It's good news that the Blaine County Housing Authority intends to buy the North Fork Store and Trailer Park to try to preserve 42 units of affordable housing.
Without market intervention, mega-homes surely would have displaced tenants. They would have been forced to pack their belongings and join the exodus that began last spring when residents of 31 units at the J&C Mobile Home Park south of Ketchum were forced to move.
Yet, purchasing the two-acre property may turn out to be the easy part.
Inadequate septic tanks now serve the mobile homes. County officials will be scratching their heads over what to do with property that is limited to one unit and one septic tank per acre by the South Central District Health Department.
The answer will raise issues for development of high densities in the county.
The Blaine County Commissioners and the Blaine-Ketchum Housing Authority are trying to meet the demand for new affordable housing, now estimated to be in the neighborhood of 293 units. BKHA estimates that the need may grow to 1,676 units by 2010.
The pressure's on.
The county recently approved Quail Creek, 126 units including 43 community housing units on 23 acres south of Ketchum. The subdivision is part of a Community Housing Overlay District. There are 283 acres of property in the vicinity upon which nearly 1,600 market and affordable units could be built.
Despite the pressure, the county must somehow reconcile its new push for high densities with its own Comprehensive Plan, which calls for maintaining rural densities outside cities. If the county has changed its vision, it needs to get public approval to change its plan.
And not least, the county needs to awaken the cities and force them to address some practical matters. Where will the county find water and sewer services for more densities like those in Quail Creek? Where will residents park when they arrive at work in Ketchum? What kind of impact will the densities have on the efficiency of State Highway 75?
Ketchum and Sun Valley—and their combined entity the Ketchum Area Rapid Transit System—have yet to weigh in on any of these matters. Their silence is unconscionable.
The county needs to take a breath, join with the cities and come up with a plan that works—and doesn't destroy the valley's quality of life. If that means community housing developments are stopped temporarily as part of the county's moratorium on new subdivisions, so be it.
The valley needs community housing. It also needs good planning. It can have both.
