ISSUE #254: The Hypocrisy on Growth (7/17/23)

"There are three things in the world that deserve no mercy: hypocrisy, fraud and tyranny."

-- Frederick William Robertson

When yesterday's column ran (read it HERE), it ignited a flurry of comments and feedback. "Growth" is something I think about and discuss regularly, and it has become increasingly obvious that as far as our local governments are concerned, it's just a canard.

They are in fact pro-growth, but just one kind: subsidized housing. Any free market activity you can imagine has been, is being or will soon be curtailed in the name of preventing growth. Sometimes they use "energy consumption" synonymously. But it's always an assault on the free market and the people who live in free market homes.

As it turns out, subsidized housing development is never considered to be growth. In fact, it is encouraged and now permitted in any zone district, even atop historic properties, with only administrative review. 

Do you see what's happening?

Some don't want to expand the airport for fear of growth. But across the road from the airport is likely to be a 277-unit subsidized housing project that will increase our local population by 10% on a full-time basis. No one mentions that growth, nor its impacts, including traffic. So apparently visitor growth is bad, but local growth is good?

Large homes in the county? They want to further regulate these because of "energy consumption," of course. Not a peep about nearly 450,000 new sf of heated development at The Lumberyard, however.

See the hypocrisy?

This community needs a much bigger conversation about growth, carrying capacity, traffic and the entrance to Aspen. But instead, they only want to build more subsidized housing. How do you think this is going to end?

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At the forefront of the Aspen Area Community Plan is a section on managing growth, where growth is succinctly described as: “Any increase in the size or activity of the community. Growth can be an increase in population, jobs, infrastructure, demand for public services or an increase in the size or use of buildings. Growth can be the result of new development, changes in use, redevelopment or fluctuations in the economy.” 

Yet our current growth discussions are riddled with hypocrisy. 

We have a great debate about updating the airport. Wider runways will enable larger planes which might bring larger crowds. Can our bed base accommodate more visitors? Do we want it to? Where will more visitors eat? What does this mean for traffic? Or climate impacts? These are good questions, integral to a much larger community growth conversation.

But they are being considered in an airport-centric vacuum. Substitute The Lumberyard for the airport and ask the same questions. You’ll get an entirely different answer. Somehow, a 277-unit, 469-bedroom year-round subsidized housing project at Aspen’s entrance chokepoint raises zero alarms in terms of growth. This, despite the full-time addition of 600 people (10%) to our population (6871 in 2023, down 0.56% from 2022).

Land-wise, we’re built out and we’ve known this for over a decade. Our urban growth boundary, established to prevent sprawl and to preserve our rural lands, is maxed. Even in 2012, the AACP noted the primary source of residential construction had become redevelopment. Yet we recently put draconian limits on free market redevelopment, allowing for just 6 demo permits a year because of the growth impacts. All while city hall annexed land for both Burlingame and The Lumberyard, and has given itself the ability to build multi-family housing projects in any in-town zone district. This represents real growth but it’s never mentioned. So which is it? Free market redevelopment growth is awful and to be restricted, yet it’s open season for massive subsidized housing project developments? Are you listening to yourself?

Despite Aspen’s primary economy being visitor-based since the mid-20^th century, and the employment of “managed growth” policies to maintain our small-town quality of life for residents and visitors through strict limits on the massing and scale of new development, we are showing our true colors. Never mind what the AACP says about encouraging a return to a visitor-based economy, visitors and residents, unless they live in subsidized housing, are being vilified and deemed responsible for all perceived negative quality of life issues.

Kinda sounds like the bitter whining of columnist Roger Marolt, right? Trapped in a vortex of nostalgia for the Aspen of his youth, Marolt laments how former second homeowners have dared to move permanently into their private residences. He believes you must live in Aspen from cradle to grave or work full-time in Aspen your entire life to be a deserving local.

This is also why the concept of “housing utilization” has become so taboo. Supported by elected officials, APCHA outright refuses to inventory its portfolio. Knowledge of our subsidized housing utilization and the enormous number of empty bedrooms is antithetical to their narrative that we desperately need more housing. It’s no one’s business how poorly utilized our housing is. Just shut up and build more!

Free market second homes with less than full-time utilization, however, are criminal. Renting to visitors is just as bad; a new short-term rental permitting program and tax is designed to exact the proper pound of flesh for such aberrant behavior. These are homes that working locals ought to inhabit, they cry. And the specter of a vacancy tax, where you are punished for leaving your house empty, is not entirely off the table.

See the pattern here? Visitors, bad. Locals (a la Marolt), good. Free market homeowners, bad. Subsidized housing, good. 

Again, referencing the AACP, which states, “Our long-term sustainability as a community and visitor-based economy depends largely on our ability to remain an attractive, welcoming, accessible and affordable place for future generations.” So how’s that going? I’d venture to say we’ve lost the plot.

Our population is actually declining, despite the influx of “urban exodus” folks. But these are “free market people,” which is why they haven’t been welcomed and embraced, just vilified and blamed for “growth.” But only after collecting their RETT dollars and cashing their checks to local non-profits, of course.

As our growth discussion continues, the temptation for ever-more-stringent regulations and restrictions on the free market in the name of this growth beckons. But growth and its impacts must be addressed with parity. The hypocrisy must end. Pitkin County is mulling new development regulations supposedly to address energy consumption but it’s obviously just to further curtail free market development; they have zero problem with nearly 450,000 new sf of heated space at The Lumberyard. 

This has gotten absurd. Our governments are talking out of both sides of their mouths (and losing all credibility in doing so). The desire to make Aspen into “an affordable, lived-in community for locals” is clearly just a test to see how much the free market is willing to take.

To be continued. I have a lot more to say on the matter. Contact TheRedAntEM@comcast.net