Can affluence and affordable housing coexist in Colorado’s rockies? | Hacker News Reader

Can affluence and affordable housing coexist in Colorado’s rockies?

nytimes.com

24 pointspseudolus50 comments

There's a common complaint I see across many local housing discussions, which goes something like: "We need affordable housing, but we shouldn't build to become <nearest metro>!" and of course the shorter "We're full!". But that then ignores the fact that the United States doesn't have internal movement controls. If somebody wants to move to a city, they can. The richest / most motivated group of those people will purchase housing until the housing is gone. In extremes this means knocking down old housing stock and rebuilding new (but not new density), or massive gut & remodels.

Assuming the city is desirable enough (ie. a mountain town). You get this, and you must choose two:

* Allow people to move into your city (Must choose this one).

* More units / Affordable Units

* Keep city 'character' by avoiding density.

Some places choose character. Much of the Bay Area for instance, with 1.5 million dollar single family homes, and not one apartment as far as the eye can see. And others choose to build lots of units, although it's hard to find examples in the US. Tokyo is the one that comes to mind. Many people in Japan wants to move to Tokyo, and they build tons and tons of apartments to support that. The character of course was already big city, but it's grown into mega-mega city.

The unstated assumption is that we aren't going to build new towns.

Vail is a post WWII development. It used to be nothing. Colorado still has A LOT of undeveloped land. Water is an issue, but residential use is pretty small, and it doesn't matter if my residence is in Vail or a new town, I still am going to need water.

The problem is that opportunity is, for some reason, being geographically limited to fewer and fewer places.

> Colorado still has A LOT of undeveloped land.

Not just Colorado! I live in a state that's pretty much middle of the pack for size and density, and there's no shortage of open land around here. No water concerns, either, with plenty of rainfall.

> opportunity is, for some reason, being geographically limited to fewer and fewer places.

I think the economic history of the past few decades (at least) has been one of trading away resilience for higher efficiency; bigger and more geographically centralized economic engines that are more efficient, but are more vulnerable to shocks, as the recent supply-chain issues have shown.

Covid and its aftereffects may reverse that trend.

Just because there is open land, doesn't mean we should pave it over. I really feel like we should cap the percentage of the earth's surface that is developed to something like 2010 levels and just infill. Otherwise the Amazon doesn't stand a chance or biodiversity.

Vail boomed because of the ski resort. People won't be nearly as attracted to a mountain town that's far from existing ski resort, and starting a new, viable ski resort is hard.

Another constraining factor on development in Colorado is road access. Almost all traffic between the mountains and the highly populated Denver metro area (including the only major airport in the region) is along the I-70 corridor. Absent the construction of a new major tunnel across the continental divide, if you are far from that corridor, your site will be much less attractive.

Some places become more valuable as you pack humans more densely in it. Some places become more valuable with the opposite. "Idyllic mountain towns", of course, are the latter.

Naturally beautiful places whose beauty in part depends on them not being highly developed will always have this tension between the vacationers, the rich second-home owners, and the people who work in the tourism industry. Tourist town economics are a reality.

I don't think this is true. Demand and Agglomeration effects will always increase land/location value. The question is whether or not there is an increase in land value per capita. When you limit density then only those most willing and able to bid up the price of locations will increase the land value per capita. If you allow density the land value per capita will decrease (more affordable) while the total land value still increases.

Edit: Any perceived amenity affect from limiting population density is really just a scarcity effect.

The workers are already there, they just don't get to live dignified lives.

The workers are not always there.

A lot of resort companies, like Vail Resorts, will bring in H2B and J1 visa workers [0] and put them up in employee housing for the winter. They could hire plenty of US workers if they'd pay enough, but H2B workers are cheaper and complain less because getting fired means getting deported.

Even the local workers are unlikely to live in town. Sometimes you'll see 4 or 5 lifties or ski instructors sharing a small apartment, but a lot of times they commute from cheaper towns nearby.

[0] https://www.summitdaily.com/news/vail-resorts-h2b-workers-un...

This article works hard to paint one picture, and then presents arguments and evidence to the contrary. It’s basically a sob story about local musicians and ski lift operators not being able to afford housing, as if that’s a new problem. Then:

> Even as Summit County adds waves of remote workers, it has experienced net negative migration since 2020

You click the link of that data and it talks about how the local government is desperate to attract workers and full time residents, rather than having mostly vacant second homes.

I presume they want to attract wealthy workers, given the choice, since that spending will be local and help the economy. So, assuming they get what they want, which is an influx of wealthy, employed people, it’s entirely clear what will happen to real estate prices. I’m sorry, but no one ever said you’re entitled to only having to play guitar in coffee shops to support themselves. That’s what college kids do, who don’t own houses.

I agree that no one is entitled to a home, but it also feels a little odd that people will turn around and feel entitled to an increasing property value and neighborhood character. The market giveth and the market taketh, except when it wants to take from me, right? Then suddenly democracy and taking care of the community is important.

Absolutely. My areas is in one of the highest appreciating parts of the country, and has a housing shortage. The city started exploring "the missing middle" - medium density housing - we are either single family, or apartments.

Commissioned studies, and the worst case of those showed year-over-year appreciation decreasing, from 12% to 9.5% per year.

To be clear, people's property values were still going to be increasing nearly 10% a year, if fully implemented, and "worst case", but holy hell.

You'd think the city was talking about taking people's grandmothers into the street and executing them, the screeching was so fierce about "protecting my investment".

Never knew there was a constitutional right to double digit "returns" on property ownership, but to these people, apparently there is.

At the end of the day, the local governments servve their residents. most residents already have housing in town, and I'd bet that most of the owns who vote own

> no one ever said you’re entitled to only having to play guitar in coffee shops to support themselves

Actually, no one ever said you’re entitled to only having to play guitar in coffee shops to support yourself in the town you chose.

I’ve lived in and around mountain towns my whole life. There’s a relatively simple solution to this: taxation. If you don’t live there full time, you get to pay hefty taxes to the city/county. How do you verify this? Voter registration. If you’re not registered to vote at that address, you pay massive taxes. So, if you _really_ want to have a second home there, fine, but it’s going to be much less expensive for people who actually live there

Not everyone can vote or is registered to vote.

For the purposes of shaping public policy, shouldn't the focus be on those who can vote? They comprise the body politic, after all.

That's a fair point -- justice would require admitting alternate forms of evidence of residence. Maybe receipts from over-the-counter credit card transactions at local businesses could serve.

Yeah, perhaps alternatives like permanent address on a government issued ID would be better. But exceptional circumstances should be the exception; the more exceptions are made, the more loopholes creep in

I’m not sure. A mountain chalet is already a property tax bonanza for a small town. A $10m Deer Valley slopeside house would bring in a ballpark of $100k in property tax per year, and the people rarely being present means they aren’t even using community services very often.

I don’t know if money is the problem. I think it’s more systemic; places like Aspen will NIMBY against any attempts to do meaningful housing projects.

I’m talking about much higher taxes than that. If you can afford a 10m slope-side deer valley home, make it a 1M+ annual tax.

The problem of people not being present cuts both ways, and I fall on the side of preferring people to be present. I want to live in a place where people are present in their communities - that doesn’t mean you have to go to every council meeting, but it does make you more invested in the quality of the neighborhood and town. Yes, you use more community services, but isn’t that the point? The local businesses have higher cash flow, you have to deal with that pothole on 7th that hasn’t been fixed yet, etc.

So people will make their most expensive/desirable property their address of record for voting purposes. Or they’ll find some other loophole like a LLC owning the property. Wealthy people are usually smart and determined and will do what they need to do to hold onto their money. That’s how they get wealthy or stay wealthy in the first place.

>That’s how they get wealthy or stay wealthy in the first place.

Most wealthy people are born into it. [1]

[1] https://www.fool.com/the-ascent/personal-finance/articles/st...

The same problem exists though! Maybe a rich Aspenite will pay a million dollar tax, but that doesn’t solve the NIMBY problem. Oh, and they bailed for somewhere cheaper

Is it actually a simple solution? Most places only have a small portion of their housing that's empty. That won't explain a 3x increase over 10 years. Here is a simpler solution: build high density housing, and use public money if you need to. That way we aren't unnecessarily rationing housing, but more importantly it will crash the local market and deliver divine retribution to speculators both large and small.

I think high density housing is a band-aid because there are sometimes significant infrastructure challenges to packing more people into a town. I’m not saying not to do it; I think it’s a good solution for many places, but I do not believe it is simpler than taxation

taxes are pretty regressive though. sure you lower the populace if a city by pushing out ppl who don’t want to pay, but you also push out ppl who literally can’t pay. i imagine this is most “essential workers” like service workers, retails, delivery, etc.

If they’re registered to vote in the municipality, they do not pay the heavy taxes. Those taxes are only paid by people who do not reside in the town but own property there. So local teachers, service workers, etc. pay “normal” (low) taxes

One of the areas I don't see get enough attention in the housing affordability debate is the role of minimum size requirements. On top of the restrictions against multi-unit housing, even those apartments are larger than many would choose to live in given the option of something cheaper. Consider how many currently choose to live in vans, and would happily move to something of similar size with running water.

https://www.planetizen.com/news/2022/05/117222-how-minimum-s...

I don't blame someone with prime real estate for trying to protect their asset, I just wish they would be more honest about what they're doing. They want to hurt the working class to maintain their own wealth/lifestyle, but they'll use the left's language to pretend they aren't the problem. It's such a funny meme at this point. Oooo that's gentrification, that's like, racist, man. Don't you know it's the billionaires' fault? Subsidizing demand? Brilliant! High density housing? Don't you know that's just gonna drive up costs!

Can it exist? Yes.

Will it exist? No.

100% agree. For example, theoretically a housing crash will lower prices. But it won't because hedge funds will come in a swoop up all the houses so that people become renters. The 0.1% won't be happy until everyone is giving them money every day for something that they own a part of.

US housing, especially in its most fungible form, the single-family house, is probably the most favored asset class in the history of human civilization. Act accordingly, and expect others to act accordingly. Expect others to act accordingly when you try to break that.

Unfortunately, housing the investment business only looks like , and often moonlights as, housing-housing.

Widespread availability of private and service-based self-driving vehicles is the wild card in all of this. By making long-distance transportation much cheaper (both in dollars and time), it effectively shrinks the distance between remote and desirable areas. The impacts of remote work, widespread use of delivery services, and self-driving cars are still actively working their way through the housing situation.

There's a simple material angle that people aren't talking about enough with all these discussions

Population growth has outpaced home construction (in the USA) for the past 20 years

https://usafacts.org/articles/population-growth-has-outpaced...

It does when I used to sleep in my car in the ski hill parking lot. Why the down votes? Lol, that's often the way it works. I was working two hours a day at the hill, free board and accommodations in a bus another time. Best month ever as a young adult.

How long ago was that? All the ski towns are now filled with signs saying overnight parking is prohibited. I'm sure you can still find spots if you're in the know but if they ever get popular, they'll be quickly shut down.

1991, 2018 at a small hill. 2020 in banff and Canmore, agree it's getting more difficult.

Someone working part time for a few hours to get a ski pass, and otherwise living rough is different from people working full-time and still not being able to afford housing.

Being a ski-bum is fine (I was one in college), but that's not what is happening.

I agree, I was just pointing out the only way is live in car. It's a problem for the towns and businesses. I hire coaches for ski clubs and it's brutal. The other factor is the rental pool is going largely to airbnb so there's very little long term rentals in these areas.

Totally. I'm just remembering back in the late-2000s when it was possible to get a room for $350/mo and a job for $9-10/hr in places like Durango. It wasn't luxury living, but it was viable to NOT live in a car, ski every day, and still have some fun money.

My apartment in Manhattan houses as many people as a square mile does in Colorado using 1/10,000th the space. At a certain point we have to acknowledge that the government would rather you just be poor.

I don't understand how those two things are connected. Could you please explain?

The point is that it's absurd for us to ask if it's possible to provide housing for workers in these extremely small towns with vast amounts of open space. The point is that we have the technology, the means and the capital to solve this issue without visibly effecting the landscape of Colorado. A few small apartments would go a long way to helping workers live decently, instead we have chosen privation.

If you wanted to double the population of Vail by adding apartments of the size I laid out (a midsized, 5 story building) It would take up .2% of Vail's legal area. I'm not really suggesting that -- but pointing out that the government would rather the working people of these towns to live out of their cars, or live in overcrowded dorms rather than allowing people the basic dignity of an affordable place to live.

it’s unnecessarily reductive to summarize with “government wants you to be poor.” while i agree with the general sentiment that the government has ceased to work in the people’s best interests, there is a whole set of cultural differences between colorado and manhattan that more readily explain this: pioneer/land grab mentality would be my starting point. it’s hard to overcome the decades of expansionist mentality that dominates the area.

Interesting, but if you built that much housing in an area far removed from an ocean and without the historical economic, political, and social importance of Manhattan, it would become a ludicrous and near empty ghetto. Colorado may need more slightly more housing, but to use Manhattan as a scale does the present density of Colorado need to increase by 1% Manhattans? 2% Manhattans?

I don't know about the entire state, but with regards to the ski towns discussed in the article, 8-10 buildings per town would make a significant difference, as that would represent a rough increase of 9-11% of housing. If done efficiently, this would take-up roughly the same amount of space as one home depot. The point is that extremely little is needed to help resolve this situation, but the realistic solutions are illegal.

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