Healthy Mountain Communities
HMC Newsletter
In memory
of victims, families and heroes of September 11, 2001
CONTENTS
I. HEALTHY MOUNTAIN COMMUNITIES NEWS
-
Carbondale adopts inclusionary zoning ordinance
- HMC
working to coordinate regional affordable housing
authority discussion
II.
REGIONAL AND STATE NEWS
-
Garfield Housing Authority releases needs assessment
-
Steamboat Springs City Council reduces impact fees
- Paonia
voters veto annexation
-
Breckenridge project offers Victorian-style affordable
homes for local workers
- Impact
Fees to be levied in Colorado Springs
- Rural
Resort Region completes analysis of revenue sharing
methodologies
- Center
for Policy Studies releases quality of life indicators
for Pikes Peak Region
III. NATIONAL NEWS
-
September 11th Fund Established
-
Internet and GIS help local Connecticut officials plan
for the future
- Gallup
gets wired
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I.
HEALTHY MOUNTAIN COMMUNITIES NEWS
Carbondale adopts inclusionary zoning
ordinance
The Carbondale Board of Trustees voted
6-0 to adopt an ordinance requiring 15 percent of homes
in new residential developments to meet affordability
standards.
The Inclusionary Housing ordinance takes
effect immediately, in the interest of “preservation
of public, health, safety and welfare,” as
determined by the town’s elected officials. It
will apply to all new development proposals currently on
the town’s planning table.
The new regulations originated from the
findings of the 1999 Regional Affordable Housing
Initiative sponsored by the towns of Carbondale, Basalt
and Glenwood Springs, plus Garfield and Eagle counties,
and coordinated by Healthy Mountain Communities.
Carbondale joins other Roaring Fork
Valley Governments by adopting the ordinance. Basalt’s
ordinance calls for 20 percent affordable housing and
Garfield County requires 10 percent. Aspen and Pitkin
County’s affordable housing regulations require
anywhere from 33 percent to 60 percent mitigation. Glenwood
is looking at a 15 percent mitigation requirement.
Valley Journal, John Stroud, jstroud@cmnm.org, October 11, 2001
HMC working to coordinate
regional affordable housing authority discussion
HMC recently helped Glenwood Springs,
Carbondale, Basalt, Garfield, Eagle and Pitkin Counties,
submit a proposal to the Governor's Office of Smart
Growth to create a regional housing authority in the
Basalt to Glenwood Springs area. The authority
would administer the current affordable housing units in
the area as well as new units created by inclusionary
zoning ordinances recently adopted by local governments.
In addition to determining the structure and overall
purpose of the organization, the initiative will develop
a funding plan (sales tax, property tax, and impact fees)
for affordable housing allowed through new state
legislation. Contact HMC for more information.
II.
REGIONAL AND STATE NEWS
Garfield Housing Authority
releases needs assessment
The Garfield Housing Authority recently
released a Housing Needs Assessment for Garfield County.
The assessment was conducted to better understand some of
the problems area residents encounter in trying to obtain
suitable and affordable housing. One finding from
the survey research was that 54% county households had
moved at least once during the last three years. This
movement reflects a trend of families moving
"downvalley" from the more expensive
communities in the Roaring Fork Valley to the relatively
affordable communities in the Colorado River/ I-70
Corridor.
For a copy of the report, contact Geneva
Powell @ 970-625-3589 or visit www.hmccolorado.org to download a pdf version of
the report.
Steamboat Springs City Council
reduces impact fees
The Steamboat Springs City Council dealt
with a few complaints about their recently adopted
development impact fees by reducing the fees and deciding
on an impact fee rebate program for affordable housing.
The fee on a single-family detached home will drop from
$4,454 to $4,000 after the City Council decided to reduce
the fee that goes toward open space by 40 percent. Fees
charged to office buildings and other structures will
likewise be reduced. Council members debated the
level by which they would reduce the fees but felt a
40-percent reduction would still allow the city to obtain
open space while minimizing the impact on homebuyers. The
council will still have to ratify the decisions by
ordinance.
www.steamboatpilot.com, September 20,
2001
Paonia
voters veto annexation
Voters rejected a 34-lot subdivision
Tuesday when they vetoed its annexation into town limits
in a tight election. Minnesota Creek Estates,
proposed on 16 acres just east of town limits. Voters
cast 263 ballots against annexation, or 54 percent. There
were 224 votes in favor of annexation, or 46 percent.
The Town Council spurred an outcry when
it annexed the property early this year. Concerned
Citizens for Responsible Growth challenged the decision,
citing a potential opening for vast sprawl in the
agricultural valley. It quickly circulated a petition,
forcing a special election to let voters rule on the
annexation.
Critics feared the proposed subdivision
would hasten town expansion, using up rural open space
while imposing long-term burdens on taxpayers and town
resources. It would also heighten traffic in adjacent
neighborhoods and require upgrades of town roads and
services.
Community for the Future backed the
project, citing the potential boost to Paonia's lagging
economy.
www.gjsentinal.com, August 1, 2001
Breckenridge project offers Victorian-style
affordable homes for local workers
Wellington, a Victorian-style village of
122 homes - 98 of which are being offered to local
workers at deed-restricted prices - opens soon in
Breckenridge. The development will eventually host
multi-unit homes and a few shops on 23 acres.
Following New Urbanism design principles,
the project has narrow streets with even narrower alleys
separating clusters of 1,800-square-foot homes. Oblong
lawns abut white picket fences surrounding homes with
latticed porches. The houses, because of offset
foundations and a variety of designs, do not line up in
rows. The open areas connect to trails that meander
through federal lands to old mining camps and ghost
towns.
To date, 32 families have moved into the
project. Each of the 32 homeowners in Wellington
passed this simple test to get the homes: They work at
least 30 hours a week in Summit County and agree that the
value of their homes will be limited to the greater of
either 3 percent a year or the percentage increase in the
area's median income. For that, homeowners pay
about $110 per square foot, compared with $400-$500 a
square foot for homes less than a mile away.
Twenty-four of the planned 122 homes will
be sold at market value - close to $375,000 each.
www.denverpost.com, August 14, 2001
Impact
Fees to be levied in Colorado Springs
Building a home or business in Colorado
Springs just got a little more expensive -- though not
for current city taxpayers. The City Council voted
Tuesday to impose new fees on developers seeking to build
anything from a single structure to an enormous business
park. The fees, which range from a few hundred to
tens of thousands of dollars, will pay for the time city
engineers and fire inspectors spend reviewing plans and
inspecting facilities. Council members suggested them
last fall as a way to transfer some costs of overseeing
new development from current city residents to those who
will move into the new homes and businesses. The proposal
met sharp resistance at first from developers.
From Colorado Sprawlwatch Action Center, www.sprawlaction.org, Aug 1, 2001
Colorado Springs Gazette, www.gazette.com
Rural
Resort Region completes revenue sharing analysis
The Five County Rural Resort Region
(Eagle, Garfield, Lake, Pitkin and Summit counties)
recently completed the first phase of its Revenue Sharing
Project. Rural Resort Region retained BBC Research
and Consulting to investigate alternative methodologies
for inter-local revenue sharing. Because of the
difficulties encountered so far in getting state
legislative approval, county and municipal officials are
interested in revenue-sharing programs that would not
require approval or participation by the state
government. The Rural Resort Region hopes to select
a revenue sharing methodology by the end of 2002.
Contact Jim Spehar, jimspehar@home.com, for a copy of the report.
Center
for Policy Studies releases quality of life indicators
for Pikes Peak Region
The Center for Policy Studies at the
University of Colorado at Colorado Springs has released a
report on quality of life indicators in the Pikes Peak
region. The report documents the enormous success
in the region during the last decade in bringing down
unemployment, stimulating new job growth, and raising
average household incomes. It also highlights
growing concerns about the impacts of continued growth
such as traffic congestion, less affordable housing and
greater crowding of parks and open spaces on the region's
“quality of life”.
The report is available in pdf format at http://web.uccs.edu/ccps/ or contact Professor Daphne
Greenwood at 719-262-4031 or dgreenwo@brain.uccs.edu
III. NATIONAL NEWS
September
11th Fund Established
The United Way of
New York and the New York
Community Trust established the
September 11th Fund (www.september11fund.org/) in response to
the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the
Pentagon. Anyone wishing to contribute to the Fund may
send their donations in care of the United Way, 2 Park
Avenue, New York, NY 10016, or by calling 212.251.4035.
Donors may specify the community where they want their
donation to help (New York City, Washington D.C, or other
affected areas).
As of October 15, the September 11th Fund
has received nearly $320 million in pledges.
For more information, visit: http://national.unitedway.org/crisis.cfm.
Internet
and GIS help local Connecticut officials plan for the
future
The town of Old Saybrook, Conn., sits at
the mouth of the Connecticut River. It's a small town
with a population of less than 10,000, and it's as old as
its name implies, having been settled in 1635. But the
problems Old Saybrook faces in terms of sprawl, land use
and pollution are very new. Valuable wetlands near the
mouth of the river are threatened by encroaching
development and runoff laced with residential
fertilizers, herbicides and insecticides.
Usually, a town the size of Old Saybrook
would be hard-pressed to know how to manage the
interrelationships between such arcane subjects as
impervious land cover, nonpoint source pollution, zoning
regulations and the best balance between the town's
remaining open land and development.
Fortunately, the University of
Connecticut's College of Agriculture and Natural
Resources extension station in nearby Haddam is using
geographic information systems, high-resolution satellite
imagery provided by NASA, data gleaned from state
resources and the Internet to create an educational
resource that gives public officials a non-technical
means to decide how to control land use at the local
level.
For the first time, public officials have
access to simple-to-understand maps and images that
depict sprawl, impervious land cover, forest
fragmentation and other signs of land degradation. In Old
Saybrook, officials can go to the Internet and pull up
maps that display their current land use and what it may
end up looking like based on existing zoning laws. They
can see how impervious surfaces, such as roads and
parking lots, accelerate pollution runoff into the
dwindling wetlands near the mouth of the Connecticut
River.
The project, known as Nonpoint Education
for Municipal Officials (NEMO - http://nemo.uconn.edu/),
has grown from its original purpose of protecting water
resources into a multi-purpose program that is helping
local officials learn how to tackle problems concerning
sprawl, land use and pollution.
Government Technology, August 2001 www.govtech.net/magazine/summary.phtml?issue=08:2001
Gallup gets wired
Gallup is known as a railroad town and an
Indian jewelry and crafts center, but it's working for a
new title - the most wired small community in New Mexico.
Getting there has been a collaborative
effort, involving business, tribal and community leaders,
the McKinley Development Foundation, Rehoboth McKinley
Christian Hospital, the McKinley County school system and
Qwest Communications Inc. In the process, the groups
overcame barriers and learned to work together to attract
advanced services and build a high-tech facility to
distribute them.
City leaders hope developing Gallup's
broadband infrastructure and capacity will create new
economic development opportunities. And they're starting
to make progress.
Rehoboth McKinley Christian Hospital was
recently named one of the 100 Most Wired Hospitals in the
country by Hospitals & Health Networks magazine for
the third year in a row. Qwest wants to use the
northwestern New Mexico city as a test case for deploying
high-speed Internet services in other towns in its
14-state service area.
The Albuquerque Tribune, August 6, 2001, http://www.abqtrib.com/archives/business01/080601_business_gallup.shtml
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