In previous reports, I have discussed problems with land development. One is the dust storms caused by grading areas that are too large and left exposed for too long. The county’s Development Services department is slower than molasses in adopting strict time limits based on the number of acres. Tracts are routinely exposed month after month. The limit should be based on the number of acres exposed times the number of days exposed (i.e. the number of acre days of exposure). There should be heavy daily fines, even stop-work orders, for exceeding those limits. That would protect people (living) near new developments from dust storms damaging their property and their health.Another of my ignored proposals is for the reduction of blowing trash. The county should use jail inmates or community service defendants to clean up the roads. Since a significant part of the trash comes from home-building sites, a fee of 2 cents per new square foot ($40 on a 2,000-square-foot house) would create a fund to aid payment of collection and dumping costs. The Regional Building Department (not under the direct control of county commissioners) should impose that fee and also prevent building site trash from blowing onto adjacent property. RBD should fine and otherwise stop those who literally trash our county. That’s obvious.Undaunted, I will continue to fight to reform our insane land use process. Here are a few recent examples of how idiotic it is today.On Nov. 16, a developer wanted to start on Filing 5, when infrastructure work was unfinished on earlier adjacent filings that had been under the control of the same owners. The scheme was to deed the land in Filing 5 to one brother, so the county would not notice the broken promises in the prior tracts. For the first time I can remember, Development Services recommended rejection of the request for final approval. I made the motion to reject, and it was adopted unanimously. (Board approval of my motions is an equally rare event!)That event was a precedent. A similar shell game will go be before the Board Dec. 14. Neighbors have been damaged in the Peyton area by work done poorly, or not at all, on prior filings. The original developer sold those parcels to home builders who didn’t complete the work the developer had promised to do. Now the developer wants permission to start on adjacent land. His excuse? He no longer owns those parcels and so is no longer responsible for keeping his promises! Nice try. The new owner may be primarily responsible, but the former owner can’t shirk his secondary legal and moral duty by recording a piece of paper. In the first semester of law school, I learned one may assign his rights (to receive money, for example) but cannot delegate his duties (to pay money or meet other obligations). That logical rule prevents people from transferring their legal duties to some bum, and walking away.The Board then saw another example when final approval was given with negative effects. Today, when developers promise to provide roads, grading, utilities and other infrastructure, they post a performance bond in that amount to ensure the work is done. One such bond was posted in 1999 and renewed yearly, but the work was never done. Now the cost of road construction has increased greatly, so the delay has meant the bond is insufficient to pay for the work the developer failed to do for seven years. There is now no deadline for completing the work! There is no inflationary increase required for bond renewal! Taxpayers would pay the difference to bring roads up to county standards! Bureaucrats have forgotten that the aim of their entire process is to protect the public interest first, specific occupants second and developer profits third. The right to develop one’s property, which I support, must not damage legitimate rights of other owners or of general taxpayers.There was no fee charged against that delinquent developer for the cost of inspecting and calculating his deficiencies in road work, erosion, exposed utility wires, etc. That was borne by the entire public fee structure, when it should have been his sole liability. An enforcement fee should be collected up front and refunded only at the end of the process, if not needed.The county should have clear infrastructure deadlines and not allow developers to start new subdivisions until old ones are done. Infrastructure should match the pace of home construction. We can’t require all infrastructure to be done first; that is too great a financial burden. But all the homes should not be finished before the infrastructure. Buyers should not be trapped in their new homes, surrounded by incomplete or unsafe infrastructure.Zoning is a form of government control of property, which I oppose (voluntary covenants are better). Zoning gives bureaucrats supreme power to dictate what you can do with your property. You can see from these examples (and I have dozens more) that government has abused the land use power it seized for itself. We should take back those powers it doesn’t deserve or has abused (like regulating visual appeal) and insist that government clean up its act on those reduced powers we allow them to keep for the legitimate original purpose of protecting public safety.*************Contact me at (719) 520-6412, by email at DouglasBruce@elpasoco.com, or by writing me at 27 E. Vermijo Ave. Colo. Spgs. CO 80903. Audiotapes of all BOCC meetings, both simulcast and in archives, are available at www.elpasoco.com. Back issues of my monthly reports are at my website, www.DouglasBruce.com. Free reports can be emailed to you monthly. Just sign up. Thank you.
