A New Slant on Affordable Housing

Question: I have had a terrible time finding a place to live since I moved to Summit County. How in the world can anyone afford to live and work in places like Aspen where it is even more expensive than Summit?

Answer: Great question. Mountain resort communities in Colorado generally have affordable housing as a top item on their agendas. Here’s an interesting solution that has come out of Aspen. The Aspen City Council just approved a plan to buy a 1950’s chalet within the city limits for $3.5 million. It is a 2100 square foot house on a 6,000 square foot lot and it will be designated as an addition to its worker housing pool.

The plan is to put an additional $1.3 million into the property with the addition of two “carriage houses” to create 4 housing units, one of which may be sold in the open market. According the Aspen Daily News in an article by Curtis Wackerle, this potentially represents the largest housing subsidy in the city’s history. According to the article, the city is apparently mulling a number of options for the economic breakdown of the deal.

In Aspen, it’s not just affordable housing that is an issue. With extensive re-development in the core of the city and commercial rents skyrocketing, it has become impossible for some low-revenue businesses to keep their doors open. The town is in danger of loosing the Explore Bookstore, the Aspen Drug, Ajax Bike Shop, the Red Onion restaurant and the Isis Movie Theater. The only gas station in Snowmass is having difficulty staying open as they cannot find a location where they can afford to stay in business.

Lower end retailers and restaurateurs are in danger of being run out by sky-high rents and high-end retailers. Restaurants, with notoriously low profit margins and large staffs, lose out to jewelry shops that need to employ only a few people to sell $10,000 necklaces.

One of the options that the town is looking at is to create tax breaks, rent-subsidies or for the town to step into an ownership position in order for smaller businesses to keep their doors open. For the locals, it’s a real problem. They feel very strongly that the flavor of the town is being lost and their favorite hang-outs are disappearing. Many feel that unless there is intervention by the town, there will be no place to sit down and order an affordable beer and a hamburger, there will be movie theaters to enjoy the latest movies and no browsing for books in their favorite bookstore.

According to an article in The Aspen Times, the City Council called a six-month emergency moratorium on new building permits in the commercial core. The moratorium will limit the ability for retail spaces to convert from one use to another. City officials say the moratorium is necessary so the council can address what many perceive as the continued erosion of town character. Tips for Securing a Vacant House

Question: I just bought a vacation home in Breckenridge and it is going to be empty for much of the year. Do you have any suggestions for keeping the property secure? Answer: According to an article in The Charlotte Observer by Dan Tierney, if your home is going to be empty for the winter or even just the holiday season, here are some suggestions from police officers for keeping that property secure and discouraging intruders: