{"id":46450,"date":"2021-05-31T16:52:00","date_gmt":"2021-05-31T22:52:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/radical-ideas-emerge-to-address-colorados-high-country-housing-crisis\/"},"modified":"2021-05-31T22:52:00","modified_gmt":"2021-05-31T22:52:00","slug":"radical-ideas-emerge-to-address-colorados-high-country-housing-crisis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/radical-ideas-emerge-to-address-colorados-high-country-housing-crisis\/","title":{"rendered":"Radical ideas emerge to address Colorado\u2019s high-country housing crisis"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"JIll
JIll Voyles and her husband, Brendan McClarney, pack up their family\u2019s belongings at their rental home in Crested Butte South in preparation to move. Voyles, a wellness professional, and McClarney, who manages a local restaurant, lost the lease on their rental home when the owner decided to retire to it. They have been searching for a place to live and may have to resort to camping out with their three daughters. (Dean Krakel, Special to The Colorado Sun)<\/span>Dean Krakel<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

Jill Voyles knew the first year would not be easy. But it would be worth it for her and husband, Brendan McClarney, to move their three daughters to Crested Butte from St. Louis.<\/p>\n

Then right after they arrived last spring, everything shut down. McClarney\u2019s job as a construction project manager evaporated. So did Voyles\u2019 work as a wellness professional. McClarney worked at a restaurant for a while but went back to St. Louis for work, sending his family money to pay rent in the Gunnison County resort town. Then their landlord told them he was moving into the home they were renting.<\/p>\n

They found a temporary place for a few weeks, but Voyles and McClarney are making backup plans to move their family into tents.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would never have thought this could happen,\u201d Voyles said. \u201cRight before the pandemic I was planning to open a studio and my business was thriving. We came here to protect our kids from what was going on in the big city, where we had gunshots just a couple blocks from our house. I knew it would be hard to make it work here, but I never imagined it would be this hard.\u201d<\/p>\n

About 70% of their earnings go toward rent right now. Maybe if they move into tents for the summer they can save enough to pay the security deposit, first and last month\u2019s rent on a place for the fall and winter.<\/p>\n

\u201cMaybe. We are competing with people who can buy anything,\u201d Voyles said. \u201cHow can you support the foundation of the town if workers are leaving because they can\u2019t afford to be here? There\u2019s a growing separation right now. Homeowners need us for all their services, and we need a decent quality of life with places to live.\u201d<\/p>\n

As buyers continue to snatch up homes across Colorado, an unprecedented housing crisis is unfolding. Workers are losing their rental homes as new owners or investors pay record prices to move in or convert them to their work-from-anywhere homes or short-term vacation investment homes. At least two communities are pondering radical strategies to slow the rapid shifts in housing that many see threatening the vitality and even existence of communities that rely on armies of workers.<\/p>\n

In Frisco, leaders are pondering a first-ever official emergency declaration as they liken the unfolding housing crisis to a devastating flood or wildfire. In Crested Butte, workers are whispering about a strike in the middle of the busy summer season.<\/p>\n

\u2018An emergency that is threatening our lifestyles\u2019<\/div>\n

Brianne Snow provided groceries to 65 families who visited her Family and Intercultural Resource Center\u2019s food pantry in Silverthorne on a recent day. Many of them asked for supplies that could last the week in their car.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey were there for food, but they were desperate for housing,\u201d said the executive director of the Summit County center. \u201cThere is nowhere for them to go. They are living with their families in their cars at trailheads and they are really scared. It is just so devastating.\u201d<\/p>\n

The resource center has given local families more than $2.5 million in rent assistance in the last year and another $500,000 for food. It\u2019s not enough.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a bigger problem than just affordability. We do have enough homes to put people in,\u201d Snow said. \u201cWe wanted a diverse economy with these wealthier, work-from-anywhere residents. Well, now we have one. And now we can\u2019t support it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The lack of attainable housing has reached crisis levels in Colorado\u2019s high country.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is an emergency that is threatening our lifestyles, our local businesses and our economy,\u201d said Frisco Mayor Hunter Mortensen. \u201cIt\u2019s the same as if we are threatened by flood or fire.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Frisco
Frisco Mayor Hunter Mortenson walks with his dog, Huckleberry, in a workforce housing neighborhood May 24 in Frisco. Mortensen is pushing the town council to approve Colorado\u2019s first official emergency declaration around housing. (Hugh Carey, The Colorado Sun)<\/span>Hugh Carey<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Mortensen is pushing the town council to approve Colorado\u2019s first official emergency declaration around housing. The formal declaration \u2013 a mechanism typically used for natural disasters, or, more recently, a pandemic \u2013 could possibly open avenues for federal funding as well as streamline Frisco\u2019s budget policies to allow for speedy reallocations of money toward housing.<\/p>\n

Colorado\u2019s Democratic lawmakers have ranked affordable housing among the top three priorities in their plan for spending $3.8 billion in federal coronavirus stimulus money given to the state, with as much as $150 million heading toward housing projects in the next month.)<\/p>\n

\u201cEveryone in Colorado is complaining about this problem. Business owners. Employers. Employees. Visitors. Local governments. Everyone. And they all put it back on the government to find a way to fix it,\u201d Mortsensen said. \u201cIt\u2019s time to fill the sandbags for the coming flood and the government cannot do that alone. We need a communitywide effort and an emergency declaration is the first step in getting everyone we can to help.\u201d<\/p>\n

Occupy Crested Butte?<\/div>\n

Will Dujardin moved to Crested Butte in 2008 to be a ski coach. He found a house in town to rent and 3\u00bd years ago won a seat on the Crested Butte Town Council, promising to advocate for affordable housing.<\/p>\n

His landlord wants to move back into the house to renovate it for a sale.<\/p>\n

Dujardin is looking for a temporary place to rent with his girlfriend somewhere in town, but he\u2019s unsure about his long-term viability in a community where home prices have set records every month so far this year, reaching an average price of $1.4 million.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt just doesn\u2019t seem financially responsible for me to even try to stay here long term,\u201d he said, as he prepped a house for a paint job. \u201cI can\u2019t afford to put myself at that kind of risk.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Crested
Crested Butte Town Councilman Will Dujardin finishes a painting job on the outskirts of town on May 22. Dujardin is an outspoken advocate about the need for affordable housing in this ski resort and tourist town. (Dean Krakel, Special to The Colorado Sun)<\/span>Dean Krakel<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Dujardin\u2019s work on the council includes helping create a short-term rental tax to support more affordable housing. He supports plans for a 156-unit affordable housing complex \u2013 whittled down from 240 units after years of negotiations between the developer and the town \u2013 that is mired in contention over the size of the project\u2019s parking lot.<\/p>\n

That high-density apartment project wasn\u2019t ideal, he said, but it\u2019s something. He sees a big gap in options for renters who fall pretty close to the region\u2019s median income but are far away from being able to afford market prices in a town where the median price for a home is more than $1.4 million and climbing rapidly.<\/p>\n

But the problem, he said, is more about availability than affordability. People of just about all incomes are fighting for spots to live in the East River Valley.<\/p>\n

Dujardin supports some radical moves. He advocates for a tax on vacation homes that are left empty for most of the year. Maybe that additional tax revenue could help local workers cover skyrocketing rents or pay a down payment on a home, he said. Whatever the plan, it needs to happen fast, he said, noting that since he joined the Town Council, the price for a typical home in the town has more than doubled.<\/p>\n

He supports the idea of a local strike \u2013 which would involve workers walking out of local businesses for a day or even longer at the height of the busy summer season in July \u2013 but he worries about impacts on small business owners.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese are our neighbors and friends and people in similar boats and they are feeling this struggle too,\u201d he said. \u201cBut I don\u2019t know how to scream louder to local leaders here that we are not doing enough about this crisis.\u201d<\/p>\n

In addition to marches, protests, letter-writing campaigns and showing up at council meetings to voice concerns about housing, Dujardin wonders about a tent city in downtown, as in Occupy Crested Butte.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t want people to not be able to work and we don\u2019t want our fellow citizens to suffer anymore,\u201d he said. \u201cWe need to do something. We need to do something right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

A fee on vacant homes<\/div>\n

Housing doesn\u2019t just require government help. Communities need to come together and champion housing as an existential issue, said Eric Rankin, the co-owner of Butte Bagels in Crested Butte.<\/p>\n

Rankin last week hosted a gathering of local workers and business owners like himself to stir a rallying cry around the lack of housing. One idea being kicked around in Crested Butte is a worker strike. Maybe for a day. Maybe even for a week.<\/p>\n

Rankin said a strike will only work if 80% of businesses are on board and willing to lose revenue. Most employers and business owners in town are not willing to close their shops, he said. There seems to be more local support for an \u201cempty home fee,\u201d which would tax second homeowners who leave their mansions in town unoccupied except for a few weeks a year.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s sad because the only thing they are building in this town right now are mega-mansions. We don\u2019t want to alienate those owners, but if they want to be a bigger part of this community, we need their help to create a housing fund,\u201d Rankin said, as he prepared lunches for waiting customers at Butte Bagels.<\/p>\n

Rankin has lost employees because of a lack of housing. A worker strike could show visitors, second-homeowners and local leaders what Crested Butte could look like in five years when workers can\u2019t live in the town, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wonder if people really are grasping that,\u201d Rankin said. \u201cWe need our community \u2013 really every community across Colorado \u2013 to rise up and gather together and take care of this. This isn\u2019t a fight for my business, or my town. Colorado as a state could be in trouble here.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hope in new legislation<\/div>\n

The housing crisis in Colorado\u2019s mountain communities is not new. But the last year\u2019s real estate frenzy has decimated an already meager supply of homes traditionally occupied by working locals.<\/p>\n

The decadeslong lack of affordable housing became a critical issue as early as 1994, when Telluride town leaders passed a law that required developers to build affordable housing for some of the new workers their projects would create. After a developer sued, the Colorado Supreme Court ruled in 2000 that forcing developers to build units for renting below market rates was a form of rent control prohibited by state law in 1981.<\/p>\n

Kevin Bommer, the executive director of the Colorado Municipal League, said that the 2000 Colorado Supreme Court decision set the stage for today\u2019s housing crisis in small towns.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt has allowed a dearth of new construction with municipalities virtually powerless to ensure people who work in the community had a place to live without a long commute,\u201d said Bommer, who hopes the passage of legislation that reverses that decision and allows local government more voice in developing affordable homes can ease the current crisis.<\/p>\n

Bommer said the new legislation, House Bill 1117, which the Colorado Municipal League helped draft and lawmakers approved last week, \u201cwill effectively wipe out that awful court decision \u2026 and we should start seeing more new affordable rental units in places where developers have not wanted to build them.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Colorado Sun is a reader-supported, nonpartisan news organization dedicated to covering Colorado issues. To learn more, go to coloradosun.com.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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