We have never seen a community use such a draconian measure as condemning property to prevent construction of housing for its own workers. Without ski instructors, short order cooks, educators, safety professionals, and hotel staff, Vail’s economic engines would simply stop turning, and the ability to operate the world-class mountain amenities for which have created so much wealth and value would cease to exist. If Colorado communities cannot support homes for their workforce, the state’s whole economy and our quality of life are at risk too.
And yet a battle rages over whether the Town of Vail will allow a private company to provide affordable housing for the very people on which the community depends – even after the company follows all of the rules of planning and zoning, and has full approval to build. For a Council to return later, just as construction of housing is ready to begin, and use government force to take away the ownership of the very private property promised to workers is nothing short of shocking – and if it stands will have repercussions throughout the state.
The project in question has already been approved by the Vail Town Council and affirmed by an Eagle County judge. No tax dollars are at stake. It would provide convenient, affordable housing for 165 local Vail Mountain employees. We have encouraged, even demanded, that businesses help innovate and create housing solutions for their own workers, and Vail Resorts is doing exactly that, as they have in 7,000 other affordable units they’ve created across their resorts.
The median home price in Vail is $1.535 million; a condo or townhome is $1.2 million. At $6,787 and $5,315 respectively just to pay the principal, some of Colorado’s best paid earners would have trouble with those payments – let alone the essential lower wage workers who we all rely on for the day-to-day functioning of the community.
We’re told this is about protecting bighorn sheep. Wink, wink. Never mind the fact that the housing can be built with minimal impact on habitat and voluntarily excludes 17 of the parcel’s 23 acres to protect the herd. Never mind that the workforce housing is on the very fringes of the sheep’s winter range, while more than 100 multi-million dollar luxury homes encroach much further into their territory. Do we honestly buy that this is about the habitat of the sheep? And if we’re going to be an inclusive community and state, we must welcome the worker as much as the wealthy.
Coloradans around the state are working together to come up with a variety of solutions, big and small, to address our housing crisis. Colorado businesses already face worker shortages that threaten our ability to adequately provide the goods and services people have come to expect. Our workers grapple with 40-year record-high inflation rates and skyrocketing mortgage rates. To face these challenges, we need our elected officials to lead the way with more cooperation and creativity, not use the ultimate power taking away property rights just to keep the working-class out.
We are not in the habit of weighing in on how local governments handle their affairs, and have been longtime advocates for local control. But the Vail Town Council decides to go to the incredible extreme – historically reserved for the most exceptional of circumstances – to take land owned by a private business for the purpose of preventing privately-funded housing for essential workers, we cannot sit quietly. Who’s next? What stops the Town of Vail from using its condemnation powers against other businesses, or individual homeowners? What other towns or cities will be next?
We implore the Town not to turn its back on the workers of Vail but rather welcome them to the neighborhoods they serve so well.
Rachel Beck is executive director of the Colorado Competitive Council, a statewide coalition of businesses, chambers of commerce, and economic development corporations advocating for public policy that supports a competitive business climate and strong statewide economy.