A curious pair of seemingly unrelated challenges affecting the future of the Wood River Valley's allure has cropped up to challenge the public and policymakers into changing their ways and applying new thinking.
One is the proposed five-story hotel for Main Street in Ketchum, a project thus far not welcomed at Ketchum City Hall because of its height.
The other is a pernicious increase in the temperature of the Wood River that snakes through the valley and is a major recreational attraction for trout fishermen. Increasing temperatures threaten the fish.
Both these problems can be solved if confronted with imagination and an understanding of the consequences if both are ignored.
The hotel proposed by developer Steve Burnstead is absolutely essential if Ketchum is to reverse the shrinking stock of lodging rooms, and also to help restore the area's ability to handle large group bookings. A large new hostelry also would revive retail life in the Ketchum business core, which has seen businesses vanish for lack of shopper traffic.
Machinery created by the Ketchum City Council—transfer of development rights (TDRs)—could make the hotel a reality on the only full block currently available for development. Zoning that now limits the hotel to less than five stories could be overcome if TDRs were extended to Burnstead's Bald Mountain Lodge property. The developer could then buy a TDR credit from another property owner that would allow construction of the additional height for the hotel.
But the council redlined Main Street to prevent TDRs, including that site.
Simple economics of profitability require a five-story hotel. And if the Wood River Valley lands new airline service from Denver, the hotel would be needed to accommodate an increase in visitors.
Some of those visitors, plus others, are bound to be trout fishermen, eager to cast into the Wood River.
However, vegetation and cover along the riverbanks have shrunk—by as much as 12 percent, according to the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality, which has been monitoring water quality.
If cover isn't restored and water temperatures continue to rise, trout populations could be threatened, and so, too, would a popular recreational activity.
Both of these challenges—giving the go-ahead to a new hotel for Ketchum and rescuing the Wood River from heat damage—require immediate resolve.
If the city of Ketchum again rejects an important new lodging facility, the council will deliver another blow to the city's shrinking business base by making hotel rooms scarce and hamstringing the area's economy.
