After-the-fact exemptions, growth on table at commission meeting

After-the-fact exemptions, growth on table at commission meeting

July 26, 2001

By Gail Binkly
Journal Managing Editor

The Montezuma County commissioners balked Monday at granting an after-the-fact exemption to a man who divided his property without following county regulations.

County planner Karen Welch said a resident on County Road N whose original parcel was split in two by the Towaoc Canal in the early 1990s had sold the larger part, about 44 acres, without going through the county subdivision process or paying the fees. He said his real-estate agent had told him it would cause no problem.

But when the owners of the larger lot were charged property taxes on the entire parcel, Welch said, the man decided to seek an after-the-fact exemption so the split could be recorded.

However, the parcel remaining, on which he has his house, is only 2.9 acres, Welch said. The county generally requires that parcels be at least three acres in size unless they are part of clustered subdivisions or urban-services zones.

The commission has granted after-the-fact exemptions to numerous other tracts of under three acres, but in those cases the parcels were created long before the adoption of the county land-use code in 1998 and were considered "grandfathered."

"I think there needs to be a financial penalty here where those after-the-fact exemptions granted after the code was adopted are $1,000" or more, Commissioner Gene Story said. "To give him the same consideration we gave those that were out of our control isn’t right.

"The next one that comes down the road, where somebody says, ‘I just blew it off and went ahead and sold it,’ we should say, ‘Fine, that’s going to cost you another $1,000 or $2,000."

But commission attorney Bob Slough said establishing an extra fee for such exemptions would in effect be saying they were all right as long as someone was willing to pay.

"The only reason you would even be considering this is because of the canal," Slough said. "If you limit them to this type of situation, that’s a legally defensible position, and that’s what I’m always looking for."

Welch said the man’s position was that the canal had in effect separated his tract for him.

But County Administrator Tom Weaver said the canal was not the cause of the problem.

"The canal was not a problem until somebody didn’t go through the process," Weaver said. "You’ve got the same situation with someone where the road goes and cuts a piece off, or it could be a ditch. You’d just be saying, ‘Heck, go ahead and sell it and then come to us for an after-the fact exemption’."

He suggested the man be required to go through the regular process of obtaining a two-lot minor subdivision, which includes paying fees, appearing before the planning commission and having a public hearing. The commissioners agreed.

"We’d be setting a precedent here by granting one of these with an after-the-fact exemption for a split done after the code was adopted," Story said.

In other business:

The commissioners discussed economic development and the possible dissolution of the Montezuma County Economic Development Commission, which is being considered by local leaders who have suggested replacing the organization with a city-overseen committee or group.

The commissioners said the county would need considerable improvement in infrastructure to attract significant industry, but they weren’t sure that was what most county residents wanted.

"It’s a two-edged sword," said Story.

"Most of the people who move in here now are low-impact. They impact the roads but not so much the schools — their enrollment’s down, in fact.

"If you put in a manufacturing base, you’re going to get more high-impact people and more effects all over the county."

The commissioners noted that — with the TABOR Amendment, which limits taxes, and the Gallagher Amendment, which shifts the property-tax burden disproportionately onto businesses instead of homes — residential development brings little extra revenue to the county.

"There’s two schools of thought," Story said. "You can spend a lot of effort to bring in a large manufacturing base and economic development. If you want to change Montezuma County to make it look like every other county, you have to spend the money.

"Or, if you want to retain the rural flavor, the open space, the qualities we all value, then maybe you don’t do those things.

"We’d all like to have better-paying jobs for our children. But I don’t know that I won’t feel fulfilled if my children can’t live here."

"If they want to, they’ll find a way to stay," said Commis-sioner Kent Lindsay.

Story agreed. "I like Montezuma County the way it is now. I don’t think we need to spend a ton of money trying to make this a utopia for everybody," he said.

The commissioners agreed to support the city of Cortez’s application for a $500,000 energy-impact grant to help pay for an $8.1 million family recreation center.

City Manager Hal Shepherd said the 43,000-square-foot facility would be paid for through a 0.55-cent sales tax, if the tax is approved by voters in November. He said city officials had considered exempting groceries from the proposed sales tax, but to do so would mean it would take 31 years instead of 20 to pay off the loan.

The commissioners said they supported the idea of the center, but would wait to see what other energy-impact-grant applications are being sought in the county before they decided which would be their No. 1 priority.