ISSUE #257: The Ugly Truth About APCHA (8/28/23)

"The problem is that those in power do not have the solutions and those with solutions 

do not have the power."

-- Unknown

The more I learn, the worse it gets. Yesterday's column illustrates the horror-show that is the APCHA rental housing system. Read it HERE. As I continue to pull on some new-found threads, look for a bright-hot spotlight on APCHA, its leadership, the city and county leadership responsible for APCHA, and where the lack of will to make straightforward and meaningful changes specifically lies. And I will be naming names. It's a community disgrace: anti-worker and anti-business. All they want to do is build more for people who will not be working the jobs we desperately need to fill. Anyone else see a problem with that? * For those who have been following my little pet project at 205 W Main, I'm sorry to report that HPC sadly approved its relocation (4-3) to the corner of its lot to accommodate a MASSIVE subsidized housing project on the remainder of the property. The tie-breaking vote was by a new HPC member who assumed that a more dramatic relocation would yield a less dense development. The new LUC did not require the applicant to share what is to be built so they didn't. And the density is excessive. But that member didn't realize it. City council refused to call-up the horrible decision. If you'd like to weigh in when council and HPC meet on September 5 to discuss whether or not HPC has a future role in protecting our historic assets, even against subsidized housing development, please write to them HERE, adding "September 5 Meeting with HPC" on the subject line.

* And saddle up. On September 12, it is likely that council will be voting to entitle The Lumberyard. Repeated requests of council and city staff to publicly present the proposed financing plans for the $500M+ project have been ignored or obfuscated. The city manager refuses to publicly share them. A majority of city council has signaled that they do not care. Elections have consequences, folks.

* * * * *

The APCHA deed restricted housing portfolio has 3200 units, split 55%/45% between ownership and rental.  This does not count the hundreds of rental units up and down the valley, owned and controlled by SkiCo, the hospital, the schools and various private employers outside the purview of APCHA. 

Our service-industry labor shortage is not the result of an insufficient amount of this housing, rather the result of an overly complicated housing system, and a mis-match between the housing we are currently providing and the jobs we need filled to properly function.

The long-standing policy of selling APCHA housing units has created a favored “set for life” class, where income, household size and employment only matter on the day of purchase. Second-class renters are at the mercy of multiple property management firms and are income- and upward mobility-capped by APCHA. 

And where owners are forever held to different standards (or no standards at all because rules aren’t enforced), the dirty secret is in APCHA’s 1382-unit rental portfolio, where chaos truly reigns supreme.

Preferring spend its time “qualifying” people and dogging self-employed renters whose businesses they don’t understand, APCHA actually only manages 251 long-term rental units. That’s just 18%. The remaining 82% are privately owned and operated by seven separate property managers who can only rent these units to APCHA-qualified workers because of the deed restrictions on each property.

New to town? Unless your employer has provided housing, you have just entered the housing hellhole. First stop is APCHA, the housing authority. Makes sense. But they rarely have units available, and when they do, priority is given to those with the longest local work history. That’s not you. Next, contact all seven other property managers to inquire about available units and ask to get on their waitlist, if they have one. There is no centralized rental management process and each property manager is free to fill units as he sees fit. 

If you are fortunate and are offered a unit, THEN you must “qualify” through APCHA to ensure the income category and occupancy level for that specific unit are met. Each property has units designated to various income categories, creating a lengthy, complicated and labor-intensive qualification process that could cost you the unit while you wait.

This is precisely why local workers “cannot find housing,” not because it doesn’t exist.

It’s the Wild West. APCHA board member Alycin Bektesh recently explained how “calling around” is a right of passage when seeking a rental unit. She says it’s not uncommon to take the property managers cookies to enhance one’s profile. Imagine a housing board member revealing the necessary practice of bribing your way into the program while dismissing another board member’s suggestion that APCHA take steps to consolidate, modernize and maintain a fair and transparent rental housing leasing and waitlist system? 

APCHA staff concurred; they don’t want to do the “time consuming” work because it’s a “huge program.”

This is hardly the spirit of a community housing program. APCHA doesn’t serve workers and it doesn’t serve our community. Just because there is limitless demand does not mean there’s no need for transparency and efficiency. The independent property managers are under no obligation to renew your lease if they don’t like you. And if they mistakenly grant you an apartment before properly confirming your APCHA qualification, you’re out on the street. It just happened. 

The APCHA rental system is backwards and upside-down. Deed restricted rentals should certainly have employment and occupancy requirements, but let’s remove income categories from the units themselves and charge rent according to the tenant’s income range. We’ll then free essential workers from Aspen’s rarely-mentioned poverty trap, where valuable employees turn down raises and promotions in order to keep their housing. 

Then consolidate the APCHA rental leasing and waitlist system. Since APCHA has to qualify everyone anyway, it is the obvious clearinghouse for maintaining one list that feeds pre-qualified workers to its own and the privately managed units as they open up. A transparent list also ensures that private managers won’t choose only the top earners or those with bribes. 

But who is really in charge? The APCHA director no longer reports to the board. His boss is Sara Ott, the city manager, despite the housing authority legally being an intergovernmental agency, independent of both the city and county. This makes for difficult board oversight, to say the least. However, Ott has been tasked by city council with implementing a 14-point strategic housing plan for which a centralized rental management system would be an effective solution for the plan’s prioritized development-neutral program improvements and would increase the number of available units through access. 

To-date Ott has not brought any meaningful APCHA policies to her five bosses on city council. So, council, if you are at all serious about making more housing immediately available, direct Sara Ott to require immediate consolidation of the APCHA rental portfolio management process. 

The centralization and ease of access for all qualified workers is a straightforward solution that will provide immediate fairness and transparency, and will greatly simplify the administrative process for workers, landlords and APCHA personnel alike.

Aspen’s subsidized housing program is riddled with contradictions and mismanagement, yet the only focus is on building more. This must end. Contact TheRedAntEM@comcast.net

ISSUE #256: Let's Get Honest About Growth (8/14/23)

"We don't want a plan based on land uses. We want a plan based on experiences. Who visits downtown to see land uses?"

-- Mitchell Silver

As The Aspen Times re-arranges the deck chairs, this week's column ran today instead. Read it HERE as I continue to press for a broader community conversation on growth. 

We cannot continue down the intellectually dishonest path of attributing the real and perceived impacts of "growth" solely on the free market without first defining them, attributing them (with data beyond just opinions), and addressing the root causes.

** Today there is a work session focused on the financials for the Lumberyard. If you can make sense of THIS perhaps you can enlighten me. City staff will tell council anything to get this ill-conceived project approved. One thing is for sure, if given the opportunity to spend $450+ million dollars we don't have, spending it on 277 subsidized housing units we can't prove that we need is likely not the most broadly effective use of such funds, especially given our other community needs.

If you're a developer and know a thing or two about RMF development and public-private partnerships, I encourage you to write to council. Only one of them understands the business and the others could stand to hear from you. HERE is a link.

In other (shocking) news, the saga of 205 W. Main (the first "unintended consequence" of the new zoning rules that enable subsidized housing development in any zone district, even "atop" cherished historic Victorians on Main Street) continues. The Historic Preservation Commission voted 4-3 in defiance of their own guidelines to narrowly approve the relocation of this historic resource close to the lot line in order to shoe-horn a dense housing project onto the lot. The basis for this grievous decision? Apparently the swing voter (and new member) erroneously felt that more space for the housing would make it less dense. It won't. The developer will continue with his ginormous and inappropriate plans as drawn. HPC has been rendered all but irrelevant by the new land use code. 

 If you're concerned, please write to city council (HERE is a link) prior to their August 22 meeting and request that they "call-up" this decision because there appears to be great confusion among the HPC as to whether to follow the Historic Preservation Guidelines or just blindly approve subsidized housing. 

 You have all been VERY helpful and effective with your letter writing. Your voices matter and I, for one, appreciate your ongoing commitment to civic involvement.

*****

It seems the solution to every local problem is to “build more housing.” Mind you, this does not mean free-market residential development or redevelopment, it means subsidized housing. Pitkin County recently joined the fray with the extensive report of its Community Growth Advisory Committee.

For a committee that was intended to contemplate “growth,” much of its work focused on values-based desires to maintain the rural character and open lands that define our community, less reliance on fossil fuels and more energy efficiency for climate action and the reduction of the sense of “overwhelm” that so many residents and visitors are feeling. I read it through three times and there wasn’t a peep about “carrying capacity” nor the acknowledgment of  strains on existing infrastructure.

The group took a deep dive into the county land use code because this is where you can really sock it to the free market, and three key conclusions emerged:

• ·      The committee’s work was largely focused on managing the types of development that are inconsistent with community values, however, more subsidized housing is the type of development we do want and it should be incentivized.

• ·      A 15,000 sf maximum house size in the county is not reflective of any of our community values.

• ·      While important to our local economy, the residential sector needs “steering” toward “acting more like homes rather than workforce-and-vehicle-trip micro-economies.”

In other words, big homes are at the root of all evil, but even bigger multi-family subsidized housing developments within the urban growth boundary or along transit lines are exactly what we need and are not considered “growth.” As a datapoint, just 159 homes in the county are larger than 10,000 sf.

Critical to the report is a discussion of a workforce and housing imbalance. The analysis is spot-on. “Businesses, schools, non-profits, healthcare providers, police and fire departments, and governments all face a critical inability to hire needed people for key jobs. Big houses that typically hire large staffs (cooks, house managers, gardeners, cleaners, physical trainers, maintenance personnel, etc.) siphon employees away from the ‘public facing’ economy and into the ‘privatized’ economy. To compound the problem, if a worker who has transitioned into the residential employment sector lives in APCHA housing, their former employer must replace both the worker and potentially restore the new employee’s housing needs.” 

Bingo, this is exactly what I’m talking about when I say we have a labor shortage, not a housing one, and our public housing regulations need to change to properly address this.  At the rate we’re going, without new rules, we will continually be housing fewer essential resort and community service workers, and forever crying for more housing until that too is usurped by those who leave the non-essential workforce.

A recent report from the Northwest Colorado Council of Governments (NWCCOG) outlines a local trend that has been all but ignored: the increase in higher paying jobs in Pitkin County. This is not just remote work, but also reflective of growth in the professional and technical services sector (legal, accounting, architectural, engineering, investments) which has created vast opportunities for upward mobility in Pitkin County. When we do not prioritize our taxpayer-funded subsidized housing for essential workers and instead allow workers to keep their APCHA units when they move up to higher paying jobs, it’s the lower paying resort service jobs that go unfilled for lack of available housing. 

The NWCCOG report also illustrates that while jobs such as property management of large homes have indeed increased, they have not offset the loss of construction jobs over the past decade. Therefore, it’s beyond a little dicey to conclude that large Pitkin County homes are solely responsible for negatively impacting the local workforce. The numbers just don’t pencil out.

The growth committee repeatedly refers to a “sense of overwhelm” in its report, attributing this and other negatively perceived quality of life issues solely to big homes, which sounds markedly like the latest version of a desire for wealth redistribution because of its political expediency rather than because the data supports it.

That’s the problem with these community committees. Long hours and well-intended work can often lead to highly biased work product. The actionable conclusions such as massive changes to the county’s land use code will likely not change a thing because these focus on political biases rather than identifying true causes.

It is critical that we have a robust community conversation on growth. And there very well may need to be some changes to the land use code. Equally important, however, is to determine the essential services we must provide as a community as well as those services deemed essential to the functioning of our resort-tourism economy. From there, we will have identified the jobs that should be prioritized for publicly subsidized housing. It’s rather straightforward.

Continually developing subsidized housing for anyone and everyone who wants to live affordably in Aspen is uncontrolled growth on its face. It’s time to admit this. The local governments can attempt to curtail the free market at every turn, but when cause and effect are not aligned, nothing will get solved.

It’s time for some intellectual honesty about growth, and how our housing program must prioritize community and resort service workers. Contact TheRedAntEM@comcast.net

ISSUE #255: Subsidized Housing Ownership - A Mess of Our Own Making (7/31/23)

"Never be afraid to speak your mind on relevant issues; good leaders stand for relevance and they are never afraid to face the facts head on. Bad leaders see the problems, close their eyes and do something else."

-- Israelmore Ayivor

You are all very interested in the inner workings of our subsidized housing program and APCHA's policies that always seem to conclude with a desperate need for "more." The unwavering refusal to audit what we already have makes one wonder what it is they're so afraid of. 

This installment illustrates how our elected leadership on city council and the BOCC enables our failed housing policies and program through obliviousness, excuses, ignorance and personal vitriol toward the free market, including a desire to punish it at every turn.

Read my column in yesterday's Aspen Times HERE.

On another note, it would appear that our county commissioners just may have listened to public feedback about the appetite for a tax increase for subsidized housing on this November's ballot. Thanks to each of you who took the time to take the survey I distributed earlier this summer. Your participation most certainly mattered.

It's not official, but it will be soon. If you're so inclined, HERE is a link to submit public comments to the BOCC to let them know that a ballot measure this November to raise taxes for subsidized housing is an outrageous idea given the state of APCHA, the lack of a proper audit of what we already have, who's in it, where they work and how our 6000 bedrooms are being utilized, and their lack of explicit plans to maintain our existing inventory.

***

The myth is as old as the program itself. In Aspen, we sell our deed restricted subsidized housing instead of renting it in order to provide a sense of housing security, foster pride of ownership and create more engaged community members. In reality, the sales of “ownership” units have ensured the physical destruction of our housing stock while setting owners up for failure.

From the beginning, sales have never been subject to the 1.5% real estate transfer tax (RETT). On a $200K purchase, this amounts to just $3000, but no, housing, despite being funded by the RETT, would not be subject to it. No skin in the game for subsidized housing owners.

Furthermore, collecting dues and reserves for ongoing and preventative maintenance has never been a priority. And there are no repercussions for not paying; no liens upon sale, just “minimal livability standards” that enable a downward spiral.

Yet there is guaranteed simple appreciation: 3% a year or CPI, whichever is less. Intended to reimburse owners for the costs of maintenance over the term of their ownership, this has instead become ill-gotten bonuses since little to no maintenance is ever performed. There is always someone willing to buy whatever becomes available, in whatever sorry state it’s in. Performing maintenance or making improvements has become an irrational act; owners who actually do pay are the suckers. How’s that for pride of ownership?

Last week there were two “housing” meetings – a joint session of city council and the BOCC, as well as an APCHA board retreat. The APCHA board still has no intention of performing a program census to ascertain who lives in our housing, where they work and the utilization of our 6,000 bedrooms, and their pathetic “seller’s standards” and “right-sizing” experiments are going nowhere fast. They do say they will begin randomly auditing five ownership units a year for compliance. We’ll see.

The joint leadership meeting acknowledged the state of HOA capital reserves is far worse than imagined. Just 29 of 80 HOAs even bothered to participate in the last study in 2011. At the time, only two were properly funded and the deficit was estimated to be over $15 million. That was 12 years ago and not a single thing has been done. They’ll be posting an RFP for a new study sometime in 2024. 

Then came the excuses. Those in ownership units are “housing burdened,” a term recognizing that maintenance comes at free market prices, so that’s why no one does any. Without challenging this critical program failure, the group spent a lot of time discussing how the government (with public dollars) ought to subsidize the fixes. “Personal responsibility” never came up.

County commissioner and APCHA board member Francie Jacober then advocated for “building wealth” through subsidized housing ownership, suggesting appreciation should be higher. While APCHA does have the noble goal of providing affordable housing rental and ownership opportunities, it is not a social welfare organization nor a retirement planner. This preposterous notion of wealth creation reveals that subsidized housing is less about actual housing and far more about wealth redistribution. She just said the quiet part out loud.

Another tell illustrating how far from solving the real housing issues our elected leaders are came from county commissioner Steve Child who invoked the old class warfare dog whistle, “If we could make some of these big private homeowners house more employees, we could make a dent in the problem.” 

Ranting that SkiCo needs to be doing more was also a popular theme. Nice try. The valley’s largest employer has built hundreds of rental units in recent years up and down the valley for its employees, and they know exactly who is in each one and which jobs they perform. (We ought to be emulating SkiCo, not tarring it in this toxic conversation.)

A cursory discussion about the growth implications of housing was completely off the mark, focused on water usage and consumption, as if year-round population increases, traffic and added impacts to existing infrastructure don’t exist. If you ignore the big picture, apparently it goes away.

With no acknowledgment that the system is broken, and without imaginative or results-driven solutions to consider, there wasn’t even a hypothetical discussion of whether an all-rental program would address or eliminate our long list of problems. (It would. Every last one of them.) 

Despite what Mick and Rachel have long espoused, ownership is not required to be an engaged community member. The system they built and the myths around it have trapped good people and stressed their finances to where they make the rational decision to neglect their units, which is both accepted and rewarded. It has also proven detrimental to the long term physical sustainability of our housing stock.

Housing security is a two-way street, and today ours is riddled with potholes. It’s not about being set for life while neglecting the often costly responsibilities of home ownership. Qualified residents who remain in compliance will always be secure, even more so in well-maintained and managed rental units. With rentals, we’d have housing that lasts for many future generations. But not until we dispel the myth.

It doesn’t make financial sense to maintain an ownership unit, so most simply do not. Contact TheRedAntEM@comcast.net

ISSUE #254: The Hypocrisy on Growth (7/17/23)

"There are three things in the world that deserve no mercy: hypocrisy, fraud and tyranny."

-- Frederick William Robertson

When yesterday's column ran (read it HERE), it ignited a flurry of comments and feedback. "Growth" is something I think about and discuss regularly, and it has become increasingly obvious that as far as our local governments are concerned, it's just a canard.

They are in fact pro-growth, but just one kind: subsidized housing. Any free market activity you can imagine has been, is being or will soon be curtailed in the name of preventing growth. Sometimes they use "energy consumption" synonymously. But it's always an assault on the free market and the people who live in free market homes.

As it turns out, subsidized housing development is never considered to be growth. In fact, it is encouraged and now permitted in any zone district, even atop historic properties, with only administrative review. 

Do you see what's happening?

Some don't want to expand the airport for fear of growth. But across the road from the airport is likely to be a 277-unit subsidized housing project that will increase our local population by 10% on a full-time basis. No one mentions that growth, nor its impacts, including traffic. So apparently visitor growth is bad, but local growth is good?

Large homes in the county? They want to further regulate these because of "energy consumption," of course. Not a peep about nearly 450,000 new sf of heated development at The Lumberyard, however.

See the hypocrisy?

This community needs a much bigger conversation about growth, carrying capacity, traffic and the entrance to Aspen. But instead, they only want to build more subsidized housing. How do you think this is going to end?

***

At the forefront of the Aspen Area Community Plan is a section on managing growth, where growth is succinctly described as: “Any increase in the size or activity of the community. Growth can be an increase in population, jobs, infrastructure, demand for public services or an increase in the size or use of buildings. Growth can be the result of new development, changes in use, redevelopment or fluctuations in the economy.” 

Yet our current growth discussions are riddled with hypocrisy. 

We have a great debate about updating the airport. Wider runways will enable larger planes which might bring larger crowds. Can our bed base accommodate more visitors? Do we want it to? Where will more visitors eat? What does this mean for traffic? Or climate impacts? These are good questions, integral to a much larger community growth conversation.

But they are being considered in an airport-centric vacuum. Substitute The Lumberyard for the airport and ask the same questions. You’ll get an entirely different answer. Somehow, a 277-unit, 469-bedroom year-round subsidized housing project at Aspen’s entrance chokepoint raises zero alarms in terms of growth. This, despite the full-time addition of 600 people (10%) to our population (6871 in 2023, down 0.56% from 2022).

Land-wise, we’re built out and we’ve known this for over a decade. Our urban growth boundary, established to prevent sprawl and to preserve our rural lands, is maxed. Even in 2012, the AACP noted the primary source of residential construction had become redevelopment. Yet we recently put draconian limits on free market redevelopment, allowing for just 6 demo permits a year because of the growth impacts. All while city hall annexed land for both Burlingame and The Lumberyard, and has given itself the ability to build multi-family housing projects in any in-town zone district. This represents real growth but it’s never mentioned. So which is it? Free market redevelopment growth is awful and to be restricted, yet it’s open season for massive subsidized housing project developments? Are you listening to yourself?

Despite Aspen’s primary economy being visitor-based since the mid-20^th century, and the employment of “managed growth” policies to maintain our small-town quality of life for residents and visitors through strict limits on the massing and scale of new development, we are showing our true colors. Never mind what the AACP says about encouraging a return to a visitor-based economy, visitors and residents, unless they live in subsidized housing, are being vilified and deemed responsible for all perceived negative quality of life issues.

Kinda sounds like the bitter whining of columnist Roger Marolt, right? Trapped in a vortex of nostalgia for the Aspen of his youth, Marolt laments how former second homeowners have dared to move permanently into their private residences. He believes you must live in Aspen from cradle to grave or work full-time in Aspen your entire life to be a deserving local.

This is also why the concept of “housing utilization” has become so taboo. Supported by elected officials, APCHA outright refuses to inventory its portfolio. Knowledge of our subsidized housing utilization and the enormous number of empty bedrooms is antithetical to their narrative that we desperately need more housing. It’s no one’s business how poorly utilized our housing is. Just shut up and build more!

Free market second homes with less than full-time utilization, however, are criminal. Renting to visitors is just as bad; a new short-term rental permitting program and tax is designed to exact the proper pound of flesh for such aberrant behavior. These are homes that working locals ought to inhabit, they cry. And the specter of a vacancy tax, where you are punished for leaving your house empty, is not entirely off the table.

See the pattern here? Visitors, bad. Locals (a la Marolt), good. Free market homeowners, bad. Subsidized housing, good. 

Again, referencing the AACP, which states, “Our long-term sustainability as a community and visitor-based economy depends largely on our ability to remain an attractive, welcoming, accessible and affordable place for future generations.” So how’s that going? I’d venture to say we’ve lost the plot.

Our population is actually declining, despite the influx of “urban exodus” folks. But these are “free market people,” which is why they haven’t been welcomed and embraced, just vilified and blamed for “growth.” But only after collecting their RETT dollars and cashing their checks to local non-profits, of course.

As our growth discussion continues, the temptation for ever-more-stringent regulations and restrictions on the free market in the name of this growth beckons. But growth and its impacts must be addressed with parity. The hypocrisy must end. Pitkin County is mulling new development regulations supposedly to address energy consumption but it’s obviously just to further curtail free market development; they have zero problem with nearly 450,000 new sf of heated space at The Lumberyard. 

This has gotten absurd. Our governments are talking out of both sides of their mouths (and losing all credibility in doing so). The desire to make Aspen into “an affordable, lived-in community for locals” is clearly just a test to see how much the free market is willing to take.

To be continued. I have a lot more to say on the matter. Contact TheRedAntEM@comcast.net

ISSUE #253: A Bridge Over Troubled Politics (7/3/23)

"Men build too many walls and not enough bridges."

-- Joseph Fort Newton

We'd be far better served if council would direct city hall to seek new and innovative Castle Creek bridge replacement solutions vs waiting for city staff to come back in the near future with another attempt to cram its "preferred alternative" down our throats.

Read my column in yesterday's Aspen Times HERE.

In other business, thank you for submitting public comment recently regarding memoralizing the development plans for The Lumberyard. You spoke and council listened. The feedback received was enough to give council pause and the matter was continued.

The first related meeting on the subject of financing the project is a work session on July 10. Unfortunately this meeting will not allow public comment, but you can always send yours in. I hope you will, especially if you have relevant development financing knowledge and experience. Use THIS link and add "Work Session 7/10/23" to the subject line. Can you just imagine the nonsense city staff will be peddling about how easy it will be to finance the $500 million project? Let's hope council is smart enough to see through it.

Then, on August 10, council will meet again and likely vote. Stay tuned. I'll be back in touch with how you can once again become involved. If you're in town, this is the one to come to in person to make your comments directly to council.

***

When a gasoline tanker lost control while exiting I-95 outside of Philadelphia on June 11, the ensuing fire and destruction of the overpass created a monumental headache for the 160,000 vehicles that cross that section of highway every day. The 23-mile detour was initially expected to last for months while the highway was repaired, but the use of innovative materials and employment of creative solutions had the road re-opened in just 12 days.

Extrapolating to the impending Castle Creek Bridge replacement, why aren’t we looking at creative and innovative solutions? Yes, the bridge needs to be replaced. It was built in 1961 with an intended 75-year lifespan. But the city is solely fixated on one obtrusive replacement concept that will admittedly take 8-12 years to complete at a construction cost over $200 million that will do absolutely nothing to reduce travel time yet will decimate cherished open space at the entrance to Aspen.

Why, when there is some really great “bridge technology” out there? A layman’s cursory afternoon of research yielded many fascinating examples of bridge-building in the 21^st century, many of which have unique similarities to our local challenges. 

Our “fix” could be as easy as ABC.

Accelerated Bridge Construction is not some untested pipe-dream or newfangled concept employed in an unregulated European outpost. It’s a paradigm shift in bridge-building that prioritizes the need to minimize the mobility impacts of onsite construction that results in improvements across the board to safety, quality, durability, social costs, environmental impacts, project delivery time, and of course, cost.

One component of ABC, called “replacement in place” or the “bridge slide method,” seems to have our name on it. In short, new piers are constructed beneath the existing bridge. New lane segments are then constructed on either side. When traffic is shifted to the new outer lanes, the existing structure in the center is dismantled. A new, prefabricated structure is then slid into place.

A “replacement in place” project just like this was completed in January on State Route 79 over the Gila River in Florence, Arizona. It took just two successive weekends of lane restrictions (one lane operational, with signals) from 8pm on Friday through 5a on Monday and $22.1 million to complete.

Another ABC practice that seems applicable here is that of foundation re-use. This is where an existing bridge is rehabilitated or replaced by one of four foundation re-use options: build new foundations adjacent to the existing ones, demo and replace the existing foundations, re-use the existing ones or re-use the existing foundations after strengthening and enhancing them. Case and point, in 2015, Indiana and Kentucky collaborated to rehabilitate a deteriorating bridge over the Ohio River by strengthening the existing foundations then replacing the superstructure (span) with a pre-assembled steel truss, resulting in considerable cost savings and a significantly shorter delivery time than what a complete replacement would have taken.

The US Department of Transportation is working to create awareness, inform, educate, train, assist and entice state DOTs to employ rapid construction techniques. Pre-fabrication of bridges is not new; the industry has been pre-fabricating steel bridge beams for over 50 years and the use of pre-fabricated bridge elements and systems have seen widespread use over the past decade.

The goal of ABC is to expand pre-fabrication to all elements of the bridge with more emphasis on erection and rigging, and less on casting concrete. Sure, ABC requires different construction methods and equipment, but the method also encourages incentive dates and “complete no later than” contracts. Imagine the city of Aspen being interested in such efficiencies!

Best of all for us, CDOT already employs ABC and has for some time. In July 2013, when in just over 12 hours from noon on a Saturday to just after midnight Sunday, they rolled in and set in its final configuration the 2400-ton (4.8 million pounds) Pecos Street Bridge over I-70 between I-25 and Federal. 

Examples abound. The technology exists. The experts are at work. Yet once again, the city of Aspen blusters and pontificates about leading the world while relying on overpaid consultants, quarter-century old research and outdated methodologies when planning for and making decisions about Aspen’s future. 

The city has never been known for its vision, nor its construction prowess. Like its nonchalant acceptance of outrageous construction timelines, stratospheric cost estimates for one project after the next are casually approved. It’s a slap in the face.

Replacement and enlargement of the Castle Creek Bridge makes infinite sense. It can be completed far faster than any alternative. There are no regulatory entanglements. It is an existing and sufficient right of way. The Marolt Open Space is preserved. There are no issues with historic property. There are no neighborhood impacts and no new stoplights. One bridge using state and federal funds is the most cost effective solution. 

In 1960, it took just a year to build the existing bridge. Imagine the possibilities of replacing it in the modern era using ABC techniques. We cannot rely on our local government to bring the solution to us. It is simply beyond their scope. It is time for city council to give new direction toward replacing the bridge. 

Be prepared to voice your feedback when the city moves to jam its preferred alternative down our throats. They’re just waiting for the next opportunity. Contact TheRedAntEM@comcast.net

ISSUE #252: A Kick in the Assessments (6/20/23)

"Who pays property taxes? We all do, either directly in property tax bills or through higher rents 

and other costs."

-- Michelle Steel

This week's column was an attempt to explain how Pitkin County came to arrive at your recent property valuations. In short, it wasn't arbitrary ... but there is some subjectivity. If you appealed your valuation, be prepared to make your case. Read my column from Sunday's Aspen Times HERE.

THE LUMBERYARD

Thanks to all of you who responded to my recent call to action on The Lumberyard. It was your public comment and feedback that resulted in a robust council meeting and an 8-week continuance on granting development entitlements to the massive public housing project! 

You raised critical questions about the following topics and council recognized they owed you answers:

• Traffic and a new stoplight on Highway 82
• Integration of The Lumberyard with the Entrance to Aspen
• Design issues: unit size, height, on-site traffic flow, parking, materials, architecture
• And of course, FINANCES - how to pay for it!!

First up is a council work session on financing models and the flexibility of entitlements (once granted) on July 10. As a work session, there will not be public comment, but if you're like me, you don't want city staff and their self-interested consultants insisting that getting government grants and attracting development partners is EASIER with development entitlements locked in! While you can't make a public comment, you sure can send one in! HERE is that link again. Please include "Work Session July 10" on the subject line. Let me know how I can help.

Councilmen Bill Guth and Sam Rose led the charge to better define the financial options before entitling the project. Bill additionally highlighted the lack of objectivity from city staff when evaluating a project where the city is also the applicant. Heck, if financing The Lumberyard is so easy, why can't they show us specifically how they plan to do it?!

Interestingly, Ward Hauenstein and Mayor Torre both questioned how flexible the entitlements would be once locked in, concerned about tying the city's or a future development partner's hands with stringent requirements on unit number, FAR, height and a number of specific design issues. Your questions made them think! And they showed how non-committal they are to the plans currently in place.

In short, it became quite clear that this project IS NOT ready to be entitled. But it will be revisited soon and we must be ready.

As we move forward, it will be important to communicate with council using real-world examples specifically in the entitlement / public private partnership / and construction financing realms that they can easily understand. 

Do you have specific experience in any of these areas? I'd love to hear from you as I prepare to make my case. Please drop me a note by replying to this email. 

It certainly does take a village. And it will continue to. Thank you again for stepping up. We're not done yet.

***

May’s property valuation notices hit like a ton of bricks. While statewide property assessments rose 30% - 70%, Pitkin County is up 85% in cumulative market value, the highest in Colorado. The COVID-era urban exodus dramatically impacted our real estate market resulting in drastic assessment increases, some as high as 324%.

I called the county assessor’s office to learn how they specifically arrived at the new assessed values. 

Property value calculations are based on real estate sales that occurred during the 18 months between January 1, 2021 and June 30, 2022, a unique period of time when both residential and non-residential property sales prices skyrocketed. Governor Polis stepped in with temporary relief, but even at reduced assessment rates (6.76% residential, 27.9% non-residential), projections for property tax increases loom large.

In a perfect storm, in 2020 voters also repealed the Gallagher Amendment which had long benefitted homeowners with its 45%-55% tax burden, split with businesses. Under Gallagher, as residential property values increased, assessed values came down. But resultant tax collections, especially in rural areas, eventually declined so much that services were threatened without a commercial tax base to rely on. The repeal was intended to freeze assessment rates while preserving funding for public services. Then came the real estate market insanity.

For reference, the elected assessor’s role is one of department administration. Property values are determined by county appraisers who divide the county into 15 economic areas such as city of Aspen, east Aspen, Town of Snowmass Village, Brush Creek, Woody Creek, the Frying Pan, etc. They then divide each economic area into proximate neighborhoods. Real estate sales data from the designated 18-month timeframe is plotted for each neighborhood. A price/sf is assigned to each neighborhood based on these sales. 

In a mass appraisal, the neighborhood price/sf is then assigned to every property in that neighborhood. The appraisers then assign a “quality” to each individual property that incorporates information from building permits, the last inspection of the property, as well factors such as views, based on best available information.

The outcome is neighborhood assessments on a bell curve that reflect the disparity between proximate properties and take into account the “quality rating” of the individual properties. 

If you are thinking “subjective,” you wouldn’t be far off. There most certainly are outliers and cases where there aren’t proximate comps. It then falls to the appraisers to “find” comps.

I hope you appealed if you believe you have a case. The county expects it. They’ve received over xxxappeals this year. Appealing is not viewed negatively nor as confrontational, merely the property owner’s opportunity to make a case. If you have an upcoming hearing, be prepared to make one, and know that you can ask to see the comps used by the appraiser in determining your assessed value.

So, it’s not arbitrary, nor is it a computer algorithm. It’s a 17,000-property human endeavor. Just pray you don’t get Mick Ireland as your hearing officer. Yes, the old class warrior and wealth redistributor has again been contracted by the board of equalization to sit in judgment on local cases!

On the commercial front, “non-residential” properties always saw their assessed values go up, but never dramatically like this. Even held to a 27.9% rate, the new property values will make commercial taxes even more outrageous, which only portends one thing: higher prices. 

Commercial real estate in Aspen is structured on triple net (NNN) leases. No landlord pays property taxes. In addition to rent, the tenant pays the property tax, maintenance and insurance; costs that are passed onto the consumer. 

As a hypothetical example, say Paradise Bakery pays $90,000/year in taxes as part of their NNN. If the property tax increases 30%, their NNN reflects $120,000 in taxes. When those delicious cookies sell for $3.65 a piece, Paradise is on the hook to sell an additional 8,219 cookies just to stay even. Any wonder why “local shops” can’t make it in Aspen? It’s the taxes, not the landlords!

Speaking of landlords, their net operating income (NOI) is from rent received. That NOI, when divided by the current market value of the property, yields the capitalization rate, a.k.a. the rate of return. As assessed values increase, the cap rate declines. It’s pretty straightforward to see how lower cap rates are likely to drive rents upward. The consumer absorbs this in addition to inevitable increases in NNN, that is, if the businesses can survive.

There are over 50 taxing districts in Pitkin County depending on where you live.  Each was enabled by local voters to levy taxes. Colorado Mountain College recently elected to temporarily decrease its mill levy to reduce the taxpayers’ burden. This magnanimous step should be immediately emulated by all other taxing authorities either voluntarily or at the formal urging of the board of county commissioners. Garfield County set an example by reducing its mill levy and encouraging its taxing entities to follow suit.

Perhaps we need a citizens’ petition to lobby the BOCC to act. Anyone interested in leading the charge? I’ll help. 

Each tax district must come back to the voters to extend their mill levies in the future. Let’s see who steps up to help us out today. Voters have a long memory. Contact TheRedAntEM@comcast.net

ISSUE #251: ANT ALERT - Give Lumberyard Feedback Today! (6/12/23)

"The Lumberyard is just another of the many fingers in the dike trying to restrain the forces of gentrification flooding our community."

-- Mick Ireland

Tomorrow at 3p, city council will be voting to lock in development plans for The Lumberyard. This is reckless and absurd. There are far too many unanswered questions and the community is being kept in the dark. 

It is ESSENTIAL that you click HERE and write a note - however brief - expressing your vehement disapproval. (Very little public comment has been received thus far, so council continually refers to "feedback" they received when they originally asked housing seekers "what do you want at The Lumberyard?" This is hardly what we want guiding such a monumental decision!)

You do not have to be an Aspen voter to voice your opposition!

SPEAK NOW! 

A "no" vote will not stop the project, but it will pause it so the community can see:

A) The budget

B) The financing plans

C) The traffic plans

D) The specifics on who will eventually reside there

E) A study on the impacts to our schools, hospital and other vital infrastructure

F) Impacts on the community in terms of real growth.

Today, we have ZERO information on these issues.

The Lumberyard plans are not ready to be memorialized, but city hall is rushing to get things underway. Once underway, they'll say it's too late to change anything. This is their modus operandi.

A couple important tidbits:

• The Lumberyard stands to be the largest municipal project in Aspen's history.
• It has no funding source nor budget.
• Nearly $30 million has already been spent on the land. 
• Over $4.3 million has already been spent on design, but only as far as the "schematic" phase. Much more design work is still to come.
• City staff has told council there are "9 financing models" yet none have been publicly shared. (My guess is they don't exist.)
• City staff continually tells council that the city has "significant" funding options for the project yet won't reveal them. (Could they be referring to the drastically shrinking RETT revenues?)
• While P&Z has technically approved The Lumberyard, they stated grave concerns over Hwy 82 traffic impacts, infrastructure at the ABC and a new stoplight/intersection - topics that were outside the scope of their review yet big enough to be raised. The city has ignored their feedback.
• Estimates have units costing $1.5 million per to build while the Roaring Fork School District is building housing for teachers for $573K/unit. Maybe we ought to at least look at what they're doing?
• The cheap-looking design is massive. The 4-story buildings are 64' in height. You do the math.
• Despite the likelihood of becoming an all-rental complex, LY units have been designed larger than required by APCHA, with walk-in closets, in-unit laundry, mudrooms, storage closets and balconies or porches. Is this efficient? Necessary? Or just plain stupid?
• The city is both judge and jury in this application - they are pushing for council's approval of their own development plans. If an outside developer proposed this nonsense they'd be laughed out of the room.
• Many more "contracts" are in the immediate pipeline awaiting approval. If plans are approved on Tuesday, the spending will begin in earnest - with no funding source.

Don't take my word for it. BY FAR THE BEST RESOURCE for facts and info on The Lumberyard has been provided by my friends at 

Aspen Deserves Better, a non-political platform dedicated to fostering community engagement and conversation. HERE is their newsletter from last night on this critical issue.

I also encourage you to subscribe. I wholeheartedly agree: Better engagement and processes can only lead to better governance.

I implore you. Please take 3 minutes NOW and write a brief note to council expressing how The Lumberyard is "not ready" for approval, in your own words. Weigh in and be counted. Your opinion does matter. Thank you!!

ISSUE #250: Seeds of Dissent at the Community Garden (6/4/23)

"A good garden may have some weeds."

-- Proverb

The Aspen pastime has recently become complaining about bygone eras. And it's exasperating. Everyone likes to point fingers and attribute blame. 

I find that more often than not it's the city of Aspen itself that's at the center of what ails us.

Take the Community Garden for example. It's become a bureaucratic mess like so many other programs overseen and controlled by the local government.

Read my column in today's Aspen Times HERE.

Lots of important reading today....

For those who were appalled by my recent "Ant Alert" about a poll to gauge interest in a new Pitkin County property or sales tax measure for the November ballot, HERE is a link to that incredibly leading poll. As predicted, the poll is more about getting people to acknowledge a need for more housing than weighing a tax measure. I encourage you to take it, but do so VERY carefully. They're trying to trick you. When it asks how a given statement would make you more willing to say yes to a proposed tax increase, be sure to answer NOT AT ALL. Vote early and often.

IMPORTANT: The public hearing to formalize the development entitlements for The Lumberyard is this Tuesday, June 6. It's a big deal. Approval of these plans before we have a funding source is not only beyond irresponsible and a slap in the face of the taxpayers who will ultimately foot the bill, it likely hurts our ability to bring in a financial partner who may very well want their say in what's developed. If you cannot be at the meeting (HERE is the 1476-page packet), please re-read my last column and send a letter with your unequivocal displeasure to council. HERE is an email link. More background on the dire financial specifics can be found HERE and HERE.

One last thing on the subject of The Lumberyard, HERE is Daily News columnist and former city finance director Paul Menter's last column. His excoriation of the city and The Lumberyard project specifically caps a remarkable 12-year run holding the city's feet to the fire. His frustration is palpable. 

There is NO GOOD REASON to move The Lumberyard forward.

***

For over 40 years, across the Marolt Pedestrian Bridge lies the Aspen Community Garden. In 1978, Larry Dunn, aided by Ed Compton, “the official dean of Aspen gardeners” who lived nearby in senior housing, created a place for local residents of all ages to get close to nature with a dedicated area within the Marolt Open Space. 

The Victory Gardens of WWII became the community gardens of the late 20^th century. The idea was to start with a small plot, learn to garden, and graduate to a larger plot with success, as determined by Compton and his “garden leadership” team.  Prospective gardeners originally stood on their plots to claim them, and the garden flourished, yielding a cornucopia ranging from snow peas to garlic to sunflowers to rhubarb and more. The Aspen Times’ archives report few instances of poaching.

Due to popular demand, the garden was expanded in 1980, and it continued to thrive with a focus on self-sufficiency and education on organic food growth. In 1985, a benefit concert at the Wheeler raised money for the project, which by then had become a cornerstone of the community. Goals of the garden were explicit: to ease financial pressures on seniors and other local employees by enabling them to grow their own produce. Participants were aided by 10 kids a day whose working parents “volunteered” them. In short, the community garden gave a sense of purpose to local seniors and provided free day care for several parents!

Like most everything else in Aspen, those idyllic days are long gone. Today the community garden still thrives, but has become yet another bureaucracy within the city of Aspen. A low priority, buried in the Parks and Recreation department, overseen by a secretive “garden leadership” group and managed by a local volunteer, the organization and most notably its elusive wait list are shrouded in mystery. There is no public roster of who has plots, nor will the city allow the waitlist to be posted with anything more than initials. 

Comprised of 57 large plots (roughly 10 x 40 feet) and 26 smaller ones at the west end, the community garden has space for 83 gardeners, and at press time 105 wait to be assigned a plot of their own. Inquiries about the garden over the past year have been met with obfuscation, dismissal and suspicion, which only piques my interest. I was given a numbered and lettered plot map, but nothing further due to “city rules.”

Reports of friends gifting plots to friends, individuals combining multiple plots, and plots assigned yet neglected proliferate. Such a public amenity with a robust waiting list has no grounds for operating like a private club, with special rules for special people and zero transparency. Yet it does.

Notably, in the past year, the official regulations have been updated to include a residency requirement: you must be a resident of the Roaring Fork Valley for at least nine months of the year to qualify for a plot. So apparently anyone in the region can have a plot in our community garden, ahead of city residents who pay taxes for this open space and despite the explicit request not to drive cars to the garden. 

Whether that overly lenient rule is even enforced is unknown. Other listed rules prohibit structures or internal fences, yet the garden, especially at this time of year before it’s filled in with plantings, looks like Sanford and Son’s junkyard. Plastic garden chairs and other bric-a brac indicate that many plots are utilized as remote backyards and not necessarily gardens, if the one with the kids sandbox and toys is any indicator. Meanwhile, higgledy-piggledy fences delineate various plots. It’s a mess.

If you’re thinking that the community garden sounds a lot like APCHA, another government program that started with the best intentions yet came off the rails over time because no one was paying attention, you wouldn’t be wrong. The community garden has sadly become one more entitlement to be taken advantage of and junked up instead of respected as a privilege. That’s probably also why one rule expressly prohibits camping in one’s garden.

It is worth pointing out that there are indeed many legitimate gardens out there. Several local chefs enhance their menus with farm to table offerings. And numerous serious gardeners have beautiful and bountiful plots, reflecting not just their green thumbs but their pride and community spirit. 

It only takes one bad apple, and at our community garden it’s the city of Aspen’s administrative state that has destroyed the original intent. The lack of transparency and oversight, and the concentration of power among a mysterious group has turned a unique community resource into an exclusive and lawless benefit for a select few.

A simple, straightforward and equitable fix would be to restructure the garden by dividing the existing larger plots in half, creating 10 x 20 foot gardens for an additional 57 Aspen gardeners, thereby clearing over half the waitlist. And establishing an independent and dedicated citizen leadership committee like they had in the good old days.

When it comes to the Aspen city government, you reap what you sow. Contact TheRedAntEM@comcast.net