Illegal? Not!

“Planning is as natural to the process of success as its absence is to the process of failure.” --- Robin Seiger

I just finished reading all three parts of “Where Will Growth Go?” in the Daily Post. While several things caught my attention, it was especially disconcerting to read that so many people believe the County’s Community Plan (“the Plan”) is “illegal”. What?

The Plan was adopted according to law, conformed to State requirements for passage, and followed due process requirements for passage. This is a valid, official and active plan for community development, and I reject any assertion it is illegal in any way. For the Community Plan to be illegal, it must violate some statute, or violate a legally mandated procedure toward adoption. Nothing was alleged that would make the Plan illegal, and I would submit grounds for a finding of illegality do not exist.

“In our profession, a plan that everyone dislikes for different reasons is a success. A plan everyone dislikes for the same reason is a failure. And a plan everyone likes for the same reason is an act of God.” --- Richard Carson

Although the Plan may be lawful, it is a failure, and its failure is probably led to failures in the land use plan. The issue goes back to a prior article I wrote following the Tree Tops decision entitled “Keep Pagosa Pagosa”. The Plan may be unenforceable, inarticulate, and totally out of keeping with what this community wants, but that does not make it illegal. County staff should not be offering legal opinions, and the County Attorney needs to take appropriate action to rein in these irresponsible and unfounded allegations. The County has enough trouble maintaining confidence in government without giving the public ammunition for wholesale disregard of the Plan.

“Most of what we call management consists of making it difficult for people to get their jobs done.”

--- Peter F. Drucker

The Plan is not the only instance where the law reads one way, and people do something completely different. The County adopted fees for a sidewalk fund several years ago, which is still on the books. However, after collecting for the fund briefly, the County acted inappropriately and contrary to law by simply ignoring their own legal mandate. Either people who paid into the fund were cheated or the County is cheating itself by failing to enforce its own laws. The County has allowed platted lots to stand in spite of the fact the developers never followed the subdivision process so now owners have no roads, no utility accesses, and title without any value – a real mess. The State requires a Three Mile Plan, and has since the late 1980’s, but there has not even been an attempt to adopt such a plan locally. The Plan and these other instances offer insights into a problem systematic of the County in general over these last few years, which only time and changes in leadership will solve.

"Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions which differ from the prejudices of their social environment. Most people are even incapable of forming such opinions." --- Albert Einstein

The planning commission will tell you, I pressed for a Three Mile Plan because it is mandated by the State, offers the best opportunity to check annexation strategies, and offers the most obvious way to forge good intergovernmental relations based on mutual interests instead of competing interests. I am convinced the best interests of the County and Town will be served by finding common ground on development issues, but so far we have been unable to leverage the past success of shared sales tax revenues into shared, cost-saving, services and infrastructure. I am convinced developing a Three Mile Plan offers an opportunity that local governments and service districts can build on.

It is the Town that has pressed for Urban Growth Boundaries (“UGB”) because they need a plan for urban services to justify annexations. The difference between a Three Mile Plan and a UGB is extremely important since the Three Mile Plan would require setting standards for developable and non-developable land, while the UGB would only look at what’s developable now. If property is not set aside as non-developable then eventually and incrementally, everything within the three mile extra-jurisdictional authority of the Town could be developed.

“That you may retain your self-respect, it is better to displease the people by doing what you know is right than to temporarily please them by doing what is wrong.” --- William JH Boetcher

The attempt to develop an Urban Services Area (“USA”) does not advance or rectify the situation. I applaud the County planning commission’s efforts to deal with this issue, but by confining their approach to urban services, they fail to bring reason to the extra-jurisdictional authority the Town relies on to annex and expand its limits. Unless or until the County deals with the underlying policy issues that define the standards, expectations, and objectives for land use policies within three miles of existing Town limits; a USA will be no more enforceable than the Plan we now have.

Planning Commissioners Journal (Fall 2008, #72) has an article by Jim Segedy entitled “Where Do We Want to Go?”. Segedy has been teaching planning for decades at the University of Indiana so he some idea of the process and the logical progression needed to assure success. He recommends the first step a community has to take toward developing a community plan is to define itself. The second step is what Bill Hudson asks in the three-part harmony of articles that gave rise to this piece. The planning commission is fiddling while Archuleta County blows smoke. Everyone’s valuable time, the enthusiasm they have for improving local land use policies and regulations, and the public’s patience are all starting to fray. Let’s all take a deep breath, and then develop a good process with a timeline that will get us to a good plan in the most logical progression that offers the best chance we will end up where we want to go.

Think of the County as an accident victim entering the emergency room. Stop the bleeding, stabilize the patient, then do the assessment to establish what needs to be done, what specialists are needed and what has to happen to get the patient back on their feet. Telling the patient what got him there was illegal has nothing to do with the care and treatment of that patient. Not only does this patient need to adopt a better lifestyle, and go through some strenuous rehab, it needs intensive care from all sectors. The Community Plan is just one of many ailments this patient is dealing with, but recuperation will only come about when this ailment is dealt with appropriately and holistically.