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How to Save a Ski Town

outsideonline.com

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Re: How to Save a Ski Town

#171

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

rjsw wrote: post #60
Tempest1981 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Logistics. Crested Butte is 3 hours from the nearest larger town, Grand Junction. Assuming good weather. You need workers and materials to build new housing. There is already a shortage of workers. Builders in Grand Junction can make far more profit by building in Grand Junction, vs driving 6 hours each day to Crested Butte and back. Same with hauling materials.

In other ski towns you build during the off-seasons and the construction workers live in the apartments that would be otherwise empty.

... or "mobile" construction workers who live year-round or part-year in RVs and the like, and move to where the work is.

Re: How to Save a Ski Town

#172

Post by asdff »

davidw wrote: post #130
zz865 wrote: post #5

I quite like the rules in the Tirol - you can only own property if you live there. No second homes, no big hotels, no renting out houses. Just small owner operated hotels and locals.

You couldn't build most buildings in Tirol in the US due to zoning restrictions. When we lived in Innsbruck, we had an apartment with no parking spot. Here in Bend, there is tons of parking, because people regard automobile storage as more important than places for people to live.

Not sure how you are going to convince people who live in a blizzardy mountain town to start walking to work en masse. Snowmobiles are popular in the winter at least.

Re: How to Save a Ski Town

#173

Post by zwirbl »

rch wrote: post #95
zz865 wrote: post #5

I quite like the rules in the Tirol - you can only own property if you live there. No second homes, no big hotels, no renting out houses. Just small owner operated hotels and locals.

This really seems like the best solution by far.

In its intention maybe, but it just doesn't work right. There are still a lot of mostly uninhabited second homes

Re: How to Save a Ski Town

#174

Post by space_fountain »

gnarcoregrizz wrote: post #149
buttercraft wrote: post #92

I was born and raised in a small ski town that was a "hidden gem" for a long time. This article covers the issues well. In one year, it all changed. Housing prices and rent increased drastically -- sometimes by 2x or 3x. Half of my friends and acquaintances have had to move out of town and commute for work. What does it say when a city's essential workers cannot vote on city issues anymore? The city is not legally al…

Sounds like a problem that'll fix itself if no businesses can hire. Unfortunately it will probably be on a long time frame.

I think part of the problem is that while maybe wages will be pushed up a bit, eventually the equilibrium is still a situation we won't like. Like long commutes and bad living situations.

Re: How to Save a Ski Town

#175

Post by zwirbl »

asdff wrote: post #172
davidw wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You couldn't build most buildings in Tirol in the US due to zoning restrictions. When we lived in Innsbruck, we had an apartment with no parking spot. Here in Bend, there is tons of parking, because people regard automobile storage as more important than places for people to live.

Not sure how you are going to convince people who live in a blizzardy mountain town to start walking to work en masse. Snowmobiles are popular in the winter at least.

Innsbruck is not a mountain town, it's the biggest city in the Tirol with >100k residents. I have yet to see someone riding a snowmobile through the city

Re: How to Save a Ski Town

#176

Post by liketochill »

9935c101ab17a66 wrote: post #42
jseliger wrote: post #4

No mention of "demand" and only one of "supply:" "The limited supply of affordable housing for workers has been a challenge for decades." Prices occur where demand and supply intersect. There are two ways to lower them: lower demand or raise supply. Supply restrictions raise prices. There are a lot of words here that fail to deal with price fundamentals.

This obviously isn't true. You can absolutely use legislation and fiscal policy to impact market prices. You're being incredibly reductionist and I'm not quite sure why, but if you read the article, you would have come across the case of Whistler, where they've effectively used policy to improve the availability of affordable housing. Also, we're not talking about a commodity like smart fridges or something, we're ta…

Living in a ski town isn’t a fundamental human need. There are lots of cheap places to live in the USA they just are not in what are currently the desirable locations.

Re: How to Save a Ski Town

#177

Post by asdff »

chrissnell wrote: post #123

I lived in Park City, UT throughout much of the 1990s and early 2000s. My family had a home in Telluride, so I’m familiar with the situation there, as well. I have an idea for a solution that I’m surprised was not mentioned. It’s simple: impose a heavy tax on unoccupied vacation homes but offer an exemption for owners who house one local worker on the property year-round. The concept is that the owner of a big vacati…

They really should just have this on the business owners. Make them have to provide housing for the labor they require to make their money vs having homeowners who might not even be patronizing the business front this overhead of theirs. In places like Catalina Island where there isn't much housing, you will see job ads for the coffee shop offering employee housing along with the job. You want to open a starbucks in a mountain town? Better make it a mixed use building with some apartments upstairs for the staff.

The whole reason why housing costs are so high is because there is an imbalance in the number of jobs and units of houses available, so if you mandate that all these employers provide housing for the jobs they bring into the area, you alleviate this imbalance immediately.

Re: How to Save a Ski Town

#178

Post by zwirbl »

seattle_spring wrote: post #80
zz865 wrote: post #5

I quite like the rules in the Tirol - you can only own property if you live there. No second homes, no big hotels, no renting out houses. Just small owner operated hotels and locals.

That'd explain partially why I loved the vibe of that area so much. I'd live in Northern Italy in a heartbeat if I had the chance.

I don't know if south tirol (part of Italy) has any regulation similar to the one mentioned for northern tirol (part of Austria). I wouldn't be surprised

Re: How to Save a Ski Town

#179

Post by zwirbl »

TYPE_FASTER wrote: post #93

Outlaw shaped skis. Everybody has to ski on long, straight skis that can’t be wider than 65 under foot. Watch property values plummet in a week. Edit: accurate prediction of the future: https://youtu.be/qhuHuQ1Bu3o

People would have their knees repaired, then sell ar a loss

Re: How to Save a Ski Town

#180

Post by verve_rat »

88913527 wrote: post #52
verve_rat wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So make empty houses (and AirBnB's) illegal (aka super taxed out the wazzoo). The people that live in a place should be able to say what they do and do not want in their town.

I'm not convinced this is quite it. The housing demand (by real, live physical people, not remote investors) is likely seasonal. Town like Tahoe might have 10x the number of people in them 12 weeks of the year. Unless we're setting up tents, we'll need permanent structures available for short term rental.

That is called a hotel. What is wrong with building a hotel and pricing it accordingly?
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