ISSUE #260: Hubris in Aspen (10/10/23)
January 5 "Hubris is one of the great renewable resources."
-- PJ O'Rourke
Hubris. Is there a better word for what's wrong with elected leadership in Aspen? When we elect representatives the same way we'd elect the Prom King (ie popularity contest), we only have ourselves to blame for the arrogance and pretension that drives the policies, decisions and management of the city of Aspen.
Other places that face similar challenges are doing things differently. But we're Aspen - what could we possibly learn from them?
Read my column that ran in Sunday's Aspen Times HERE.
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Hubris, according to Wikipedia, describes a personality quality of excessive pride or dangerous overconfidence, often synonymous with arrogance and associated with pretension. Hubris often indicates a loss of contact with reality and an overestimation of one’s own competence, accomplishments or capabilities. Hubris is referred to as “pride that blinds” because it often causes one to act in foolish ways that belie common sense.
Sound familiar?
As a practical matter, Aspen’s city council’s hubris advances the largest municipal public works project in Aspen’s history despite its fundamentally flawed premise, a ridiculous design based on consumer wishes, baseless budget estimates and no funding source. The 277-unit Lumberyard is already laughable in development circles and garners eye-rolls from representatives and residents of other ski towns. Last week Mayor Torre even told a local developer they’re looking at raising rental rates there to somehow sweeten the deal for development bidders, an acknowledgment that the project as currently planned is far from viable.
But designing first and budgeting later is not just inexperience, it’s foolish. The numbers are so bad that even with a private development partner, the city will still be on the hook for hundreds of millions of dollars it admits it doesn’t have. Our unqualified electeds who skipped development 101 are so arrogant they believe they know more than everyone else, when in reality they continually embarrass themselves and our community.
Meanwhile, in Winter Park, a ski town of 1,100 in Grand County, Colorado, the new Conifer Commons is readying for tenants. This in-town property offers rental studios, single- and multi-bedroom units designed for 330 seasonal and year-round workers. Collaboratively built by the town, the corporate owner of the resort, a non-profit agency and a developer in just 18 months, this new housing cost just $60 million. It comes to market on the heels of the Fireside Creek Apartments, 50 one- and two-bedroom units, built and managed by a developer to which the town contributed $2.2 million in land, fee waivers and rent-buy downs. Several other similar projects are in the works to directly address housing throughout ski country.
Furthermore, Winter Park is boldly addressing its workforce housing needs beyond just new construction. Their “Short Term Fix” program launched in 2021 to bridge the gap while housing construction transpired. The town has been offering cash incentives to property owners who convert their short-term rental property or underutilized second home into long-term workforce housing. Qualified local businesses enter into 6- or 12-month leases on behalf of their employees, and the property owner receives a financial incentive in addition to receiving contracted rents. Studios and 1-bedrooms offer $5000 or $10,000 cash incentives, depending on lease term, and 2- and 3-bedroom units kick $10,000 or $20,000. During the 2022-23 season, with a budget of $425,000, 47 bedrooms were added to the housing inventory.
This season, thanks to Conifer Commons, Fireside Creek and others coming online, $200,000 is available to renewing participants as the short term program winds down.
Winter Park also has a deed restricted ownership program for local workers. Notably, “inventory administration” plays a critical role to ensure proper stewardship through a required annual verification and audit process. Acknowledging the importance of community-building by providing long-term housing options, they’re not messing around. Essential workers are prioritized.
Like Winter Park, most ski towns in the mountain west are facing housing issues, but with several critical distinctions from ours: they don’t have an existing inventory of over 3200 units, they build housing to specifically meet the needs of the local economy as determined by data-driven research, they seek creative partnerships for value-driven outcomes and they build what they can afford.
Why wouldn’t we look at best practices employed in Winter Park and elsewhere? Hubris. “They’re not Aspen.” You can hear the scoffs. No, they’re most certainly not. They’re responsibly doing what it takes to solve the real housing challenges faced by their communities. But our mentality, that arrogance, that pretension, is precisely why Aspen has become the shining example of what not to do, instead of the gold standard befitting a housing program of our history, caliber, size and potential.
Goaded by this columnist and hundreds of you who wrote to council about the absurd lack of transparency regarding The Lumberyard financials, the city recently released what it’s calling a “pro forma.” This rough, staff-generated cost estimate and escalation model which generated headlines is based on a 2022-era schematic design, with promises to develop a better estimate when the design advances, again without financing details other than hopes for 15% of the project cost to be brought by a developer from federal, state and “other outside funding sources.”
This still leaves our community on the hook for the several hundred million dollar difference, a far cry from what other mountain communities are doing for pennies on the dollar in a fraction of the time.
We’re on the verge of beginning construction on 277 housing units that will cost north of $1.5 million apiece that we don’t have the money to pay for. “But we’re Aspen.”
Hubris will be Aspen’s undoing. Contact TheRedAntEM@comcast.net