Last week in this space we explored a recent Outside Magazine article that explored the hypothesis that short-term rentals are “killing” mountain towns, and our hypothesis that if our mountain towns are dying it is not due to short-term rentals, but rather due to the transient nature of our resort communities.
Many factors contribute to the transient nature of our communities. In resort-oriented communities – and in small towns across the country – there are a limited number of opportunities for job growth. There are only so many bank presidents, marketing executives, finance directors, hospital managers, etc. Career growth is inherently limited in this type of environment and contributes to the transient nature of our community.
How do we address this, in order to reduce the negative impacts of a transient population? A necessary step is to address our housing & transit challenges.
Eagle County faces a gap in the availability of ownership and rental housing that is affordable for local residents. Residents are burdened by high housing payments. Employees are forced to commute long distances. According to the annual workforce survey, employers and employees both believe that the availability of workforce housing is a critical and major problem in Eagle County. The Eagle County Housing Assessment shows a shortfall of 4,500 units to meet current needs.
Workforce and affordable housing has long been an issue in Eagle County. Addressing our affordable housing issue is essential to the continued success and growth of our community and our businesses across industry sectors, and can have the added benefit of reducing the transient nature of this special place.
How do we reduce the transient nature of our community, through increased local housing inventory? In other words, what does the Eagle County of 2027, 2037 or 2047 look like?
In my mind, we would increase density with more in-fill housing, along with better transit. We would be much more affordable for locals through thoughtful, meaningful deed restrictions as well as regulatory & zoning improvements. We would be an integrated, diverse community by retaining our mid-career workforce. If we don’t make that happen, Eagle County runs the risk of becoming a mountain version of San Francisco or Monaco. Make no mistake – the entire Vail Valley is on its way to becoming an exclusionary, unaffordable region. This is the threat that has the potential to ‘kill’ the mountain town, and we need to address it.
How? First, every locality has zoning rules as well as a general plan with a housing element that says, “Here’s our plan to allow so much housing of a certain density.” If and when someone then presents a proposal to develop housing in accordance with those rules and that plan, the local government should have to say “yes” to it. They shouldn’t say “no” and nit-pick projects that follow all their own rules, which unfortunately happens all the time.
Beyond that, the local rules are often too restrictive. We need to embrace density and in-fill and reduce parking requirements and other ‘public good’ to incentivize housing for locals. Housing alone should be the public benefit for these projects. How crazy is that our policies add costs to developers that ultimately increase the cost of housing for locals?
The opportunity exists to mitigate the ‘death’ of mountain towns. Our impending ‘death’ is not caused by short-term rentals; it will be mitigated by creating an environment that reduces the transient nature of the community through increased access to housing, improved transit, and a better regulatory environment.
Chris Romer is president & CEO of Vail Valley Partnership, the regional chamber of commerce. Learn more at VailValleyPartnership.com