Corporate Influence in Local Politics - A Case Study
Today I received a flyer with bright colors and bold fonts.
VOTE NO ON 200
PROTECT OUR DOWNTOWN & ENSURE OUR STRONG FUTURE
I receive these kinds of political flyers so often, my first instinct is to always tuck it into the other junk mail of the day and discard it when I get home. However, after five seconds looking over the front and back of the card, I immediately pick out some strange claims. The flyer assures me that if 200 passes it would create crime, a lack of housing, lose the city money, and wreak havoc on our city.
In the height of the political season, I would not give a flyer with such hyperbolic claims a passing thought. Compared to the frenzy of political ads that I am bombarded with throughout October and November, this is by far one of the more benign flyers. Something stands out more than the design and the outlandish claims—why am I receiving this in December? What is 200? Before going into what I found, check out the messaging of the flyers for yourself:
Political Mailer urging a “no” vote on 200, a question on the ballot for a 2023 special election in Windsor, CO
Back of the same Political Mailer, containing misleading and unsubstantiated claims on what would happen if 200 passes
More curious than anything else, I began researching the initiative on my local city government website. I found out that my town is having a special election in January 2023, and Question 200 is the main item to be voted on. The text of the proposed question, along with a helpful graphic, is reproduced below (skip if you don’t like reading through the riveting lierature that are local ballot initiatives):
Question 200
SHALL THE TOWN OF WINDSOR MUNICIPAL CODE BE AMENDED AS FOLLOWS?
Section 1. The Official Zoning District Map of the Town of Windsor be amended to add a “Permanent Parking” zone district as indicated and labeled “PP” on the map below.
Section 2. Chapter 16, Article I, Section 16-1-10 is amended by adding to the table of zoning districts the following row:
PP Subarea of CB CB Central Business
Section 3. The table of zoning districts should add the following footnote below the last row:
*The PP zoning district was added by a citizen initiative duly adopted in November of 2022.
Section 4. Chapter 16, Article I, is amended by adding a new Section 16-1-115 as follows:
Sec. 16-1-115. – Permanent Parking (PP district).
Purpose. The purpose of the PP zone district is to preserve:
Permanent parking within the CB district; and
Vehicular and pedestrian access to the parking areas and businesses for commercial and recreational activities.
Lot Development Standards.
The PP zone district development will be permanently restricted to paved, striped parking following Town standards for spacing and ADA compliance.
Areas within the PP zone district with shapes of square footage not capable of being developed into parking may be developed with open space, walking paths, art, or seating.
Portions of the PP zone district may be developed as necessary to provide for vehicular and pedestrian access to the parking areas and for commercial activities such as pickup and delivery to businesses, or trash services.
Use regulations. The PP zone district will only be used for parking and access as set forth in subsection (b) of this Section.
Yes _____
No ______
If you read through the question in full above, congratulations! You’ve chosen the path of the policy wonk. If you skipped, let me recap in a single sentence.
Question 200 proposes an update to the city’s zoning map to make a existing parking lots (highlighted in red on the picture above) into a permament parking zone, preventing it from being used or developed for other purposes. Question 200 just establishes parking lots as permanent parking lots for zoning purposes.
Why would a city feel the need to bother creating special zoning for a parking lot that is already a parking lot? The question has to do with real estate prices, investment companies, and development groups. One thing that the map doesn’t clearly show is that the parking lot borders Windsor Lake, a beautiful small lake with a walking trail that loops around, connecting the housing developments on the northeast side to the downtown business on the south side of the lake. Almost anywhere on the trail, and especially if you row out onto the lake with your kayak or paddleboard, you can see a spectacular view of the Rocky Mountains. In winter, a pedestrian can see the snow-capped peaks reflecting glowing sunlight in the crisp, cold air. In summer, floating on the water, you can spend an entire evening drifting with the wakes and watching the sun set over the Rockies. This view is picturesque, and is the kind of view that is vanishing across northern Colorado.
Why take extra steps to make the parking lot a permanent parking zone? Windsor has been lucky to retain such an aesthetic masterpiece only because the downtown buildings have a max height of two stories. Over the last 18 months, developers from Tribe Development Company and Kimball Investment Company have staked an interest on the land where the parking lot currently exists. These developers, from Fort Collins and Salt Lake City, respectively, want to build a giant condo complex in the small patch of land that borders the lake. As savvy investors, they see a big profit to be made in developing before a big boom happens in Windsor, as our populate is expected to grow.
These areas are owned by the Downtown Development Authority (DDA), a quasi-governmental organization in Windsor. In May of 2022, the DDA met with Tribe Development Company, who shared their preliminary designs for a five-story building, mostly made of apartments. The development of a five-story building means that the mountain views that are so beloved by Windsor’s residents would be destroyed. Also, the removal of all that parking means that the streets will be flooded with cars that have no where to park. Parking is already difficult in downtown Windsor, and taking away the only large parking space would exacerbate the issues.
Why not build more apartments, though? The population is growing, and the people who move here will need somewhere to live. That may be true, there may be a need for more housing. However, 5-story housing that borders a busy train track is hardly the place where folks wish to live. Also, if you take a look at Tribe Development Company’s portfolio, the kinds of properties they build are not affordable, low-cost housing. Despite what their website might say about “building community,” their properties just cater to already priveledged people who can afford to live anywhere they want in the Front Range—you can see a mockup of the proposed giant complex on their website. The kind of luxury living that their company focuses on creating would not provide more housing for starter homes or fresh-out-of-college graduates—the complex would bring an influx of high-income renters who can be afford to pay boatloads of cash, artificially driving up the cost of rents and mortgages in the Windsor area over the lifetime of the development. Long-time Windsor renters could find themselves priced out of their homes, as is happening in Fort Collins and all across the state and country. The last thing Windsor needs is increasing housing costs.
If Tribe were interested in building low-cost, affordable housing, then I might be more sympathetic to their goals. If they were willing to work with local business owners and community organizers, rather than the DDA, to solicit input, or even restrict their buildings to the 35 foot limit that, until recently, restricted the height of other buildings in downtown, I might also be willing to lend a listening ear. However, with the DDA spearheading forward despite community outcries, I will err on the side of grassroots, local desires over corporate special interests that use scare tactic when sending such blatently alarmist materials to voters.
Considering all of the needs of Windsor, what should have been an uneventful Thursday evening and turned into something altogether different. A single flyer, which encouraged me to vote “no” on a question I knew nothing about, in a special election that I didn’t know what happening, has instead backfired and provided me with a fire and conviction to vote “yes” when the special election ballots are mailed out on January 3rd.
