ISSUE #222: Aspen's Broken Social Compact (6/7/22)

"Nothing is worse, or more of a breach of the social compact between citizens and state, than for government officials, bureaucrats and agencies to waste the money entrusted to them by the people they serve." -- Bob Riley

Apologies for the brevity but I am traveling this week. I thought you might enjoy my column that ran in Sunday's Aspen Times HERE.

* * * * *

In America, people must consent to government authority. This consent takes the form of laws, order, and often, a social compact. Social compacts exist when a community forges an agreement with itself about the value it creates. Social compacts encompass broad concepts such as accountability, legitimacy, transparency and public trust across social, economic, ethnic and religious lines to theoretically resolve disagreements and enable harmonious coexistence. 

In 1990, Aspen voters first approved a 1.0% real estate transfer tax (RETT) to fund subsidized employee housing; the social compact guiding the tax intended for the funds to be utilized to provide housing for the local workforce. Imposing taxes upon oneself placed public trust in the local government to “do the right thing” for local workers and the community, and consequently, as property values began to skyrocket, to help ensure a stable, high-quality workforce for the long term. This intent was clearly paramount in the minds of both Aspen’s free market residential homeowners who pay the tax as well as the housing program’s beneficiaries who voted the measure in. The social compact was born.

Originally called “employee” housing, the city’s RETT-funded housing gradually came to be deemed “affordable” housing once the program evolved to permit non-working beneficiaries to live in the subsidized units. For a time, the program was affordable. Precious little remains of its original affordability, and as a result, I always refer to it as “subsidized” housing because that is simply what it is.

Aspen’s bureaucracy, however, now refers to this housing as “community” housing, and so it has become, perhaps inevitably. Still, the term “community” concedes that Aspen’s subsidized housing long ago ceased to be for workers, nor is it by any stretch affordable. This semantic shift makes clear the government’s deliberate decision to alter its social compact with the voters and property owners whose taxes have long made the program possible. 

The new compact provides subsidized housing with no long-term goals for how much will ever be enough for residents who no longer work in resort or community-serving jobs. In place of the program’s original intent, our housing program now recklessly chases the infinite demand for housing by people seeking to live affordably in Aspen. So, as plans to collect ever-escalating fees and taxes to build and accommodate this ongoing demand for Aspen’s idyllic lifestyle on an subsidized basis, one thing is clear, the original social compact is irrefutably broken.

Have we all been played? APCHA’s 3,000-plus unit subsidized housing portfolio has nearly 6,000 bedrooms, while the city has a documented population of 7,721. Yet allegedly we have a housing shortage. We don’t. We have a labor shortage exacerbated by a subsidized housing program that no longer prioritizes housing actual workers.  And the city’s grandiose future plans, such as those for the Lumberyard, have zero intention of addressing our actual needs. 

APCHA has proven incapable of properly managing the current subsidized housing stock. Our local governments build expensive new projects to deflect and distract from addressing the ticking time bomb of expiring deed restrictions, where hundreds of current subsidized housing units will revert to the free market in coming years. APCHA, in its conflicted dual role as both subsidized housing program operator and regulator, refuses to disclose who it is we are housing, where they work, and whether or not they actually comply with their own permissive governing rules. Our electeds prefer not to know; such knowledge might conflict with their unwavering desire to deliver more.

What very little remains of the social compact will deteriorate even further with the 277-unit Lumberyard project. A $425 million project cost is the equivalent of $55,000 from every one of Aspen’s 7,700 men, women, and children – an astonishing figure. Perhaps compared to the $90,000 national debt share each of us shoulders, $55k to build 277 subsidized housing units may seem like a bargain. To me, it feels like yet another violation of Aspen’s social compact. Funding more subsidized housing units with not just the RETT but ever-higher and arbitrary mitigation fees charged to a dwindling population of free market homeowners is like eating one’s seed corn.  Even so, the city of Aspen boldly assaults the social compact and arrogantly comes back again and again for more.

Under leadership devoid of real-world experience that operates on feelings while ignoring facts, Aspen’s original social compact for worker housing has become a thing of the past. Today, it’s no longer even about workers, as city leaders casually dismiss the pressing need for proper housing for the workforce. Instead, in a misguided attempt to tame the free market and punish those who buy into it, they seek to fulfill their long term desire for a utopian subsidized community. The Lumberyard alone will grow our full-time, year-round population by 10%, and will clearly impact our quality of life, far more so than robust seasonal tourism, not to mention stress our vital infrastructure including the hospital and schools. And in the end, there still won’t be anyone to do the work.

The social compact was the glue that held this community together. What now? Contact TheRedAntEM@comcast.net

ISSUE #221: City Council's Off-season Power Trip (5/23/22)

"And whatever we do, it should be sort of limited. Let's present some options instead of giving free reign to a committee."

-- former Aspen city councilman Jack Johnson

Each city council has a unique make-up - and we've had some doozies. Remember when Mick was mayor and he and his cohorts JE DeVilbis and Jack Johnson collaborated to bring us the ill-fated Hydro Plant and the disastrous Instant Run-off Voting debacle (among other policies) when they ran the table with their 3 votes? Our current group is not much different. They're a 5-0 echo chamber, with little to no discussion nor debate, and with absolutely zero regard for citizen comment or feedback. "Community outreach" is simply a formality so they can check that box.

But don't be surprised that I am advocating for significant raises for the mayor and city council. No, I'm not talking about merit pay. I am playing long ball here and recognizing that we have been getting EXACTLY what we pay for. In short, nothing. 

The paltry pay for our city electeds is actually a major deterrent when recruiting interested and qualified citizens to run for local office. We currently have a $211 million annual budget, so we can absolutely afford it. Besides:

• The current salaries are right there with those of a part-time dog walker.
• Raises would not affect the current group - they'd have to get re-elected in order to actually get the raise.
• County Commissioners are paid $90K a year (set by the state).
• The complexities of "running Aspen" (and that budget) warrant fair compensation for actual skill sets.
• Do we really think city staff respects anyone who is willing to work for peanuts? Maybe that's why they regularly run roughshod over council.

We should do this now, while financial times are good, otherwise, we stand to go another generation only being able to attract the bottom of the barrel to run for office. 

It's an investment in our future. Read my column in yesterday's Aspen Times HERE.

Notably, the next municipal election is in March 2023.

* * * * *

While town is empty during the annual spring sojourns, our local electeds, left unchaperoned, have embarked on a vacation of sorts of their own. It’s called a power trip. There is no other way to describe their self-serving and arrogant behavior, reflected in recent quickly-enacted policies that serve few good purposes other than to inflate their own egos and assert their lordship over the local minions.

• ·      The six month moratorium on residential development permits was quickly extended by at least two months while draconian new regulations are finalized. These promise to include increased fees and mitigation to fund an upwardly-moving-but-unstated number of new subsidized housing units, as well as increased allowable densities on vacant properties where developers will be encouraged to build high-density, multi-family housing in all zone districts. 

• ·      While council decides who is allowed to rent out their private property on a short term basis, the flawed assertion that short term rentals are to blame for Aspen’s housing crisis, not the mis-managed housing program itself, is repeated time and again. The 2008 Aspen Area Community Plan cites in the eight years “from 2000 to 2008, the ratio of local workers living in free market housing dropped from 22% to 13%.” Conservatively extrapolating 14 years later, it has likely decreased another 9%, from 13% to 4%. Is this really the biggest crisis in our community? A higher priority than anything else? 

• ·      Distracted by their work transforming Aspen into a socialist worker’s paradise with a near-term goal of adding 500 subsidized housing units to our existing inventory, our electeds have neglected the very real impacts of expiring deed restrictions on numerous properties in our portfolio. Notably, the rental portion of Centennial representing home to 450 local workers was sold in 2020 to a private equity firm that also recently snapped up an additional 22 units in town. These units house local workers today, but the deed restrictions are not permanent, and when they expire, the properties will revert to the free market. Perhaps we should protect what we have before building more?

• ·      Remember Taster’s Pizza, by the skate park along Rio Grande Place? It was driven out amid construction of the Taj Mahal City Hall and not replaced. An affordable restaurant there was clearly not a priority. With the stroke of a pen and zero formal review process, council recently approved a food truck in front of that location, usurping a couple parking spaces. This strangely comes on the heels of an early May “clean-up” that saw the demise of the Creperie’s street activation “Chalet” and Kemosabe’s barn, among others, and notably, the cancellation of the W Hotel’s food truck in 2020. “Messy vitality” for me, but not for thee.

• ·      On the outskirts of town, the roundabout remains torn up. The only thing council is doing about traffic on Highway 82 other than ignoring it is planning to make it worse with a new traffic light at the Lumberyard.

• ·      The Lumberyard’s final unit count has been set at 277, with an estimated cost of $400 million. This $1.44 million per unit cost is likely the most expensive publicly subsidized housing project in America on a per square footage basis. With the city as developer, the actual costs are likely to be 20% higher. There has yet to be any discussion about how this half billion dollar project will be funded and by whom, but a consultant just revealed that the target market is half for those already in subsidized housing who want to trade up, and the other half is for workers who currently live down valley who want to live closer to town.

Aspen has lost its way. Our biggest crisis is one of leadership. These off-season decisions in no way even begin to address the truly critical issues facing the community, many the result of unforced errors: a labor shortage due to little seasonal worker housing, horrendous traffic, no parking, the loss of childcare and class warfare. 

Not to be confused in any way with a merit-based pay increase, it’s time to dramatically change the compensation structure for our elected city officials. Today, our one-named tennis-teaching mayor makes just shy of $40,000 a year in his elected role. The others, an artist, a computer guy, a city market employee and Skippy, make just over $32,000. The hours are arguably long, therefore more enlightened members of the community are loathe to take on these roles given the paltry pay.

As we prepare for the March 2023 municipal elections and strive to entice qualified candidates to run for office and bring some new blood, experience and common sense to a body that desperately needs it, it’s time to raise the pay scale. We’ll be electing a mayor and two councilmembers. In government, you get what you pay for, and it’s abundantly clear that despite a $211 million annual budget, the city of Aspen is an absolute cheapskate when it comes to compensating its elected officials. Look what we’ve got. We can certainly afford to double these salaries. Let’s move beyond the discount aisle and attract some good candidates. 

Aspen deserves better. 

Are you interested in running for elected office in Aspen? Or do you know someone who is? Election season is fast approaching. Contact TheRedAntEM@comcast.net

ISSUE #220: Tourists, Go Home! (5/8/22)

"The critic said, 'But don't you feel awkward about biting the hand that feeds you?' and I said, 'No, I enjoy just gnawing it up to the shoulder.'"

-- Myles Horton

Have you heard of a Destination Management Plan? It's apparently the hot new thing for tourism destinations like ours, especially places that can afford outreach-intensive feedback-gathering by consultants who then tidy it all up into a useful workbook.

However well-intended, ours was recently presented to city council by the Aspen Chamber Resort Association (ACRA) that commissioned it. This well-respected civic organization that locally serves formally as both a chamber of commerce and manager of the Aspen visitor experience learned what many of us already have - that city council does not want feedback, they don't want proof of their failures and they certainly don't want to be reminded, however constructively, of them at all. Never mind there are some good suggestions in there.

Council showed their true colors on their thoughts about tourism, and these colors were not pretty. It spoke volumes about the increasingly fractured relationship between "locals" and those we rely upon for our economic existence.

Read my column in today's Aspen Times HERE.

Read the Destination Management Plan HERE.

* * * * * 

The Aspen Chamber Resort Association (ACRA) recently presented its 5-year destination management plan to city council, and, in short, it fell flat. The 36-page document is aggressive, compiled with a consultant to “coordinate management of all aspects of a destination that contribute to a visitor’s experience, taking into consideration the perspectives and expectations of local residents, visitors, industry businesses, the environment and local government.” The problem wasn’t so much the plan itself; I’m told all the hot tourist destinations are doing them. The problem is that ACRA bit off far more than it could chew.

You may ask, as I did, why Aspen’s chamber is attempting to take on such herculean tasks when many of these roles actually belong to the City. Clearly, the City has abandoned its responsibilities in favor of playing subsidized housing developer, enacting moratoriums, brainstorming new uses for the Armory, debating the entrance to Aspen and saving the planet from climate change. Therefore, ACRA, a hybrid organization that serves as a chamber of commerce as well as a destination marketing organization that serves to support the Aspen business community, attract visitors to the resort and enhance the visitor experience, attempted to herd all the cats into one ambitious plan.

With zero public policy-making authority, ACRA’s well-intended solutions to the issues our local government is neglecting were not particularly well received. But council did embrace the over-arching focus of the plan: despite tourism being the most important economic driver of Aspen and its surrounding communities, the plan is not about tourism. It’s primarily about local residents and protecting their quality of life from the onslaught and effects of tourism. Locals first, baby. 

Outreach on how Aspen can survive its reputation economically, socially, environmentally and existentially revealed ugly and alarming truths about who we have become as a community. Tourists are a nuisance. Residents dislike Aspen’s “touristy nature.” Tourism contributes to the loss of small town character. Some visitors don’t respect Aspen. New visitors are less considerate and have higher expectations. The off-seasons are shrinking. ACRA needs to develop “responsible tourism.” The city is too busy, there’s too much traffic, and more full-time residents are stressing our infrastructure. We need to educate our tourists. There is too much social inequity. You get the picture. This approach politically panders to an embittered local audience yet frighteningly bites the hand that feeds us. 

By advocating for community value-based efforts to address traffic, the environment, parking, and even housing, ACRA was hoping for collaboration with council around a common vision, but council gave ACRA a beat-down for highlighting their ongoing failures in each of these areas. Besides, council has no vision.

Council then displayed their irrational views of tourism and added their personal desires to what they strangely treated as ACRA’s “to-do” list. Ward Hauenstein stated that “we need a sustainable community more than we need tourists,” asserting, “We are over-visited at this point.” He wants “congestion pricing” and agrees with John Doyle that we need “climate action” immediately. Torre wants to “support employees” and Skippy wants “more money for workforce housing” reflected in our tourism policies.  This is typical of our business-ignorant council; when reacting to something they don’t like, they use the stick (or axe) to stop it in its tracks, rather than acknowledging its importance and finding a way to reduce the impacts.

Meanwhile, Rachel weighed in with rare wisdom, “ACRA needs to step up and start taking the side of the workers.” She’s right, it does.

Chamber-member businesses are dramatically affected by our labor and housing shortage. ACRA can and should be vociferous in its support of local businesses through unrelenting advocacy for workforce housing, specifically seasonal rentals, right-sizing and efficient management of our housing inventory. It’s time to join growing list of rational local voices in demanding an independent APCHA audit and a formal housing needs assessment before building hundreds of for-sale 3-bedroom condos at the Lumberyard for middle class families. ACRA’s powerful voice would dramatically impact the conversation. This is the low-hanging fruit. It is also the role of a chamber.

As for destination management, we may indeed be a victim of our own success, and it’s a good first step to stop marketing Aspen in the off-season. But if we’re really “too full,” perhaps it’s time to turn off the spigot by repealing the 2% lodging tax, 75% of which goes to tourism promotion. In the meantime, the plan will focus on niche, diverse and multi-cultural markets through value-based targeting and “passion-ography” that will attract travelers who “positively impact locals.” That, and scolding our visitors until they learn our model behavior. (Have we lost our collective minds?)

Businesses are encouraged to join ACRA in order to offer their employees a discounted ski pass. The chamber also produces iconic special events and provides vital visitor services. Attempting to reconcile the divergent expectations of local residents, visitors, industry businesses, the environment and local government in Aspen is a simple recipe to becoming council’s scapegoat for their growing list of public policy failures.  It is not the role for such a respected civic body. 

Are we incredibly fortunate to live in a world-class tourist destination or do we live in a community that we allow people to visit when it suits us? Contact TheRedAntEM@comcast.net 

ISSUE #219: Set for Life in APCHA Housing (4/25/22)

"Arrogance, ignorance and incompetence. Not a pretty cocktail of personality traits in the best of situations."

-- Graydon Carter

Plans for The Lumberyard continue, with great focus on paint colors. Last week's work session saw an arbitrary reduction in number of units "for livability," as well as changes to the units to include washer/dryers, free-standing bathtubs and walk-in closets.

One thing never discussed is how much this subsidized luxury village is going to cost, yet alone how it is going to be paid for.

This massive undertaking coincides with the final weeks of the moratorium on residential development and short term rental permits - council's identified culprits for all that is wrong in Aspen, never mind, the development of The Lumberyard stands to impact our town far more substantially.

Read my column in yesterday's Aspen Times HERE.

* * * * *

Ours is the oldest and largest mountain resort workforce housing program in North America.  According to its own description, “APCHA is an independent, multi-jurisdictional housing authority designed to oversee housing for persons of low, moderate and middle incomes who are permanent residents and work full-time in the city and county.”  But we all know it’s not just for middle and lower incomes, nor is it strictly for the active workforce.

Winning the ownership housing lottery is truly a life-changing event. Beyond the obvious roof-over-your-head benefits, there are surprising upsides to purchasing Aspen’s publicly-subsidized, deed restricted housing.

APCHA purchases are not subject to the RETT.  All property transactions in the city of Aspen are subject to a 1.5% real estate transfer tax, with 1% going to the housing fund. In 2021, the housing portion of the RETT hauled in $31 million. Yet, in-town APCHA beneficiaries don’t contribute and therefore have no skin in the game.

There is no income cap for RO Category housing. But a buyer’s net assets cannot exceed $2.445 million at the time of purchase. The “Resident Occupied” category was created so that higher income households (doctors, lawyers, architects, realtors) also have access to subsidized housing because of their benefit to the community.

You can convey your APCHA unit to your kid. If your kid is a qualified buyer who meets the one-person-per-bedroom-minus-one minimum occupancy requirement, for a $1,000 conveyance fee, your kid can avoid the bid process and lottery and you can simply transfer the ownership of your unit. With a documented 10-year local work history, the minimum occupancy is waived. 

After purchase, there are no income or asset limits. Once you own your unit, there is no requirement to maintain nor report your income or asset levels, nor must you maintain a minimum occupancy. A financial windfall, an inheritance and an empty nest are permitted, as long as you remain in residency and employment compliance. 

In-complex priority rewards those already in the system. After one year of living there, you can bypass the lottery to upgrade your unit within the same complex. If your neighbor has the same idea, whoever has the longer local work history gets the keys. 

You can work for Google from your APCHA unit. If you have a dependent and your spouse continues to work a minimum of 1500 hours a year for a qualified local employer, with residency compliance, you can take a job with any business anywhere and haul in the big bucks.

Your APCHA unit appreciates.  APCHA units increase in value using simple appreciation of 3% or CPI, whichever is less, per year, for each year the unit is owned. The long-term impacts of compounding appreciation results in significant payouts to those moving out while pressuring new buyers to pay above the category max, absorbing the cost despite their income limitations. By enabling owners to realize these capital gains, APCHA is driving the market for higher salaried employees to purchase housing. 

Your maximum sale price includes improvements. When selling, the formula to determine your maximum sales price includes purchase price, appreciation, and the present value of approved capital improvements, not to exceed 10% of the purchase price. Improvements for health and safety (energy efficiency, green projects) are exempt from the 10% limit.

You can retire in your APCHA unit as early as age 62. At 62, with a 30-year documented history of work including 15 years immediately preceding, you can retire in your APCHA unit. Otherwise, it’s 65, with just four years of local employment. As a retiree, while required to live at least 9 months of the year there, you can leave your unit vacant for up to 3 months with no requirement to rent it. 

The affidavit does not ask where you work or what you do. APCHA’s biennial requalification affidavit is online, so all you need to do is electronically check a box that attests to your residency and employment compliance. APCHA asks no questions about where you work or what you do.

You can own property outside the OEZ. Neither you nor your spouse may own other real estate within the designated Ownership Exclusion Zone: the Roaring Fork and Colorado River drainages. Beyond these boundaries, it’s fair game. That’s how we have owners of French vineyards and chateaus and Costa Rican beach villas in APCHA housing. Our tax dollars are supporting vacation homes in other resorts while the owners live affordably in Aspen.

We certainly do have a housing crisis. “The system” has evolved to specifically benefit those already in it, and provides advantages equivalent to those of the free market but at a deeply discounted, publicly-subsidized rate. The roaring real estate market in Aspen has undeniably driven up demand for subsidized housing, however, the ever-growing list of amenities and perks baked into the program should not be overlooked as a major contributor.  For those already “in,” they’re set for life. But the model is an unquestionably unsustainable social compact that warrants a serious philosophical discussion on a moving-forward basis, especially if we ever intend to actually house the workforce.

It’s a great deal if you can get it. Contact TheRedAntEM@comcast.net

ISSUE #218: The Ignorance and Arrogance of City Council (4/11/22)

"Arrogance, ignorance and incompetence. Not a pretty cocktail of personality traits in the best of situations."

-- Graydon Carter

Plans for The Lumberyard continue, with great focus on paint colors. Last week's work session saw an arbitrary reduction in number of units "for livability," as well as changes to the units to include washer/dryers, free-standing bathtubs and walk-in closets.

One thing never discussed is how much this subsidized luxury village is going to cost, yet alone how it is going to be paid for.

This massive undertaking coincides with the final weeks of the moratorium on residential development and short term rental permits - council's identified culprits for all that is wrong in Aspen, never mind, the development of The Lumberyard stands to impact our town far more substantially.

Read my column in yesterday's Aspen Times HERE.

* * * * * 

Our elected officials and municipal bureaucrats are planning for a busy off-season. Buckle up for some dramatic changes to Aspen’s land use code in order to fund more subsidized housing.

Look for limiting future demolitions, residential down-zoning, increased fees and mitigation, and allowing subsidized housing development in more zoning districts with new height and density allowances. In other words, where private property owners will be dramatically limited and financially penalized when aspiring to redevelop their properties, subsidized housing can and will be built almost anywhere and to very different and very permissive zoning standards.

These impending changes are specifically to address Aspen’s “housing shortage” and of course the global climate emergency. We all know our housing crisis isn’t a shortage, rather, it’s deliberate mismanagement of ski country’s largest subsidized housing inventory, and council is simply choosing to provide housing for the never-ending demand of people who want to live affordably in Aspen regardless of the jobs they hold. And somehow, it’s strictly free market residential redevelopment that’s the climate culprit. Here, the climate miraculously “un-emergencies” itself for subsidized housing development.

The city paid $358,000 for “community outreach” on how people “feel” about recent changes in town. Where are the studies that specifically describe or quantify the crises council is trying to solve? Where are the reports on which businesses are struggling to hire and stay open?  A housing audit and needs assessment? The only real crisis is that none of the planned changes are based on facts. The entire exercise is in response to feelings.

Ever reactionary and emotional, city council simply doesn’t like what they see, especially when it comes to free market real estate re-development: there’s too much activity, the houses are so big and fancy and expensive, and people are maximizing what’s allowable under existing rules. Therefore, these must change, immediately. 

The thinly veiled effort to stick it to the free market is intellectually dishonest and hypocritical. They say residential redevelopment will fill up the landfill by 2031, while also creating traffic and generating untenable levels of carbon emissions. So instead, they promote the development of new, high-density, multi-family, subsidized housing. Never mind it makes no sense to identify one thing as bad for the community (redevelopment) then present a solution that taxes it in order to fuel another thing (subsidized housing development) with the same or worse impacts. From a purely environmental perspective, the responsible thing would be to maximize the utility of what we already have, not build more.

Furthermore, the stated goal of a “full, lived-in community” sounds warm, fuzzy and utopian on its face. According to councilman Skippy Mesirow, a community with the “lights on,” all the time, would somehow make Aspen “the community we want to be.”  But wait, isn’t the current moratorium on residential development and short term rental permits in response to council’s frustration with the impacts of having so many more people here? Could it be that they are boldly prioritizing people whose lights they want on more than others, people who live in subsidized housing perhaps?

It sure sounds like it. The circular logic and contradictions stem from the prevailing belief that, according to Mesirow, “growth occurs when non-Aspenites move here,” which is at the very root of council’s petty, spiteful and antithetical plans. 

Our electeds are tragically ignorant of the difference between growth and economic activity. Aspen has long worked to manage and control growth, which can be thought of as additional capacity: the development of more hotel rooms, more homes, expansion onto previously undeveloped land, and sprawl. We have recently experienced a dramatic uptick in economic activity, not growth. Hotels at full occupancy, second-homeowners moving into their homes or renting them out regularly, and people purchasing homes here, even at unprecedented prices, are signs of robust economic activity, but that’s because we’re full. We’re at capacity. These are the effects of a “full, lived-in community,” but, no, it’s certainly not “the community we want to be.” Not in my book. And clearly not in Mesirow’s either, but for different reasons. While desirous of being “full” and “lived-in,” town is filling up with “non-Aspenites,” and city council demands this stop.

Meanwhile, the latest plan to develop subsidized housing on newly annexed land at the Lumberyard will increase our capacity for as many as 700 “Aspenites.” This, without question, is growth. And sprawl. It stands to increase our year-round population nearly 10%. Yet somehow, this growth is okay, despite the inherent increase in year-round demand for local services and still no housing for the workforce.  “Aspenites” in subsidized housing apparently count differently. Besides, council just reduced the Lumberyard’s density by 30 units for “livability,” and they’re changing the floorplans to include master suites, stand-alone bathtubs and walk-in closets; in other words large, custom, subsidized luxury condos for middle class families. 

Just wait until you hear about the proposed regulations that include a vacancy tax and subsidized buy-downs of free market properties. It’s only just begun. This perverse wealth redistribution to select “Aspenites,” at the increasing expense of others, stands to divide us in ways we’ve never contemplated.

People living in subsidized housing are no more entitled to live here than people in the free market. The “we built this community so we deserve it” mentality is toxic, and not at all reflective of the community we aspire to be. Contact TheRedAntEM@comcast.net 

ISSUE #217: Aspen vs The Worker (3/27/22)

"Though we may not desire to detect fraud, we must not, on that account, endeavor to be insensible of it, for, as cunning is a crime, so is duplicity a fault, and if men dread knaves, they also despise fools."

-- Norm MacDonald

The obscene push to build up our subsidized housing inventory at any cost continues to reveal itself as more than just an idealistic yet misguided notion, therefore it warrants repeating: our housing "crisis" is not a shortage, rather the result of inefficient management of a very robust portfolio. 

Furthermore, the entire premise of the purported need for "more" is based on a severely flawed consultant's report - the consultant himself admitted recently that to arrive at the "3000 unit shortfall" figure, "there is no formula." Yet this is at the heart of Aspen's strategic housing plan.

With the current plans in place, we can build and build and build, and add hundreds or thousands of units to our housing stock, but until any new units are designed as "worker housing," we will only make our current labor and workforce housing shortage worse. And that is exactly what we are on track to do.

Read my column in today's Aspen Times HERE.

* * * * *

All the talk of drastic changes to Aspen’s Land Use Code that will directly benefit the local subsidized housing coffers and result in tangibly addressing a purported 3,000 unit shortfall is very exciting, isn’t it?

Unfortunately, when you pull back the curtain and focus the binoculars, it’s all a charade, smoke and mirrors, lip service. It is distinctly not about housing the workforce. It’s about growth. In fact, if even a tenth of the preposterous 3,000 unit target is actually created (at the Lumberyard, for example), none of those units will be for community and resort service workers. None. Our future “Lumberjacks” will be families and middle class folks who live in for-sale 1-, 2- and 3-bedroom units. The workers who are essential to the resort, the ones we have been desperate to hire all season who keep the kitchens staffed, the stores open and the lifts running, won’t be moving in. These folks are looking for seasonal rentals. But the rental units planned for the Lumberyard will be leased through APCHA, which gives priority to people who have lived longest in the county. 

This is all by design. Despite all the hype, the city’s strategic housing plan is anything but pro-worker. And in typical fashion, the city’s defensive way of circumventing accountability is to vilify those asking the hard questions and deem them “anti-housing,” a pejorative right up there with “racist.” And to question why the Lumberjacks get 1.4 parking spaces per household is grounds for public denigration. Don’t I know it. The mere suggestion of a contemporary, car-free, climate-conscious and green subdivision in line with our stated community values makes me a heretic at best and Leona “only the poor pay taxes” Helmsley at worst. Wouldn’t a better metaphor have been Marie Antoinette, as in “let them ride the bus”? I digress.

City council has demonstrated that they are not at all serious about addressing our current housing crisis, which, as I’ve written many times before, is not a shortage. We have plenty of inventory. We are just not managing it efficiently and there is no will to correct the many problems. Nor is the city looking at our housing needs, and that’s for workforce housing. They prefer to focus on the unlimited demand for affordable housing in Aspen because asking people what they want is far less “triggering” than enforcing rules or, heaven forbid, conducting a housing program audit or independent housing needs assessment. Mandatory right-sizing is out, and the impending “silver tsunami” of retirees is simply a datapoint in the argument for building more. Besides, people are threatened by transparency, enforcement, and change, and we wouldn’t want that, now would we?

In a letter to a constituent, councilwoman Rachel Richards asserts that subsidized housing is in fact not for the workforce, rather it’s for people with “jobs and professions that ‘regular’ towns have.” Another indication of council’s lack of concern for our worker housing needs is confirmation from the assistant city manager that a new, fledgling regional housing coalition “is not limiting the target audiences exclusively to the workforce.”

In the meantime, we have a real labor crisis, and no one in a position to do anything about it is looking at this critical issue in tandem with our housing needs. A 2017 regional housing study is the source of the “3,000 unit shortage” assertion that has become a de facto goal, despite no one at the city understanding the methodology used to get there.

Nor does the Basalt attorney who spearheaded the study; he refers all queries to the consultant who conducted it, who reveals that the employee who led the effort has left the firm, and admits that alas, “there is no formula.” The 165-page document contains one sentence on one page that states, “In 2017, the area had a 3,000-unit shortfall, which is projected to increase to 3,400 units by 2027.” And this is what we’re working from and treating as doctrine. Phooey. We don’t need a bunch of consultants to tell us that the region generates more demand for housing than it has. That’s obvious. But it’s time to stop building for unlimited demand and instead address the community’s needs.

How can the city acknowledge that “employment growth is among lower incomes, yet household growth is among higher incomes” while justifying what they’re planning at the Lumberyard unless they don’t give a rip about solving our workforce housing issue? 

City council firmly intends for worker housing to be solved by employers, while the government subsidizes a middle class.  Employers, are you hearing this? Fellow citizens? Visitors? We pay into the RETT and make contributions through the sales tax with an expectation that the government will be building, providing and managing sufficient housing for a workforce that is essential to the machinations of our resort community.

Sadly, city decision-makers do not see the housing crisis the same way. In their eyes, it’s not about housing workers to keep businesses open and the resort running. It’s about providing housing for people who want to live affordably in Aspen, which they call “community housing.”

So don’t be fooled. Whether it’s the addition of 300 or 3,000 subsidized housing units, without addressing the underlying needs of the community, all we will get is growth, and our labor and worker housing issues will be worse than ever. 

Raise your hand if you are a worker who would eschew your car to live your best climate-conscious life in a brand new, taxpayer-subsidized, car-free rental unit? Contact TheRedAntEM@comcast.net

ISSUE #216: Flouting Aspen's Climate Goals at the Lumberyard (3/20/22)

"Your hypocrisy insults my intelligence."

-- Toba Beta

As city council works to finalize its plans for the ill-conceived subsidized housing project at the Lumberyard (plans are coming together at warp speed) despite no independent housing needs assessment, no specifics on the project's cost or how they plan on paying for it, nor any answers for the community (the WHOLE community, not just the APCHA community and APCHA-aspiring community) how the housing fund and all the planned taxes and fees necessary will benefit all of us, it is important to recognize that ABSOLUTELY NOTHING about this development will even begin to address the provision of much-needed housing for the workforce.

Furthermore, the impacts of this enormous 10.5-acre development on the environment will be horrific - beginning with sprawl and continuing with the traffic, and that's just to start. The plan for 432 parking spaces (1.4 per unit) illustrates just how hypocritical Aspen is when it comes to its virtue-signaling climate agenda.

Read my column in today's Aspen Times HERE.

******

Aspen has long had a working lumberyard at its entrance, which is strangely incongruous with its environmental proclamations. The 10.5-acre edifice to trees that are no longer alive and are soon headed to construction projects in the area belies both the community’s aspirational legacy of climate leadership and palpable disdain for growth and development. It has been an ironic welcome from the vantage point of Highway 82, notably for drivers stalled in bumper-to-bumper traffic.

The site was targeted in 2008 for “land banking,” where the city paid an absurd $18 million with no appraisal at the top of the 2008 real estate market to acquire a property that would someday address the community’s future subsidized housing needs. Here we are, 14 years later, and that someday is today. 

Despite community outcry for a formal housing needs assessment before proceeding, plans for 310 subsidized housing units, comprised of 1-, 2- and 3-bedrooms, moved one step closer last week. The Lumberyard is slated to become more of the same, but this time with individual mudrooms and storage units, balconies, high quality interior finishes and multi-story townhouse-style floorplans. For whom? It’s anyone’s guess.

Most alarming, however, is the pathological focus on parking. Cost be damned, the plan includes 432 parking spaces, both underground and surface, the equivalent of 1.4 cars per unit. Scheduled for groundbreaking in 2024 with initial phase move-in in 2027, we are officially building a massive new subsidized housing project at Aspen’s traffic choke-point, replete with parking for a fleet of vehicles necessitating a new traffic light and poised to bring our traffic problem to its literal breaking point. Does the city really believe that hundreds more cars entering Highway 82 at that juncture won’t have an impact? And what about air quality? What ever happened to our bold Climate Action Plan, formerly known as The Canary Initiative? Have we forgotten our lauded goals to promote environmental stewardship and lead climate action efforts throughout the Roaring Fork Valley in partnership with leaders across the state and around the world? How quickly we subvert our community values when building more subsidized housing.

Aspen’s efforts toward reducing greenhouse gas emissions and goals of a low-carbon future are laughingly incompatible with the current plans for The Lumberyard, regardless of employing sustainable materials and electrified buildings. Why wouldn’t we attempt to live our community values, not just virtue signal them? We could actually have something physical to show the world, since we always assume everyone is looking to us as the great example. Isn’t it finally time for Aspen to create a modern, dense, green, sustainable, car-less community, along the transit route, that addresses the community’s needs (workforce housing) and exemplifies its values (climate action)?  

Strangely, councilwoman Rachel Richards recently spoke out to extol the virtue of cars, and defended residents of The Lumberyard’s need for (at least) one per household, despite Aspen’s robust, existing regional transportation system, our vast network of trails, and the potential for innovative and contemporary intermodal solutions.

But perhaps most hypocritical was an exchange with councilman Ward Hauenstein. When asked why such an avowed environmentalist had not even asked city staff about a car-free option, if for no other reason than consideration and contrast, he pointed to public outreach. Yes, feedback from subsidized housing aspirants who expressed their desires for what they want for themselves on the public dime. It is his belief that, and I quote, “not listening to what people want is authoritarian.” Oh, I see. Not only will the inmates run the asylum, they will design it and we will build whatever it is they want. But it gets better. In a petty attempt to ridicule my political leanings, Hauenstein continued, “Forcing government’s desires on people is not Libertarian. Government injection into real estate transactions is not Libertarian.” Oh, okay, Ward. How quickly he forgets that we are talking about a publicly subsidized housing project in 21^st Century Aspen. And the environment. And a suggestion to simultaneously do the right thing for the community, the planet and local workers who will have an opportunity, not a requirement, to live there. 

It’s 2022, and of all places, Aspen ought to be noting world-wide trends in post-pandemic community planning, where predictions of reassessments of zoning and development regulations are expected, with an eye toward vibrancy, flexibility and inventiveness. We’re lucky, our community is located within a national forest, so we have a natural advantage and jump start at strengthening our connections with nature, as much for aesthetic reasons as for mental health. Innovative transportation and alternate solutions will be designed for people and the planet, not cars. The largest disruption will be a focus on intermodal mobility: walking and cycling spaces with public transportation provided as a service. And the move away from cars will enable neighborhoods to expand their public, open spaces into high-performance and flexible uses. With less focus on driving, The Lumberyard has the potential to defy its unfortunate name and location, and instead become the embodiment of Aspen’s environmental aspirations.

Build it and they will come. And surely the canaries will too. How about we try leading by example?

What is Aspen’s reticence to do something truly bold, especially something that checks so many critical boxes? Could it be that climate-wise we are just a bunch of virtue-signaling hypocrites? Contact TheRedAntEM@comcast.net

ISSUE #215: 3,000 More Units is 12 Centennials (2/13/22)

"Unrealistic expectations are often the seeds of bitterly stuffed emotions."

-- Lysa TerKeurst

ASPEN TIMES COLUMN

As the housing debate continues, city council presses on with its far-fetched plans to build our way out of our housing crisis. The latest push stems from a flawed regional housing study that measures consumer demand for subsidized housing (a limitless pool) instead of community need. 

In addition to preposterous fees and tax increases, the buy-down of free market real estate for re-sale is also on the table. The collective brainpower on council does not recognize that an additional 3,000 units occupied 24-7-365 will double our population and collapse our small town infrastructure. Nor do they clearly state how they plan to pay for it all.

Read my column in today's Aspen Times HERE.

LEGAL EAGLES?

Thank you for your responses to my last column regarding 16 Ajax Avenue, the subsidized housing unit in terrible disrepair that neither Alpine Bank nor APCHA wants to address. HERE is that column.

The stalemate continues. Alpine is getting paid by the girlfriend of the bankrupt and out-of-compliance owner so they won't foreclose. APCHA won't do anything until the title is clear, despite the obvious non-compliance. The bankruptcy trustee can't move the bankruptcy forward because the owner won't pay court costs.

Can someone please explain to me how a property owner in bankruptcy can effectively halt bankruptcy proceedings? And can someone else explain why a bank (and a community bank at that) would hesitate foreclosing, when there are numerous other factors (property taxes in arrears, HOA dues in arrears, no homeowner's insurance) that make it possible. What is going on at Alpine Bank? We all know how APCHA operates - and surprisingly, no one on council cares, despite our housing crisis.

I would really like to help the contracted buyers. Is there a legal case here? Equally corrupt, Alpine and APCHA have decided to go dark and ignore the whole situation.

******

As city council plows forward in its unguided quest to deliver more subsidized housing, numerous formal and ad hoc groups have been meeting to discuss the flawed premise driving this alarming push. Bright minds and fact-based policy discussion are what this topic has long deserved.

How did we get here? After the resort opened in 1948, Pitkin County began to grow, and it really got cooking in the 1960s when the population increased over 10% and Cemetery Lane, Mountain Valley, Aspen Square, and the Smuggler and Aspen Village trailer parks were built. The population grew 5% during the 1970s, which ushered in the Airport Business Center, the high school campus, the hospital on Castle Creek, as well as Midland Park, Aspen’s first foray into subsidized housing. The 1980s delivered the massive Centennial and Hunter Creek housing projects to address the community’s growing workforce housing needs. 

In the 1990s, when the Ritz Carlton, the elementary school and new library were developed, population growth slowed to 1.6%, but subsidized housing was built in earnest, with Williams Ranch, Ute City Place, Common Ground and Twin Ridge among the largest. In the 2000s, while population growth remained low (1.5%), the Grand Hyatt, Obermeyer Place and the new hospital were developed, and the subsidized housing boom continued with North Forty, Highlands Village, Burlingame 1, among many others. In the 2010s, population growth was all but flat, yet the subsidized housing portfolio grew substantially: Burlingame 2, 488 Castle Creek and more. 

Today, with a population of 17,558 and 3,200 subsidized housing units in inventory, we await 79 new units at Burlingame 3 and anticipate 310 more at the Lumberyard. But it doesn’t end there. A flawed 2017 regional housing study concludes that Aspen is still 3,000 units short. In addition to being preposterous, the whole premise of the study is wrong. It is entirely focused on consumer demand for affordable housing in Aspen, and who doesn’t want that? Demand for any valuable public good provided at a price far lower than its free market equivalent is essentially unlimited. Consumer demand is a free market construct and the absolute wrong way to evaluate the community’s subsidized housing needs. We should be looking at services requiring workers, not households desiring housing.

But we’re not. The city’s strategic housing plan has been released and it is anything but strategic. With predictable, conveniently cherry-picked elements from the Aspen Area Community Plan (AACP) and the omission of critical considerations therein, the city boldly prioritizes the development of more housing and onerous new fees to pay for it before any straightforward solutions such as right-sizing, inventory maintenance and the lowest-hanging fruit of all, compliance enforcement. It is obviously politically unpopular for city officials to optimize our current housing inventory and far sexier to play developer, therefore, the conspicuous solutions are at the very bottom of the priorities list. In addition to increased fees and taxes, the plan calls for more “policy actions” and making Aspen a “safe and lived-in (subsidized) community of choice,” replete with “childcare, healthcare, housing, transit, parks, recreation and technological connectivity.” 

In an alarming revelation, the concept of “buying down” free market real estate and selling it on a deeply discounted basis to “locals” to deliver another 3,000 units of subsidized housing is actually a consideration. For scale, 3,000 units is best illustrated by 12 Centennials (the “blue roofs”). Building or obtaining that quantity of in-town real estate would be nothing short of astonishing, both in its earth-shattering cost and devastating infrastructure implications.

Historically, as our community grew, we saw the impacts of growth and sprawl, and addressed these with strategic tools such as building housing for the workforce, conservation efforts and the urban growth boundary. Today, however, the community has reached build-out. We are no longer physically growing, yet we still have troubling issues: traffic, a need for workers, re-development and the rise of short-term rentals. In this post-growth stage, these new impacts cannot be addressed the same way we addressed the earlier ones. We can’t build our way out of our problems. We need new tools.

We have been very successful with our community planning. (The 1966 AACP projected a local population of 38,000.) We have managed our growth, and while doing so, built a substantial subsidized housing portfolio of over 8,200 deed-restricted bedrooms, enough to house 68% of our entire workforce (not just those who work in the community and resort service industry) and 57% of our entire population. That we do not is because of deliberate policy decisions not to optimize our housing capacity.

Our electeds, who have blindly accepted the flawed housing study as well as city staff’s glossy housing plan, ignore the fact that 3,000 more housing units, wherever they are, will effectively double our population. That is real growth.

We were once the gold standard for subsidized housing. Today, we are an example of what not to do. But it’s not too late. We are leap years ahead of other mountain resorts who are currently scrambling to build housing for their workforces. We have the inventory, we have the capacity, we just need the will. We can address our housing issues without hammering a nail.

Another piece of low-hanging fruit? Enable businesses to participate in the APCHA housing lottery. This all but ensures that we are housing actual workers.  Contact TheRedAntEM@comcast.net