ISSUE #284: The Aspen Zeitgeist (2/6/26)
March 9 "Most of the social history of the Western world, over the past three decades, has been a history of replacing what worked with what sounded good." -- Thomas Sowell
Oh, hi. It’s been a minute. (Closer to a year.) The Aspen muni elections in March 2025 were the straw that broke this camel’s back. Aspen dusted off career politician Rachel Richards and made her mayor once again (she needed a job to keep her housing) and re-elected John Doyle, he of alarming anti-Semitic views. I was disgusted and decided to take a step back for a while and just watch.
During this hiatus, one thing became abundantly clear: we have a horrific news void. It’s hard to care when you’re unaware. Read about a public matter in the papers one day and never read about it again, unless it’s to parrot city talking points or casually mention another higher cost amount, and there’s never any critical analysis. Sadly, there’s no good way to stay abreast of Aspen public policy. There are too many balls in the air, by design, creating too many issues for a citizen to track. Overlay an indifferent electorate that gives minimal public pushback on the current outrageous and costly policies and programs coming from our local governments and, voila, you get what you pay for: bureaucracies running amok.
I miss writing The Red Ant, but after 18 years of trying tirelessly to affect local matters, the results at the polls last March were so disheartening that I questioned my appetite to continue. I still care deeply, but do you? While you think about that, I thought I’d fill you in on what’s been going on. Buckle up.
Jobs and Growth
According to the 2024 Pitco Economic Report, the county has more jobs (17,400) than housing units (13,350) and labor force (11,236) so we obviously have to import labor unless we want to build THOUSANDS of housing units. These simple facts are notable in a local environment of -4.1% population growth, low job growth and essentially zero free market housing unit growth. Why on earth wouldn’t we focus on transportation solutions for importing labor and maximizing the maintenance and efficiency of the already huge workforce housing stock we already have, vs solely trying in vain to build an infinite amount “more”?
With regard to growth, Aspen is effectively at build-out, therefore the 277-unit Lumberyard subsidized housing project across from the airport was annexed into Aspen, primarily to harness votes, just like at Burlingame. Astonishingly, despite our long-held community no-growth values, THIS growth (and more just like it) is apparently now ok, never mind The Lumberyard alone adds 10% to our local population. There has been no consideration of the impacts of 600 new residents on the roads, the schools and the hospital. It seems our electeds changed our values without asking! Pitkin County officially spells this out in its 2026 Comprehensive Plan, stating “The growth we do want as a community, that meets our community values, is more affordable and middle income housing. We want to grow the community that will participate in our community…” As if those who pay for such things don’t “participate”???
At a joint council – BOCC meeting in September, clearly surprised by the LY population growth figure and the very real associated impacts on local services, commissioner Kelly McNicholas-Kury sheepishly asked, “How do we study that?” Yes, she asked that, this far into a what will be a half billion dollar+ expenditure. It’s fun playing developer until you have to reckon with the unintended consequences of actual growth.
Alas, they’ve finally said the quiet part out loud: subsidized housing growth is good. It “builds community,” never mind the 24/7/365 impacts by these folks who property tax-wise do not pay their fair share. Those impacts apparently don’t count. It’s the free market growth that’s the problem despite there being next to none. Again, if you live in free market housing, you’re really not part of the community either. (You just pay for it.)
The county now factors “intensity” into its calculus in addition to density when evaluating larger free market homes. Stated as settled fact, “The intensity data analysis establishes a correlation between the square footage associated with large residential homes and the associated impacts to economic, transportation and climate intensity. It also highlights the need to recognize and address the fact that large homes are not acting like conventional homes but more like commercial hubs with workforce-and-vehicle-trip-intensive micro-economies.” Yes, class warfare has transcended local attitudes and is now officially part of local governance.
Incidentally, speaking of governance, the second largest job growth sector in the county is in Public Administration. The city and county currently have 385 and 453 employees, respectively. Yes, you read that right, well over 800 local government employees! I suppose it takes a village to spend 2026 budgets of $296.2 million (city) and $312 million (county)!
The Lumberyard
Construction of the 277-unit Lumberyard subsidized housing project has gotten underway. Today’s cost estimates are at $400 million ($1.4 million/unit), but change orders have already started coming in despite Infrastructure Phase 0 starting in April. In the city’s 2026 strategic plan, to my great surprise (horror?), the number of units remains a moving target (“280-300”) implying that the design is still not yet final. Another example of the city of Aspen building the plane while flying it! Targeted completion is June 2029. With “the city as developer,” what could possibly go wrong?
Here’s what. Just last week council was informed by its very own “affordable housing development manager” who serves as the “owner’s rep” on the project that – oops – they overlooked the need to tie the electrical grid at The Lumberyard into city electrical infrastructure. It’s apparently “an adventure” right now as the city navigates numerous complicated easements at the AABC to make this happen. But don’t worry, they say they’re “pretty positive” and “think they have a pathway,” plus there are lots of “ideas” being kicked around.
Council’s reaction was predictable. Bill Guth was rightly horrified at the monumental oversight at this late stage, questioning how we got so far along without considering a power source. Rachel made excuses for city staff’s abject buffoonery, and John Doyle reliably pivoted to “solar,” earnestly believing this could be a viable substitute.
The Lumberyard is also on track to add yet another stoplight precisely at the chokepoint of Highway 82, just east of the airport. The city still maintains that not many cars will be making eastbound left turns from The LY into town, despite there being on-site parking for 435 vehicles. If that’s the case then why not force them to turn right and make a U-turn at the airport light? And at a certain point, wouldn’t an underpass for eastbound Lumberyard traffic make the most sense, like at the Maroon Creek Club?
If there’s any good news at The Lumberyard it’s that it will be an all-rental complex, with compliance monitored annually through lease renewals, maintenance baked into rent costs, and an end to the “set-for-life” scenarios for those in APCHA ownership housing.
On a side note, I have long wondered why we don’t require subsidized housing residents to live by and exemplify our “save the plant” community ideals by eschewing cars and relying on public transit. For the benefit of living in a $1.4+ million subsidized apartment, it’s really not a big ask and would be a solid step toward doing something in return for the community’s largesse. Snowmass Village is currently considering this for its pending housing project.
Entrance to Aspen and The Airport
The Airport replacement project is officially slated to begin in April 2027. This undertaking, currently estimated at $518 million, is a much needed infrastructure upgrade that also presents a generational opportunity to solve the “entrance to Aspen” conundrum. With reconfigured runways, a new terminal and an improved facility and property layout, this is our chance to create a 21st century transit center that revolutionizes “the last mile” into Aspen proper and establishes an “entrance to Aspen” that solves our worst problems and creates something we can all be proud of.
It’s currently chaos from the Hwy 82/Brush Creek intersection inward. Traffic is horrendous. The county is shopping airport terminal designs while the city focuses on developing The Lumberyard across the street and dithering about “the entrance” which is nothing short of a dysfunctional community embarrassment. Meanwhile, there are really cool ideas circulating elsewhere about aerial trams and novel innovations that could address “the last mile.” The most recent airport design provides for parking for over 900 cars. Why aren’t we looking at this holistically and integrating it all? Imagine a transportation hub at the airport that offers convenient, reliable, multimodal solutions into town for airline passengers, commuters, Lumberyard residents and those living in the 300 units at the AABC?
Apparently this is not at all a priority, yet alone even a consideration. County commissioner Francie Jacober, clearly caught in the deep myopia that pervades our elected bodies, said of collaboration between the city and the county on the airport, the entrance, The Lumberyard and the last mile, “The county is looking at the airport thing right now, so for us to take on another huge design and research project would be pretty difficult. The city is looking at the entrance, so there are two obstacles right now in terms of making progress with another huge infrastructure project.”
How can our electeds ignore the need to address these projects TOGETHER? Sadly, despite $1 billion in concurrent, adjacent projects, the city and county have zero coordinated planning or shared vision, just “silo” mentalities. Such ignorance will be the cause of a tragic missed generational opportunity. And likely far worsened transportation gridlock where it occurs today. Welcome to Aspen.
The Straight Shot, Castle Creek Bridge and Traffic
In March 2025, after a contentious battle, the electorate voted to give CDOT free reign to realign Hwy 82 across any part of the Marolt-Thomas Open Space of their choosing to create a more direct route into Aspen and bypass the S-curves. This, despite a 28-year-old record of decision (1998 ROD) documenting ad nauseum that this new alignment is merely a mass transit solution that will not improve traffic or congestion.
The “preferred alternative” is an asphalt solution to a 21st century problem that will still feature a single lane for cars in each direction (at the same or slower speeds), dedicated bus lanes, a new stoplight at 7th Street and a left-turn only at Cemetery Lane (head east into town over the Castle Creek Bridge and then turn right at the new 7th Street stoplight to access westbound Hwy 82).
A year later and nothing has changed, nor is it likely to progress for years to come. Why? The city is nowhere near getting CDOT funding; the project doesn’t appear anywhere in CDOT’s 10-year funding queue. Instead, council has directed city staff to re-evaluate the 1998 Environmental Impact Statement (EIS), pretending there have been no major changes to the city’s traffic patterns during that time. It’s an attempt to side-step a costlier new EIS that would take into account the tectonic changes of entire neighborhoods that have sprung up in the past 30 years, the revamped traffic patterns from all points of the roundabout, as well as the imminent impacts of the new airport terminal and Lumberyard now in the pipeline.
Meanwhile, the Castle Creek Bridge that was built in 1961 is precarious. It was rated “fair” by CDOT in 2024. If the bridge falls below a “fair” rating, CDOT could place weight limits on the bridge or condemn it entirely. Council fiddles while the bridge fails. There is no contingency plan. They decline offers to bring in cutting edge bridge experts who have pioneered carbon fiber construction solutions that happen in days, not months. Fixated on the straight shot pipe dream, Rachel ignores the march of time, and technology that is bringing cheaper, faster and greener mass transit solutions. Yes, technology has finally caught up with Toni Kronberg and urban “rope tow” gondola-like systems that are being implemented around the globe. While Rachel clings to her outdated, 1998-era bus-centered vision, RFTA officials protest that they are already operating at full capacity and have no plans to increase it.
Always remember, it was Torre, Ward Hauenstein and John Doyle who spiked a motion in 2024 to rebuild the bridge (it has to be replaced in any case, on the city’s dime). Why on earth are we not replacing the bridge today, optimally with an alternating lane, while the lengthy ROD/EIS process plays out?
Aspen’s 10.35% Sales Tax
As of 2026, aside from Winter Park (11.2%), we officially have the highest sales tax rate (10.35%) in the state of Colorado. Here’s the breakdown:
Colorado state sales tax: 2.90%
Pitkin County sales tax: 3.60%
City of Aspen local tax: 2.70%
Aspen Fire Protection District: 0.50%
Confluence Early Childhood District: 0.25%
Roaring Fork Rural Transpo Authority: 0.40%
Aspen loves to be at the top of every list. Congratulations, geniuses.
Childcare Tax
You were fooled. 7A (a 25 cent sales tax on every $100 purchase) passed locally last fall to create a regional childcare tax district because we were told that our childcare capacity only accommodates 44% of kids in the region who need it. That could be true – in the region. But a November 2025 study clarified the local stats. Turns out that Pitkin County “likely” has a shortage of child care slots for infants and toddlers, but childcare for preschoolers is sufficient. Furthermore, the study concludes that “creating new preschool slots may threaten the sustainability of existing providers.” In addition, the county’s young child population is projected to shrink through 2029. The regional needs are likely far different, echoed in the study’s revelation that a full quarter of those who live in Garfield or Eagle Counties but commute to Pitkin County for work would prefer a Pitkin County childcare provider. Of course they would, especially if we subsidize it.
So here we are, subsidizing other counties’ populations and childcare preferences. Good news is that council just punted a $15 million (2022 estimate) childcare facility at Burlingame because of the “potential to harm the existing childcare infrastructure.” It could still rear its ugly head in the future...
Short Term Rental Regulations
There are currently 387 STR permits issued in Aspen that enable owners to rent out their properties for less than 30 days at a time. Permits range from $148-$394/year. These are distinctly punitive and have become yet another revenue stream primarily dedicated to vague “community affordable housing efforts.”
Check out the taxes. It’s all designed to pinch the greedy homeowner but anyone with a brain knows such costs get simply passed on to the renter. Screw the tourists, right?
Traditional Lodge: 2% (total with sales tax = 12.35%)
STR (owner-occupied): 5% (total with sales tax and 2% lodging tax = 17.35%)
STR/2nd Homeowner: 10% (total with sales tax and 2% lodging tax = 22.35%)
Yet an inane debate rages on. The fact is, people have rented their Aspen condos to tourists for generations, long before Airbnb. A large, uninformed yet vocal group ignores this and honestly believes that if we outlaw all STRs, condos in the downtown core will magically become rentals for local workers again. But seriously, why would owners rent at “affordable” prices when property values and costs have quadrupled? It’s not STRs that took away rental condos from locals, the market went up. Condos once purchased for $500K are now worth $2M+. Do the math. It makes zero sense for owners to rent these out for $2000 a month - to anyone.
Taster’s/Yogi’s
Besides playing developer, city hall loves to monkey in commercial real estate and restaurant oversight. There’s a long track record of failure, yet they continue, most recently trying to find a new tenant for the city-owned restaurant space across from Rio Grande Park, intended as an affordable restaurant that offers below-market rent. The finalists for the deeply subsidized space are in, and they represent popular entities in the valley. There’s also a high profile PR campaign by one applicant, the 520 Grill, a local’s favorite currently in a free market location on Cooper Street.
All the letter-writing and hullabaloo made me take a closer look. It turns out that many of 520 Grill’s current menu prices will actually INCREASE if chosen for the subsidized space! It’s in the RFP in black and white. The point of the whole exercise is to be able to offer the community affordable options. Council tends to decide such issues based on who’s a “good guy,” so maybe this won’t matter. But shouldn’t prices technically go down when the rent does? Just think, if 520 Grill wins, we’ll be subsidizing both the rent AND the owner.
Don’t get me wrong - everyone loves 520 Grill. Food’s great. But just like city council, they’ve missed the plot. Just keep prices the same and profits will increase. Duh. Here’s one more glaring example of why it’s simply bad public policy for city incompetents to be picking winners and losers in Aspen’s competitive restaurant landscape.
The Armory
Speaking of subsidized restaurants, look for a 5-kitchen food hall, a bar, billiards and a teenage hangout lounge in the soon-to-be-remodeled Armory. Add to that "flex space" for meetings, banquets, a market and a visitors center and it’ll practically be like the carnival has come to town. All for today’s estimated cost of $53.7 million.
But don’t you remember, back in 2018 when we voted on our preference for a new city hall? Championed by yours truly as well as longtime locals Bill Stirling and Howie Mallory, the option to purchase 517 E. Hopkins from developer Mark Hunt as the future location for new city offices (across the street) to supplement the existing city hall in the Armory was shot down 57%-43% at the polls in favor of today’s new Taj Mahal City Hall. Hunt’s deal was a committed contract to deliver a redeveloped building at the 517 E. Hopkins location, connected by an underground tunnel to the Armory, for a fixed $45 million. He also offered to remodel the Armory for just $9 million more. It was too good for the bureaucrats to stomach.
Fueled by the city’s own campaign reflecting its vitriol toward a developer (former city manager and Red Ant foil Steve Barwick actually said, we “don’t want to put money in local developer Mark Hunt’s pocket”), voters chose to accept the city’s farcical estimate of $42-52 million not including the land cost, to build the Taj, which came in costing closer to $100 million. (The terrible location is where a large in-town subsidized housing complex belongs.) Today we’re looking at spending $53.7 million (and counting) just to remodel the Armory. Do you actually think the city’s cost estimate will hold?
Just like the hideous, ill-functioning, ghost town office space that is today’s Taj, the Armory and its plans to be all things to all people (hardly the “community gathering place” that many sought) will be another grossly over-priced disaster for Aspen. Will we ever learn?
Meadows/Institute/Physics Housing
The latest trend is that major employers have finally given up on APCHA and are developing housing to meet their proprietary needs. The latest is a proposal by the Aspen Institute, Aspen Music Festival and School and Aspen Center for Physics to develop 60 units for employees, students and guests on their shared campus in Aspen’s historic West End.
Despite concerns about the STR-like nature of some of the units and overwhelming pushback from the neighborhood over the impacts of an already untenable parking situation, the submission moves along.
It is noteworthy how this proposal stands to be dramatically “under-parked” with P&Z advocating for deed restrictions that don’t allow cars at certain proposed buildings, which will only add to the parking strife in Aspen’s toniest neighborhood. Contrast this to the deliberately “over-parked” Lumberyard that is providing 453 parking spots for 277 subsidized units. Double standard much? Mayor Rachel seems to think that “at the end of the day, we do have to have a little give from the (West End) neighborhood.” Really?
This is not a fait accompli. Frankly, it needs a lot more work.
Housing Shortage?
Do we really have one? Are there legitimately businesses in town today that cannot hire for lack of housing? For which jobs specifically? Glenwood Springs has built over 700 units in the past 5 years. At Willits, there are 196 new apartments at the Tree Farm Lofts. Next to Carbondale City Market are 224 new apartments. Near Target in Glenwood are 400 new apartments. All of these are on the RFTA transportation corridor. From a cost perspective, the Carbondale apartments were $265K per vs. $1.4M (estimated) at the Lumberyard. And remember, we have no idea which workers are currently being housed in our APCHA inventory. In other words, we have yet to identify what problem we’re trying to solve - other than building “more.”
Mid valley communities have historically resisted building worker housing for up valley employers but now that many local jobs are moving to the mid valley, they can’t avoid it. However, this movement of jobs out of the upper valley directly reduces the pressure on workforce housing in Aspen proper, and perhaps even eliminates it if we manage our existing inventory properly.
To ignore the impacts of this significant increase in housing units in the greater valley on what is purported to be a “housing crisis” in Aspen is intellectually dishonest. Can you see now why no one wants to commission real data or share what does exist? It destroys the narrative of infinitely “needing more.”
This obfuscation and nonsense continue despite the our community guiding document, the 2012 Aspen Area Community Plan (AACP), clearly stating that “we cannot build our way out of the housing problem.”
Do we really OWE housing to everyone who wants to live in Aspen affordably?
Retirees in APCHA Housing
At one point, The Silver Tsunami was a notion. Then it was coming. There is no doubt it’s arrived, and we’re surely taking on water. But don’t expect APCHA to reveal this data. The numbers are perhaps Aspen’s most closely guarded secret. And I’ve yet to hear a local reporter ever ask for them. The surely staggering retirees-in-APCHA-housing numbers are deep within APCHA’s clandestine HOMETREK database and in assistant APCHA director Cindy Christensen’s head.
Next to no data is publicly available anywhere. The 2012 AACP acknowledged that we “are on the brink of a rising retiree demographic,” citing 310 retirees in APCHA housing in 2012 with a forecast of 800 by 2021. Notably, no substantive “retirement” strategy has been discussed in the 14 years since. Another loose datapoint from 2023 contends that 33% of APCHA unit owners are 63+. Anyone see the troubling direction we’re headed?
Merely discussing the mysterious “retiree numbers” is grounds for harsh criticism, as though knowing our reality is somehow “anti-retiree.” Sorry, knowledge is power, and when we’re doling out $1.4M in public funds per unit for new subsidized housing units with an undefined end goal, factoring in the growing number of units occupied by non-workers must become part of the equation.
I’ll stop … for now
I could go on. And I might. I barely touched on APCHA and that list is so long it simply warrants its own issue. But hopefully this brought you somewhat up to speed. I know, it’s beyond depressing. All of this should read as a cautionary tale. There’s a very fine line between being visionary and being a virtue signaling moron.
The Taj Mahal City Hall and its emphasis on a “one roof” customer service solution seemed to our naïve electeds like the right thing to build (“a 50-year solution”) when in reality there was no vision at all. (Imagine ignoring the work-from-home revolution?) Today the Taj is a huge community stain, symbolic of our bloated bureaucracy with its poor design and reckless execution that notably killed any hope for a town-to-river connection by cutting off Rio Grande Park, and fittingly exists as an empty tomb during most business hours. The airport and straight shot are poised to similarly follow in its footsteps. It’s undeniably tragic to screw up one generational opportunity after the next because of inept elected officials.
There is a good reason I always push to elect well-educated candidates and those with real world work experience. Without it, we get emotional decisionmakers who see every issue in a vacuum. It’s hard to imagine someday electing a majority that seeks enough information to envision and comprehend the larger picture, yet alone the cumulative impacts on our (diminishing) small town character. Don’t take my word for it - just look at what’s happening today.
Please let me know what you think. Do you want to know more? Do you have a friend who’d enjoy reading? I have a lot to say. Question is, do you want to hear it?