Steamboat Shit Show(rant)

[Foggy_Goggles]

For better or worse, we've been test driving this in the mountains for a while now.

The model/end game is Aspen. My opinion on that is all over, I think, the Real Estate thread.

There are winners and losers. To me, not better, not worse, just different.

Sent from my Turbo 850 Flatbrimed Highhorse

[Danno]

I guaranty that if you built that capacity it would fill instantly.

Probably not, but that's the number they included in the story I read/watched.

Yea you don't need to be a super genious to see that even pro housing locals are going to be thinking "6000 more people year round?????????? No fucking way!"

You cannot tell me there is a business need for 6000 workers right now.

Does adding 2200 new units, which can accommodate 6000 people, mean 6000 people "move to town" or that "they have to need 6000 new workers"? Wouldn't many of those people come from overfilled current rentals, commuters from Hayden, etc? IOW, does building those units really depend on having 6000 open jobs and the ability to "absorb" 6000 NEW people? I wouldn't think so.

[funkendrenchman]

For better or worse, we've been test driving this in the mountains for a while now.

The model/end game is Aspen. My opinion on that is all over, I think, the Real Estate thread.

There are winners and losers. To me, not better, not worse, just different.

Sent from my Turbo 850 Flatbrimed Highhorse

42 years and running...

[skaredshtles]

I guaranty that if you built that capacity it would fill instantly.

Yep. If it was affordable, workers that are currently living in Hayden or Craig would snap that up, I'd wager.

Which would be a good thing...

ETA: Not sure that would be 6000 per Danno's point, but perhaps some of the current long-term resort rental stuff would go to short term as people moved out of Shadow Run for the new digs, etc.?

[Foggy_Goggles]

Danno, so you think there would be vacancies?

That's part of the lose/lose analysis.

Fill 'em up - challenges elsewhere

Vacancies send the bill to the taxpayers

Granby owes property across from City Market. They can figure out how to make the affordable housing pencil.

Fraser spent $10mm on the swap on the corner of CR8. They can qualify for the federal assistance they thought they were going to get.

WP built the apartments up by Silverado. They had to ease the residency and working requirements because the intended workforce couldn't afford the rent.

Standing with the golden shovel for the photo is easy. Government playing developer, contractor, realtor and property manager is not.

Affordable Housing sounds sexy as hell but the devil is in the details and it's really hard.

Sent from my Turbo 850 Flatbrimed Highhorse

[EWG]

Affordable Housing might be hard but it's being done all over the place and it works great. There are plenty of models that teach lesson and there are many, many experts in Colorado that know exactly how the regulations should work. One of the biggest problems is community pushback that forces restrictions onto project that then create hurdles to jump through. Federal rules require tax credits only go to unit that rent to 60% AMI or less, and many programs are targeted to AMIs over that, which leaves gaps, just as an example.

The biggest issue I see is when municipalities that are new to affordable housing think they are smarter than everyone else and enact a bunch of rules that they think are driving better outcomes, but instead prevent proven, working models from being used. Aspen knows what they are doing. Boulder knows. Fort Collins is getting better. Denver has done really good work. Some good stuff has gone up recently in Crested Butte and Fairplay. Copy those models.

When done well AH has very little downside.
And by the way, there would be no vacancies in the units Steamboat built, because the second there starts to be a lack of qualified people they will stop building units for them to fill. The only way to access the federal money for building affordable housing is to prove there is a need form 60% AMI or lower people. The stories people tell of projects that had not demand and were filled with other kinds of folks are one off and represent a very small number of units, because as soon as that happens, and that conversion is made, the federal money to keep creating units is gone. No more units added.

[MakersTeleMark]

The intended workforce cannot afford the rent is the other hudge part of the equation that no body wants to address until businesses close down and move out because of lack of staffing. Different businesses move in that sell shit that no one local needs or wants to buy. The cycle continues until you have mass vacancies and the ski corp buys them up.

[Danno]

Danno, so you think there would be vacancies?

Affordable Housing sounds sexy as hell but the devil is in the details and it's really hard.

Agree that the devil is in the details so it's hard to say if there will be vacancies, but that wasn't what I was saying (not sure if you think that is what I was saying).

That town has a serious housing crisis, obviously one played out across mountain towns but it's particularly acute there. I was entertaining the idea of moving there not long ago and there were literally no 2 BR rentals under $3000/mo, and only a couple in total ($4-5k). There isn't just a lack of "affordable" housing, there is a lack of housing period. And so people either pack into rentals illegally, commute long distances, or figure out other arrangements that are far from ideal. So my point was only that adding 2200 units -- or housing for "6000 people" doesn't necessarily mean that the true population of the town jumps from 10k to 16k.

[EWG]

The intended workforce cannot afford the rent is the other hudge part of the equation that no body wants to address until businesses close down and move out because of lack of staffing. Different businesses move in that sell shit that no one local needs or wants to buy. The cycle continues until you have mass vacancies and the ski corp buys them up.

To my knowledge, which is extensive, this has never once happened in Colorado to a federally subsidized housing project financed through CHFA of any reasonable scale. BTW - CHFA is how real, actual affordable housing projects are created using federal funds (as opposed to some small scale locally dreamed up one off project.) Not one time. Just saying.

[EWG]

Agree that the devil is in the details so it's hard to say if there will be vacancies, but that wasn't what I was saying (not sure if you think that is what I was saying).

That town has a serious housing crisis, obviously one played out across mountain towns but it's particularly acute there. I was entertaining the idea of moving there not long ago and there were literally no 2 BR rentals under $3000/mo, and only a couple in total ($4-5k). There isn't just a lack of "affordable" housing, there is a lack of housing period. And so people either pack into rentals illegally, commute long distances, or figure out other arrangements that are far from ideal. So my point was only that adding 2200 units -- or housing for "6000 people" doesn't necessarily mean that the true population of the town jumps from 10k to 16k.

There are stats that are used to estimate this actually. In any new affordable housing you have some new people to town, some people who are already in town most of the day for their job and just go home at night (this is the majority) and some that are already there full time and just doubled and tripled up with other people. So if you compare the after to the before in terms of number of people in town during the day, and number of cars on the roads, the analysis will likely show that traffic will go down on the entries into Steamboat, will stay about the same in town, and the number of people in town during the day will increase somewhat but no where near the number of added units.

Oh, and in the cases that have been studied the cost of housing throughout the community immediately drops when the new units come online. It then starts to creep up again as demand rebuilds.

[Foggy_Goggles]

EWG, so what is the general mechanics in Steamboat behind who pays the subsidy on the build, rent and purchase price?

The models I'm somewhat familiar with rely on local property tax primarily which creates this perception of "why should I vote to tax myself such that the tourism related business which don't patronize get discount labor. If it's public sector employees that need raises, let's just do that"

Go look at the Grand County Real Estate closings last week for Trestle Towmhome. They Google on the purchasers.

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[MakersTeleMark]

To my knowledge, which is extensive, this has never once happened in Colorado to a federally subsidized housing project financed through CHFA of any reasonable scale. BTW - CHFA is how real, actual affordable housing projects are created using federal funds (as opposed to some small scale locally dreamed up one off project.) Not one time. Just saying.

They can't even find housing for district attorneys here. So yes, as danno points out, it's a larger housing problem, but if you put 2k units in the valley where I live, you wouldn't get them filled by the local workers. The wait lists here are in the low 100's. That doesn't solve the majority of the workforce issues. I can't think of a single ski patroller who could afford affordable housing at the current pay rate.

[EWG]

They can't even find housing for district attorneys here. So yes, as danno points out, it's a larger housing problem, but if you put 2k units in the valley where I live, you wouldn't get them filled by the local workers. The wait lists here are in the low 100's. That doesn't solve the majority of the workforce issues. I can't think of a single ski patroller who could afford affordable housing at the current pay rate.

I don't think you understand the affordable housing rental rates that are required by federal funding. All ski patrolers can afford CHFA housing. The maximum that CHFA allows for a 1 bedroom rental in Routt at the max level (60% AMI) is $1,219 per month which is for someone making $45,540 per year. But in reality not all units are at the 60% AMI, and CHFA prioritizes projects providing a range of income targeted units from 20%-60% AMI. A 40% unit, for example, is $813 per month and is based on someone making $30,360 per year.

Here are the rates for every county in Colorado. Remember, under no circumstances can a CHFA project charge more than 60% AMI rates and is all but required to have units available for lower rates:
https://www.chfainfo.com/getattachme...ome-limits.pdf
CHFA affordable housing is the absolutely best way to protect our ski area workers.

By the way I'm happy to go into detail to explain anything about how all this works. It's really rare out there in the 3D world to have the space and time to really answer questions about this stuff so if you want details holler.

[oldnew_guy]

Detail - the build out on the units was planned for 2042 right? So it's not like they were going to drop 6000 units in town over night.

Foggy- "why should I vote to tax myself such that the tourism related business which don't patronize get discount labor. If it's public sector employees that need raises, let's just do that".

I have to admit, I constantly come back to the idea of businesses externalizing their costs to the rest of the public because they won't pay appropriate wages for the labor market, especially if they can't hire, ala large corp. like Walmart having their employees collect welfare. If the GOV can't hire workers at the wages they offer, yes, they should increase their compensation package, perhaps that includes housing while they are employed by the GOV and raise taxes as needed to do so.

Every time I read one of these articles I always find myself wondering "if there is demand for XX market rate units" why not just let the market build it by getting the development going (yeah yeah, won't be affordable, financing issues, etc). Further, the idea that the public is going to build housing and then sell it at sub market rate using whatever qualification rubic they come up with still just comes across as a handout to people making a bad financial decision. Public subsidized housing IMO should mostly be multi-unit, publicly owned or units in a larger multi-unit development.

This isn't just a ski town issue, its also faced by some of the biggest cities around.

[Foggy_Goggles]

EWG, thanks for your expertise. The CFHA properties, such as Wapiti Meadow, work fine it seems.

Terms are ill defined, but those are for low income. All of the projects including Brown Ranch I think are municipal or local housing authority are are attempting to serve a different need.

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[MakersTeleMark]

I'm not aware of any CFHA projects in Eagle County. I'll have to do some research on that.

[Shredhead]

I vote for subsidized housing. Snowmass has over 800 units for a town of 2000 and another large project already approved.

[EWG]

EWG, thanks for your expertise. The CFHA properties, such as Wapiti Meadow, work fine it seems.

Terms are ill defined, but those are for low income. All of the projects including Brown Ranch I think are municipal or local housing authority are are attempting to serve a different need.

Sent from my Turbo 850 Flatbrimed Highhorse

Good point. A few notes:
Here's the presentation from Yampa Valley Housing Authority on how affordability would work:
https://brownranchsteamboat.org/wp-c...esentation.pdf

First of all, their consultant that set this up, Williford, is absolutely top notch, so hopefully that's a good sign. According to the docs, AMIs would target between 30% and 250% AMI ($21,000 yearly income to over $143,000 for a single person, a bit more for 3 person household). In order to pay for it they are using a $24 million land donations, federal state and local grants, and much of it would indeed be LIHTC (CHFA) financed so those protections would be in place for those units. They would also have limited federal money for 80% units, using some of the money Polis just created from CO laws for up to 140% AMI (100k income for a single person), and have units up to 250% AMI that probably would get very little grant help.

Look, I'm not saying it's perfect, but I feel like you'll find that many of the concerns have already been addressed in the plan. It's a very hard thing to explain and, as is usual with affordable projects, there's a lot of fearmongers spreading misinformation out there. (I'm not saying anyone here is one of those) To be clear I have nothing to do with this project, and I am certainly not expert in it in particular. But there is such a deep need for affordable housing that I really wish I could singlehandedly change the conversation from Yes vs No to "how do we make this great?" I feel like if everyone worked on how to make it great it truly would be. It's an incredible opportunity. Because of this land, Steamboat is one of the only CO mountain towns that could actually still be a real town for real people in 20 years instead of just a disneyland for the rich.

[EWG]

I'm not aware of any CFHA projects in Eagle County. I'll have to do some research on that.

There's a few, but not many. Here's the map. CHFA projects in the mountains have been happening more often in recent years. Which kinda highlights the affordability change. Mountain towns used to be the cheap places.
https://www.arcgis.com/apps/Viewer/i...160250cc82ac2f

[Danno]

Thanks for the analysis/explanations, EWG.

[MakersTeleMark]

Thanks for the analysis/explanations, EWG.

Ditto.

[fastfred]

so a million more people are going to move to colorado in the next 20 years where are they going to live?
are they only allowed to move to the front range?
never mind I got mine door is shut you can't have yours

[EWG]

Thanks for the analysis/explanations, EWG.

Ditto.

I'm mentally fried at work right now and you guys are way more fun. Thanks for the welcome diversion.

[byates1]

4000$ avg rent in steamboat. Huh? Insanity.

[fastfred]

I'm mentally fried at work right now and you guys are way more fun. Thanks for the welcome diversion.

now this is pretty realistic option