There were several inaccuracies in recent letters on the zoning code changes being requested. The letters were scare tactics to make voters think nothing can be built or redeveloped.

Any building that meets the building and development code is not being stopped. Build away. This doesn’t prevent housing or businesses from doing that.

This is to stop illegal REZONING of individual parcels by the Town Board, no matter how many neighbors object or are hurt. The proposal to allow approval of 2/3rds of the neighbors around a parcel (within 500 feet only) is limited to REZONING ONLY, not any building, redevelopment, site modifications. If a project meets the zoning requirements, no approvals are required. For example, if a 5-acre lot allows 1 house per acre, 5 houses can be built with no approval by neighbors.

It is to stop what happened last week, where a parcel’s zoning was CHANGED, (illegally, per the law) to put a high-density housing project smack in the middle of a zone that was zoned one house per acre. Despite dozens and dozens of neighbors, who invested their life’s savings in a quiet, open area, protesting. This was not the first time this has happened, either, and it WILL happen again before the entire code is revised in 2 years.

No, it won’t stop businesses from relocating or expanding in the proper zones. No, it won’t stop additions to houses and variances that have an approval process.

No, it won’t stop affordable housing. Any housing can be built in residential zones, by the standards of that zone.

The other code change is to repeal the extra height and setbacks allowed for “workforce” or “attainable” housing. Only one of the projects had some (not all) “attainable” units (which means lower income restricted). That one made a long-time resident or 2 move. The other large projects are limited to “workforce” (they just have to work in Estes), but are very high prices or rents, not “affordable” at all, and they ruined the neighborhoods around them. And they remain partially empty.

The developers were the ones that benefited from being able to cram big projects next to residential areas.

The Housing Authority needs to look for parcels that can be re-developed or built without ruining the existing housing, and limit the higher density to “attainable”, i.e. affordable housing only.

Rebecca Urquhart, Estes Park