ISSUE #261: A Two-Stall Food Hall in City Hall? (10/23/23)

"The society that lives on subsidies and freebies is always responsible for a corrupt governance."

-- Dr Ashok Anand

Plans to repurpose The Armory are underway, but in its typical fashion, the city seems ready to muck things up there too. I attended an open house earlier in the month and was horrified by the process, the input and the likely outcome.

Simply put, there are great ideas for activating this historic space but trying to do all of them at once is a recipe for disaster.

I share my thoughts for the future of The Armory HERE, from yesterday's Aspen Times.

NOVEMBER BALLOT

Your November ballot should have already arrived. Questions? Visit www.PitkinVotes.com

The critical local decision is the vote for School Board. If we've learned anything in recent years, school board elections matter.

Beyond that, there are two state tax measures that need to be defeated.

These are not endorsements per se, but here is how I am voting.

Aspen School District (vote for 2)

·      Sarah Daniels

·      Katy Frisch

Our school district is trending in the right direction under superintendent David Baugh. It is imperative that we elect common sense people to the school board who support Baugh and maintain the focus on academics, core subjects, test scores and meritocracy over indoctrination.  The teacher’s union has a candidate in this race – it is imperative that we defeat this candidate and elect those with proven track records who will work with the existing board to deliver results for our children.

Proposition HH  NO

Positioned as property tax relief, at first blush, HH may seem like a good idea, but the devil is in the details. It sounds like it will save you money, but it won’t. Prop HH will reduce or eliminate future TABOR refunds, which is essentially a tax hike. And renters will also be negatively affected. The measure also enables the legislature to extend the new revenue cap forever without asking voters. Besides, property tax issues are better addressed by local communities. HH is a Trojan horse that will further complicate our already confusing property tax system, lift spending caps and allow the State Government to INCREASE SPENDING by 25%. Vote NO.

Proposition II  NO

This measure seeks to allow the State to retain excess tax revenue collected on the sale of cigarettes, tobacco and nicotine products, beyond the taxpayer approved levels as determined by the vote to collect these taxes in 2020.  In its first year, the tax revenue was $208 million, $21.5 million more than the estimate. If Prop II passes, the State will keep the $21.5 million plus $2.15 million in interest ($23.65 million) and spend it. The program is fully funded. Refund the excess revenues.  Vote NO.

* * * * *

The community was recently invited back to The Armory, Aspen’s 1892-era civic center that later served as city hall until vacated for the unwelcoming, new-ish Taj Mahal City Hall in 2021. This time, it was another off-season city outreach session to gauge interest in re-purposing the centrally located 19,000 sf structure for “community use,” and more importantly to identify which uses are preferred. (There was no mention of costs or financing for the project.)

If this sounds a lot like how we ended up with the design of The Lumberyard that includes balconies, mud rooms, underground parking and elevators for the soon-to-be-built rental housing project out by the airport, you’d be spot on. The same contracted consultants were there with three options and stickers you could “vote” with, along with sticky notes upon which you could make your specific wants known. Here we go again.

Driven by a 2022 directive from city council, this outreach session is intended to inform council’s forthcoming decision on remodel and reuse plans for The Armory that address a laundry list of pre-determined “guiding principles.” Imagine, if you will, a financially self-sustaining, welcoming, lively and diverse entity that honors our history and small town character, provides unique, meaningful and affordable offerings while incorporating sustainable systems to highlight our green-ness. 

This could be really exciting, that is, until you attempt to be all things to all people.

The three options presented were each a schizophrenic hodge-podge and combination of disparate offerings, including a community lounge, welcome center, flex space, retail vendors, co-working space, a coffee shop, ACRA offices and a “food hall,” notably with just two vendors.  Free snacks and sodas brought out the off-season regulars who weighed in with their personal wish lists: non-profit offices, pool tables, a dance hall, an indoor farmer’s market and artist spaces. Sounds like the state fair.

Most shocking, however, was the palpable focus on addressing solely “local” desires. Many there felt The Armory needs to address the rising cost of living in Aspen through free access and “cheap” food, entertainment and goods for those who are cost-burdened by their choices to live here. One sticker said it all, “Can we limit entry to locals?” There was even a board where one could define the “L-word,” perhaps to clarify who it is we need to keep out. 

In short, despite the high likelihood of having a welcome center of some sort in the building because of its location and the fact that we are a tourist destination after all, most attendees were clear in wanting The Armory for themselves. It was exclusionary to say the least, with little likelihood of being in any way financially sustainable. I came away envisioning a big, subsidized daycare center for those with a local ID card.

A shred of optimism came from the subtle chatter about turning The Armory into a food hall. Not what was lamely thrown into the mix by the consultants who presented the concept as merely “two food vendors” in the basement, rather, something grand, a destination befitting the space. Popular throughout Europe and experiencing a renaissance in the US, the idea of showcasing multiple vendors in an accessible, communal dining environment makes a lot of sense for The Armory, warranting further research and study, just not by the city.

There are professional firms that specialize in designing food halls all over the world. They retrofit historic buildings and activate them in cities and resort towns. Food halls are known to revitalize downtowns and serve residents and visitors alike. And if you’ve been to a food hall, you know they’re great fun with high energy, and offer something for everyone. The open, counter-service stalls provide low barriers to entry and shared overhead, so no need for subsidies, especially government ones.

Food halls feature food producers, artisan bakers and budding chefs who come together and cater to culinary fans who don’t want the restrictions of table service at one restaurant.  Take Denver Central Market. This popular food hall in a refurbished 14,000 sf building in RiNo, Denver’s artsy-industrial neighborhood, is a community anchor that offers a mix of culinary start-ups and established favorites. 

What’s not found in a food hall, notably, are offices and work spaces, meeting rooms or “lounges” for those with nowhere else to go. 

The future of The Armory, left in the city’s hands, is certain to become yet another missed opportunity like everything else they touch. We’ve seen what they’ve done with the Taj Mahal City Hall and “community activation” of Galena Plaza.  And now that the micro-managed design of The Lumberyard is moving forward, it will be more than tempting for city council to shift their newfound architecture and design prowess toward paint colors, doorknobs and flooring materials for The Armory. 

Instead, it’s time to pick a lane, issue an RFP and bring in the best minds to deliver something that checks all the boxes and one the entire community can be proud of for locals and non-locals alike: a food hall at The Armory, with more than two stalls.

The Armory was constructed in three months in 1892 at a cost of $15,000. Contact TheRedAntEM@comcast.net

ISSUE #260: Hubris in Aspen (10/10/23)

"Hubris is one of the great renewable resources."

-- PJ O'Rourke

Hubris. Is there a better word for what's wrong with elected leadership in Aspen? When we elect representatives the same way we'd elect the Prom King (ie popularity contest), we only have ourselves to blame for the arrogance and pretension that drives the policies, decisions and management of the city of Aspen.

Other places that face similar challenges are doing things differently. But we're Aspen - what could we possibly learn from them?

Read my column that ran in Sunday's Aspen Times HERE.

* * * * *

Hubris, according to Wikipedia, describes a personality quality of excessive pride or dangerous overconfidence, often synonymous with arrogance and associated with pretension. Hubris often indicates a loss of contact with reality and an overestimation of one’s own competence, accomplishments or capabilities. Hubris is referred to as “pride that blinds” because it often causes one to act in foolish ways that belie common sense.

Sound familiar?

As a practical matter, Aspen’s city council’s hubris advances the largest municipal public works project in Aspen’s history despite its fundamentally flawed premise, a ridiculous design based on consumer wishes, baseless budget estimates and no funding source. The 277-unit Lumberyard is already laughable in development circles and garners eye-rolls from representatives and residents of other ski towns. Last week Mayor Torre even told a local developer they’re looking at raising rental rates there to somehow sweeten the deal for development bidders, an acknowledgment that the project as currently planned is far from viable.

But designing first and budgeting later is not just inexperience, it’s foolish. The numbers are so bad that even with a private development partner, the city will still be on the hook for hundreds of millions of dollars it admits it doesn’t have. Our unqualified electeds who skipped development 101 are so arrogant they believe they know more than everyone else, when in reality they continually embarrass themselves and our community.

Meanwhile, in Winter Park, a ski town of 1,100 in Grand County, Colorado, the new Conifer Commons is readying for tenants. This in-town property offers rental studios, single- and multi-bedroom units designed for 330 seasonal and year-round workers. Collaboratively built by the town, the corporate owner of the resort, a non-profit agency and a developer in just 18 months, this new housing cost just $60 million. It comes to market on the heels of the Fireside Creek Apartments, 50 one- and two-bedroom units, built and managed by a developer to which the town contributed $2.2 million in land, fee waivers and rent-buy downs. Several other similar projects are in the works to directly address housing throughout ski country.

Furthermore, Winter Park is boldly addressing its workforce housing needs beyond just new construction. Their “Short Term Fix” program launched in 2021 to bridge the gap while housing construction transpired. The town has been offering cash incentives to property owners who convert their short-term rental property or underutilized second home into long-term workforce housing. Qualified local businesses enter into 6- or 12-month leases on behalf of their employees, and the property owner receives a financial incentive in addition to receiving contracted rents. Studios and 1-bedrooms offer $5000 or $10,000 cash incentives, depending on lease term, and 2- and 3-bedroom units kick $10,000 or $20,000. During the 2022-23 season, with a budget of $425,000, 47 bedrooms were added to the housing inventory.  

This season, thanks to Conifer Commons, Fireside Creek and others coming online, $200,000 is available to renewing participants as the short term program winds down. 

Winter Park also has a deed restricted ownership program for local workers. Notably, “inventory administration” plays a critical role to ensure proper stewardship through a required annual verification and audit process. Acknowledging the importance of community-building by providing long-term housing options, they’re not messing around. Essential workers are prioritized.

Like Winter Park, most ski towns in the mountain west are facing housing issues, but with several critical distinctions from ours: they don’t have an existing inventory of over 3200 units, they build housing to specifically meet the needs of the local economy as determined by data-driven research, they seek creative partnerships for value-driven outcomes and they build what they can afford. 

Why wouldn’t we look at best practices employed in Winter Park and elsewhere? Hubris. “They’re not Aspen.” You can hear the scoffs. No, they’re most certainly not. They’re responsibly doing what it takes to solve the real housing challenges faced by their communities. But our mentality, that arrogance, that pretension, is precisely why Aspen has become the shining example of what not to do, instead of the gold standard befitting a housing program of our history, caliber, size and potential.

Goaded by this columnist and hundreds of you who wrote to council about the absurd lack of transparency regarding The Lumberyard financials, the city recently released what it’s calling a “pro forma.” This rough, staff-generated cost estimate and escalation model which generated headlines is based on a 2022-era schematic design, with promises to develop a better estimate when the design advances, again without financing details other than hopes for 15% of the project cost to be brought by a developer from federal, state and “other outside funding sources.” 

This still leaves our community on the hook for the several hundred million dollar difference, a far cry from what other mountain communities are doing for pennies on the dollar in a fraction of the time. 

We’re on the verge of beginning construction on 277 housing units that will cost north of $1.5 million apiece that we don’t have the money to pay for. “But we’re Aspen.”

Hubris will be Aspen’s undoing. Contact TheRedAntEM@comcast.net

ISSUE #259: The Lumberyard: Where Fiscal Responsibility Goes to Die (9/25/23)

"If the only way for you to get people to do your bidding is through force or intimidation, you are neither a leader nor a boss; you are an a**hole."

 -- Charbel Tadros

When you ask people who want to live at The Lumberyard what they desire for themselves, and when you refuse to collect data on what the community and the economy actually needs, you get a project solely based on "wants."

The "wanters" could not care less what it takes to make the project happen, even if this means raising taxes and building it over the course of decades.

This ill-conceived development is flawed at every level and will only serve to make our labor issues worse because it is designed to house people who will add to our service industry demands, not work the jobs we so desperately need filled.

Add The Lumberyard to the "I told ya so" file. And read my column in today's Aspen Times HERE. (Yes, another snafu at the office has me on Monday this week.)

* * * * * 

In a 4-1 vote last Tuesday, city council surprised no one by demonstrating their profound lack of financial acumen and responsibility, disregard for common sense and disdain for over 150 members of this community who urged restraint. Today, their bloodthirst for more housing at any cost moves one step closer to fruition with the memorialization of development entitlements for The Lumberyard. Driven by feedback from those who want to live affordably in Aspen who are not necessarily the workers our economy seeks (“We want mudrooms!” “We want underground parking!” “We want balconies!” “We want elevators!”), council presses forward, budgets and funding sources, traffic impacts and growth be damned.  

The multi-session process was agonizing. In the end, in an attempt to shame fellow councilman Bill Guth who voted to oppose, Mayor Torre condescendingly summed it up with his erudite wisdom, “I don’t think you can continue to say you are supportive of affordable housing and then not support it when it comes to a project like this.” Right, Torre.  To paraphrase former president Barack Obama, the 1980s called and they want their housing policy back.

Are you currently in subsidized housing? Guess what, you’re entirely on your own now. You’ve been hoping the city would come to your rescue with a plan to help you repair and maintain your deteriorating units. (That’s you, Centennial.)  Now, all housing revenues for the foreseeable future are going to The Lumberyard. We’re talking decades. You re-elected Torre, but he was never going to fix anything. Not when he could build shiny new housing for 600 more people who’ll live here full time and compete with you for the same 12 bar stools at Mi Chola.

Then there’s the city’s affordable housing manager, who, without presenting numbers, assures us that the city has the funding sources to pay for The Lumberyard. Apparently the declining RETT, city sales tax and new STR tax are somehow magically going to generate $500 million. And what a relief to hear from city manager Sara Ott that project budgets and plans actually do exist, but they’re classified so she’s keeping them secret.

Are you a commuter or a visitor? City council has never cared about traffic outside the roundabout or the entrance to Aspen. If you didn’t believe it before, the unfortunate addition of yet another stoplight on Highway 82 ought to make it clear that gridlock is just the price you’re going to have to pay. In council’s minds, if you don’t like it, you can take the bus.

Is your local business an ACRA member? Did you know that ACRA is a vocal supporter of The Lumberyard? The chamber made its unwavering support for The Lumberyard known despite no assurances that your workforce housing needs will even be addressed there. Given that ACRA relies on the city’s tourism promotion tax as a major source of its funding, it should come as no surprise that your membership dues are promoting the unchecked potential for increased taxes on you, your business and your customers. In addition to being able to offer your employees a discounted ski pass, you’re getting political activism as an added bonus.

Are you a community member who weighed in asking council to make its budget and financing plans so clear even a five year old could understand them? Council couldn’t care less. Bill Guth was the only one to even acknowledge it.  Are you a developer who stressed retaining maximum flexibility in design and size in order to attract private partners? Council didn’t want to hear obvious development truths: the larger you build the units, the harder it is to pay for them and the more difficult it will be for a private sector partner to make the deal work. 

Best were comments from former electeds. Rachel Richards decried any attempt to prioritize housing workers actually needed by local businesses, referring to them as “disposable transients” since they might only be seasonal instead of forever community members seeking a lifetime on the Aspen dole. Skippy Mesirow implored council to hurry up, regardless of cost or financing, because “the community is dying.” Even Mick emerged to warn against tying workforce housing to working a specific job, however important, ignoring the schools, the hospital and the city itself whose proprietary housing does exactly that. 

Thanks to the astute parliamentary maneuvering of councilman Bill Guth, far greater flexibility was inserted into the areas of unit size and income category mix so there remains the whisper of a chance some developer might look at partnering in a deal. It will still be difficult, but Guth masterfully created a little wiggle room where there had been none.

Ward Hauenstein’s, John Doyle’s and Torre’s eyes predictably glazed over each time the words “pro forma” were invoked. The outrageous idea of proposing a project that delivers a stipulated amount of housing for the community with no risk and at the same time an appropriate return on investment to a developer was simply more than they could fathom.

Councilman Sam Rose naively celebrated the outcome, stating “This is just the beginning.” Good grief. What could possibly go wrong?

This was the most irresponsible council decision I’ve witnessed in 15 years of covering their antics. The “I told ya so” file grows larger by the day.  Contact TheRedAntEM@comcast.net

ISSUE #258: Oops, We're About to Do It Again (9/10/23)

"You never make the same mistake twice.The second time you make it, it is no longer a mistake. 

It is a choice."

-- Lauren Conrad

No surprise, but today's installment is about The Lumberyard, again. This Tuesday's city council meeting could potentially bless the development entitlements for this ill-conceived project, "horizontal construction" will begin, and we're off to the races.

Central to the issue is that NO PROJECT BUDGET NOR FINANCING PLANS HAVE BEEN PUBLICLY PRESENTED NOR EVALUATED. My guess is they do not exist.

It's far too soon to approve ANYTHING without this information!

Today's column in The Aspen Times reminds us of the Burlingame fiasco of 2006-2008 that we are uniquely set to repeat at The Lumberyard. Read it HERE.

Councilman Bill Guth cannot do it alone. He has continually asked for financial information, models, sourcing plans and other responsible disclosures. City staff continues to obfuscate and his fellow councilmen appear not to care.

Earlier this year, I asked you to write to city council to express your opinions on The Lumberyard financials (specifically the lack thereof). Nearly 100 comments were received and this effort slowed the process with promises of a dedicated council work session on the topic. That never happened. (It couldn't - there is nothing to share.)

I am asking (imploring?) you to do it again, especially if you agree with me. Please click HERE and voice your displeasure about the lack of transparency, the irresponsible governance, the ignorance and the arrogance of approving development entitlements (or anything!) without a full and public disclosure of the project's budget and financials. Write "September 12" on the subject line and CC or BCC me, if you'd like!

A special note to my friends in the development business: 

Please write to council HERE and explain how a real Public-Private Partnership works, and how this should absolutely be explored before moving ahead with the existing plans. It's clear that no one at the city understands how a PPP could benefit the community AND significantly reduce the risk.

* * * * *

It’s Groundhog Day! As city staff works to cajole three councilmembers to approve development entitlements to The Lumberyard subsidized housing project on Tuesday evening despite no stated means of paying for it, we’re about to re-enact an outrageous scandal that played out over 15 years ago at Burlingame.

First, a little history. In 2006, a reporter asked the city’s then-finance director to make public the financials for the then-planned Burlingame housing project. Said finance director, theretofore kept in the dark about said financials, pressed the then-asset manager to produce the numbers, which he reluctantly did - on the back of a McDonald’s napkin.

Those numbers, later featured in a city brochure for a crucial ballot measure, were found to grossly understate both the Burlingame project cost as well as its public subsidy, ultimately revealing that no comprehensive project budget had ever existed. (The stated $14.7 million subsidy turned out to be well in excess of $85 million.) Needless to say, public trust was decimated and has yet to recover.

As a result of this scandal, the city empaneled a Citizens Budget Task Force (CBTF), which, over the course of 10 months in 2008, was granted unprecedented access to the city’s financial data and information. The CBTF made numerous recommendations, many specifically for improving the city’s housing development process. The resulting resolution passed unanimously, but most recommendations were never implemented.

Today the city is back, pushing to memorialize development plans, this time for The Lumberyard. What we do know is that 277 units comprised of 467 bedrooms and parking for 435 cars are planned for the 11-acre site, for which the city spent $30 million on the land and another $5 million on design.  The project, at Aspen’s entrance across from the airport, looks more like a prison than a housing development, but I digress.

What we don’t know are any financial details, just that cost estimates range from $500 million to $750 million; that’s $1.8 million to $2.7 million per unit. The public has not been presented with any information on how the city intends to finance and pay for this, the largest municipal project in Aspen’s history. 

Numerous requests for vaguely-referenced “financial models” have been denied. Councilman Bill Guth routinely presses staff for this crucial information but the others on council do not. City manager Sara Ott is apparently so confident she has the “yes” votes to proceed there is again no comprehensive project budget to share publicly.

Reflecting on the CBTF, which reported on “the city’s lack of financial, budgetary and project management policies and procedures to properly manage large, multi-year capital projects,” today we find ourselves ignoring perhaps the committee’s most applicable recommendation: 

"Only seek to borrow funds for major capital projects through bond issues or other debt instruments once a detailed project plan is in place and has been communicated to the public. Such a detailed plan should include estimates of all cost components with documented underlying assumptions for all variables influencing cost.” In other words, be transparent about all the financing details!

The city intends to use public funds to hire a developer to build out its $5 million design. That’s not a public-private partnership (PPP). A real PPP brings a public entity like the city together with a private sector developer who has broad access to capital and is well-versed in  construction, leasing, market realities, and has a track record of performance and long term asset management; everything the city lacks.  Simply put, a PPP for The Lumberyard could deliver the same number of units more cost effectively and more expeditiously, while off-loading the community’s financial risk onto the development partner. Why aren’t we even considering a PPP?

If we entitle The Lumberyard now, horizonal construction (roads, infrastructure) will commence. Such construction will preclude a PPP, since a development partner would specifically design and fund a project according to a financial proforma that delivers both the units and a return on its investment, likely not what our wannabe-architects on city council have designed at $1.8+ million per unit.

It is utterly laughable that city staff posits that entitlements are necessary today. They’re not. The city is both applicant and approver; judge and jury. This is nothing but a trap. These entitlements will effectively eliminate PPP opportunities and “force” the city to self-finance, placing all financial risk and responsibility on our community, and keep it on the hook for the operations and maintenance of The Lumberyard into perpetuity. Isn’t APCHA’s track record alone enough to illustrate what an horribly irresponsible decision this is?

Notably, councilman Ward Hauenstein was on the housing committee of the CBTF. He wrote these very recommendations, yet apparently he and others on city staff have conveniently forgotten them. The work of 24 dedicated citizens to improve the housing development process after an embarrassing scandal should not be ignored. History has a knack for repeating itself.

We are facing exactly the same issues and the same obfuscation we did in 2006-2008. The approved CBTF recommendations should have been proactively implemented 15 years ago. Instead, it’s Groundhog Day, just with another zero at the end of every number.

Write to publiccomment@ aspen.gov TODAY and implore city council to be transparent about The Lumberyard financials before approving anything. Contact TheRedAntEM@comcast.net

ISSUE #257: The Ugly Truth About APCHA (8/28/23)

"The problem is that those in power do not have the solutions and those with solutions 

do not have the power."

-- Unknown

The more I learn, the worse it gets. Yesterday's column illustrates the horror-show that is the APCHA rental housing system. Read it HERE. As I continue to pull on some new-found threads, look for a bright-hot spotlight on APCHA, its leadership, the city and county leadership responsible for APCHA, and where the lack of will to make straightforward and meaningful changes specifically lies. And I will be naming names. It's a community disgrace: anti-worker and anti-business. All they want to do is build more for people who will not be working the jobs we desperately need to fill. Anyone else see a problem with that? * For those who have been following my little pet project at 205 W Main, I'm sorry to report that HPC sadly approved its relocation (4-3) to the corner of its lot to accommodate a MASSIVE subsidized housing project on the remainder of the property. The tie-breaking vote was by a new HPC member who assumed that a more dramatic relocation would yield a less dense development. The new LUC did not require the applicant to share what is to be built so they didn't. And the density is excessive. But that member didn't realize it. City council refused to call-up the horrible decision. If you'd like to weigh in when council and HPC meet on September 5 to discuss whether or not HPC has a future role in protecting our historic assets, even against subsidized housing development, please write to them HERE, adding "September 5 Meeting with HPC" on the subject line.

* And saddle up. On September 12, it is likely that council will be voting to entitle The Lumberyard. Repeated requests of council and city staff to publicly present the proposed financing plans for the $500M+ project have been ignored or obfuscated. The city manager refuses to publicly share them. A majority of city council has signaled that they do not care. Elections have consequences, folks.

* * * * *

The APCHA deed restricted housing portfolio has 3200 units, split 55%/45% between ownership and rental.  This does not count the hundreds of rental units up and down the valley, owned and controlled by SkiCo, the hospital, the schools and various private employers outside the purview of APCHA. 

Our service-industry labor shortage is not the result of an insufficient amount of this housing, rather the result of an overly complicated housing system, and a mis-match between the housing we are currently providing and the jobs we need filled to properly function.

The long-standing policy of selling APCHA housing units has created a favored “set for life” class, where income, household size and employment only matter on the day of purchase. Second-class renters are at the mercy of multiple property management firms and are income- and upward mobility-capped by APCHA. 

And where owners are forever held to different standards (or no standards at all because rules aren’t enforced), the dirty secret is in APCHA’s 1382-unit rental portfolio, where chaos truly reigns supreme.

Preferring spend its time “qualifying” people and dogging self-employed renters whose businesses they don’t understand, APCHA actually only manages 251 long-term rental units. That’s just 18%. The remaining 82% are privately owned and operated by seven separate property managers who can only rent these units to APCHA-qualified workers because of the deed restrictions on each property.

New to town? Unless your employer has provided housing, you have just entered the housing hellhole. First stop is APCHA, the housing authority. Makes sense. But they rarely have units available, and when they do, priority is given to those with the longest local work history. That’s not you. Next, contact all seven other property managers to inquire about available units and ask to get on their waitlist, if they have one. There is no centralized rental management process and each property manager is free to fill units as he sees fit. 

If you are fortunate and are offered a unit, THEN you must “qualify” through APCHA to ensure the income category and occupancy level for that specific unit are met. Each property has units designated to various income categories, creating a lengthy, complicated and labor-intensive qualification process that could cost you the unit while you wait.

This is precisely why local workers “cannot find housing,” not because it doesn’t exist.

It’s the Wild West. APCHA board member Alycin Bektesh recently explained how “calling around” is a right of passage when seeking a rental unit. She says it’s not uncommon to take the property managers cookies to enhance one’s profile. Imagine a housing board member revealing the necessary practice of bribing your way into the program while dismissing another board member’s suggestion that APCHA take steps to consolidate, modernize and maintain a fair and transparent rental housing leasing and waitlist system? 

APCHA staff concurred; they don’t want to do the “time consuming” work because it’s a “huge program.”

This is hardly the spirit of a community housing program. APCHA doesn’t serve workers and it doesn’t serve our community. Just because there is limitless demand does not mean there’s no need for transparency and efficiency. The independent property managers are under no obligation to renew your lease if they don’t like you. And if they mistakenly grant you an apartment before properly confirming your APCHA qualification, you’re out on the street. It just happened. 

The APCHA rental system is backwards and upside-down. Deed restricted rentals should certainly have employment and occupancy requirements, but let’s remove income categories from the units themselves and charge rent according to the tenant’s income range. We’ll then free essential workers from Aspen’s rarely-mentioned poverty trap, where valuable employees turn down raises and promotions in order to keep their housing. 

Then consolidate the APCHA rental leasing and waitlist system. Since APCHA has to qualify everyone anyway, it is the obvious clearinghouse for maintaining one list that feeds pre-qualified workers to its own and the privately managed units as they open up. A transparent list also ensures that private managers won’t choose only the top earners or those with bribes. 

But who is really in charge? The APCHA director no longer reports to the board. His boss is Sara Ott, the city manager, despite the housing authority legally being an intergovernmental agency, independent of both the city and county. This makes for difficult board oversight, to say the least. However, Ott has been tasked by city council with implementing a 14-point strategic housing plan for which a centralized rental management system would be an effective solution for the plan’s prioritized development-neutral program improvements and would increase the number of available units through access. 

To-date Ott has not brought any meaningful APCHA policies to her five bosses on city council. So, council, if you are at all serious about making more housing immediately available, direct Sara Ott to require immediate consolidation of the APCHA rental portfolio management process. 

The centralization and ease of access for all qualified workers is a straightforward solution that will provide immediate fairness and transparency, and will greatly simplify the administrative process for workers, landlords and APCHA personnel alike.

Aspen’s subsidized housing program is riddled with contradictions and mismanagement, yet the only focus is on building more. This must end. Contact TheRedAntEM@comcast.net

ISSUE #256: Let's Get Honest About Growth (8/14/23)

"We don't want a plan based on land uses. We want a plan based on experiences. Who visits downtown to see land uses?"

-- Mitchell Silver

As The Aspen Times re-arranges the deck chairs, this week's column ran today instead. Read it HERE as I continue to press for a broader community conversation on growth. 

We cannot continue down the intellectually dishonest path of attributing the real and perceived impacts of "growth" solely on the free market without first defining them, attributing them (with data beyond just opinions), and addressing the root causes.

** Today there is a work session focused on the financials for the Lumberyard. If you can make sense of THIS perhaps you can enlighten me. City staff will tell council anything to get this ill-conceived project approved. One thing is for sure, if given the opportunity to spend $450+ million dollars we don't have, spending it on 277 subsidized housing units we can't prove that we need is likely not the most broadly effective use of such funds, especially given our other community needs.

If you're a developer and know a thing or two about RMF development and public-private partnerships, I encourage you to write to council. Only one of them understands the business and the others could stand to hear from you. HERE is a link.

In other (shocking) news, the saga of 205 W. Main (the first "unintended consequence" of the new zoning rules that enable subsidized housing development in any zone district, even "atop" cherished historic Victorians on Main Street) continues. The Historic Preservation Commission voted 4-3 in defiance of their own guidelines to narrowly approve the relocation of this historic resource close to the lot line in order to shoe-horn a dense housing project onto the lot. The basis for this grievous decision? Apparently the swing voter (and new member) erroneously felt that more space for the housing would make it less dense. It won't. The developer will continue with his ginormous and inappropriate plans as drawn. HPC has been rendered all but irrelevant by the new land use code. 

 If you're concerned, please write to city council (HERE is a link) prior to their August 22 meeting and request that they "call-up" this decision because there appears to be great confusion among the HPC as to whether to follow the Historic Preservation Guidelines or just blindly approve subsidized housing. 

 You have all been VERY helpful and effective with your letter writing. Your voices matter and I, for one, appreciate your ongoing commitment to civic involvement.

*****

It seems the solution to every local problem is to “build more housing.” Mind you, this does not mean free-market residential development or redevelopment, it means subsidized housing. Pitkin County recently joined the fray with the extensive report of its Community Growth Advisory Committee.

For a committee that was intended to contemplate “growth,” much of its work focused on values-based desires to maintain the rural character and open lands that define our community, less reliance on fossil fuels and more energy efficiency for climate action and the reduction of the sense of “overwhelm” that so many residents and visitors are feeling. I read it through three times and there wasn’t a peep about “carrying capacity” nor the acknowledgment of  strains on existing infrastructure.

The group took a deep dive into the county land use code because this is where you can really sock it to the free market, and three key conclusions emerged:

• ·      The committee’s work was largely focused on managing the types of development that are inconsistent with community values, however, more subsidized housing is the type of development we do want and it should be incentivized.

• ·      A 15,000 sf maximum house size in the county is not reflective of any of our community values.

• ·      While important to our local economy, the residential sector needs “steering” toward “acting more like homes rather than workforce-and-vehicle-trip micro-economies.”

In other words, big homes are at the root of all evil, but even bigger multi-family subsidized housing developments within the urban growth boundary or along transit lines are exactly what we need and are not considered “growth.” As a datapoint, just 159 homes in the county are larger than 10,000 sf.

Critical to the report is a discussion of a workforce and housing imbalance. The analysis is spot-on. “Businesses, schools, non-profits, healthcare providers, police and fire departments, and governments all face a critical inability to hire needed people for key jobs. Big houses that typically hire large staffs (cooks, house managers, gardeners, cleaners, physical trainers, maintenance personnel, etc.) siphon employees away from the ‘public facing’ economy and into the ‘privatized’ economy. To compound the problem, if a worker who has transitioned into the residential employment sector lives in APCHA housing, their former employer must replace both the worker and potentially restore the new employee’s housing needs.” 

Bingo, this is exactly what I’m talking about when I say we have a labor shortage, not a housing one, and our public housing regulations need to change to properly address this.  At the rate we’re going, without new rules, we will continually be housing fewer essential resort and community service workers, and forever crying for more housing until that too is usurped by those who leave the non-essential workforce.

A recent report from the Northwest Colorado Council of Governments (NWCCOG) outlines a local trend that has been all but ignored: the increase in higher paying jobs in Pitkin County. This is not just remote work, but also reflective of growth in the professional and technical services sector (legal, accounting, architectural, engineering, investments) which has created vast opportunities for upward mobility in Pitkin County. When we do not prioritize our taxpayer-funded subsidized housing for essential workers and instead allow workers to keep their APCHA units when they move up to higher paying jobs, it’s the lower paying resort service jobs that go unfilled for lack of available housing. 

The NWCCOG report also illustrates that while jobs such as property management of large homes have indeed increased, they have not offset the loss of construction jobs over the past decade. Therefore, it’s beyond a little dicey to conclude that large Pitkin County homes are solely responsible for negatively impacting the local workforce. The numbers just don’t pencil out.

The growth committee repeatedly refers to a “sense of overwhelm” in its report, attributing this and other negatively perceived quality of life issues solely to big homes, which sounds markedly like the latest version of a desire for wealth redistribution because of its political expediency rather than because the data supports it.

That’s the problem with these community committees. Long hours and well-intended work can often lead to highly biased work product. The actionable conclusions such as massive changes to the county’s land use code will likely not change a thing because these focus on political biases rather than identifying true causes.

It is critical that we have a robust community conversation on growth. And there very well may need to be some changes to the land use code. Equally important, however, is to determine the essential services we must provide as a community as well as those services deemed essential to the functioning of our resort-tourism economy. From there, we will have identified the jobs that should be prioritized for publicly subsidized housing. It’s rather straightforward.

Continually developing subsidized housing for anyone and everyone who wants to live affordably in Aspen is uncontrolled growth on its face. It’s time to admit this. The local governments can attempt to curtail the free market at every turn, but when cause and effect are not aligned, nothing will get solved.

It’s time for some intellectual honesty about growth, and how our housing program must prioritize community and resort service workers. Contact TheRedAntEM@comcast.net

ISSUE #255: Subsidized Housing Ownership - A Mess of Our Own Making (7/31/23)

"Never be afraid to speak your mind on relevant issues; good leaders stand for relevance and they are never afraid to face the facts head on. Bad leaders see the problems, close their eyes and do something else."

-- Israelmore Ayivor

You are all very interested in the inner workings of our subsidized housing program and APCHA's policies that always seem to conclude with a desperate need for "more." The unwavering refusal to audit what we already have makes one wonder what it is they're so afraid of. 

This installment illustrates how our elected leadership on city council and the BOCC enables our failed housing policies and program through obliviousness, excuses, ignorance and personal vitriol toward the free market, including a desire to punish it at every turn.

Read my column in yesterday's Aspen Times HERE.

On another note, it would appear that our county commissioners just may have listened to public feedback about the appetite for a tax increase for subsidized housing on this November's ballot. Thanks to each of you who took the time to take the survey I distributed earlier this summer. Your participation most certainly mattered.

It's not official, but it will be soon. If you're so inclined, HERE is a link to submit public comments to the BOCC to let them know that a ballot measure this November to raise taxes for subsidized housing is an outrageous idea given the state of APCHA, the lack of a proper audit of what we already have, who's in it, where they work and how our 6000 bedrooms are being utilized, and their lack of explicit plans to maintain our existing inventory.

***

The myth is as old as the program itself. In Aspen, we sell our deed restricted subsidized housing instead of renting it in order to provide a sense of housing security, foster pride of ownership and create more engaged community members. In reality, the sales of “ownership” units have ensured the physical destruction of our housing stock while setting owners up for failure.

From the beginning, sales have never been subject to the 1.5% real estate transfer tax (RETT). On a $200K purchase, this amounts to just $3000, but no, housing, despite being funded by the RETT, would not be subject to it. No skin in the game for subsidized housing owners.

Furthermore, collecting dues and reserves for ongoing and preventative maintenance has never been a priority. And there are no repercussions for not paying; no liens upon sale, just “minimal livability standards” that enable a downward spiral.

Yet there is guaranteed simple appreciation: 3% a year or CPI, whichever is less. Intended to reimburse owners for the costs of maintenance over the term of their ownership, this has instead become ill-gotten bonuses since little to no maintenance is ever performed. There is always someone willing to buy whatever becomes available, in whatever sorry state it’s in. Performing maintenance or making improvements has become an irrational act; owners who actually do pay are the suckers. How’s that for pride of ownership?

Last week there were two “housing” meetings – a joint session of city council and the BOCC, as well as an APCHA board retreat. The APCHA board still has no intention of performing a program census to ascertain who lives in our housing, where they work and the utilization of our 6,000 bedrooms, and their pathetic “seller’s standards” and “right-sizing” experiments are going nowhere fast. They do say they will begin randomly auditing five ownership units a year for compliance. We’ll see.

The joint leadership meeting acknowledged the state of HOA capital reserves is far worse than imagined. Just 29 of 80 HOAs even bothered to participate in the last study in 2011. At the time, only two were properly funded and the deficit was estimated to be over $15 million. That was 12 years ago and not a single thing has been done. They’ll be posting an RFP for a new study sometime in 2024. 

Then came the excuses. Those in ownership units are “housing burdened,” a term recognizing that maintenance comes at free market prices, so that’s why no one does any. Without challenging this critical program failure, the group spent a lot of time discussing how the government (with public dollars) ought to subsidize the fixes. “Personal responsibility” never came up.

County commissioner and APCHA board member Francie Jacober then advocated for “building wealth” through subsidized housing ownership, suggesting appreciation should be higher. While APCHA does have the noble goal of providing affordable housing rental and ownership opportunities, it is not a social welfare organization nor a retirement planner. This preposterous notion of wealth creation reveals that subsidized housing is less about actual housing and far more about wealth redistribution. She just said the quiet part out loud.

Another tell illustrating how far from solving the real housing issues our elected leaders are came from county commissioner Steve Child who invoked the old class warfare dog whistle, “If we could make some of these big private homeowners house more employees, we could make a dent in the problem.” 

Ranting that SkiCo needs to be doing more was also a popular theme. Nice try. The valley’s largest employer has built hundreds of rental units in recent years up and down the valley for its employees, and they know exactly who is in each one and which jobs they perform. (We ought to be emulating SkiCo, not tarring it in this toxic conversation.)

A cursory discussion about the growth implications of housing was completely off the mark, focused on water usage and consumption, as if year-round population increases, traffic and added impacts to existing infrastructure don’t exist. If you ignore the big picture, apparently it goes away.

With no acknowledgment that the system is broken, and without imaginative or results-driven solutions to consider, there wasn’t even a hypothetical discussion of whether an all-rental program would address or eliminate our long list of problems. (It would. Every last one of them.) 

Despite what Mick and Rachel have long espoused, ownership is not required to be an engaged community member. The system they built and the myths around it have trapped good people and stressed their finances to where they make the rational decision to neglect their units, which is both accepted and rewarded. It has also proven detrimental to the long term physical sustainability of our housing stock.

Housing security is a two-way street, and today ours is riddled with potholes. It’s not about being set for life while neglecting the often costly responsibilities of home ownership. Qualified residents who remain in compliance will always be secure, even more so in well-maintained and managed rental units. With rentals, we’d have housing that lasts for many future generations. But not until we dispel the myth.

It doesn’t make financial sense to maintain an ownership unit, so most simply do not. Contact TheRedAntEM@comcast.net

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?

***

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