Wednesday, July 25, 2007

Don?t blame McMansions

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McMansions are only one minor facet of the housing crunch in Blaine County. Years of subdivision moratoriums and blockading annexations are the No. 1 cause of the shortage of affordable housing in the valley.

Any time snobbish city and county planners artificially constrain supply in the name of preserving the character of the area, while demand stays high for housing, prices go up, up, and up—out of reach for most of the county's working residents. This simple lesson of Economics 101 has apparently escaped all of Ketchum, Hailey, Bellevue, and the county's planners.

Instead, they condescend to the valley's working class by fretting over "workforce housing." Let the market work. The character of the valley has already irrevocably changed. Developers are more than willing to build perfectly nice new subdivisions with homes priced in a range that the valley's working poor can afford, once supply meets or exceeds demand. If only planners would stop stonewalling them.

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On the contrary, these people are content to let their own homes and McMansions appreciate endlessly while thousands are forced to rent, commute from outside the valley or live in substandard conditions.

Jason Busch

Hailey