Colorado’s housing crisis threatens resort town with worker shortages, but development poses its own challenges
winter park
Posted inOutdoors
Colorado ski areas open day cares to attract high country workers in child care desert
Steamboat Resort and Breckenridge Resort opened child care centers for the kids of their employees this season. In Aspen, the resort is helping pay for new child care center slots in the community.
Posted inElection 2022
Voters across Colorado’s high country will weigh in on new taxes on short-term rentals, affordable housing proposals
As many as 14 Colorado municipalities and counties will ask voters next month to increase or repurpose taxes on short-term rental properties — offered on sites by Airbnb and Vrbo — to help fund affordable housing
Posted inOutdoors
Gravity Haus adds Aspen, Steamboat to its now six-property, 4,000 member mountain-town social club
Gravity Haus’ Jim Deters founded his $200-a-month ski-town clubhouse before a transformational real estate boom, drawing thousands of members. Will it thrive in the coming downturn?
Posted inOpinion, Opinion Columns
Pritchett: As it finally arrives, I’ve written a love letter to snow
If water is the essence of life, then snow is its most playful expression. Consider the wackiness of snow: It’s one of nature’s most fragile compositions, yet its heft can cause great damage. Each flake so tiny—often .05 inch—but from one comes large swaths of blizzards! And while it’s certainly wet, fresh snow is 90% […]
Posted inHousing, News, Outsider
A flurry of policy experiments in Colorado serves as “regional laboratory” for regulating, limiting short-term rentals
Winter Park and Breckenridge are offering big incentives to homeowners who convert their short-term rental properties to housing for locals. A program called “Short-Term Fix” offers homeowners up to $20,000 for converting their Winter Park vacation homes to housing for locals. The Town of Breckenridge and Summit County last week unveiled a similar program. The […]
Posted inBusiness, Economy, Growth, Housing, News
Grand Lake, still reeling from East Troublesome fire, is being shaken again by mayoral recall over housing
Like a dozen Grand Lake mayors before him, Steve Kudron smiled and waved at his constituents during the annual Buffalo Days parade last month. But Kudron added a twist no one had ever seen in 74 years of Buffalo Days. The vintage Hummer he paraded in sported a sign reading: “Vote No! Stop the Recall […]
Posted inBusiness, Coloradans, Crime and Courts, News, Outdoors
Colorado Supreme Court ends decade-long fight over teen skier’s death in Vail inbounds avalanche
The Colorado Supreme Court has denied an appeal by the family of a 13-year-old skier killed in an inbounds avalanche in 2012 at Vail ski area. The court’s denial to hear the case effectively ends a nearly 10-year fight by the parents of Taft Conlin. Louise Ingalls and Steve Conlin argued that Vail ski area […]
Posted inBusiness, COVID, Economy, News, Outdoors
Colorado mountain, resort communities are rebounding — and then some — from coronavirus-scarred 2020
John Norton, Gunnison County’s tourism czar, was talking to his board last April. The ski resort had closed abruptly. Lodging and restaurants were closed. Visitors were being told to leave. The pandemic was triggering a panic in tourist-based economies across the country. A board member asked how much the Gunnison River Valley tourism community could […]
Posted inBusiness, COVID, Economy, News, Outdoors
Colorado resorts expect next ski season to be pretty normal, but some coronavirus changes may stick around
A year ago this week, lift-served skiing was broken. Ski areas around the planet ground to a sudden halt in a desperate effort to slow the spread of contagion. Operators were distributing food from spring-break-stocked coolers and figuring out what to do with jobless workers in employee housing, all while slashing budgets and planning for […]