ISSUE #253: A Bridge Over Troubled Politics (7/3/23)

"Men build too many walls and not enough bridges."

-- Joseph Fort Newton

We'd be far better served if council would direct city hall to seek new and innovative Castle Creek bridge replacement solutions vs waiting for city staff to come back in the near future with another attempt to cram its "preferred alternative" down our throats.

Read my column in yesterday's Aspen Times HERE.

In other business, thank you for submitting public comment recently regarding memoralizing the development plans for The Lumberyard. You spoke and council listened. The feedback received was enough to give council pause and the matter was continued.

The first related meeting on the subject of financing the project is a work session on July 10. Unfortunately this meeting will not allow public comment, but you can always send yours in. I hope you will, especially if you have relevant development financing knowledge and experience. Use THIS link and add "Work Session 7/10/23" to the subject line. Can you just imagine the nonsense city staff will be peddling about how easy it will be to finance the $500 million project? Let's hope council is smart enough to see through it.

Then, on August 10, council will meet again and likely vote. Stay tuned. I'll be back in touch with how you can once again become involved. If you're in town, this is the one to come to in person to make your comments directly to council.

***

When a gasoline tanker lost control while exiting I-95 outside of Philadelphia on June 11, the ensuing fire and destruction of the overpass created a monumental headache for the 160,000 vehicles that cross that section of highway every day. The 23-mile detour was initially expected to last for months while the highway was repaired, but the use of innovative materials and employment of creative solutions had the road re-opened in just 12 days.

Extrapolating to the impending Castle Creek Bridge replacement, why aren’t we looking at creative and innovative solutions? Yes, the bridge needs to be replaced. It was built in 1961 with an intended 75-year lifespan. But the city is solely fixated on one obtrusive replacement concept that will admittedly take 8-12 years to complete at a construction cost over $200 million that will do absolutely nothing to reduce travel time yet will decimate cherished open space at the entrance to Aspen.

Why, when there is some really great “bridge technology” out there? A layman’s cursory afternoon of research yielded many fascinating examples of bridge-building in the 21^st century, many of which have unique similarities to our local challenges. 

Our “fix” could be as easy as ABC.

Accelerated Bridge Construction is not some untested pipe-dream or newfangled concept employed in an unregulated European outpost. It’s a paradigm shift in bridge-building that prioritizes the need to minimize the mobility impacts of onsite construction that results in improvements across the board to safety, quality, durability, social costs, environmental impacts, project delivery time, and of course, cost.

One component of ABC, called “replacement in place” or the “bridge slide method,” seems to have our name on it. In short, new piers are constructed beneath the existing bridge. New lane segments are then constructed on either side. When traffic is shifted to the new outer lanes, the existing structure in the center is dismantled. A new, prefabricated structure is then slid into place.

A “replacement in place” project just like this was completed in January on State Route 79 over the Gila River in Florence, Arizona. It took just two successive weekends of lane restrictions (one lane operational, with signals) from 8pm on Friday through 5a on Monday and $22.1 million to complete.

Another ABC practice that seems applicable here is that of foundation re-use. This is where an existing bridge is rehabilitated or replaced by one of four foundation re-use options: build new foundations adjacent to the existing ones, demo and replace the existing foundations, re-use the existing ones or re-use the existing foundations after strengthening and enhancing them. Case and point, in 2015, Indiana and Kentucky collaborated to rehabilitate a deteriorating bridge over the Ohio River by strengthening the existing foundations then replacing the superstructure (span) with a pre-assembled steel truss, resulting in considerable cost savings and a significantly shorter delivery time than what a complete replacement would have taken.

The US Department of Transportation is working to create awareness, inform, educate, train, assist and entice state DOTs to employ rapid construction techniques. Pre-fabrication of bridges is not new; the industry has been pre-fabricating steel bridge beams for over 50 years and the use of pre-fabricated bridge elements and systems have seen widespread use over the past decade.

The goal of ABC is to expand pre-fabrication to all elements of the bridge with more emphasis on erection and rigging, and less on casting concrete. Sure, ABC requires different construction methods and equipment, but the method also encourages incentive dates and “complete no later than” contracts. Imagine the city of Aspen being interested in such efficiencies!

Best of all for us, CDOT already employs ABC and has for some time. In July 2013, when in just over 12 hours from noon on a Saturday to just after midnight Sunday, they rolled in and set in its final configuration the 2400-ton (4.8 million pounds) Pecos Street Bridge over I-70 between I-25 and Federal. 

Examples abound. The technology exists. The experts are at work. Yet once again, the city of Aspen blusters and pontificates about leading the world while relying on overpaid consultants, quarter-century old research and outdated methodologies when planning for and making decisions about Aspen’s future. 

The city has never been known for its vision, nor its construction prowess. Like its nonchalant acceptance of outrageous construction timelines, stratospheric cost estimates for one project after the next are casually approved. It’s a slap in the face.

Replacement and enlargement of the Castle Creek Bridge makes infinite sense. It can be completed far faster than any alternative. There are no regulatory entanglements. It is an existing and sufficient right of way. The Marolt Open Space is preserved. There are no issues with historic property. There are no neighborhood impacts and no new stoplights. One bridge using state and federal funds is the most cost effective solution. 

In 1960, it took just a year to build the existing bridge. Imagine the possibilities of replacing it in the modern era using ABC techniques. We cannot rely on our local government to bring the solution to us. It is simply beyond their scope. It is time for city council to give new direction toward replacing the bridge. 

Be prepared to voice your feedback when the city moves to jam its preferred alternative down our throats. They’re just waiting for the next opportunity. Contact TheRedAntEM@comcast.net

ISSUE #252: A Kick in the Assessments (6/20/23)

"Who pays property taxes? We all do, either directly in property tax bills or through higher rents 

and other costs."

-- Michelle Steel

This week's column was an attempt to explain how Pitkin County came to arrive at your recent property valuations. In short, it wasn't arbitrary ... but there is some subjectivity. If you appealed your valuation, be prepared to make your case. Read my column from Sunday's Aspen Times HERE.

THE LUMBERYARD

Thanks to all of you who responded to my recent call to action on The Lumberyard. It was your public comment and feedback that resulted in a robust council meeting and an 8-week continuance on granting development entitlements to the massive public housing project! 

You raised critical questions about the following topics and council recognized they owed you answers:

• Traffic and a new stoplight on Highway 82
• Integration of The Lumberyard with the Entrance to Aspen
• Design issues: unit size, height, on-site traffic flow, parking, materials, architecture
• And of course, FINANCES - how to pay for it!!

First up is a council work session on financing models and the flexibility of entitlements (once granted) on July 10. As a work session, there will not be public comment, but if you're like me, you don't want city staff and their self-interested consultants insisting that getting government grants and attracting development partners is EASIER with development entitlements locked in! While you can't make a public comment, you sure can send one in! HERE is that link again. Please include "Work Session July 10" on the subject line. Let me know how I can help.

Councilmen Bill Guth and Sam Rose led the charge to better define the financial options before entitling the project. Bill additionally highlighted the lack of objectivity from city staff when evaluating a project where the city is also the applicant. Heck, if financing The Lumberyard is so easy, why can't they show us specifically how they plan to do it?!

Interestingly, Ward Hauenstein and Mayor Torre both questioned how flexible the entitlements would be once locked in, concerned about tying the city's or a future development partner's hands with stringent requirements on unit number, FAR, height and a number of specific design issues. Your questions made them think! And they showed how non-committal they are to the plans currently in place.

In short, it became quite clear that this project IS NOT ready to be entitled. But it will be revisited soon and we must be ready.

As we move forward, it will be important to communicate with council using real-world examples specifically in the entitlement / public private partnership / and construction financing realms that they can easily understand. 

Do you have specific experience in any of these areas? I'd love to hear from you as I prepare to make my case. Please drop me a note by replying to this email. 

It certainly does take a village. And it will continue to. Thank you again for stepping up. We're not done yet.

***

May’s property valuation notices hit like a ton of bricks. While statewide property assessments rose 30% - 70%, Pitkin County is up 85% in cumulative market value, the highest in Colorado. The COVID-era urban exodus dramatically impacted our real estate market resulting in drastic assessment increases, some as high as 324%.

I called the county assessor’s office to learn how they specifically arrived at the new assessed values. 

Property value calculations are based on real estate sales that occurred during the 18 months between January 1, 2021 and June 30, 2022, a unique period of time when both residential and non-residential property sales prices skyrocketed. Governor Polis stepped in with temporary relief, but even at reduced assessment rates (6.76% residential, 27.9% non-residential), projections for property tax increases loom large.

In a perfect storm, in 2020 voters also repealed the Gallagher Amendment which had long benefitted homeowners with its 45%-55% tax burden, split with businesses. Under Gallagher, as residential property values increased, assessed values came down. But resultant tax collections, especially in rural areas, eventually declined so much that services were threatened without a commercial tax base to rely on. The repeal was intended to freeze assessment rates while preserving funding for public services. Then came the real estate market insanity.

For reference, the elected assessor’s role is one of department administration. Property values are determined by county appraisers who divide the county into 15 economic areas such as city of Aspen, east Aspen, Town of Snowmass Village, Brush Creek, Woody Creek, the Frying Pan, etc. They then divide each economic area into proximate neighborhoods. Real estate sales data from the designated 18-month timeframe is plotted for each neighborhood. A price/sf is assigned to each neighborhood based on these sales. 

In a mass appraisal, the neighborhood price/sf is then assigned to every property in that neighborhood. The appraisers then assign a “quality” to each individual property that incorporates information from building permits, the last inspection of the property, as well factors such as views, based on best available information.

The outcome is neighborhood assessments on a bell curve that reflect the disparity between proximate properties and take into account the “quality rating” of the individual properties. 

If you are thinking “subjective,” you wouldn’t be far off. There most certainly are outliers and cases where there aren’t proximate comps. It then falls to the appraisers to “find” comps.

I hope you appealed if you believe you have a case. The county expects it. They’ve received over xxxappeals this year. Appealing is not viewed negatively nor as confrontational, merely the property owner’s opportunity to make a case. If you have an upcoming hearing, be prepared to make one, and know that you can ask to see the comps used by the appraiser in determining your assessed value.

So, it’s not arbitrary, nor is it a computer algorithm. It’s a 17,000-property human endeavor. Just pray you don’t get Mick Ireland as your hearing officer. Yes, the old class warrior and wealth redistributor has again been contracted by the board of equalization to sit in judgment on local cases!

On the commercial front, “non-residential” properties always saw their assessed values go up, but never dramatically like this. Even held to a 27.9% rate, the new property values will make commercial taxes even more outrageous, which only portends one thing: higher prices. 

Commercial real estate in Aspen is structured on triple net (NNN) leases. No landlord pays property taxes. In addition to rent, the tenant pays the property tax, maintenance and insurance; costs that are passed onto the consumer. 

As a hypothetical example, say Paradise Bakery pays $90,000/year in taxes as part of their NNN. If the property tax increases 30%, their NNN reflects $120,000 in taxes. When those delicious cookies sell for $3.65 a piece, Paradise is on the hook to sell an additional 8,219 cookies just to stay even. Any wonder why “local shops” can’t make it in Aspen? It’s the taxes, not the landlords!

Speaking of landlords, their net operating income (NOI) is from rent received. That NOI, when divided by the current market value of the property, yields the capitalization rate, a.k.a. the rate of return. As assessed values increase, the cap rate declines. It’s pretty straightforward to see how lower cap rates are likely to drive rents upward. The consumer absorbs this in addition to inevitable increases in NNN, that is, if the businesses can survive.

There are over 50 taxing districts in Pitkin County depending on where you live.  Each was enabled by local voters to levy taxes. Colorado Mountain College recently elected to temporarily decrease its mill levy to reduce the taxpayers’ burden. This magnanimous step should be immediately emulated by all other taxing authorities either voluntarily or at the formal urging of the board of county commissioners. Garfield County set an example by reducing its mill levy and encouraging its taxing entities to follow suit.

Perhaps we need a citizens’ petition to lobby the BOCC to act. Anyone interested in leading the charge? I’ll help. 

Each tax district must come back to the voters to extend their mill levies in the future. Let’s see who steps up to help us out today. Voters have a long memory. Contact TheRedAntEM@comcast.net

ISSUE #251: ANT ALERT - Give Lumberyard Feedback Today! (6/12/23)

"The Lumberyard is just another of the many fingers in the dike trying to restrain the forces of gentrification flooding our community."

-- Mick Ireland

Tomorrow at 3p, city council will be voting to lock in development plans for The Lumberyard. This is reckless and absurd. There are far too many unanswered questions and the community is being kept in the dark. 

It is ESSENTIAL that you click HERE and write a note - however brief - expressing your vehement disapproval. (Very little public comment has been received thus far, so council continually refers to "feedback" they received when they originally asked housing seekers "what do you want at The Lumberyard?" This is hardly what we want guiding such a monumental decision!)

You do not have to be an Aspen voter to voice your opposition!

SPEAK NOW! 

A "no" vote will not stop the project, but it will pause it so the community can see:

A) The budget

B) The financing plans

C) The traffic plans

D) The specifics on who will eventually reside there

E) A study on the impacts to our schools, hospital and other vital infrastructure

F) Impacts on the community in terms of real growth.

Today, we have ZERO information on these issues.

The Lumberyard plans are not ready to be memorialized, but city hall is rushing to get things underway. Once underway, they'll say it's too late to change anything. This is their modus operandi.

A couple important tidbits:

• The Lumberyard stands to be the largest municipal project in Aspen's history.
• It has no funding source nor budget.
• Nearly $30 million has already been spent on the land. 
• Over $4.3 million has already been spent on design, but only as far as the "schematic" phase. Much more design work is still to come.
• City staff has told council there are "9 financing models" yet none have been publicly shared. (My guess is they don't exist.)
• City staff continually tells council that the city has "significant" funding options for the project yet won't reveal them. (Could they be referring to the drastically shrinking RETT revenues?)
• While P&Z has technically approved The Lumberyard, they stated grave concerns over Hwy 82 traffic impacts, infrastructure at the ABC and a new stoplight/intersection - topics that were outside the scope of their review yet big enough to be raised. The city has ignored their feedback.
• Estimates have units costing $1.5 million per to build while the Roaring Fork School District is building housing for teachers for $573K/unit. Maybe we ought to at least look at what they're doing?
• The cheap-looking design is massive. The 4-story buildings are 64' in height. You do the math.
• Despite the likelihood of becoming an all-rental complex, LY units have been designed larger than required by APCHA, with walk-in closets, in-unit laundry, mudrooms, storage closets and balconies or porches. Is this efficient? Necessary? Or just plain stupid?
• The city is both judge and jury in this application - they are pushing for council's approval of their own development plans. If an outside developer proposed this nonsense they'd be laughed out of the room.
• Many more "contracts" are in the immediate pipeline awaiting approval. If plans are approved on Tuesday, the spending will begin in earnest - with no funding source.

Don't take my word for it. BY FAR THE BEST RESOURCE for facts and info on The Lumberyard has been provided by my friends at 

Aspen Deserves Better, a non-political platform dedicated to fostering community engagement and conversation. HERE is their newsletter from last night on this critical issue.

I also encourage you to subscribe. I wholeheartedly agree: Better engagement and processes can only lead to better governance.

I implore you. Please take 3 minutes NOW and write a brief note to council expressing how The Lumberyard is "not ready" for approval, in your own words. Weigh in and be counted. Your opinion does matter. Thank you!!

ISSUE #250: Seeds of Dissent at the Community Garden (6/4/23)

"A good garden may have some weeds."

-- Proverb

The Aspen pastime has recently become complaining about bygone eras. And it's exasperating. Everyone likes to point fingers and attribute blame. 

I find that more often than not it's the city of Aspen itself that's at the center of what ails us.

Take the Community Garden for example. It's become a bureaucratic mess like so many other programs overseen and controlled by the local government.

Read my column in today's Aspen Times HERE.

Lots of important reading today....

For those who were appalled by my recent "Ant Alert" about a poll to gauge interest in a new Pitkin County property or sales tax measure for the November ballot, HERE is a link to that incredibly leading poll. As predicted, the poll is more about getting people to acknowledge a need for more housing than weighing a tax measure. I encourage you to take it, but do so VERY carefully. They're trying to trick you. When it asks how a given statement would make you more willing to say yes to a proposed tax increase, be sure to answer NOT AT ALL. Vote early and often.

IMPORTANT: The public hearing to formalize the development entitlements for The Lumberyard is this Tuesday, June 6. It's a big deal. Approval of these plans before we have a funding source is not only beyond irresponsible and a slap in the face of the taxpayers who will ultimately foot the bill, it likely hurts our ability to bring in a financial partner who may very well want their say in what's developed. If you cannot be at the meeting (HERE is the 1476-page packet), please re-read my last column and send a letter with your unequivocal displeasure to council. HERE is an email link. More background on the dire financial specifics can be found HERE and HERE.

One last thing on the subject of The Lumberyard, HERE is Daily News columnist and former city finance director Paul Menter's last column. His excoriation of the city and The Lumberyard project specifically caps a remarkable 12-year run holding the city's feet to the fire. His frustration is palpable. 

There is NO GOOD REASON to move The Lumberyard forward.

***

For over 40 years, across the Marolt Pedestrian Bridge lies the Aspen Community Garden. In 1978, Larry Dunn, aided by Ed Compton, “the official dean of Aspen gardeners” who lived nearby in senior housing, created a place for local residents of all ages to get close to nature with a dedicated area within the Marolt Open Space. 

The Victory Gardens of WWII became the community gardens of the late 20^th century. The idea was to start with a small plot, learn to garden, and graduate to a larger plot with success, as determined by Compton and his “garden leadership” team.  Prospective gardeners originally stood on their plots to claim them, and the garden flourished, yielding a cornucopia ranging from snow peas to garlic to sunflowers to rhubarb and more. The Aspen Times’ archives report few instances of poaching.

Due to popular demand, the garden was expanded in 1980, and it continued to thrive with a focus on self-sufficiency and education on organic food growth. In 1985, a benefit concert at the Wheeler raised money for the project, which by then had become a cornerstone of the community. Goals of the garden were explicit: to ease financial pressures on seniors and other local employees by enabling them to grow their own produce. Participants were aided by 10 kids a day whose working parents “volunteered” them. In short, the community garden gave a sense of purpose to local seniors and provided free day care for several parents!

Like most everything else in Aspen, those idyllic days are long gone. Today the community garden still thrives, but has become yet another bureaucracy within the city of Aspen. A low priority, buried in the Parks and Recreation department, overseen by a secretive “garden leadership” group and managed by a local volunteer, the organization and most notably its elusive wait list are shrouded in mystery. There is no public roster of who has plots, nor will the city allow the waitlist to be posted with anything more than initials. 

Comprised of 57 large plots (roughly 10 x 40 feet) and 26 smaller ones at the west end, the community garden has space for 83 gardeners, and at press time 105 wait to be assigned a plot of their own. Inquiries about the garden over the past year have been met with obfuscation, dismissal and suspicion, which only piques my interest. I was given a numbered and lettered plot map, but nothing further due to “city rules.”

Reports of friends gifting plots to friends, individuals combining multiple plots, and plots assigned yet neglected proliferate. Such a public amenity with a robust waiting list has no grounds for operating like a private club, with special rules for special people and zero transparency. Yet it does.

Notably, in the past year, the official regulations have been updated to include a residency requirement: you must be a resident of the Roaring Fork Valley for at least nine months of the year to qualify for a plot. So apparently anyone in the region can have a plot in our community garden, ahead of city residents who pay taxes for this open space and despite the explicit request not to drive cars to the garden. 

Whether that overly lenient rule is even enforced is unknown. Other listed rules prohibit structures or internal fences, yet the garden, especially at this time of year before it’s filled in with plantings, looks like Sanford and Son’s junkyard. Plastic garden chairs and other bric-a brac indicate that many plots are utilized as remote backyards and not necessarily gardens, if the one with the kids sandbox and toys is any indicator. Meanwhile, higgledy-piggledy fences delineate various plots. It’s a mess.

If you’re thinking that the community garden sounds a lot like APCHA, another government program that started with the best intentions yet came off the rails over time because no one was paying attention, you wouldn’t be wrong. The community garden has sadly become one more entitlement to be taken advantage of and junked up instead of respected as a privilege. That’s probably also why one rule expressly prohibits camping in one’s garden.

It is worth pointing out that there are indeed many legitimate gardens out there. Several local chefs enhance their menus with farm to table offerings. And numerous serious gardeners have beautiful and bountiful plots, reflecting not just their green thumbs but their pride and community spirit. 

It only takes one bad apple, and at our community garden it’s the city of Aspen’s administrative state that has destroyed the original intent. The lack of transparency and oversight, and the concentration of power among a mysterious group has turned a unique community resource into an exclusive and lawless benefit for a select few.

A simple, straightforward and equitable fix would be to restructure the garden by dividing the existing larger plots in half, creating 10 x 20 foot gardens for an additional 57 Aspen gardeners, thereby clearing over half the waitlist. And establishing an independent and dedicated citizen leadership committee like they had in the good old days.

When it comes to the Aspen city government, you reap what you sow. Contact TheRedAntEM@comcast.net

ISSUE #249: Ant Alert - A New Property Tax? (5/30/23)

"The avoidance of taxes is the only intellectual pursuit that carries any reward."

-- John Maynard Keynes

HEADS UP: A POLL ON A NEW TAX FOR THE NOVEMBER BALLOT

Yes, you read that right. Beginning today, May 30, Pitkin County will be polling residents on their appetites for a county-wide subsidized housing tax.

In spite of the efforts by BOCC member Greg Poschman, the commissioners will not even get to review the questions. Look for leading questions and ones that do not to even mention a tax but instead ask something like "Does Pitkin County need more housing?"

The goal is to get enough "support" for "more housing" and perhaps even "more childcare" so that a new sales or property tax measure can be justified for the November ballot.

In an effort to move things quickly (when most people are not in town), commissioner Patti Clapper told her fellow commissioners to "trust the pollster."

This of course comes on the heels of the SUBSTANTIAL property tax valuation increases recently revealed to Pitkin County property owners that foretell ENORMOUS property tax increases this winter.

DO NOT ANSWER THE SURVEY IN ANY WAY THAT INDICATES YOUR SUPPORT FOR MORE HOUSING OR CHILDCARE. It will be counted as your willingness to increase taxes.

Why would we reward APCHA, that broken system, with more public money?

HERE is the news on the upcoming poll that will be conducted by phone and text over the next 10 days. If there is another way to participate, I will let you know.

Remember, the city justified putting its STR tax on the 2022 ballot with just 300 responses in favor of "more housing."

JUST SAY NO.

ISSUE #248: The Case for Pausing The Lumberyard (5/21/23)

"Sometimes all it takes is a subtle shift in perspective, an opening of the mind, an intentional pause and reset, or a new route to start to see new options and new possibilities."

-- Kristin Armstrong

The time is upon us. City staff is pushing council to memorialize the development plans for The Lumberyard so they can begin "horizontal development" of the 10-acre site, which means demolishing the existing lumberyard and the mini-storage, both revenue generating tenants.

Critical to any development, especially massive ones, should be how to pay for it. But no, not in Aspen. There is strong council sentiment to "move forward" because staff has been working on this for a long time.

We are talking $500 million to build the 277-unit project. Mayor Torre and councilmen Doyle and Hauenstein are in the "more is more" camp, where catchy ideas like "public-private-partnerships" and "phasing" are all they need to hear. Never mind neither of these options pencil out.

It will be interesting to hear what the new council members have to say. It's clearly in their best interest NOT to get neutralized by city staff with go-along-to-get-along votes simply because it will inevitably pass. Their oversight as time progresses is critical, and "yes" votes will render them supporters of the status quo.

It's a bad project, with no goal other than "more," that will not address our labor shortage. And the financials are OUTRAGEOUS. 

Read my column in yesterday's Aspen Times HERE.

***

City council will meet on Tuesday to memorialize the development entitlements for The Lumberyard, a 277-unit, 467-bedroom subsidized housing project on 10 acres just east of the ABC. These entitlements, if approved, will effectively green-light the project.

As the new council differentiates itself from the prior 5-0 echo-chamber, the first reading of an ordinance presents great opportunity to probe staff while leaving room for changes. In the past, first readings were simply a formality followed by a later second reading where each member made a gratuitous comment about staff’s proposed legislation before voting to approve it.

The Lumberyard, despite its slick drawings, is not at all ready for primetime and should not advance to second reading. More work needs to be done. 

Here are five reasons for council to push the pause button:

There is no goal other than “more” and this will not take pressure off the system. “More” is not a “release valve” that addresses the community’s actual workforce needs. The city prioritizes “essential workers” in its proprietary housing. Will we prioritize teachers, nurses, first responders, bus drivers, snow-plow drivers, bartenders and housekeepers? What about retirees willing to downsize? Where is that policy? Will there be options for the Latino community and can employers purchase units?

Adding more units to a broken system won’t change a thing. Building more and “figuring it out later” has gotten us exactly where we are today.

There is no funding mechanism in place.  Land for the project was purchased with nearly $30 million in RETT money, however, there is no financial plan for construction despite cost estimates approaching $500 million. A general obligation bond won’t pass muster with Aspen voters. More costly Certificates of Participation would bypass them, but this precludes ownership units. Declining RETT ($21 million in 2022, down 19% from 2021, and already down 40% YTD in 2023) and STR tax collections (projected $6 million a year) aren’t but drops in the bucket.

Only unqualified bureaucrats with bags of Monopoly money could advance this project past the idea stage without a defined goal and sound financial pro forma.

A Public Private Partnership (PPP) sounds nice but the numbers don’t work. PPP has become the latest funding idea and city staff hopes council likes the sound of it. (Most don’t understand the business of development.)  APCHA sales prices wouldn’t put a dent in the construction costs nor deliver a profit to the developer so the project would have to be all rental. Simple math: 277 rental units at $2,500/month average (which is high) yields $8.3 million a year. A development cost of $500 million at 5% return is $25 million to cover the interest cost on the debt. (It’s probably closer now to 10% and $50 million.) The city would have an ongoing subsidy of $16.7 (or $41.7) million simply to cover the annual debt service. It just doesn’t pencil. 

277 units doesn’t even off-set expiring deed restrictions.  In coming years, 79 ownership and 244 rental units will revert to the free market unless the city intervenes. Oughtn’t we save what we already have instead of building fewer new units? This certainly won’t cost half a billion dollars.

“Build now or costs will only go up” is not a reason to move forward. Look what happened with the Snowmass Village transit center. They spent a lot of money and but stopped when the community pushed back. It’s okay to pause in order to get it right. The Taj Mahal City Hall was similarly rushed and look at that travesty. (We’ll never know its true costs.) What’s best for the community is the only thing that matters, and that starts with a viable and responsible financial plan.

The Lumberyard must be part of a larger “Entrance to Aspen” masterplan.  The Highway 82 corridor in the upper valley links multiple major upcoming civic projects. We are expanding the Park-and-Ride intercept lot at Brush Creek Road, the airport is facing a major overhaul and terminal expansion, the ABC has become an Aspen suburb yet lacks proper infrastructure like sidewalks, The Lumberyard necessitates a new traffic light and the Castle Creek Bridge is nearing the end of its lifespan. These projects must be considered together as part of a formal, integrated master plan rather than developed individually. 

In the absence of hearing “no,” city staff hears “yes.”  Their goal is to politically neutralize city council by pushing them to go along with existing plans because of how much has gone into these so far. When things go sideways, the co-opted electeds then can’t distance themselves from the project nor their ill-informed predecessors who started us down this path.

To entitle the Lumberyard now only ensures that this incomplete, ill-conceived and fiscally irresponsible project moves forward at enormous uncertain cost to the community. We all know the city loves to play developer as opposed to fixing what it already has, and there’s no going back once they demolish the revenue-generating lumberyard and mini storage, and install the horizontal infrastructure.

Just because the drawings are done, the Lumberyard project is far from ready. Hit the pause button. 

Pretty construction drawings are not development plans. Contact TheRedAntEM@comcast.net

ISSUE #247: What "Disappearing Locals?" (5/7/23)

"It is an illusion that youth is happy, 

an illusion of those who have lost it."

-- W. Somerset Maugham

It's off-season in Aspen and a lot of people are out of town, but the recent outcry over "disappearing locals" is a myth. In fact, we're about to add 356 new APCHA units' worth of new full-time residents with Burlingame 3 and The Lumberyard. That doesn't count employer-owned housing.

Strangely, the way Aspen measures and restricts "growth" because it supposedly destroys community character, none of this subsidized housing counts.

Read my column from yesterday's Aspen Times HERE.

***

Where did all the locals go? Well, it’s off season, so there’s no end to the world traveling. Whether it’s Moab, Morocco or Montrachet, now’s the time to get away. But it’s important to note that everyone is coming back. After all, the Food & Wine Classic begins on June 16. 

The latest gripe we keep hearing about is “the missing middle” in Aspen.  More recently, it’s become a desperate outcry over “disappearing locals.” The problem is, “the missing middle” is hardly missing, and locals are not “disappearing” in the sense that’s implied. 

Locals may be disappearing from the resort/service industry workforce in such numbers that town undoubtedly feels different, but the people themselves haven’t left. They’re just doing other things. And “the middle” is actually here in droves. Plus, countless young families and urban refugees have relocated to Aspen since the pandemic to join them, and if you’re to believe all the chatter about a growing housing crisis, they keep coming. Furthermore, since the demand for subsidized housing continues to escalate unabated (who doesn’t want to live affordably in Aspen), it shows that no locals are going anywhere. The locals who are already here are staying put. That’s why there’s no room for the new guys.

But for “the middle,” something is in fact “missing.” Those in “the middle” are missing how it had once been possible to live large just like our tourists, sometimes even larger. But the times have changed and many of the old freebies have dried up. What’s “missing” for this group today is all the cool stuff that used to be accessible in an earlier, less expensive version of Aspen. A columnist for the other paper laments that local businesses sadly now cater to the people who actually pay for goods and services instead of giving free access, free parking and free drinks to locals, even if it meant putting these on an unsuspecting tourist’s tab. Having to buck up now for such things is her rationale for missing the good old days, but no, no one has gone “missing.”

The greatest contributor to this phenomenon is actually the bureaucratic state that continues to create more locals through unchecked subsidized housing development - 79 new units at Burlingame 3 and 277 at The Lumberyard in the near term – and the refusal to call this growth. While free market residential development is strictly capped at 0.5% annually (13 new units and 6 redeveloped units), there is no limit on subsidized housing development. We actually have a “growth” policy that’s mission is to protect our small town community character yet our formula for measuring growth ignores its greatest driver.

Among other problems, this results in many hundreds more locals on the same budget who will inevitably join the chorus to complain about how expensive everything is. Not exactly the definition of “disappearing.”  There are actually so many “middles” in “the middle” that from the inside, it surely feels like there’s a lot more competition to be one. Because there is. But no one is talking about it. More people are earning the same low wages and competing for fewer scarce resources (think bar stools at Mi Chola).  

This inevitably leads to talk about restaurant price inflation which is a national phenomenon, not something unique to Aspen. And notably, most “middles” have changed as much in the past 20 years as the restaurants have. They just don’t want to acknowledge it.

Could this be the result of chickens coming home to roost? Years of living the high life while paying pennies on the dollar for subsidized housing, not saving, not building equity but collecting 100-day pins and passport stamps? Nearly 40 years into our subsidized housing program brings new awareness daily to the harsh realities of owning deed restricted property in one of America’s priciest zip codes where the cost of every last thing is higher than practically anywhere else. There are so many “middles” in “the middle” that people are no doubt getting lost, as in left behind, but they’re not disappearing.

Even the “middles” are turning on themselves. A class system is evolving within the housing program. Apparently when top realtors live in APCHA housing, this is a bad thing. But they’re locals too, right? I’d say just as much as the longtime bartender who recently retired is one. I question the guy who works at home for Google but only the appropriateness of APHCA’s rules that allow it. He’s still a local despite “disappearing” from the local workforce. But personal purchasing power in our little hamlet has now become a delineating factor. If you’re not complaining, you’re clearly not a local. 

Lamenting “the missing middle” and “disappearing locals” has become an acceptable way to express nostalgia for how one remembers a place to be when one was at one’s most fun and youthful best. And today, when prices everywhere have risen, in Aspen it’s always someone else’s fault: the tourists, the landlords, the second homeowners. But this just a canard.

The only locals who have “disappeared” are the younger versions of themselves.

How can free market growth be detrimental to community character yet subsidized housing growth has no impact at all? Contact TheRedAntEM@comcast.net

ISSUE #246: Housing Utilization - The City is The Worst (4/23/23)

"Success means doing the best with what we have."

-- Zig Ziglar

The hypocrisy is unreal. While the city of Aspen drives the "housing crisis" narrative, they run a lax and underutilized, proprietary housing program of their own. And they continue with a taxpayer-funded shopping spree to buy more units, up and down the valley.

City-owned units don't even house city employees. It's a mess. 

Read my column from Sunday's Aspen Times HERE.

***

As it pushes the community toward more and more subsidized housing construction at any cost on the last remaining vacant parcels in town and atop cherished, historically designated Victorians, the city of Aspen quietly maintains a small portfolio of housing of its very own. With 67 units comprised of 121 bedrooms, select city employees are rewarded with ownership and rental opportunities for studios up to 4-bedroom homes.

This little fiefdom has been made possible by the 505 Fund, established in 2008 and funded by all departments in the city as well as the general fund, where each allocates a percentage of their budget. In 2023, over $2.8 million will be transferred from individual city department budgets to the 505 Fund. Noteworthy contributions include $185K from the Wheeler fund, $134K from the parking fund, $77K each from the golf and daycare funds and a whopping $1.3 million from the general fund.

While loudly espousing that housing ought not be tied to employment, the city’s housing most definitely is, so when someone leaves their job, their unit must be vacated and returned or sold back to the city. Uniquely, however, those in city housing can pass along their maintenance and improvement costs to the city because such expenditures are seen as capital investments toward the long-term upkeep of the units. APCHA, in contrast, caps its reimbursements so there is no incentive for residents to improve yet alone even maintain their units.

Anyone who does business with the city has come to learn that things there take forever.  A visit to the city offices reveals how many work from home these days, yet the excuse for everything from building permits to open records requests taking an insulting amount of time is constantly blamed on “the housing crisis.” I’m not buying it.

A simple analysis of the city’s 67 housing units is telling. According to the city attorney’s office, just 53 are currently occupied.  Fourteen are vacant; this represents 27 empty bedrooms and 22% of the inventory. And of the 53 occupied units, recent information provided lists a SkiCo employee in a 3-bedroom, an employee of the animal shelter in a 1-bedroom and another random dude with no employment noted who occupies a 2-bedroom unit. 

For an entity that continues to blame its poor service on the lack of employee housing, one might think they’d have darned tight controls on who resides in their rare and valuable units. Instead, they don’t even bother to keep good records! But city council did just allocate nearly $3.6 million to cut the line to buy 5 new units (8 bedrooms) at Burlingame 3 for “essential” employees. Notably, such essential city employees already in city housing include an apprentice line technician, a recreation supervisor and a parking ambassador. (Somehow the city can determine who is and who isn’t essential, but it’s “classist” to suggest the same of APCHA.)

Furthermore, according to city manager Sara Ott who admits that many city jobs can be done remotely, enabling these to be filled by people who do not need local housing, the city is looking to provide housing for a full third of its 368 full-time equivalent staff. That’s 122 people. Today there are 121 bedrooms in the city’s existing 67 units, so, from a optimal utilization standpoint, we’re practically there. Add the new 8 bedrooms at Burlingame and voila, goal met. It’s certainly not the crisis they make it out to be.

But the death is always in the details. Further analysis of the city’s housing utilization reveals that they house just 0.45 employees per bedroom. That’s a lot of unused space, especially for an entity that is driving the “housing shortage” narrative. Just because APCHA runs a similarly lenient program when it comes to inventory utilization, the whole premise is incredibly irresponsible, and nothing short of a slap in the face of every taxpaying citizen whose hard-earned money pads both the APCHA and city coffers.

And don’t forget, plenty of city employees also live in APCHA housing. It’s just that the city doesn’t keep track of this. Or if they do, they won’t tell. I asked. If APCHA provided any semblance of transparency regarding who is living in our publicly subsidized housing inventory and where they work locally, it would be simple to determine what percent of city staff is currently being housed either by the community or the city itself. It’s just a guess, but I’ll say that number is well over 66%.

Meanwhile, as the city continues its housing shopping spree by picking up units outside the city limits along the transit routes with your tax dollars, it still insists that the development requirements for housing mitigation provide housing in Aspen proper. It’s more about the financial extraction from developers, not the provision of housing; fitting from the very entity that “generated” 51.6 full-time equivalent employees when building the Taj Mahal City Hall, but instead of mitigating as other developers are required to do, put this number against “credits” it granted itself from existing housing it already had in inventory.

At city hall, “h” is for “hypocrisy,” not “housing.”

Funny to criticize new councilmembers for not joining time-suck regional boards while specifically keeping them from the APCHA board. Can’t imagine why. Contact TheRedAntEM@comcast.net