Affluence, affordable housing clash in Colo. resort towns
Rents skyrocket as wealthy snap up limited housing stock, disrupting life for locals
In the recreation-fueled, amenity-rich economy of Colorado’s Rocky Mountain region, there are two peak seasons: summer, with its rafting, hiking, fishing and biking, and the cold months filled with skiing and other winter activities.
And then there is “mud season” — a liminal moment in spring when the alpine environment, slowly then suddenly, begins to thaw and only a trickle of tourists linger.
It’s a period that workers in other places might bemoan. But for much of the financially stretched workforce serving the assemblage of idyllic mountain towns across the state, a brief drop-off in business this spring was a respite.
During a slow shift on a 51-degree day at the Blue Stag Saloon — a nook on Main Street in the vacation hub of Breckenridge — Michelle Badger, a veteran server, half-joked with her co-workers that “this winter was hell.”
Crowds were larger than ever. And workers in the old Gold Rush town still enjoy the highs of the easy camaraderie and solid tips that come with service jobs in the area. But it was all sobered by the related headaches of soaring rents and acute understaffing, which left employees, managers and demanding customers feeling strained.
Working in mountain towns like Breckenridge, Silverthorne, Dillon and Frisco in Summit County would feel like a fairer bargain, Badger and her colleagues said, if they could afford to live close by.
Job growth has severely outpaced the stock of shelter throughout Colorado. Median rent in Frisco — which a decade ago was considered a modest “bedroom community” for commuting employees — is about $4,000 a month, according to Zillow, and 90% above the national median. Homebuyers buttressed by family money abound.
The wage floor for most jobs in and around the county — from line cook to ski lift operator — is at least $18 an hour, or roughly $37,000 a year. Yet for those not lucky enough to land a rare slot in subsidized local employee housing, it’s not uncommon to live an hour or more away to attain a livable budget.
As that happens, the contingent displaced by the rich ripples outward down rural highway corridors and, in turn, displaces the farther-flung working poor.
Inequality has always been rampant within the orbit of popular destinations. But the financial knock-on effects of those ritzy spheres have expanded as the pandemic-induced surge in remote work has supercharged divides.
Matt Scheer — a 48-year-old musician who grew up on a ranch eastward in El Paso County, where “as soon as we could carry the milk bucket we were milking the cow” — is the sort of extroverted jack-of-all-trades who typifies the spirit of Summit County.
Having moved near Breckenridge in the early 2000s to ski, hike, fly fish and work around town, he’s relieved he managed to pick up his place in 2012 for $240,000 with a fixed-rate mortgage. Prices in his tucked-away French Creek neighborhood — a hilly, unincorporated patch with modest double-wide manufactured homes — have more than tripled.
Though he’s a loyal resident with little interest in ever moving, Scheer said he “can’t really leave.”
For a payout of tens of thousands of dollars from the local government, he recently signed onto a hefty “deed restriction” for his property, banning its use for Airbnb stays, limiting any potential renter or buyer to the workforce of Summit, and limiting any potential resale price.
It’s part of a growing program led by Breckenridge and other local governments to limit gentrification without licensing a large buildup of new developments.
Incumbent property owners willing to sacrifice lucrative short-term vacation rental income see it as a fair trade-off, key to keeping long-term residents. Policy critics and frustrated local renters fighting over limited spots, say it is an inadequate tool for the scale and source of the problem: a lack of units.
Those critics include the governor of Colorado, Jared Polis, who is skeptical that lump-sum payments to owners in exchange for deed restrictions will be a sufficient incentive to broadly move the needle on affordability.
“There is no silver bullet,” he said in an interview. “But one of the areas that we have focused on is removing the barriers to additional home construction.” He added “housing is not a problem that you can solve by throwing more money at the existing housing stock.”
A few affordable-housing projects visibly chug along in Summit near the airport service road, not far from Kingdom Park Court, one of a handful of mobile home parks in the county with pricey lot rents. But getting middle-income developments greenlit can be a slog. Many proponents of limiting development note about 80% of the county is restricted federal public land, putting a ceiling on what can be done.