I. HEALTHY MOUNTAIN COMMUNITIES NEWS

- Colorado Index Released

- Planners and Managers Roundtable in Glenwood on May 31

- Watershed Collaborative Begins To Take Shape


II. REGIONAL AND STATE NEWS

- Rural Resort Region Releases Child Care Needs Assessment

- Gunnison County Receives Colorado Conservation Trust Grant

- Eagle County Considers New Affordable Housing Regulations

- Smaller Towns Question Regional Housing Authority Effort

- Durango Home Prices Climb 15%

- Ridership Has Tripled Since Grand Valley Transit Got Moving

- Bayfield And La Plata County Creating Board To Handle New Growth

- Colorado Building Fees Skyrocket

III. NATIONAL NEWS

- Troubled Times For Some Modest American Dreams: Mobile Homes

- Supreme Court Rules Building Lake Tahoe Moratorium Was Not A Taking

IV. CONFERENCES & EVENTS

- Roaring Fork Region Sustainable Business Forum, May 30, 2002

- Colorado APA Conference in Grand Junction, September 19-20 / Two Rivers Convention Center

- Colorado’s Future: How Can We Meet the Needs of a Changing State? - Sept. 27, 2002 / University of Colorado at Colorado Springs campus

V. RESOURCES

- Book: Civilizing Downtown Highways

- Book: American Metropolitics: A Comparative National Study of Social Separation and Sprawl

_______________________________________________________

I. HEALTHY MOUNTAIN COMMUNITIES NEWS

Colorado Index Released
The Colorado Center for Healthy Communities has just released the Colorado Index. The report pieces together a range of indicators to paint a picture of quality of life in Colorado. The report builds on the numerous indicators throughout the U.S. and Colorado. Healthy Mountain Communities managed the development of the Index. The printed report is available for $20.00 (includes postage and handling). Please contact the Center at calling 970.963.1194 or by email to info@coloradocenter.org. A PDF version of the report is available at www.coloradocenter.org.

Planners and Managers Roundtable in Glenwood on May 31
The next Planners and Managers Roundtable will be May 31 from 2-5pm at the Glenwood Springs Community Center. 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. A newsletter with information relating to the meeting is online at www.hmccolorado.org/may14.htm

Watershed Collaborative Begins To Take Shape
A regional a team of participants (with representatives from Garfield County, Eagle County, the White River Forest, Glenwood Springs, the Roaring Fork Conservancy, and Healthy Mountain Communities) attended a National Association of Counties (NACo) / Sonoran Institute Stewardship Workshop in Estes Park April 12-14. Participation at the workshop was by competitive application, which Garfield County and HMC jointly submitted. Eight county groups were accepted from the intermountain west. The team membership was structured to represent the larger watershed as much as possible with a commitment to expand the team on return among land management agencies, local governments and all interested parties

The workshop focused on helping rapidly growing western counties better understand the trends affecting growth in the western U.S. as well as tools they can use to shape growth to maintain rural and community values. As part of the workshop, the team developed a preliminary action plan to promote greater regional cooperation and integrated planning in the Roaring Fork Valley. The effort is tentatively called the Watershed Collaborative. Components of this effort include:

• Examining zoning structures. This step focuses on ensuring that clustering and incentives for sensitive place preservation are present in our regulations.
• Examining referral and support structures. This is step focuses on support for traditional rural uses of land and incentives/disincentives for that continued use.
• Compiling regional social economic data analysis. The Sonoran Institute is providing software (it is public domain software developed by the BLM) to generate specific profiles of the economic trends in Eagle, Garfield and Pitkin Counties. (See www.hmccolorado.org/epsinfo.htm for reports for each county.)
• Developing a regional build out scenario. Eagle County has already been working on this effort and expects to complete it in a few months. The regional effort can also build on the preliminary work done by HMC/ Basalt/ Otak-Rock Creek Studio in 1998. (See www.hmccolorado.org/Scenario1.htm for more information on past efforts.)
• Conducting a Cost of Community Services Study. COCS studies are a snapshot in time of costs vs. revenues for each land use. These types of studies can explain some of the costs associated with growth from a public expenditure / tax perspective.
• Creating a Fiscal and Value Analysis of Alternative Growth Scenarios. The data and analysis from the previous steps will be collected in such a way that it used by the CommunityViz software. We can then use Community Viz to generate alternative growth scenarios.

(Please note that to the extent that we can share assumptions on a watershed basis, the above analysis should be helpful to all agencies and entities that might not be able to undertake such analysis by themselves, or, may want to modify assumptions and results within a common regional framework.)

The Sonoran Institute will provide limited consulting and financial assistance (approx. $5,000) over the course of 12 to 18 months to help the team implement this developing action plan. They may even be able to help the team and region raise additional resources for the project. Contact Randy Russell (rrussell@garfield-county.com), Rebecca Leonard rleonard@eagle-county.com or Colin Laird (claird@hmccolorado.org) for more information.

II. REGIONAL AND STATE NEWS

Rural Resort Region Releases Child Care Needs Assessment
The Rural Resort Region Child Care Project and Consolidated Project have recently completed their analysis of the current system of child care services in the five county rural region, which includes Eagle, Garfield, Lake, Pitkin and Summit counties. The Rural Resort Region Child Care Needs Assessment provides a picture of the challenges and opportunities to improving and expanding child care (opportunities delete this) in the region.

The report includes results of the data collected from written surveys, telephone interviews and focus groups with parents, child-care centers, family child care providers, and employers. The report is available on-line at www.hmccolorado.org

The next meeting of the Child Care Project is on May 29 at noon at the Garfield County Courthouse. The focus of the meeting is to address the lack of child care options for government employees in our area. All are welcome to attend. Contact Carrie Podl at, RRRCHILDCARE@aol.com or 970-963-6080 for more info, or to be added to an email list.

Gunnison County Receives Colorado Conservation Trust Grant
Gunnison County received a grant from the Colorado Conservation Trust to assist the County in an on-going Master Plan effort. The Long Range Planning/GIS Department of Gunnison County, the Colorado Conservation Trust, the Orton Family Foundation, and the Sonoran Institute have formed a partnership to integrate the use of a creative public process with the visualization tool CommunityViz.

The County will be sponsoring a wide variety of public forums to develop a series of development scenarios based on different development assumptions. These alternatives will then be modeled and depicted, and a Cost of Community Services Analysis will be undertaken for each alternative to allow for the community to understand the visual and fiscal implications of different futures for Gunnison County. Contact Dave Michaelson, Director of Long Range Planning at GIS, 970.641.7620 or dmichaelson@co.gunnison.co.us for more information.

Eagle County Considers New Affordable Housing Regulations
Eagle County Commissioners are considering proposed amendments to the Eagle County Land use Regulations to help it reach its affordable/local resident housing goals. The proposed amendments include an inclusionary housing requirement of 30%for all new residential development; a residential employee/linkage program; and a nonresidential employee/linkage program. For more information contact Rebecca Leonard at 970.328.8730 or rleonard@eagle-county.com

Smaller Towns Question Regional Housing Authority Effort
Representatives from the Regional Affordable Living Foundation (RALF), the city of Steamboat Springs, Routt County commissioners and the three outlying towns met recently to discuss forming a multi-jurisdictional housing authority. The authority, if created, would replace RALF as the advocate for affordable housing in the Yampa Valley. Unlike the non-profit foundation, an authority would be able to levy taxes, issue tax-exempt revenue bonds and could condemn land.

The Steamboat Springs City Council and Routt County commissioners have indicated support for the authority and have met with the town boards in Oak Creek, Yampa and Hayden to gauge those towns' interest in participating. Officials from the smaller towns said they feel they are being asked to help pay to fix a Steamboat problem.

www.steamboatpilot.com, Christine Metz - April 30, 2002

Durango Home Prices Climb 15%
According to statistics compiled by the Durango Area Association of Realtors, the median price of a home in Durango increased $30,750 during 2001 to $230,000 – a 15 percent increase. Real estate brokers, builders and developers say the explanation for what happened in 2001, and what is still going on today, is threefold: There just aren’t that many homes for sale in Durango, but demand is still high; the homes that are being built are selling in that $230,000 range; and fewer high-end homes sold in 2001 compared with 2000, which pushed up the number of homes sold in the $100,000 to $500,000 range.

"A house in Durango that is selling for under $250,000 is on the market for a day or two, with multiple offers," said Mike Dent, a broker at The Wells Group. He said such a house has a buyer within a week, maximum. In 2000 the most expensive home sold in the county was $3.25 million, and in 2001 one sold for $2.93 million.

www.durangoherald.com, Tom Sluis - March 3, 2002

Ridership Has Tripled Since Grand Valley Transit Got Moving
Ridership has tripled since the public transit system came on line in 2000. In April 2000, 8,598 passengers rode GVT. This past month, April 2002, GVT hauled 25,798 riders — the most ever in one month.

"We've been increasing steadily since the very beginning," said Tambra Wishart, GVT transit coordinator. "At the rate we're going, we might even surpass 30,000 riders per month by the end of this year."

To further support increased ridership, local government funding to Grand Valley Transit will likely double during the next four years, according to an agreement signed by Mesa County and the cities of Grand Junction and Fruita. The town of Palisade still must consider the agreement.

The public transit system received $443,505 from the same four governments in fiscal year 2001. In fiscal year 2002, the first year of the four-year agreement, GVT will receive $880,035 from the four local governments..

"The biggest change is the city of Grand Junction is contributing significantly more," said Tom Fisher, director of the Mesa County Regional Transportation Office. From 1999 through 2001, Grand Junction contributed $50,000 per year. The city will contribute between $200,000 and $225,000 per year under the latest agreement.

Estimated contributions from Mesa County, Fruita and Palisade will nearly double by 2005, according to the agreement. Mesa County's contribution is expected to jump from $370,800 in 2001 to $699,500 by 2005. Fruita's contribution is planned to increase from $15,243 in 2001 to $34,836 by 2005. Palisade's 2001 contribution of $7,420 is expected to increase to $13,860 by 2005.

www.gjsentinel.com, Michael C. Bender – May 14, 2002

Bayfield and La Plata County Creating Board To Handle New Growth
Because so much growth is taking place in eastern La Plata County, Bayfield and the county Planning Department are creating a joint planning commission, similar to one that already exists between the county and Durango, said Joe Crain, the county’s planning director. "Bayfield is going to be a real growth area in the future," he said. "They’re wrestling with growth and what they want and how to expand their community."

A joint agreement would establish a planning process for developments near Bayfield but which are too far from the town limits for the land to be annexed, Crain said. A joint planning commission of five county planning commissioners and five Bayfield planning commissioners would make recommendations to the county commission. The town is now considering a draft agreement for the arrangement, and it should be finalized sometime this year.

www.durangoherald.com, Melanie Brubaker Mazur - April 21, 2002

Colorado Building Fees Skyrocket
Over the past four years, many Colorado cities have hiked up construction fees to pay for the population growth the state experienced during the 1990s. For example, development fees in Cherry Hills Village have jumped 51 percent from $20,125 per $100,000 in construction value in 1998 to $30,500 in 2000.

The Colorado Municipal League says builders and developers typically pass these fees down to homebuyers, which likely contributed to a 10.9-percent rise in the state's home prices last year. Cherry Hills Village's fees are used to pay for the city's upscale parks and open space systems, but most communities put the funds toward necessary roads and water and sewer systems to support the booming population. Though the Colorado Homebuilders Association believes the development fees are excessive, the group supports a recent law allowing cities and counties to impose impact fees. Even so, Larry Moriandi of the National Conference of State Legislatures says that Colorado and other fast-growing states will have to do more to accommodate population growth. Moriandi says these states often undercharge to foster development but warns that this strategy is ineffective.

www.rockymountainnews.com, Jerd Smith – April 22, 2002

III. NATIONAL NEWS

Troubled Times For Some Modest American Dreams: Mobile Homes
From Maryland to Iowa, trailer parks are being scrapped to drive out crime or make room for a new development. In fact, the rooting out of old mobile-home parks is only accelerating as the nation's mobile-home stock ages (not always as gracefully as "stick-built" homes) – and profitable redevelopment beckons to landowners.

Some say that what's happening in these parks illustrates a pervasive gap in protections for a stratum of society that some privately dismiss as "trailer-park trash." Though 16 states have special laws to guard mobile-home owners, most of the 17 million American homeowners who live in mobile-home parks have fewer housing rights than even the lowly apartment dweller.

Barred from home equity loans to raise emergency cash for moving, often lacking basic leases, and locked out of most newer parks, thousands of Americans are said to have already had to abandon their older mobile homes – or have been forced to sell them at a loss.

Consequently, more and more lawmakers are looking to further protect these homeowners. Running for governor of Michigan, House minority whip David Bonior just became the first national figure to put "home-equity rights" for mobile-home owners in his campaign platform.

In Florida, California, and New Hampshire – where senior citizens (about one-third of the country's mobile-home-park population) have lots of political clout – there are stronger laws. New Hampshire has "fair displacement" laws mandating that landlords have to assess moving costs for all residents, and include those costs in the asking price for the property.

www.csmonitor.com, Patrik Jonsson - April 22, 2002

Supreme Court Rules Lake Tahoe Building Moratorium Was Not A Taking
A 32-month building moratorium imposed while the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency (TRPA) prepared a land use plan was not an unconstitutional taking of property rights, the U.S. Supreme Court has held.

The court explicitly rejected the argument from landowners that a government regulation that bars all economically viable uses of property for any period of time is a taking. The court, however, still refused to create a definitive rule for when a regulation amounts to a taking.

Justice John Paul Stevens called a moratorium "an essential tool of successful development."

"[T]he financial constraints of compensating property owners during a moratorium may force officials to rush through the planning process or to abandon the practice altogether," Stevens wrote. "To the extent that communities are forced to abandon using moratoria, landowners will have incentives to develop their property quickly before a comprehensive plan can be enacted, thereby fostering inefficient and ill-conceived growth."

www.cp-dr.com, California Planning & Development Report, Paul Shigley

The May edition of CPDR will have complete coverage of the ruling in Tahoe-Sierra Preservation Council v. Tahoe Regional Planning Agency, No. 00-1167.

The court’s opinion is available at www.supremecourtus.gov/opinions/01slipopinion.html

IV. CONFERENCES AND EVENTS

Roaring Fork Region Sustainable Business Forum - May 30, 2002 / Carbondale Town Hall
Business owners, government officials, planners and the public are invited to participate in the first annual Roaring Fork Region Sustainable Business Forum. This event will examine the following issues:

• How businesses and government agencies can improve their bottom lines while reducing their environmental impacts.
• How businesses involved with sustainable designs or sustainable technologies can work together for mutual benefit.
• How local governments, chambers of commerce, developers and others can work together to help foster conditions in which environmentally friendly businesses thrive.

The purpose of this forum is to provide education on the topic of sustainability and to bring together individuals in the region that are working on similar issues so they can network and form partnerships for future collaboration.

The forum is organized by the Stepstone Center. Contact Scott Chaplin chaplin@sopris.net or 970-963-3483 for more information.

Colorado APA Conference in Grand Junction, September 19-20 / Two Rivers Convention Center
Grand Junction and Mesa County are hosting the state APA convention this fall at the newly renovated Two Rivers Convention Center (www.apacolorado.org). The conference theme is "monument planning." Specific questions about the conference can be directed to Dahna Raugh draugh@co.mesa.co.us.

Colorado’s Future: How Can We Meet the Needs of a Changing State? - Sept. 27, 2002 / University of Colorado at Colorado Springs campus
The Center for Colorado Policy Studies at UCCS is hosting a broad-ranging conference on quality of life issues in Colorado (http://web.uccs.edu/ccps/). Sessions include:

• Information vs. Privacy
• Preserving Quality of Life in Colorado
• Changing Demographics of Colorado

Some of the conference speakers include:

• Tim Foster, Exec. Director, CCHE and former House Majority Leader;
• Rutt Bridges, President, Bighorn Institute, and former Pres. Intl. Society of Geophysicists;
• Wade Buchanan, Exec. Director, the Bell Policy Group and former Chief of Staff to Gov. Roy Romer;
• Dr. Pamela Shockley, Interim Chancellor, CU-Colorado Springs.

A peer-reviewed conference volume with the full papers of presenters, abstracts of poster sessions, and contact information for all participants and attendees will be produced. A modest honorarium will be awarded to presenters in key sessions. There will be a $35 charge to other conference attendees to cover luncheon, reception, and the conference volume.

Please submit proposals by June 1, 2002 to:

Prof. Steve Jennings, Program Committee
University of Colorado at Colorado Springs
P. O. Box 7150
Colorado Springs, Co. 80933-7150
sjenning@uccs.edu  

The Center for Colorado Policy Studies applies economic principles and research results to critical policy issues at the state and local level. The Center has programs on Growth Issues, Education policy, and Tax policy. The Center has a number of interesting resources on its website http://web.uccs.edu/ccps/  

IV. RESOURCES

Civilizing Downtown Highways
Do you wonder why streets are so big and nasty? Do you want to do something about it? Civilizing Downtown Highways shows you how. While this publication focuses on case studies in California, many of the lessons and techniques discussed can be applied to any state's highway system. The publication is roughly 100 pages ($29.95). Order on-line at the Congress for the New Urbanism www.cnu.org

American Metropolitics: A Comparative National Study of Social Separation and Sprawl
Once again Myron Orfield provides an eye-opening analysis of the economic, racial, environmental, and political trends of the 25 largest metropolitan regions in the United States. Using detailed maps and case studies, Orfield demonstrates how sprawling development is negatively impacting the social fabric, fiscal health, and livability of communities across the U.S. You can view the introduction and/or purchase the book ($29.95) at http://www.brook.edu/dybdocroot/press/books/american_metropolitics.htm