Ketchum's hotel massing study confirmed what anyone with eyes already knew: Once buildings reach three stories downtown, views of the surrounding mountains are gone.
Obvious or not, this means the community debate over the effect on views of hotels taller than the current three-floor limit should be over. Three floors, which are automatically allowed, or five floors, which require special permission, will matter not.
What will matter, according to the consultants who prepared the study, is how the floors are sized, stacked and arranged. That will determine the look and feel of Ketchum's downtown and affect how people perceive a hotel—or a group of hotels.
That should put the debate over height to rest and let the city focus its energies on demanding good design. Unfortunately, it probably won't.
When it reviewed two previous hotel projects, Ketchum saw much handwringing about the state of the soul of the town, views of Baldy, traffic, and building shadows during the winter.
With four hotels predicted to come before Ketchum in the next month, instead of dealing with misplaced concerns about height, city officials should focus on this question: If a view exists and there's no one there to see it, is it still a view?
The question sounds crazy unless considered against what happened at Tuesday's council meeting.
An attorney who represents a group of second-home owners with properties at Baldy's Warm Spring's base said his clients oppose a hotel that would block existing views of Baldy. Second-home owners in Ketchum proper have said the same about hotels that may be proposed there.
A city councilman pointed out that the people complaining own structures that had inflicted the same "damage" on neighbors when they were built.
Ketchum's neighborhoods are crammed with second homes that are empty most of the year. The units displaced working residents, blocked others' views, and do not contribute to the tourist economy because they are not part of a rental pool. Some second homes spend years without seeing a single human occupant.
Well-designed and well-operated hotels will have little negative impact on the values of surrounding properties. If anything, they will increase values in the long-term and bring renewed vitality to the city.
Ketchum should not reject hotels that could shore up the entire Wood River Valley's economic viability in order to satisfy misplaced concerns of speculators in passive investments that are smothering the valley's active tourist economy.
To value nebulous views of Baldy over community vitality would be a losing proposition for everyone.
