By Debi Brazzale, COLORADO NEWS AGENCY

“A deal’s a deal,” says Rep. Wes McKinley of Walsh.  The Democrat is sponsoring a bill to ensure that the state lives up to its end of a bargain regarding conservation easement agreements made prior to 2008.  But the state is suffering from some sticker shock, as those agreements now have a $170 million price tag, in the midst of a recession-driven budget slump.

“It’s like changing the rules in the middle of a ball game—you can’t do it,” said McKinley.  “My bill says we (the state) made a deal. We’re going to honor it.”

Conservation easements became available in 1999, allowing property owners to receive a tax credit for donating a portion of their property to a government entity or approved conservation group to preserve the land in perpetuity and stave off development.  When an easement is created, an appraisal is done to determine the market value of the land, and the tax credit is based on that appraisal.   Critics of the program now say some of those appraisals were not accurate, and the state is demanding money back from property owners who may have wrongly benefited.

House Bill 1169 would require the state to honor the appraisals accepted before 2008 regardless of the newer guidelines.  Sen. Ken Kester, R-Las Animas–whose vast, southeastern Colorado district includes numerous property owners who have benefited from the easements, said the state’s attempt to roll back such tax relief is both distressing and wrong.

“We can’t go back and retroactively take the money from the people that in good faith sold these conservation easements,” said Kester.

While the debate goes on over the contracts of the past, another bill would limit benefits where future easements are concerned.  House Bill 1197 seeks to cap funding for the credits at $26 million total and to dispense those limited funds to easement holders on a first-come, first-served basis.

Those who enter into a conservation agreement this year will be subject to the more stringent guidelines enacted after 2008 and will have to act quickly if HB 1197 passes as expected.  For tax years 2011-13,  when the credit program will be limited to a total of $26 million a year, the state will save $37 million that it would otherwise be obligated to return to the landowners as credits during those years.

McKinley’s bill has already garnered the support of House Speaker Terrance Carroll, D-Denver, who is listed as a sponsor on the bill, but it is still waiting to be heard by the House Finance Committee.  Meanwhile, HB 1197 has already been considered and approved by the full House and by the Senate Finance and Appropriations committees.   It is now waiting to go before the full Senate.

McKinley said he’s counting on the House Finance Committee to uphold the commitment he believes the state has already made to affected landowners.

“The thing that we’re always told up here at the Capitol is that your word is your bond, and I actually believe that – I live by that—and I think the state should too,” said McKinley.

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Erin Toll

Erin Toll, the controversial director of the Colorado Division of Real Estate, who recently has been criticized for her handling of an investigation of a company that employs a state senator as a mortgage broker, went on leave from the division, sources tell InsideRealEstateNews.com. Toll stepping down, at least temporarily from the division, comes in the wake of an investigation of American Home Funding, which employes Sen. Ted Harvey as a broker. The firm is under investigation for allegedly misleading consumers with advertising fliers that look like official tax documents. Harvey is not part of the investigation, the division indicated last week. But Harvey told InsideRealEstateNews today that he was aware that Toll was placed on leave.

DPNC

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Farmland would no longer be eligible for urban-renewal incentives under a bill that won first-round approval Monday in the state Senate, The Denver Post reports. House Bill 1107 would prohibit agricultural land from being declared “blighted” as part of an urban-renewal area. Sen. Morgan Carroll, D-Aurora, had bipartisan support for the bill, which proponents said was needed to curb abuses of the existing law.

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Farmers and ranchers who are thinking about a conservation easement on their land might want to think fast.
The Legislature got moving again Tuesday on an almost-forgotten 10th bill in its tax package. Nine other Democratic tax bills on items ranging from soda to Internet sales were signed into law two weeks ago, The Durango Herald reports. But two more – on conservation easements and enterprise zones – got waylaid. The enterprise zone bill is still on hold, but the conservation easement bill, House Bill 1197, regained its footing Tuesday, passing the Senate Finance Committee 4-3.

In other coverage:

The Grand Junction Daily Sentinel: The Pueblo Chieftain: Land trusts on the Western Slope and around the state that help property owners get conservation easements aren’t thrilled with a bill in the Colorado Legislature, but they’re not opposing it anymore, either. That’s because state lawmakers reached a compromise with them. House Bill 1197 initially was intended to permanently lower by nearly two-thirds a cap on the tax credit allowed for each easement. Instead, the bill would cut by more than half the amount the state would pay, in the way of tax credits, for all easements over the next three years. And instead of having the measure go into effect March 1, which would have affected easements approved this year, it would become effective Jan. 1.

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A bill that would extend lien rights for real estate brokers has passed the state House Judiciary Committee, The Coloradoan reports. House Bill 1288, the Commercial Real Estate Brokers’ Commission Security Act, proposed by Rep. B.J. Nikkel, R-Loveland, would allow brokers to place a lien on a property if the property owner fails to pay the money due to the broker. The broker would first be required to give at least a 30-day notice of intent to file a lien and simultaneously seek mediation of the dispute, and finally give notice when a lien is recorded.

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A bill that seeks to uphold local governments’ ability to enforce deed-restricted housing is moving through the House of Representatives, with an affirmative vote passed by a General Assembly committee on Tuesday, The Aspen Times reports. House Bill 1017, sponsored by Rep. Daniel Kagan, passed 6-5, after a four-hour hearing in which Aspen Mayor Mick Ireland, Pitkin County Attorney John Ely, Aspen-Pitkin County Housing Authority (APCHA) attorney Tom Smith and local developer Tim Belinski testified. The bill clarifies that nothing in the rent-control statute shall prohibit or restrict the right of a property owner and a public entity from voluntarily entering into an agreement that controls rent.

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By Debi Brazzale, COLORADO NEWS AGENCY
A legislative committee agreed Wednesday that homeowners associations need reining in, but the lawmakers wouldn’t OK a plan to create a state ombudsman’s office for homeowners until revisions are made to the proposal. That was after the panel heard from homeowners complaining about overreaching associations in what one witness called the “wild, wild, west of HOA land.”
“Nobody disputes that there are issues with HOAs,” said Rep. Joe Rice, D-Littleton, who heads the Business Affairs and Labor Committee that heard the measure, House Bill 1278.
Rice, along with both Republican and Democratic committee members, liked the concept of homeowners being afforded the services that an ombudsman could provide, but they said they could not support the bill in its current form because of issues raised by state regulators, who would oversee ombudsman, and others who came to speak to the panel.
Division of Real Estate chief Erin Toll said the bill as is won’t work because there is not written into law a standard of conduct for homeowners’ associations that would guide and direct the ombudsman.
“I already know what the complaints are, we hear them everyday,” said Toll. “There needs to be clear standards of conduct about what HOAs can and can’t do along with clear sanctions if they don’t follow those standards of conduct.”
Yet, some were skeptical that an ombudsman is even the right approach to the concerns of homeowners, questioning the creation of another layer of bureaucracy in what some homeowners say is already a labyrinth of bureaucratic red-tape when HOAs and their attorneys are at odds with individual homeowners. Rep. Amy Stephens, R-Monument was among the skeptics.
“I’m not sure this is the right vehicle to get to where we want to be,” said Stephens.
Another concern raised and echoed in testimony was that the bill’s provision for two full-time employees to manage the office isn’t nearly enough.
“We want to be realistic about the expectations about this office of ombudsman,” said Amy Redfern, speaking for the Community Association Institute, which provides educational services to HOAs. Redfern said that they would like to see the bill revisited after more discussions with groups like theirs.
The bill is sponsored by two Democratic lawmakers from Aurora, Rep. Sue Ryden in the House and Sen. Morgan Carroll in the Senate. Carroll has been at the forefront of HOA legislation in previous years, and she and Ryden will sit down with the stakeholders to fine-tune the bill before bringing it back to committee. The next hearing on the bill has been scheduled for March 2.

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By Peter Marcus, DENVER DAILY NEWS
A bill making its way through the legislature perceived by some as being about rent control is being criticized by property owners as an assault on property rights.
House Bill 1017, sponsored by Rep. Daniel Kagan, D-Englewood, seeks to modify a decades-old prohibition on rent control so that municipalities and counties are able to negotiate and enter into agreements with developers, requiring them to develop based on the wishes of local government.
The House Local Government committee backed the bill Tuesday on a 6-5 Democrat party-line vote.
Questions have been raised in the past few years over whether local government is permitted to require developers to set aside units for people in need, such as the homeless, or battered women. The same questions have been raised over requiring percentages of affordable housing as a condition for approving development.
A case brought by California-based developer Arnold Meyerstein, who owns the Ute City Place affordable housing complex in Aspen, challenged the local Housing Authority in court, arguing that the city agency’s deed restrictions — which mandate affordable workforce housing — are in effect a form of rent control, and therefore illegal under state law.
The judge hearing the case ruled in favor of Meyerstein, but the case is expected to go to a state appellate court, if not ultimately to the Colorado Supreme Court.
Kagan says Colorado is in “legal limbo,” arguing that his bill clarifies that it is not a violation of rent control laws for a local municipality or county to enter into agreements with developers requiring them to limit rent on some units when they are seeking land use approval. The bill would also clarify that deed restrictions are enforceable.
HB 1017 would only apply to new buildings, not existent buildings, and it does not affect existing landlord-tenant relationships, said Kagan.
“What this bill will do is it will enable the free market in rent to continue to operate as it has for decades; it will enable local governments and developers to contract where they see fit to do so, individually in a negotiated agreement É that there will be affordable housing within the development, and they will be able to do so confident that the agreement will not be upturned by the courts, or usurped by speculators during the course of the agreement,” said an eloquent Kagan.
Critics, however, argue that the bill puts the state on a slippery slope towards permitting statewide rent control, in which local governments would be able to control all aspects of how a developer builds their property.
“HB 1017 gives government entities and municipalities the upper hand, an unlevel playing field,” said Nancy Burke, vice president of government affairs for the Colorado Apartment Association. “This bill adversely affects private property rights because if this bill passes, rent controls will be imposed by local governments.”
Sunny Banka, spokeswoman for the Colorado Association of Realtors, echoed similar concerns.
“We are seeing more and more government entities — in the mountains in particular — imposing requirements on developers and owners to agree to rent control or affordable housing requirements as a condition of the developer getting their property approved for a particular use,” said Banka.
But 83-year-old Mary Lou Taggart, living on a fixed income, described how she was forced out of her Denver apartment when the landlord kept raising her rent each year by as much as $75. She has since moved to an affordable housing complex, which Taggart said has a long waiting list.
“I keep seeing in this bill the word ‘voluntary,’ which leads me to believe that nobody’s forcing anybody to do anything — that this is a voluntary arrangement between developers who may have a compassionate bone in their body for people that need low-income housing, and they can work that out with a government entity,” said Taggart.
HB 1017 now heads to the House for full debate.

Distributed by Colorado Capitol Reporters

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Amy Stephens

Colorado Springs resident Jan Doran and other small HOA officials are trying to do something about what they call unreasonable, big-government mandates, The Colorado Springs Gazette reports. On Tuesday, Doran, HOA attorney Lenard Rioth and others will testify before the House Local Government Committee in favor of a bill to exempt small HOAs from many of the mandates. Rioth said the bill, sponsored by Rep. Amy Stephens, a Monument Republican, simply gives small HOAs that existed prior to 1992 the same rights as those created after 1992.

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Colorado House Bill 1107, which would make it more difficult for cities to designate agricultural land as blight for the purposes of setting up an urban-renewal district, passed 13-0 out of the House Agriculture, Livestock & Natural Resources Committee on Tuesday, The Denver Post reports.

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