5 ms·

Precipitous Rents in Ski Country Push Workers to Edges

16 points by e15ctr0n 11y ago

mikeyouse 11y ago
Funny parallel to life in SF and NYC.. My sister bought a 2-bedroom condo in Vail for about 1/5th the price of a similar one on my street in SF. Her income is definitely lower for a similar position, but I'd say the quality of life is pretty good when she can hop a free bus and be skiing in 10 minutes. She's definitely fortunate to be in the 'professional' class though. Most of the seasonal workers (largely South Americans and college-aged US students), the restaurant / cleaning staff (largely hispanic families), and the otherwise low-income live 20-30 miles away in trailer parks set up by Vail Resorts. They used to live on the other side of the highway, but that land was too valuable so they tore down the worker housing and are constructing luxury condos instead. It all sounds very familiar.
EvanPlaice 11y ago
It's kind of sad. A while back the same happened to Colorado's most prolific ski bum. He spent decades living out of his vehicle, working odd jobs, and dedicating his life to skiing as much as possible. He wasn't a nuisance by any measure of the word. I remember seeing his old camper every time ai'd go to Arapahoe Basin (aka The Legend), the local's favorite mountain, far removed from the crowded resort towns. Then one day it was gone... It turns out, somebody in local government wanted to send a message that ski bums are no longer welcome. So they started regularly harassing him until they found a reason to pin him with a charge and send him to jail. Here's the news story: http://www.denverpost.com/ci_14158633 http://www.denverpost.com/ci_14158633 The local ski/snowboarding community was pretty pissed about it because he was well known/liked and really didn't deserve to be treated with such indignity. I've spent my fair share of time skiing/snowboarding and living in mountain towns. They all have corrupt, exploitative, local governments run by terrible people. Don't even get me started on Granby, CO. The town that made national news for the guy who armor plated a bulldozer and destroyed a large portion of downtown before killing himself. He wasn't crazy, the town used zoning laws to destroy his business and livelihood.
ethagknight 11y ago
So what do you do for housing for seasonal/migrant workers who have no intention of signing a year long lease, in an extremely landlocked area (Vail's ski range is leased from the national park service), in an area where building costs are much higher than typical (general conditions alone are huge, plus inability to build in the winter)? Also, strict height limits for buildings.
- cmurf 11y ago
  Syndicalism? That'd produce the opposite extreme of what we have now, but at least it'd sorta be a poke in the eye for the exploitation of all the lower rung workers.
nyhc99 11y ago
I live in Summit County. The situation is ugly. over 75% of homes here are 2nd homes. AirBnB is running rampant. Half of the homes in my neighborhood are empty most of the year, and the other half are being rented out for 200 dollars a night to vacationers. The towns could put up restrictions on VRBO, raise taxes on vacation homes, anything. But they won't. The town governments are all run by realtors and developers who don't care about maintaining a viable community.
cpncrunch 11y ago
As usual, these types of problems will fix themselves by market forces. The problem is that people are willing to put up with crappy conditions (long commute or sleeping in their car) to have a job in a beautifiul location. It's no different from pilots working for shitty wages just so they can fly. At some point the crunch will become so severe that the resorts won't have enough staff. Then, they will realise that they might have to do something, and they'll house employees on-site. Or the residents and business owners in these towns will vote to allow more affordable rental accommodation to be built.
- thatcat 11y ago
  >they'll house employees on-site They already do this. New development in the high rockies has a very high materials and labor cost. In addition to this, the amount of land available for development is limited by terrain and the fact that most of CO is national forest land. > vote to allow more affordable rental accommodation to be built Vail Resorts; owner of Breckenridge, Keystone, Vail, Beaver Creek, and Heavenly is a the only large employeer in most of these towns. They have a high degree of local political influence and like to leverage the fact that they provide low cost housing (about 1/3 of market prices) so they can exploit their employees more efficiently. Market forces can't fix problems that are the result of a monopoly.
  - cpncrunch 11y ago
    >They already do this. Not according to the article. >Vail Resorts; owner of Breckenridge, Keystone, Vail, Beaver Creek, and Heavenly is a the only large employeer in most of these towns. They have a high degree of local political influence and like to leverage the fact that they provide low cost housing (about 1/3 of market prices) so they can exploit their employees more efficiently. In that case market forces will act much more quickly. As soon as people stop deciding to work as slaves, instantly Vail Resorts will do something about it. There's no incentive for them to do anything while they still have the cheap labour.

16 points by e15ctr0n 11y ago

Funny parallel to life in SF and NYC.. My sister bought a 2-bedroom condo in Vail for about 1/5th the price of a similar one on my street in SF. Her income is definitely lower for a similar position, but I'd say the quality of life is pretty good when she can hop a free bus and be skiing in 10 minutes. She's definitely fortunate to be in the 'professional' class though. Most of the seasonal workers (largely South Americans and college-aged US students), the restaurant / cleaning staff (largely hispanic families), and the otherwise low-income live 20-30 miles away in trailer parks set up by Vail Resorts. They used to live on the other side of the highway, but that land was too valuable so they tore down the worker housing and are constructing luxury condos instead. It all sounds very familiar.

EvanPlaice 11y ago

It's kind of sad. A while back the same happened to Colorado's most prolific ski bum. He spent decades living out of his vehicle, working odd jobs, and dedicating his life to skiing as much as possible. He wasn't a nuisance by any measure of the word. I remember seeing his old camper every time ai'd go to Arapahoe Basin (aka The Legend), the local's favorite mountain, far removed from the crowded resort towns. Then one day it was gone... It turns out, somebody in local government wanted to send a message that ski bums are no longer welcome. So they started regularly harassing him until they found a reason to pin him with a charge and send him to jail. Here's the news story: http://www.denverpost.com/ci_14158633 http://www.denverpost.com/ci_14158633 The local ski/snowboarding community was pretty pissed about it because he was well known/liked and really didn't deserve to be treated with such indignity. I've spent my fair share of time skiing/snowboarding and living in mountain towns. They all have corrupt, exploitative, local governments run by terrible people. Don't even get me started on Granby, CO. The town that made national news for the guy who armor plated a bulldozer and destroyed a large portion of downtown before killing himself. He wasn't crazy, the town used zoning laws to destroy his business and livelihood.

ethagknight 11y ago

So what do you do for housing for seasonal/migrant workers who have no intention of signing a year long lease, in an extremely landlocked area (Vail's ski range is leased from the national park service), in an area where building costs are much higher than typical (general conditions alone are huge, plus inability to build in the winter)? Also, strict height limits for buildings.

cmurf 11y ago
Syndicalism? That'd produce the opposite extreme of what we have now, but at least it'd sorta be a poke in the eye for the exploitation of all the lower rung workers.

nyhc99 11y ago

I live in Summit County. The situation is ugly. over 75% of homes here are 2nd homes. AirBnB is running rampant. Half of the homes in my neighborhood are empty most of the year, and the other half are being rented out for 200 dollars a night to vacationers. The towns could put up restrictions on VRBO, raise taxes on vacation homes, anything. But they won't. The town governments are all run by realtors and developers who don't care about maintaining a viable community.

cpncrunch 11y ago

As usual, these types of problems will fix themselves by market forces. The problem is that people are willing to put up with crappy conditions (long commute or sleeping in their car) to have a job in a beautifiul location. It's no different from pilots working for shitty wages just so they can fly. At some point the crunch will become so severe that the resorts won't have enough staff. Then, they will realise that they might have to do something, and they'll house employees on-site. Or the residents and business owners in these towns will vote to allow more affordable rental accommodation to be built.

thatcat 11y ago
>they'll house employees on-site They already do this. New development in the high rockies has a very high materials and labor cost. In addition to this, the amount of land available for development is limited by terrain and the fact that most of CO is national forest land. > vote to allow more affordable rental accommodation to be built Vail Resorts; owner of Breckenridge, Keystone, Vail, Beaver Creek, and Heavenly is a the only large employeer in most of these towns. They have a high degree of local political influence and like to leverage the fact that they provide low cost housing (about 1/3 of market prices) so they can exploit their employees more efficiently. Market forces can't fix problems that are the result of a monopoly.
- cpncrunch 11y ago
  >They already do this. Not according to the article. >Vail Resorts; owner of Breckenridge, Keystone, Vail, Beaver Creek, and Heavenly is a the only large employeer in most of these towns. They have a high degree of local political influence and like to leverage the fact that they provide low cost housing (about 1/3 of market prices) so they can exploit their employees more efficiently. In that case market forces will act much more quickly. As soon as people stop deciding to work as slaves, instantly Vail Resorts will do something about it. There's no incentive for them to do anything while they still have the cheap labour.