There's also a kind of preservation of the culture of the town. Which I kind of agree with.
Then there is also the fact that a lot of these places aren't used for housing, they're used as play houses or AirBnB's. So just adding more houses will likely mean more empty stuff in the town, probably making the problem worse.
Tourism industry runs on cash and being unscrupulous is pretty much a required bar for entry so taxing shit won't solve anything unless there's some magical enforcement mechanism that can be used without the industry that pays the bills voting the people who enact the taxes out of office.
This is true in general; it’s completely obvious how to end the COVID pandemic and stop global warming (universal vaccination and massive reduction in burning fossil fuels, respectively). But people will just not choose these obvious options.
If you can figure out why, and how to change that, you’ll have an incredible life ahead of you in politics.
the AirBnB's are causing the resorts to run at over their designed capacity, making long lift lines for everybody, making the bars too crowded, and making the town's tourist experience worse in addition to making it worse for residents.
Ever heart of VRBO (est. 1995) or the entire VRMA (est. 1985)?
Crested Butte Mountain, the ski resort, opened in 1960.
There's a few compounding factors that the article touches on but doesn't really put much emphasis. I'm up in the Canadian Rockies but I have friends spread out among a few of the towns so I'll try and give some perspective across the areas.
Lake Louise: Not really worth commenting on this as almost all homes are owned by local businesses due to national park rules.
Banff: Limited due to how land ownership works within the national park as well as limits the Federal government puts on expanding the town. Thankfully due to the land ownership constraints it avoids the vacation property issue some what although not entirely.
This town also pickups spill over from Lake Louise.
Canmore: Catches the remaining spill over from Lake Louise and Banff further constraining holding it's own workers. This is the closest town to the national park so lots of people own vacation homes here. This town is surrounded by a national park, provincial park, and by Aboriginal land so it has no room to grow. The town has put limits on where air bnb's can be run but they're so profitable people eat the current fines.
An interesting side note with this town is that at the start of the pandemic a lot of the people with vacation homes went here overloading the local grocery stores ability to supply things. The shelves were extra bare for weeks which was quite frustrating.
Fernie: Was doing alright before the pandemic but was feeling the squeeze a bit. As soon as working from home was the norm for people houses disappeared in a flash and what was left almost doubled in price over the two years. In those two years my friends got priced out of the market.
A lot of developers here got burned in the oil crash in 2008 which will probably slow any quick growth to expand the town.
Golden: Don't have any friends here but from what I've seen there's been lots of aggressive development but more on the nicer vacation home side. Nothing that would fit as a good starter house for a family.
Then there are outsized impact fees and red tape from the city and county once it gets past P&Z.
The ONLY constitutional basis for getting a say over how much housing your neighbor builds is excluding Black people (see the appellate ruling, Ambler Realty v City of Euclid). All zoning in the United States is based on the power of that ruling to keep Black people out.
SCOTUS ignored the real issue - the apartments - and focused on the industrial uses in order to ignore the apartment issue.
SCOTUS did explicitly address the apartment buildings and gave what to many contemporary eyes would be an absurd judgement:
"With particular reference to apartment houses, it is pointed out that the development of detached house sections is greatly retarded by the coming of apartment houses, which has sometimes resulted in destroying the entire section for private house purposes; that in such sections very often the apartment house is a mere parasite, constructed in order to take advantage of the open spaces and attractive surroundings created by the residential character of the district. Moreover, the coming of one apartment house is followed by others, interfering by their height and bulk with the free circulation of air and monopolizing the rays of the sun which otherwise would fall upon the smaller homes, and bringing, as their necessary accompaniments, the disturbing noises incident to increased traffic and business, and the occupation, by means of moving and parked automobiles, of larger portions of the streets, thus detracting from their safety and depriving children of the privilege of quiet and open spaces for play, enjoyed by those in more favored localities-until, finally, the residential character of the neighborhood and its desirability as a place of detached residences are utterly destroyed. Under these circumstances, apartment houses, which in a different environment would be not only entirely unobjectionable but highly desirable, come very near to being nuisances."
Whistler village might not be, I can't seem to find firm confirmation of that.
Would you want that ?
When you visited these places, did you wish they had more, and larger, buildings ?
Visiting or living in a "ski town" is, ipso facto, an aesthetic choice that one makes. It is not imposed on anyone nor is it a right to be conferred.
I am open minded to the idea that some people prefer a never-ending monoculture of marginally dense just-barely-sub-urban living areas. I hate this idea, however, and I hope you will look elsewhere to pursue it.
You need workers and materials to build new housing. There is already a shortage of workers.
Builders in Grand Junction can make far more profit by building in Grand Junction, vs driving 6 hours each day to Crested Butte and back. Same with hauling materials.
It feels like it might be different given how much surrounding land is (federally) protected, or just looks super expensive / impractical to build on.
does that mean the "build more housing" idea is not the problem?
New people want more housing but can’t vote because they aren’t residents. Old people want high real estate prices and can vote because they’re residents or own property.
Guess who wins when it’s time for local political leadership to decide on important issues.
Now if housing wasn’t considered an investment and prices were kept flat somehow, that would solve the nimby problem immediately. But it would also bankrupt several generations of existing homeowners so we can’t do that.
Granted, I don't think it's their only motivation. Obviously, lifestyle is a big factor for these people too.
All the consternation over the housing crisis is maddening to me because it seems like universally (in the US), we're willing to try everything and anything except the one thing that basic economics suggests would actually work. We're like a person who needs to drive a screw but will only use wrenches, hammers, and saws.