The Ketchum P&Z and City Council may be aware that I am a permanent Ketchum resident in the Larkspur condominiums. I own 55 units of affordable housing known as the Sun Valley Trailer Parks; these consist of two parks on Highway 75 near the St. Lukes hospital. Sun Valley Trailer Parks may have limited parking, limited outdoor space, no garages or storage space but at least there are areas where children can play. The parks may be non-conforming use but they have been grandfathered in for 40 years.
I am not suggesting that the proposed Thunder Spring affordable housing project is the same category of housing as a low-end trailer park. However, it is very similar to my trailer parks as far as these limitations mentioned above but minus its 40-year history in the valley; in fact, some of my rental units are larger than the proposed units on the golf course. I encourage all Ketchum residents as well as P&Z members and City Council members to tour Sun Tree Hollow and Country Chalet Parks to get a glimpse of what parking, storage and recreational problems would be like when transposed to the Bigwood golf course.
In addition, may I add that as the owner of the parks I have been the recipient of various complaints of noise impact from neighborhood (Cold Springs) homeowners; this in spite of the fact that the trailer parks have been in place long before developers built Cold Springs homes. Are not the golfers on Bigwood entitled to certain rights while playing the course? As far as I'm concerned, 19 units with 50-60 individuals is certain to cause daytime noise pollution (radios, stereos, entertaining and partying) that will be a hardship to the golfers. Another recipient of noise pollution will be the adjacent Ketchum Cemetery; I'm sure that the residents of the cemetery will hardly complain but I can't speak for the visiting family and friends, tourists, attendees at funeral services, etc. It is easy to mandate permissible noise levels and behavior when part of a building complex such as Thunder Spring; impossible to do so when sandwiched between a golf course and a cemetery.
For both of these reasons, I can certainly see where Thunder Spring would not want to have these units on their own building sites. But that is not a valid reason to inflict them on others on the pretext that no one will be inconvenienced by their presence in Lot 11.
No, gentlemen, this Thunder Spring project is the wrong concept in the wrong place, period. Let's put these units up the hill at Thunder Spring where, but for reasons as yet unknown, their construction has languished these many years. It is high time that the seemingly feckless Ketchum City government be made to account for the failure of these units to have been constructed at Thunder Spring as originally called for.
Gary Hoffman
Ketchum
