Rich Block, the president of Indiana-based Paragon Realty, urged Manitou Springs City Council to reconsider the Manitou Springs Land Use Development Code (LUDC) after the Manitou Springs Planning Commission voted 4-3 to deny a density variance for the proposed development at the site of the former La Fun Motel.
“Our request is to work with the staff and council to amend the zoning code,” said Block during public comment at the Jan. 7 Manitou Springs City Council meeting. “We feel it’s very important for us to increase the density to keep the number of units and keep, ultimately, the rent that the apartment units would be charging to be as affordable as possible. I know when the zoning code was passed by council there was discussion about revisiting certain aspects of the code sometime in the future, and truly we want to be a partner in the community. We did not want to go through a formal appeal of the planning commission’s decision and our hope is to work with council. Our request for your consideration, and really to put on your radar, is to allow for or consider a change or amendment to the code. We would love to be a participant with the City to work with planning staff, the planning commission, and then ultimately with the city council.”
Paragon purchased the property at 123 Manitou Avenue in August of 2022, and the Manitou Springs City Council approved a revised LUDC on March 1, 2023. The revised LUDC restricted the number of units per acre to 20. Block had hoped to build two 39-unit apartments on the 2.2 acre lot. The project had received support from the Manitou Springs Urban Renewal Authority (URA) and the Manitou Springs Housing Advisory Board (HAB).
“We knew the developer would come forward with this [variance] request and we were supportive,” said Debbie Sagen, the chair of the URA, during the Dec. 11 Planning Commission meeting.. “The URA has struggled to redevelop this area and there are many reasons why.”
We’re being very exclusive in our zoning code. Meghan Day
The URA contributed $2.1 million to Paragon’s purchase of the property, demolition of the existing structure, and for asbestos abatement. “I’ve interacted with six property-owner, developer, interested parties over my three years on the board interested in the La Fun property,” said Sagen. “Some were interested in retail, some in mixed-use, some in affordable housing. This is the most viable proposal that we’ve seen so far. The commercial prospects – while they were strong before the pandemic, or as the pandemic was in its early stages – the supply chain issues, interest rates, just the cost of construction rose so quickly that it is really not viable to do much commercial development, except in places with really high traffic. The URA struggles with small lot sizes. I know that anyone who accesses Manitou Avenue regularly knows sometimes the traffic counts don’t feel that low, but for a commercial developer they’re quite low, and as a result we can’t attract a major grocery chain, or a big box store, or a national restaurant chain. It’s not happening, and frankly if you wanted it to happen you’d have to raise your traffic counts so high you wouldn’t think Manitou Springs was very livable anymore, so we’re struggling as a URA with how to balance the appropriate development for what Manitou wants, what our visitors want to experience when they come here, and what works best in the context of our surroundings.”
In a Oct. 16 letter included with Paragon’s variance request, Alison Gerbig, chair of the Manitou Springs HAB, expressed support for the project. “The Manitou Springs HAB is encouraged by Paragon Realty’s plan for redevelopment of 123 Manitou Avenue and supports multifamily rental housing development on this lot,” she wrote. “The east corridor of Manitou Avenue is an ideal location for residential growth and stability with easy access to public transportation. It supports stable growth within the boundaries of the URA, bringing more opportunities for residential housing, retail, and other development in the area.”
Ultimately, the majority of the Planning Commission felt the variance exceeded the authority of the board. “We can’t just go and say, ‘Yeah it’s 20 [units] but we think 40 is better, so we’re gonna honor 40,'” said Planning Commission Chair Alan Delwiche. “We don’t have that right, and to be honest I think it would be malpractice for us to start applying our own rules.”
Meghan Day, a professional planner who serves as an alternate on the Planning Commission, supported changes to Manitou’s LUDC during Tuesday’s City Council meeting. “I was not seated and able to vote on this decision but I still feel strongly about it and so I’m here speaking as a public citizen, and a member of the planning community and profession, as well as a Manitou resident,” she said. “This statement is based in that experience – Manitou has adopted an exclusionary zoning code that forces sprawling suburban and expensive development and makes the historic built environment, so unique to our community, illegal. Zoning has a long and shameful history banning apartments and the people who live in them. This has been the purpose of zoning codes in many communities, so now we find ourselves, a century later after zoning had been implemented in the U.S., with widespread and extreme housing shortages, high housing costs, as well as a new generation who assumes that they will never be able to buy a home here in Manitou. We had the opportunity to allow for the development of market rate apartments on the only lot of its kind in our city, a 2-acre vacant commercial lot, but this zoning code caps the number of units that’s allowed to a luxury condo rate. They could not develop these affordable, attainable apartments because our zoning code caps the density and forces, again, a luxury condo kind of density. We’re being very exclusive in our zoning code. Unless they bought a home in Manitou many years ago, Manitou’s teachers, firefighters, police officers, city staff cannot afford to live here. In addition, we have schools that are only staying open due to out-of-town enrollment, and we have Manitou housing that is increasingly pricing out residents and being purchased as second homes by out-of-state investors, further hollowing out our community.”
Commissioner Carey Storm said the decision should be made by Manitou Springs City Council. “I don’t think we should do this,” she said. “I think that we should go back and change the code if we think that this is the right thing to do. If that area needs to have a higher density I think we should change the code through working with our committee and working with city council to do that.”
