Welcome to Mountain Town Frown
An occasional newsletter on affordable housing in Colorado mountain communities
Welcome to Mountain Town Frown, a newsletter on affordable housing in Colorado mountain communities.
In each edition, we’ll take a good hard look at one mountain community’s approach to affordable housing. We’ll look at the taxes they’ve passed, the projects they’ve taken on, the regulations they’ve enacted — their successes and failures, and where they stand today.
Each edition will conclude with a roundup of affordable housing news across Colorado. Today is a little special. It includes what I believe is a comprehensive list of every active Colorado mountain town newspaper.
Affordable housing in mountain communities is dynamic. We’ll look at what’s happening now (like right now), and what’s happened in the past.
First, let’s talk about Steamboat Springs.
🏔️ Big Aspirations: Brown Ranch
Some Colorado mountain communities recognize they have an affordable housing crisis, but just don’t have the resources to deal with it.
Not Steamboat Springs.
When an anonymous entity donated about $24 million to the Yampa Valley Housing Authority in July of 2021, it felt like a breakthrough for the Steamboat Springs community.
“Affordable housing issues have been front and center for a long time,” Steamboat Springs City Council President Robin Crossan told Mountain Town Frown last week.
The Yampa Valley Housing Authority used the money to buy a parcel of land just west of the existing town boundary, called Brown Ranch.
The Steamboat Springs City Council plans to fund up to 2,300 units of affordable housing in the Brown Ranch project. The project is massive in scope when compared to other Colorado mountain communities' affordable housing projects.
“There is nothing this large in any mountain town in Colorado, guaranteed,” Councilman Michael Buccino said in an interview with the Frown last week.
The donation was used to buy the land for Brown Ranch, but now it’s up to the Steamboat Springs City Council to fund the construction of affordable housing units.
Steamboat Springs is a tourist town, according to Crossan — a tourist town with a real full-time resident community.
“We’re a friendly community, and we were a community of people and homesteaders before there was a ski area — community first,” Crossan said.
💸 How’s it funded?
Last year, Steamboat Springs raised taxes on short-term rental properties. City council raised and voters approved a 9% tax on short-term rentals in December 2022.
The 9% short-term rental tax increased the effective, or total taxes on short-term rentals up to 20.4%. Only Ouray and Crested Butte have higher effective taxes on short-term rentals among Colorado mountain towns, according to reporting from the Steamboat Pilot & Today.
Crossan believes short-term rentals are, at least, partially to blame for the affordable housing issues in Steamboat Springs. That’s why it makes sense to tax them highly in order to fix the housing problem they created.
When asked if short-term rentals were to blame for affordable housing problems in Steamboat Springs Crossan said:
A house that had four bedrooms used to be rented to four lift operators or restaurant employees or a combination of friends. They’d move in November and move out in April. Instead of having five or six people in a four-bedroom house, now they (short-term rental owners) are using it on a weekly or monthly basis to rent to tourists, and so where do those people live?
Jennifer Golden has lived in Steamboat Springs for 34 years. She’s owned her duplex in Steamboat’s Riverside neighborhood for 20 years. About six years ago, she started renting on Airbnb. Golden lives on one side of the duplex and she rents the other side out as a short-term rental.
In an interview with Mountain Town Frown, Golden said Airbnb provides a more predictable source of income than having long-term tenants. Golden rented her unit out to long-term tenants before switching to Airbnb.
“We hit the offseason and my renters would get behind on the rent, they would be completely out of work,” Golden said.
Golden said particularly in the spring and fall her renters just didn’t have opportunities for employment. In the spring, the ski resort has closed for the season, but summer tourism hasn’t yet begun. In the fall, summer tourism fades away and before skiers return to the Yampa Valley, Steamboat goes quiet. Golden got tired of having renters who struggled to pay rent during quiet periods.
For Golden, Airbnb has made her business model more sustainable.
When asked about Crossan comments on short-term rentals, Golden said, “That’s absolutely ridiculous.” She added:
The city of Steamboat and the Yampa Valley Housing Authority have produced a handful of affordable housing projects over the course of 34 years, and now Airbnb and VRBO provide a platform for us to make way more money… They’re going to say that it’s our problem that they have done nothing about housing.
Golden sees affordable housing as the city’s problem and renting her property in the short term as the most logical business decision.
When asked if short-term rentals were responsible for affordable housing issues in Steamboat Springs, Buccino said no.
According to Buccino, most Steamboat Springs short-term rental properties are high-end, and those properties won’t become affordable housing. The city, he believes, needs to build affordable housing units that are designed to be affordable housing, and not attempt to transition expensive ski-destination vacation-style short-term rentals into housing units for the workforce.
🏛️ Statewide attention on Brown Ranch
During Steamboat Springs City Council’s 10-hour-long Oct. 17 regular meeting, the council passed an ordinance to formally annex Brown Ranch into the city of Steamboat Springs by a 4-3 vote. The annexation is a necessary step in building affordable housing on the land.
The council made the decision narrowly, with the council members on the opposition saying the matter should be decided by voters.
Crossan said a citizen group is actively collecting signatures to launch a referendum on the council’s brown ranch annexation decision. The citizen group wants voter input on the decision.
The marathon meeting caught the attention of some of the most powerful people in Colorado, namely Democratic Gov. Jared Polis.
According to reporting from the Steamboat Pilot & Today, Polis called members of the council, encouraging them to approve the annexation and get moving on building affordable housing units in Brown Ranch.
The Pilot reported that Polis’ calls changed Councilor Joella West’s vote on the annexation.
Polis did not call Crossan, but she was frustrated with the governor’s decision.
“It made this decision political,” Crossan said. “We’ve tried so hard in our community to be a nonpolitical town.”
Crossan respects Polis’ commitment to addressing the housing crisis statewide, but she believes the Brown Ranch project is a local issue and ought to be decided by local political leaders and not figures in state leadership.
🏠 Housing needs in Steamboat Springs
According to a Yampa Valley Housing Authority-commissioned housing needs study, Steamboat Springs needs 1,400 units of housing to fulfill housing needs. Steamboat Springs City Council plans to build 2,300 units at Brown Ranch, 164% of housing demand according to the housing authority’s study.
According to the housing authority, the median price for a single-family home in Routt County is $1.16 million. The buying power for a family of four, earning the county’s median income ($102,300 per year) is $398,000, 34% of the average home price.
Buccino’s son is a 21-year-old police officer and he’s making $80,000 a year with overtime. He’s living in his parent's basement because he can’t find another place to live within budget.
The wages of people working in Steamboat Springs don’t amount to enough to live there, according to Buccino.
Crossan, Golden, and Buccino all said they’ve observed a mountain migration, an influx of both visitors and permanent residents to Steamboat Springs.
“People who are moving here have that $150,000 a year salary so they can afford to buy an expensive home … they’re moving here with a salary that is not dependent on the local economy,” Buccino said.
The influx of wealthy people with jobs that are not reliant on the Steamboat Springs economy has increased demand for large expensive homes, but members of the workforce can’t find places to live, according to Buccino.
🗳️ Upcoming decisions: ballot measure 2I
On Nov. 7, Steamboat Springs voters will make a major, albeit somewhat complex decision on affordable housing policy in their town.
Steamboat Springs Ballot measure 2I asks whether the town should use 75% of funds acquired through short-term rental taxes to build affordable housing units at Brown Ranch, according to reporting from Dylan Anderson for his publication, The Yampa Valley Bugle.
Additionally, a ‘yes’ vote on 2I sets the short-term rental tax at 9%, it’s current level, for the next 20 years.
At an Oct. 12 election forum hosted by the Steamboat Pilot & Today and others, Ken Mauldin, a local resident (who also made headlines last year for shooting a bear that broke into his downtown Steamboat Springs home with a semiautomatic pistol, what?!) argued against ballot measure 2I.
“If businesses paid more of a working wage, they wouldn’t need taxpayers to subsidize their businesses with free money. … I think the taxpayers should help essential public employees and business owners should manage their affairs with their capital,” Modlin said.
In our interview, I asked Buccino about Modlin’s comments.
“Good old Ken man, love that Republican boy, he’s a die-hard,” Buccino said.
Buccino disagrees with Modlin. Not every business can provide housing for their employees or pay them well enough to afford Steamboat Spring’s housing. It’s not the business's fault.
Buccino has mixed feelings on the ballot measure. He supports using the funds from short-term rentals to finance Brown Ranch, but he’s hesitant about setting the short-term rental tax for 20 years.
The economic future of Steamboat Springs is unknown, Buccino said. Fixing the community to a 9% short-term rental tax is a bad idea, and city council should be allowed to adjust that figure should they think it’s necessary.
⛰️🗞️ Colorado mountain town newspapers
To gain a more thorough understanding of developments in Colorado mountain towns, I sought to compile a list of every active Colorado mountain town newspaper. Here it is:
In the northern mountains:
Craig Daily Press, Steamboat Pilot & Today, Jackson County Star, Sky Hi News (Grand County), Rio Blanco Herald Times, Glenwood Springs Post Independent, Grand Junction Sentinel, Vail Daily, Summit Daily, Weekly Register-Call (Gilpin County), Clear Creek Courant, Beacon Senior News (Mesa County) Delta County Independent, High Country Shopper (Delta County), North Fork Merchant Herald (Delta County), Aspen Times, Aspen Daily News, Crystal Valley Echo (Redstone), Leadville Herald, Park County Republican & Fairplay Flume, The Sopris Sun (Gunnison County), Pikes Peak Courrier (Teller County), The Tribune (Teller County), Ute Country Press, The Mountain Jackpot News (Teller County), Montrose Press, Montrose Business News, Gunnison Times, Crested Butte News
In the southern mountains:
The Chaffee County Times, Mountain Mail (Salida), Cañon City Daily Record, The Valley Cutlass (Fremont County), Fremont County Crusader, The Coal Creek Canyon County Mountain Messanger, Florence Reporter, Telluride Daily Planet, Ouray County Plaindealer, Lake City Reporter, Center Post Dispatch (Saguache County), Crestone Eagle, Wet Mountain Tribune, Sangre de Christo Sentinel, The Journal (Cortez, Mancos, Dolores), Four Corners Free Press, The Dove Creek Press, Silverton Standard, Durango Herald, Durango Telegraph, Southern Ute Drum, The Indy (Fort Lewis College), Mineral County Miner, Pagosa Springs Sun, Del Norte Prospector, Monte Vista Journal, Conejos County Citizen, South Fork Tines, Alamosa Valley Courrier, Alamosa Citizen, and Costilla County Free Press
That big block of text took some serious work, give it look. Find the mountain town you like to visit and explore what’s going on around town.
Originally, I had each newspaper hyperlinked, but Substack limitations forced me to change course.
The Colorado News Collaborative (run out of my college, Colorado College) has a Colorado News Mapping Project. You can click on any Colorado county and see all of their sources of news: newspapers, radio, online news, magazines, newsletters, and social media outlets.
I went through each of these newspapers, all 59, on Thursday to find out which ones had a story about affordable housing or an interrelated topic on the front page of their e-edition, or featured on their website.
Four had affordable housing stories.
The Ouray County Plaindealer had two front-page stories related to affordable housing. Vail Daily, The Chaffee County Times, and the Ski Hi News also had affordable housing stories. I wrote the one for the Sky Hi News.
Interestingly, I came across satirical newspapers in these small communities, like the San Juan Horseshoe, which was active and claimed to be serving the San Juan County community (pop. 733). Its motto: read while you drive! It is not included.
The quest led to some unanswerable questions, namely what is a mountain town? Does it need a ski resort, or towering peaks? I defined a mountain town pretty loosely, any town west of the Front Range in Colorado.
You could argue that Colorado Springs is more of a mountain town than Grand Junction, and maybe you’re right. There are certainly more mountains and bigger mountains closer to Colorado Springs than there are to Grand Junction.
But Grand Junction is in the mountain region, even if there aren’t towering peaks all that close. Colorado Springs is a city near the mountains, not a mountain town.
💨 The Roundup
☀️ Jason Blevins of the Colorado Sun reported short-term rental owners advocated, with great passion, against statewide legislation that would reclassify short-term rentals as commercial properties. The reclassification would roughly quadruple property taxes for short-term rental owners. Taxes would increase from about 6.8% to about 28%.
⛰️ The Northwest Colorado Council of Governments (NWCCOG) partnered with the Colorado Association of Ski Towns (CAST) to release its 2023 workforce housing report. The report is incredibly detailed and worth a look through. NWCCOG reports, “Significant progress has been made to address the workforce housing problem in NWCCOG and CAST communities over the last four years.” Of the 43 communities sampled, Winter Park has the highest percentage of vacant seasonal units, Eagle has the highest percentage of owner-occupied units. Gunnison has the highest percentage of renter-occupied units, and Breckenridge has the highest percentage of deed-restricted housing units.
⚖️ Axios Denver reported affordable housing is one of five storylines to watch in Colorado’s 2023 election. Denver, Boulder, Fort Collins, and other Front Range municipalities are seeking voter approval for tax hikes to fund affordable housing.
🏢 According to reporting from Meg Soyars Van Hauen for the Sky Hi News, the Mill Apartment affordable housing project in Fraser can’t find applicants who financially qualify. The apartments are deed-restricted, and to qualify you need to make between 30% and 80% of the area median income. Especially on the low-end income requirements, developers have struggled to find people who qualify. Additionally, multiple applicants have told the Sky-Hi News they’ve found the application process difficult and confusing.
🌄 Elliot Wenzler reported for the Aspen Times that Proposition HH will differentiate between homeowners with one property and second property owners. If Prop HH passes, Wenzler said:
Homeowners would be able to exempt the first $50,000 of their home value from taxation in the 2023 tax year. Then from 2024 to 2032, they could exempt $40,000. But non-owner-occupied houses — like investment properties and second homeowners — would only be eligible for that benefit through the 2024 tax year.
✒️ When Democratic Gov. Jared Polis released his budget proposal for 2023, it included $30 million in affordable housing tax credits. The state provides housing developers a break on state income tax or insurance premium taxes for building affordable housing units.
🧑🏫 The Idaho Capitol Sun reported that in Eagle County school district leaders are pleading with local residents to open spare bedrooms in their homes for teachers, who can’t find a place to live. Eagle County is so desperate to house critical members of their community, they’ve purchased a 3.5-acre tract of state-owned public land to build 80 units of affordable housing. Democratic State Sen. Dylan Roberts said:
Colorado has a lot of land that’s under state ownership that is either sitting completely vacant or being underutilized in really key areas that could be suitable for workforce housing development.
About me:
My name is Charley Sutherland. I am political science major and journalism minor at Colorado College. I grew up in Denver and love visiting Colorado’s mountain communities. I love to ski, hike, bike, and run in the mountains, but I also just love being in mountain towns and learning about what’s going on.
I’m a freelance reporter for the Sky Hi News in Grand County, where I cover local government meetings for the neighboring towns of Winter Park and Fraser. I’ve covered all sorts of things, but affordable housing always feels like the most important. I’m eager to get involved in the world of journalism following graduation, and if you have any opportunities that you think I might be interested in, you can reach me at c_sutherland@coloradocollege.edu or 303-908-2602.