The buzz surrounding the issue of affordable housing in the Wood River Valley has reached a new pitch.
The evidence for this can be seen in the south end of the valley, where residents in Hailey and Bellevue increasingly recognize the crucial role their two municipalities will play on the issue in the future.
There, community members say rapidly escalating home prices indicate Hailey and Bellevue can no longer be automatically counted on to provide lower-priced housing options in comparison to their Ketchum and Sun Valley counterparts to the north.
In Bellevue, for example, Mayor Jon Anderson recently invited Sun Valley Mayor Jon Thorson and City Administrator Virginia Egger to a City Council meeting to speak on the issue of affordable housing. During his address, Thorson said Bellevue has a significant role to play in the quest to provide affordable housing in the valley.
"If you don't take care of it, you and the rest of us will be moving south," he said.
Thorson offered Bellevue assistance with planning for its affordable housing needs, saying the city could borrow from what Sun Valley has already done. Earlier this year, Sun Valley passed a set of ordinances that essentially require a percentage of affordable housing be built as a part of nearly all new developments.
"We offer you assistance, we offer you our ordinances," he said.
Just up the road in Hailey, by comparison, efforts to address the issue are already well under way.
Operating under a moratorium on new subdivisions that has been in place since July 1, Hailey city government employees have been working to draft an affordable workforce housing ordinance.
If approved, Hailey's Inclusionary Zoning Ordinance would require a certain percentage of units in all new residential subdivisions be deed-restricted housing. The draft outline for the ordinance currently specifies that 20 percent must be deed-restricted.
Michael David, executive director of the Blaine-Ketchum Housing Authority, said affordable housing must be viewed as a valley-wide issue. In the first five years after its formation in 1997, the Housing Authority focused about 90 percent of its efforts in Ketchum and Sun Valley, he said.
Now, though, its focus has expanded to the south end of the valley, David said. "We've got to look at this regionally," he said.
Because both Hailey and Bellevue still have room to grow, the valley has the opportunity to make real progress on the issue, David said. "We're at a great period right now to address this issue," he said.
And just as the entire valley must work together to address the affordable housing issue, so too must a range of methods be employed to combat the shortage, David said. Ordinances that mandate developers include a certain percentage of affordable housing units in all new developments will not alone fix the problem, he suggested.
To fully address the shortage, incentives like density bonuses for developers must also be utilized, David said.
Density bonuses allow developers to build more square footage than would normally be allowed in a designated area in exchange for providing affordable housing.
In Bellevue, Anderson, City Administrator Tom Blanchard and the six-member City Council welcomed the advice of Thorson. They also expressed gratitude for his offer of assistance.
"We can use all the help we can get," Anderson said.
The Hailey Planning and Zoning Commission will hold a public meeting at 6:30 p.m. on Monday, Oct. 3, in the second floor meeting room at the Hailey City Hall. The meeting agenda includes a discussion of the proposed inclusionary zoning ordinance.
