At Norwood’s Pinion Park, a model to make homes affordable for paycheck-to-paycheck residents is put to the test
San Miguel County
Posted inBusiness, Housing, News
Buying frenzy slows but home prices remain sky-high in Colorado mountain towns
The blistering pace of home sales in Colorado’s mountain communities is slowing. Finally. After sales volume and prices more than doubled in Colorado’s high country valleys between 2019 and 2021, the number of home sales in six Colorado mountain counties declined through May compared with the same period in 2021. And while prices remain sky-high, […]
Posted inBusiness, Housing, News
Colorado high country commissioners blast Airbnb report that disconnects short-term rentals from housing crisis
A group of 15 commissioners from seven mountain counties is blasting a recent study commissioned by short-term rental giant Airbnb that dismissed the idea that short-term rentals are eroding worker housing in Colorado’s high country. “Airbnb narrowly focused on positive impacts, and facts appear selected to craft a story that is not entirely true, especially […]
Posted inNews, Outdoors, Outsider
Record high calls for help are stressing Colorado’s mountain firefighters, emergency responders
There are more people living in their vacation homes in Colorado’s resort communities. There are more people visiting and staying in short-term rental homes. “But it’s a challenge to quantify any of this,” said Jake Andersen, deputy chief of operations for the Aspen Fire Protection District. Fire chiefs like Andersen can gauge one impact of […]
Posted inBusiness, News, Outsider
The source of Colorado’s high country housing crisis: a doubling of home prices and sales
The rules are changing in the high country. As the labor crisis lingers, community leaders are beginning to address the root cause of the challenges that are strangling mountain valleys. They are cracking down on short-term rentals. Redirecting the flow of tax dollars toward affordable housing. Adjusting economies anchored in tourism to focus on residents, […]
Posted inCOVID, Crime and Courts, Equity, Health, Housing, News, Outdoors
A Black separatist group’s utopian dream for land near Telluride withered after an armed standoff
When Black Hammer came to Beaver Pines, a sparsely populated neighborhood on the high desert about 25 miles west of Telluride, they came for the soil. They were about two dozen leftist revolutionaries, almost all people of color. In Denver and other U.S. cities, the group’s chapters had spent the pandemic handing out food and […]
Posted inClimate, Environment, News
Can a climate-conscious CDOT build new roads and cut greenhouse gases at the same time?
The state agency that spent a century pouring roadways for trucks and automobiles now finds itself mapping out a new route — and paving the way to reducing impacts of climate change. Colorado Department of Transportation Director Shoshana Lew sees that lane to greenhouse gas cuts when she stands atop a new park that will […]
Posted inBusiness, Housing, News
Colorado mountain communities vote “yes” on new short-term rental fees but reject heavier regulation
Colorado voters in several resort communities approved increased fees and taxes meant to squeeze more revenue for affordable housing from short-term rentals. But voters in end-of-the-road Crested Butte and Telluride stopped short of heavier restrictions intended to slow and limit short-term rentals in the tourist-dependent communities. Jim Day, who is retired and lives part time […]
Posted inBusiness, Growth, Housing, News, Outsider
As record-setting real estate sales continue in Colorado resort towns, buyers are now looking way down valley
The blistering pace of real estate sales is continuing in Colorado’s high country, with every resort community setting new records in each month this year. “It’s been crazy,” Crested Butte broker Frank Konsella said, “way past everything in 2019 and 2020.” Last year saw record numbers of home buyers paying highest-ever prices for properties in […]
Posted inBusiness, News, Politics and Government
Ethics complaints from mountain counties spur probe of state Division of Property Taxation
The Department of Local Affairs will hire a law firm to investigate the Colorado Division of Property Taxation after Eagle, La Plata and San Miguel counties made ethics complaints against the state agency’s top two directors. The move averted a call for state auditors to probe the claim that a too-cozy relationship between the state […]