撸先生

Editor鈥檚 note: This story is the second in聽a five-day series focused on housing issues in the Vail Valley. To view the entire series as it unfolds, visit聽vaildaily.com/news/home-economics.

The front page of the first issue of the short-lived Daily Trail newspaper said it all back in late June 1998: 鈥淕ore Creek ghost town: The changing face of Vail.” The story launched a five-part series on the affordable housing crisis and chronicled the runaway real estate industry and the hollowing out of Vail鈥檚 year-round community with 70% second homeownership.

The ensuing two decades have seen very little progress in terms of slowing the downvalley exodus of year-round residents in search of cheaper land and lower home prices. In fact, things have only gotten worse, with Vail鈥檚 rate of second homeownership now at 80% 鈥� and an identical 80% of employers saying lack of housing is hurting their ability to hire workers.

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On that very same front page was a photo of three generations of Seiberts, including Vail founder Peter Seibert, his son Pete Jr. and grandson Petey. Pete Jr., a Realtor, recently moved back to Vail and lives in a town-subsidized affordable housing complex known as Chamonix Vail. In November, he narrowly missed being elected to Vail Town 撸先生 running on a platform supportive of the town鈥檚 innovative voluntary deed-restriction program.

And in the upper right corner of that first issue of the Daily Trail was a photo of one of Vail鈥檚 founding mothers, Diana Donovan, teasing a story about her opposition to an affordable housing plan on town-owned land known as Common Ground and spearheaded by then-Mayor Rob Ford. That opposition, in part, led to the failure of that ambitious housing plan and Ford’s resignation two years into his four-year term 鈥� .

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Under the headline 鈥淗ousing for Poorer Neighbors Offends Vail鈥檚 Rich,鈥� The New York Times quoted Ford saying, 鈥�”At some of the meetings we had, things got so bad that I was uncomfortable without an undercover police officer there to protect me. At times I thought guys were going to pop me right there in Town Hall.鈥�

Things at times seemed equally heated during the debate over the recently approved workforce housing project in East Vail known as Booth Heights, but ironically, Ford and Donovan were on the same side in opposition to that project. The rancor just underscores how bitterly divisive the new construction of high-density, multi-unit, urban-style housing projects can be in a place that markets itself as a rural mountain retreat with massive, spacious homes and unobstructed views.

Vail Valley Partnership President and CEO Chris Romer says businesses that belong to the valleywide chamber consistently rank housing as their top hurdle for growing their companies and retaining employees 鈥� a critical challenge in a service-sector resort economy 鈥� and yet he鈥檚 had his fair share of that feeling Ford had in 1999 because of his support for Booth Heights and other workforce projects. He recently started a called VVP Mean Emails from NIMBY鈥檚 (Not in My Back Yard).

There was some hue and cry when the town of Vail first proposed using public funds to buy 1,000 more deed restrictions on Vail housing units by 2027 to keep a total of 1,700 deed-restricted units in the pool for local, year-round residents. Now that program is being hailed as a national model, and town officials may ask voters for a permanent funding source for the program next November.

In surveys the town has done on the topic, Vail Housing Director George Ruther says employers consistently said they鈥檙e not getting their top three choices when it comes to hiring 鈥� primarily because of the high cost of housing 鈥� but instead are settling on their sixth, seventh and eighth choices.

鈥淚 do believe about the only thing we buy, sell and trade in here in the valley is customer service,鈥� Ruther said ahead of a housing conference in Vail earlier this year. 鈥淛ust about everything that we do is some form of customer service, and when you’re relying upon the very best of the best customer service coming from maybe not the best employment pool, there’s going to be consequences down the road.鈥�

Ruther thinks Vail, where an estimated 90% of real estate sales go to out-of-town second-home owners, will pay a long-term economic price for failing to mitigate the problem.

鈥淚 also share in talking with folks, if you can’t get your head around the stories of people living in cars or living 鈥� six people to a two-bedroom house, just think about the economic impacts of not addressing this issue 鈥� when it comes to recruitment or retention or training or quality of service,鈥� Ruther said.

How did we get here?

Former Vail Mayor Ludwig Kurz originally hails from Salzburg, Austria, and says the resorts in his home country and the birthplace of Alpine skiing typically do not have a high percentage of absentee homeownership. They are mostly made up of hotels, lodges and resort businesses. Vail began in the late ’50s and early ’60s by selling shares that included a piece of land and a ski pass.

That real-estate first culture meant that a narrow valley with limited private land wedged between huge swaths of publicly owned national forests would have a hard time housing workers鈥� especially as Vail exploded into the very definition of a modern, destination, mega-resort.

鈥淭hat really goes way back, and not just into Vail鈥檚 culture but pretty much any one of these [ski resort communities], golf communities or whatever it might be, where the leg of the stool was real estate, and then construction that comes along with it, and not the idea that you’re trying to create a community for people to live in,鈥� said Stan Zemler, the longest-tenured town manager in Vail history who stepped down in 2017 after 13 years. 鈥淪o, in a lot of ways, that ship sailed a long ways back when you just basically started building buildings to sell the units.鈥�

Zemler landed in Vail in 2003 at the beginning of , but prior to that he spent six years as president and CEO of the Boulder Chamber of Commerce and six years as Boulder鈥檚 deputy city manager. The construction crane became the unofficial town bird of Vail for the next five years, with new and redeveloped high-end hotel projects taking off from the The Arrabelle at Vail Square to Solaris Residences to the Four Seasons to the Ritz-Carlton Residences.

But workforce housing projects or deed-restriction programs weren鈥檛 at the top of the list for an aging resort looking to keep up with the Deer Valleys of the world, and then the Great Recession of 2008 hit and the town opted for streetscape projects, new firehouses and overall fiscal conservatism versus risking public funds on housing at a time when home values were plummeting. Zemler was just glad all the big projects got completed on schedule.

He鈥檚 a touch philosophical when asked if Vail missed an opportunity on workforce housing.

鈥淲e did buy some stuff. Did we buy enough? No. Could we possibly buy enough? No. Did we probably miss a window?鈥� Zemler asked rhetorically. 鈥淚 look back on my time in Boulder and 鈥� in the ’80s recession we should have bought 25 apartment buildings. So the same kind of thing applies. Could we have done more (in Vail in 2008)? Sure.鈥�

Where do we go from here?

 founder Harry Frampton 鈥� the developer behind the success of Beaver Creek in the 1980s and the rebirth of downtown Denver with Riverfront Park and Union Station 鈥�  that the Village at Avon land owned by Magnus Lindholm should be purchased well above market value by the many government jurisdictions in the Vail Valley and they should then build 1,000 or more units of affordable housing there.

Frampton is partners with former Vail Mayor Rod Slifer in one of the most successful high-end real estate companies in Colorado 鈥� Slifer Smith & Frampton Real Estate鈥� and thinks there鈥檚 a dire need for all types of housing in Eagle County, from seasonal workforce to attainable middle-income units for young families. He also thinks it should be built throughout the valley.

鈥淎ny land we鈥檝e got left. I don鈥檛 care. Put some in Vail, some in Avon, some in Edwards and not just move everybody to, we鈥檒l call it to west Gypsum, right?鈥� Frampton said, acknowledging the need for better public transportation throughout the entire county. 鈥淓verything we do should be to discourage cars and encourage pedestrian walking and public transportation. Every decision. I understand we鈥檙e spread out, different areas, you鈥檝e got to move back and forth. But how do we discourage traffic and cars?鈥�

And Frampton takes issues with the basic tenets of NIMBYism 鈥� the feeling that people in workforce housing are somehow bad for the neighborhood.

鈥淚 think, as a general rule, we people who鈥檝e kind of made it, we kind of figure workforce housing is the bad people. BS. We all started in workforce housing, did we not?鈥� Frampton said. 鈥淎t some point in time, we all did. We鈥檙e talking about people who are good people. They鈥檙e our future leaders.鈥�

Diana Donovan鈥檚 daughter, Kerry, a Democratic state senator from Vail, puts the housing debate into an environmental context, with greater sprawl leading to increased vehicle traffic.

鈥淵ou start tagging it to a climate change debate, because if we put people in Dotsero, you then ask them to drive a single-passenger car upvalley five to six days a week,鈥� Donovan said. 鈥淪o you either build housing where people work or you start developing a very efficient and frequent mass transportation system. It’s one or the other, and I think ultimately it will be a combination of both.鈥�

That being said, Donovan says people need to be realistic and realize that even a two-income family will not be able to afford a four-bedroom home with a garage and a yard in Vail.

鈥淭hat’s just never going to happen,鈥� she said. 鈥淚 saw this with my friends; they chose between living in Vail or basically having a garage.鈥�

Regulatory approaches

One of the biggest curveballs of the last 10 years has been the short-term rental trend that in Vail further reduces the pool of 20% year-round housing by taking potential long-term rentals out of the mix for local workers. aimed at short-term rental companies like VRBO and Airbnb and the homeowners who use them to turn their condos into ski-lodge cash machines.

鈥淚 don’t think there was any early recognition that (short-term rentals) could have an effect on workforce housing,鈥� Zemler said. 鈥淚t took a long time to kind of get your arms around the fact that this might not be great for communities that have limited housing stock.鈥�

Eagle County Manager Jeff Shroll says the county has been taking stock of the number of short-term rentals cropping up in unincorporated areas of the Vail Valley and having serious conversations about how best to deal with the trend from a regulatory standpoint. Besides growing parking and noise complaint issues in some neighborhoods, there are bigger concerns.

鈥淥ur biggest concern is losing workforce housing, because every time you fill one of those places up (short term) that鈥檚 somebody else that can鈥檛 live there now 鈥� that could be and should be living and working upvalley that could rent it out at least even seasonally,鈥� Shroll said. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 now off the market because (owners) can make more money renting it out weekend by weekend.鈥�

Like Vail InDEED, there鈥檚 been some talk of the county trying to go after a more permanent funding source for coping with the housing shortage, although officials may be a bit leery after the resounding defeat of a proposed housing tax in 2016. And some say it makes more sense to seek a transportation tax to better build out ECO Transit to move workers around the valley, but those questions wouldn鈥檛 hit a ballot until 2020 at the earliest 鈥� if at all.

Meanwhile, the Eagle County Planning Commission is reviewing changes to the county鈥檚 housing guidelines at a work session on Wednesday 鈥� changes primarily focused on private developers. One longtime planner sounded a cautionary note about past mistakes.

鈥淭he problem so far with the idea of an update to the guidelines is really not having a good grasp of their success or failure,鈥� Dominic Mauriello of the Mauriello Planning Group said. 鈥淔or the most part, the guidelines, as well-intentioned as they are to produce workforce housing units, have largely failed over the last 20 years or so.鈥�

Mauriello would like to see greater collaboration between government and private sector.

鈥淭here is a huge disconnect between what the government thinks works and what actually will work for developers,鈥� Mauriello added. 鈥淭here should, therefore, be a public-private group that works on the guidelines to get the best potential result, putting everything on the table for discussion.鈥�