Quick and Dirty
To Standing Rock and back
Fresh off a visit to Standing Rock, Fort Lewis College students will recount their visit to the protest camp from 7-8 p.m. next Mon., Dec. 5 at FLC Noble Hall, Room 130.
The environmental sociology students were part of a caravan of 50 or so students and FLC staff that drove 16 hours to the Oceti Sakowin camp in North Dakota. They left before Thanksgiving, on Tues., Nov. 22, and spent a few days at the camp. The students will be “reporting back” to the community and sharing stories, experiences and photos from the trip. The panel discussion will be followed by a march of solidarity around the FLC campus. Attendees are asked to bring headlamps, candles or lanterns.
An estimated 7,000 people are camped out near the Standing Rock Sioux reservation to protest the 1,170-mile Dakota Access Pipeline. The pipeline would transport 470,000 barrels of oil a day from North Dakota’s Bakken oil fields to Illinois. Nearby tribes say the pipeline threatens their drinking water as well as sacred and cultural lands. The pipeline’s builders, Energy Transfer Partners – of which Donald Trump is an investor – say no sites or drinking water will be impacted.
Last Friday, federal officials announced plans to close down the protest camps by Dec. 5 due to severe winter weather and issues of safety.
City hosts housing forum Dec. 1
The issue of affordable housing is once again coming to the forefront of local government. Tonight, Dec. 1, Durango’s Community Development Department, in coordination with its Housing Policy Advisory Committee, is hosting a community forum to discuss housing from 5:30 – 7 p.m. at the Durango Public Library. The open house will include a short presentation at 6 p.m.; the rest of the time will be spent collecting community input and discussing the direction of the City’s housing program. The forum will focus on current conditions in the housing market, the experience of residents in finding housing, and what the community can do to affect housing availability and pricing.
Input will be used to help craft the City’s forthcoming housing plan, which should be ready in early 2017.
In an effort to try to avoid the affordable-housing crunch faced by other communities in Colorado, the City formed the Housing Policy Advisory Committee, a citizen advisory group, in 2015. The city also conducted a housing supply and demand study and began an internal review of all City hous- ing policies and regulations. In addition, it passed a construc- tion defects ordinance to help encourage development of condominiums. A state law passed several years ago increased liability for condominium developers, resulting in a statewide collapse of new condo development. The City’s ordinance is based on similar ordinances passed in Denver and other Front Range cities, which gives developers the opportunity to repair problems before litigation.
Meanwhile, multi-family housing development is once again picking up in post-recession Durango. The 101-unit Confluence Apartments in Three Springs was complete this summer and sold out almost immediately. Another 194- unit development, the Rocket Apartments, on the site of the former Rocket Drive-In, is currently going through the city approval process, with more projects in the pipeline.
Earlier this year, the City and La Plata County announced that the Regional Housing Alliance, which started in 2004, will be dissolving. Its programs, such as the home- buyer assistance program, will be transferred to the La Plata Homes Fund and local governments.
The dissolution of the RHA will do away with redundancy in boards and administration and is expected to save city and county governments a combined $100,000 annually.
For more information, contact Mark Williams at the Community Development Department at Mark.williams@durangogov.org or (970) 375-4854.