation.
"The flip
side of a great economy is that property values have gone up dramatically
--- rents too --- and that makes it even harder for people to find homes
they can afford," she said. "These are working people --- the teachers,
firefighters and policemen, minorities and immigrants --- who are having
trouble." Lenders and housing
experts recommend that prospective homeowners pay no more than 30 percent
of their gross monthly income on house payments. But many spend as much as
60 percent of what they earn because they can't find housing they can
afford, Davis said.
The foundation has
launched an informational Web site called KnowledgePlex Aimed at media, academia and planners and
developers, the site features a library of current information including
articles, case studies, best practices and journals; housing news from 300
sources; interactive communities including chatrooms; emerging issues in
affordable housing and community development; and a directory of sources
for additional information.
http://www.accessatlanta.com/ajc 11.05.01
Urban Sprawl Endangers Public Health; New CDC Report Finds
Link
A recent report by researchers at the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention, compiles data from across disciplines and multiple
sources into a single comprehensive report that examines the public health
effects of the broad physical and social environment, which includes
housing, urban development, land-use and transportation, industry, and
agriculture.
Creating A Healthy
Environment: The Impact of the Built Environment on Public
Health contains information on the
connections between suburban sprawl and public health. Findings
include:
-- Increases in vehicle miles traveled has resulted in an
increase in air pollution and in the incidence of respiratory diseases.
Results of a study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
during the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta, at which time vehicular traffic
was kept at artificially low levels by city authorities, showed that the
Peak daily ozone concentrations decreased 27.9 percent and peak weekday
morning traffic counts dropped 22.5 percent; at the same time the number
of asthma emergency medical events dropped 41.6
percent.
-- Sedentary living habits contribute to poor health
outcomes because they are a significant factor in the incidence of
overweight and obesity. Researchers have estimated that as many as 300,000
premature chronic disease deaths each year are due to
obesity.
-- Lack of pedestrian friendly features in a community
becomes a factor leading to illness and even death. In 1997 and 1998, 13
percent of all traffic fatalities -- 10,696 people -- were
pedestrians.
-- Residential development can pose unique health and
quality of life hazards.
Get the report online at http://www.sprawlwatch.org/health.pdf. CDC Contacts:
Richard Jackson, MD, MPH 770-488-7029 Chris Kochtitzky, MSP 770-488-7114.