The Crested Butte News Serving the Gunnison Valley since 1999
Two government references caught my attention last week and made me think we — our elected officials — need to slow down in the government housing world.
In Gunnison County manager Matthew Birnie’s guest commentary in last week’s CB News, he states: “The Gunnison Valley Housing Needs Assessment (HNA) identified a need for between 1,300 and 1,550 additional homes by 2029.” He then argues for the future need for multiple solutions. Fair, sort of…
In the town’s Revenue Generation Strategy & Longevity Rebate Framework memo that was part of Monday’s CB town council work session, it states the same 1,550 unit need. The council debated the issue and seemed to lean into using a portion of any new tax approved by voters for future housing. Fair, sort of.
Let me state something that many might find blasphemous: Stop and take a breath with the government affordable housing train for a moment. With the North Valley in particular, focus not on building more housing developments but ask the questions centered on whether we want to keep this valley a small-town community. The alternative is apparently to follow the same path as other resorts which have more employee housing and a bigger housing problem than our valley. Because if we want a small community, we might be close to having enough employee housing already in the pipeline.
No one has said they intend to build 1,550 new units in the next three years, but many government officials are using that baseline figure as a rationale for continuing the housing train. The Crested Butte town council on Monday seemed ready to pump the brakes at least temporarily on any new significant projects. Good on ‘em.
Even just insinuating that the county and local municipalities obligation to build 1,550 more housing units in the valley to keep up with “demand” is the wrong metric to be arguing or even referencing right now. The first piece of the conversation should be — ‘do we want to keep this place a small community or follow the growth equation other resort communities have used?’
Every housing expert I’ve heard says you can’t build your way out of a housing problem. If the towns and the county fall into the mindset that they feel a moral need to build 1,500 more units in the valley to house workers, are they themselves not being ‘developers’ that grow the place and increase the population that then needs more mitigation and eventually more housing because more people are living here and they need services?
Stop. At least for a bit.
Take a breath. See what the practical impact of Whetstone Village, Mineral Point and perhaps the Lower Verzuh Ranch proposal all do in reality and not just in another spreadsheet in a housing assessment document. Think about what it means for the whole valley when Whetstone is built out with 450-700 new people two miles south of Crested Butte. Add in 65+ more in Mineral Point and if Lower Verzuh is approved, add to the equation another 400?
Stop. Take a breath.
I have long argued that a community is better when working people are living in the North Valley and near their jobs. A community is deeper with a diversified economic social scene. The town of Crested Butte has taken a long-term, methodical approach to address the issue and currently has 371 deed restricted units inside the town. The long-term plan is working.
If only the county had significantly started addressing the problem decades ago. It didn’t. Whetstone is a reaction to the pressure cooker that boiled over around the Covid years. Never a big fan of the design (especially of the biggest buildings along the highway) I’m even less of a fan of the design as the size and scope continue to expand as Whetstone goes horizontal. Ultimately, it should house people, hundreds of people—workers, families, seniors and seasonal workers. That is the good thing about the island ‘village’ that honestly looks better suited to Denver than CB. Of course once finished, most everyone will eventually accept and ignore the complex as just part of the landscape. But it’s a huge change.
I assume there will be some institutional support for Whetstone given its size. Vail Resorts has the money to build their own housing, but they haven’t, so I hope they will take on some master leases to ensure some Whetstone occupancy and help some of their employees have a place close to the time clock. Perhaps the school district will take a few units along with Gunnison Valley Health and even Western? Bringing 252 new units on the market is not a baby step.
And that brings up what should be the overriding question of what our government officials are trying to solve and are ending up doing. I would argue that the number one priority for people living here now is to keep this community on the smaller end of the scale. Small-town is part of our culture. From a business standpoint, small-town is part our brand. If you want to live in a big city resort, there are no shortage of alternatives like Breck and Steamboat and Park City. They’re all nice in their own ways but why follow that template when we choose to live here in part for the intimacy of a small town?
I would argue that not everyone who wants to live in the North Valley, can. The free-market economics are tough. But again, it is worth assisting a broad range of people who want to accept the challenges of the valley to make the community deeper and more interesting and to get workers living near their jobs. Lots of good things come with that. And given the hundreds of government sponsored units, it seems to me there are a lot of places for workers to live to support a small town. Maybe not enough to support a little city, but enough to fill a variety of jobs in a small community. That cap could itself influence growth controls as developers evaluate future projects.
Stop. Take a breath.
Before adding more taxes to pay for more housing and building more government-sponsored development to add to more growth, affordable or not—decide if that is where the community really wants to go. That might be something worth spending money on for a polling consultant.
Look, I understand this is an attractive place. As the climate gets weirder, places like this at 9,000 feet will become more attractive and more expensive. I understand we have shined the hell out of the “amenity economy” and that’s benefitted all of us living here. I use and appreciate the improvements the place has experienced. But when is the next tipping point? When do we go from being a small village to a mid-sized town to a little city in the mountains? It feels soon. And it feels like our governments are actively contributing to that — not seeing the overall forest through the deed-restricted trees.
Birnie’s commentary noted that “For many locals, the challenge has never been simply finding housing. It is finding housing that falls between traditional affordable housing programs and the open market…” True that. And that part is getting harder.
The town says without a new revenue source, they might have to pause housing initiatives for 10 years – okay, hit pause. I really like the idea of a ‘Good Deed’ program and on Monday, many council members seemed to want to resurrect it. It had a tepid response when originally rolled out. It works when locals are deeply compensated to take some equity out of their existing house now while still allowing them to sell it in the future to a more limited market. But locals expect not just a 15% compensation rate at current appraised value, but a real return based on giving up future equity jumps in a resort town.
Get the private sector to partner. Despite our liberal reputation, we still live in America and private property rights still matter. Lacy and Dow have the right to at least some development on the Lower Verzuh Ranch. On first glance it’s pretty big but I like the proposed housing element if they are going above the minimum by-right density of thirteen 35-acre parcels. The idea of having 41% of the units on the property be dedicated to full-timers is a valid action. I like that they are building them, and I appreciate that they have a local, successful contractor doing it.
From a political standpoint, perhaps that 41% should be the county’s floor for any new proposal. And if the developer doesn’t build them, perhaps the percentage of affordable units mandated is closer to 61% instead of 41%. That would track with new, somewhat inevitable, growth. The agreed-upon percentage of affordable housing should be built along with the free-market units and not sometime ‘in the future.’
The bottom line is that we all want to see this place stay unique and interesting. Frankly, Whetstone will serve a good purpose, but it is neither unique nor interesting for the North Valley. Growth will happen. It will need appropriate mitigation (not just in housing but in terms of transit, recreation and personnel). But government needs to not think they have a responsibility to provide housing for every dishwasher working at the latest Mark Walter restaurant.
I would argue it is time to take a breath from using the taxpayer funded tools to build, build, build and grow this place of our own accord. Stop. Take a breath. There is enough government housing to support a small town economy. See what actually happens as the hundreds of new units in the pipeline come online. Evaluate that before deciding to add to the growth changing this place from a small town to another big, typical resort. Make choices to keep this place a small-town community.
—Mark Reaman
