Affordable housing is seriously lacking in Blaine County, to the tune of 1,200 units, and the deficit will likely double in the next four years, according to a housing needs assessment released last week.
Melanie Rees, of Rees Consulting in Crested Butte, Colo., surveyed 686 households, 37 employees who commute into Blaine County, and 83 public and private sector employers to complete the 94-page draft assessment, which was compiled for the Blaine Ketchum Housing Authority.
"You're not addressing the problem, and you're not keeping up with it now," Rees told Housing Authority board members last week. "There's a strong public awareness, a consensus out there that a problem exists, and it's not being adequately addressed.
"And there's nothing on the drawing board that indicates to me that it will be addressed in the future."
There are currently fewer than 60 community housing units in all of Blaine County.
Rees noted that 78 percent of citizens and 72 percent of the county's employers surveyed believe that community housing is the most critical or one of the more serious problems in the county.
"You have a lot of renters that want a home and can't afford one," she said. "Part of the American dream is to own your own home. The hopelessness of it all gets to you, and, after a while, you leave."
According to the survey, 79 percent of renters would like to buy a home but can't, and 28 percent of homeowners—2,550 households—in Blaine County live in a house that is not affordable given their incomes.
"There are a lot of homeowners that have really pushed it," Rees, a former Colorado state economist, said. "They've borrowed money, or they're getting help from their families."
Rees said Ketchum is in serious danger of drying up and dying, and the exodus of businesses and citizens to down-valley communities like Hailey and Bellevue will only intensify without community housing.
Other significant details in the study are:
· The population of Blaine County—estimated at 21,578 in 2006—increased about 11 percent between 2000 and 2005 and is expected to increase an additional 10 percent by 2010.
· The majority of respondents (44 percent) said they would rather live in the mid-valley, which includes areas south of Ketchum. Forty-two percent said they'd rather live in Ketchum, Sun Valley or areas north.
· Hailey and Bellevue house 60 percent of the area's workers (44 percent in Hailey, 16 percent in Bellevue), whereas approximately 70 percent of residents work in Ketchum and Sun Valley.
· About 17 percent of workers (2,796 people) commute into Blaine County from homes outside the county. Of those, 74 percent said they would rather live in Blaine County.
· Jobs in the county increased about 13 percent between 2000 and 2004 and are expected to increase an additional 16 percent by 2012.
· About 68 percent of county residents are homeowners—32 percent rent.
· 70 percent of respondents expressed uncertainty over how long they plan to live in Blaine County.
· About 325 housing units are overcrowded in the county.
· Unemployment in the county was just 2.4 percent in May 2006.
· 7 percent of people believe affordable housing is not an issue in Blaine County.
Rees, who also shared her assessment with local citizens last Friday as part of the second annual Community Housing Week, offered more than a dozen possible solutions to the problem.
They ranged from down-payment assistance programs to local taxes to imposing stiff community housing requirements on landowners hoping to annex into the county's cities.
But Rees mainly encouraged the formation of a "multi-faceted regional study that comprehensively addresses" the issue. She also said growth management techniques, such as the recently enacted 2025 zoning ordinances, will help slow down the rate by which housing demand is fueled by job growth.
"I really think you need to slow down the demand side," she said.
Mickey Garcia, a candidate for Blaine County commissioner in District 3, which covers the north county and Ketchum, objected to that recommendation.
"Like most of us liberals you have brainwashed yourself about growth," Garcia said.
Garcia believes the county's 2025 downzones will cause sprawl to leapfrog to the south into Lincoln County and will only cause Blaine County home prices to spike further. He referred to 2025 as an "anti-growth management" measure.
"It's a NIMBY thing," Garcia said, referring to the "Not In My Back Yard" mindset. "It's an excuse to limit the number of people who are coming in here. It's a xenophobic thing."
Rees urged government officials trying to solve the issue to stay the course and ignore critics, referring to them as CAVES—Citizens Against Virtually Everything.
Melanie Rees
