{"id":2452620,"date":"2019-12-26T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-12-26T17:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/?p=318204"},"modified":"2019-12-26T10:00:00","modified_gmt":"2019-12-26T17:00:00","slug":"aspen-in-the-2020s-questions-for-the-decade-ahead-from-housing-to-the-latino-voice-and-our-elected-leaders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/local-news\/aspen-in-the-2020s-questions-for-the-decade-ahead-from-housing-to-the-latino-voice-and-our-elected-leaders\/","title":{"rendered":"Aspen in the 2020s: Questions for the decade ahead from housing to the Latino voice and our elected leaders"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Ten years ago, Aspen and the rest of the U.S. were still reeling from the Great Recession. The big local questions then concerned the futures of massive stalled development projects at Willits Town Center and Snowmass Base Village, while Aspen was wondering how sustainable the tourist- and luxury real estate-driven economy could be after the crash.<\/p>\n

What a difference a decade makes. As we enter the 2020s, we\u2019re in the longest economic expansion in U.S. history, the local skiing and tourism industry is in expansion mode, and now Aspen is wondering how sustainable the local tourist industry can be if workers can\u2019t afford to live anywhere near Aspen.<\/p>\n

Looking ahead, these are some conversation-starting questions about the 2020s in Aspen, the uncertainties ahead, the choices this community will have to make and how they might shape the Roaring Fork Valley by 2029.<\/p>\n

Read last week\u2019s edition about how Aspen and the Roaring Fork Valley evolved in the 2010s.<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

HOW WILL SKIING ON ASPEN MOUNTAIN EVOLVE?<\/h4>\n

With plans for a new chairlift from Dean Street serving the Lift One side of the ski area and the possibility of a new lift and 160-plus acres of new terrain on the east side near Walsh\u2019s in the Pandora\u2019s expansion, the way skiers navigate Aspen Mountain is likely to evolve in the next decade. If both come online, it would offer skiers new choices in the way they access Ajax at its base and how skiers link laps on the top of the mountain. If approved, Pandora\u2019s would be the first terrain expansion on Ajax since 1985 and if the Lift One redevelopment happens it\u2019ll be the biggest infrastructure improvement on the mountain since the Silver Queen Gondola opened in 1986. <\/span><\/p>\n

<\/h4>\n

CAN MORE DENSE DEVELOPMENT SOLVE THE HOUSING CRISIS?<\/span><\/p>\n

Local leaders\u2019 longstanding ethic of protecting open space and saying \u201cno\u201d to dense developments could shift in the 2020s, as the valley\u2019s housing shortage for its labor force threatens the viability of Aspen to continue operating as a world-class resort.<\/span><\/p>\n

One solution \u2014 which has previously been a third-rail for Aspen area leaders \u2014 is building denser and bigger deed-restricted housing developments, and lots of them, in select areas to provide shelter for seasonal workers and year-round residents.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou already hear people who are accepting of that,\u201d Mayor Torre said. \u201cI think there\u2019s a way to do it appropriately. We\u2019re not talking about four- and five-story housing units.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nobody has ever won a campaign around here with a \u201cYes in My Backyard\u201d platform, but that may change as the voting population and business leaders of Aspen increasingly view the housing crisis as an existential threat.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a corrupting and pervasive sentiment that the only way to save this community is to freeze it in time. And there is a failure to understand that if you freeze it in time, you destroy it,\u201d said Auden Schendler, the Aspen Skiing Co.\u2019s senior vice president of sustainability and Basalt councilman who wrote a 2018 op-ed in Outside magazine calling for more density to save mountain town life.<\/p>\n

Aggressive action on creating housing, combined with ongoing reform at the Aspen-Pitkin County Housing Authority, might be a sign of hope for the dire housing outlook.<\/p>\n

\u201cBy 2029 we\u2019ll see greater stability in our housing program and a greater sense of ease for those looking for that fundamental need of housing,\u201d Mayor Torre said.<\/p>\n

<\/h4>\n

OR HOW ABOUT A VACANCY TAX?<\/span><\/p>\n

Another idea making its way from the fringe to the mainstream: putting a price on the impact of vacation homes that sit empty most of the year and instituting an annual fee for leaving them unoccupied. The construction and maintenance of these unoccupied homes impacts energy consumption and emissions, traffic and labor, while the hollowing out of neighborhoods like the West End has forced full-time residents away.<\/span><\/p>\n

Aspen Times columnist Paul Andersen made a pitch for the tax in May<\/a>, noting that Vancouver has a vacancy tax and concluding: \u201can empty-home fee could reduce demand for resource-hungry second homes, improve demand for hotels and lodges, enliven residential neighborhoods and reduce energy and resource consumption in a community that has vowed to save winters for future ski seasons and future generations.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/h4>\n

HOW WILL A NEW AIRPORT RESHAPE ASPEN TOURISM?<\/span><\/p>\n

A new terminal and new runway are in the works and, though the process underway since 2012 still has a ways to go and details to finalize, the terminal will be nicer and bigger while the runway will serve larger planes like 737s. So the airport political battles of the 1990s \u2014 such as the \u201cThere is Some Shit We Won\u2019t Eat\u201d anti-737 campaign \u2014 may be over or may be revived in the years to come. When it\u2019s done, it could mean a new volume of tourists on commercial airlines, new routes, and a less Texas- and California-centric domestic tourism crowd if direct flights to the East Coast come online (as well as more options for locals to fly out of town).<\/span><\/p>\n

A higher capacity airport combined with the build-out of Snowmass Base Village, new lodges in Aspen and expanding summer attractions at Snowmass Ski Area would seem to be establish a permanently more intense volume of industrial tourism.<\/p>\n

How will those numbers of visitors impact the quality of the Aspen and Snowmass tourist experience when the resort can\u2019t find an adequate number of employees to provide services?<\/p>\n

<\/h4>\n

WHEN WILL THE NEXT RECESSION HIT? AND HOW RESILIENT IS ASPEN?<\/span><\/p>\n

The U.S. is still in its longest period of economic expansion in history, but what will happen here when it ends? Optimists might argue that the local economy is more resilient than it was during the Great Recession. According to Pitkin County labor data, 1,752 jobs were lost during the recession period from late 2007 through mid-2009, but only 689 have returned. That reset, which stabilized employment back to the 2003 level of about 25,000 people working in the county, arguably means there is little fat on the bones of the local workforce to trim during another downturn.<\/span><\/p>\n

Employment also tends to rebound within a year of a recession\u2019s end, according to county data from downturns in the early 1990s and 2000s, underscoring the oft-repeated local wisdom that in a recession Aspen is \u201cthe last to feel it and the first to recover.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, employment data only offers a sliver of the big picture. Depending on the length, severity and nature of a national recession or another global economic crisis, there\u2019s no knowing how a recession might shake the international wealth that fuels Aspen\u2019s luxury real estate market, or funding for the massive redevelopment projects in downtown Aspen and at the base of Ajax and in the midvalley, or the broad investments of Skico ownership in the Alterra Mountain Co. throughout ski country.<\/p>\n

<\/h4>\n

JUST HOW DIFFERENT IS DOWNTOWN GOING TO BE IN 2029?<\/span><\/p>\n

Between developer Mark Hunt\u2019s projects and the city of Aspen\u2019s, new buildings are coming to nearly every block of downtown Aspen and the way people navigate it may transform as a result. If Hunt\u2019s developments come to fruition as planned, what had been the Crystal Palace will be a boutique hotel, the space adjacent to the Red Onion will be the Jazz Aspen performance and education center, there\u2019ll be a new Restoration Hardware across from Paradise Corner and a WeWork at the old Arjuna\/Aspen Daily News building, a bank at the Conoco on Main Street. Each of these will bring new buildings with new designs and new uses to downtown, while the City Hall project on what is now Galena Plaza seeks to create a new pedestrian hub and destination on what it\u2019s calling \u201cAspen commons.\u201d If all that happens by 2029, and the new planned 320,000-square-foot development gets built at Lift One, downtown is going to change in a way it hasn\u2019t since the pedestrian mall was completed in 1976.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/h4>\n

WHEN WILL ASPEN OPEN HASH BARS?<\/span><\/p>\n

The Aspen City Council has started publicly discussing the possibility of licensing pot clubs in the city, though they\u2019ve been clear they don\u2019t want to be the first municipality to OK them. And state legislators have begun working on laws that would provide for tasting rooms at cannabis dispensaries and bars where the public could legally use marijuana. Denver already has a few tightly restricted consumption areas, and is likely to start opening hash bars before Colorado\u2019s ski towns do.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt could be part of this culture of food and wine,\u201d suggested Sheriff Joe DiSalvo. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t make sense that you can have food and wine here but you can\u2019t have food and weed.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/h4>\n

WHAT WILL THE NEW \u2018LOCAL\u2019 BUSINESSES BE?<\/span><\/p>\n

The angst around Aspen losing its local character in the 2010s largely about the shuttering of bars and restaurants downtown that had been community gathering spaces. But what if there is already a new paradigm of local-serving space emerging for the town?<\/span><\/p>\n

It could be the new model exemplified by Here House \u2014 the recently opened social club and co-working space \u2014 and the soon-to-open Alt ski locker and shared work space. If they succeed, and more come, the hangout spots of the next decade may be something other than the Weinerstubes and Little Annie\u2019s Eating Houses and Cooper Street Piers of Aspen past.<\/p>\n

<\/h4>\n

WILL THE WORLD CUP COME BACK?<\/span><\/p>\n

The International Ski Federation and its World Cup races left Aspen because it demanded a new lift and other improvements on the Lift One side of Ajax, but Skico and its partners needed time to deliver. So, if the new base development does give the race course a lift, does it necessarily mean Aspen will get an annual race back on the schedule? The November women\u2019s races in Killington have set American attendance records since moving there, far outpacing the crowds an Aspen Mountain race can ever accommodate. Is the FIS willing to give up that level of fan exposure for Aspen? And would the FIS consider bringing men\u2019s races back in March?<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/h4>\n

ONCE WILLITS IS DONE, WHAT IS THE MIDVALLEY?<\/span><\/p>\n

A long period of uncertainty and transformative development is coming to an end in Basalt and the midvalley. The final build-out of Willits Town Center will be finished soon, with final pieces like the Arts Campus at Willits performing arts center, a 43-unit Skico housing complex and the sports medicine Steadman Clinic. The long-gestating riverside development in downtown Basalt will be next, along with Ace Lane\u2019s long-debated Tree Farm mixed-use development. When the dust finally settles, the transformed midvalley will have jobs, cultural assets and \u2014 more than ever \u2014 a robust identity of its own beyond being Aspen\u2019s bedroom community. What then?<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/h4>\n

WHAT NEW CROWD-CONTROL MEASURES ARE COMING TO THE BACKCOUNTRY?<\/span><\/p>\n

Overnight trail use on the 10 most popular trails in the Maroon Bells-Snowmass Wilderness more than doubled between 2007 and 2015 and swelling usage across the White River National Forest has already led to limited permit systems at Hanging Lake, Conundrum Hot Springs and, soon, the Four Pass Loop. In the years ahead as the number of users grows, federal and local authorities may institute more crowd-control measures. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a challenge going forward,\u201d Pitkin County Manager Jon Peacock said. \u201cOur public lands should be accessible by the public but how do we protect them with this increasing intensity of use?\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/h4>\n

AND WHAT WILL BURN NEXT?<\/p>\n

Preventing wildfires from threatening life, property and infrastructure is a fight that did not end when the Lake Christine Fire was extinguished. The drought conditions that fed that historic midvalley wildfire are expected to persist in the forest in the decade to come. Along with the campfire bans, water restrictions and firework cancellations that have become commonplace in the Roaring Fork Valley, fire risk could necessitate more extreme precautions such as restrictions on access to hiking trails and fisheries seen elsewhere in the West. The valley is also likely to experience deteriorating air quality as weather patterns bring in smoke from wildfires burning elsewhere in the West.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/h4>\n

CAN NEW PARTNERSHIPS FIND LOCAL SOLUTIONS TO REGIONAL & NATIONAL PROBLEMS?<\/span><\/p>\n

Rising health care costs led to the Valley Health Alliance in 2012, bringing together a mix of six government, nonprofit and for-profit employers to find local solutions that the federal and state government aren\u2019t providing. Public-private-nonprofit partnerships have since formed to build housing, treat mental health crises and address the local child care shortage. This coalition model, teaming private and government entities and philanthropists, may in the next decade be the way leaders meaningfully tackle vexing valleywide issues.<\/p>\n

<\/h4>\n

WHAT DO GEN Z LATINOS WANT THE VALLEY TO BE WHEN THEY GROW UP?<\/span><\/p>\n

Since 2011, the majority of students in the Roaring Fork School District have been Hispanic. As these young locals in Basalt, Carbondale and Glenwood Springs grow to voting age and become civic and business leaders, their bilingual voice will shape the future of the valley. It could signal a more integrated local culture and a less monochromatically white power structure for the Roaring Fork Valley.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/h4>\n

WHO ARE ASPEN\u2019S NEXT PUBLIC SERVANTS?<\/span><\/p>\n

The 2020s are going to bring new blood to local leadership, following a streak of retirements from long-serving baby boomers on the city and county level and the likely retirement of Sheriff Joe DiSalvo in the decade ahead.<\/span><\/p>\n

In the 2010s, civic involvement for Aspen\u2019s under-40 population coalesced around support of failed development projects such as the Base2 Lodge and bringing a brewery\/co-working space to the Old Power House, and through the formation of the city\u2019s Next Gen advisory board. City Councilman Skippy Mesirow, elected in 2019, was that loosely organized contingent\u2019s first elected leader. Who will come after him and what priorities will the next generation of Aspen leaders have?<\/p>\n

atravers@aspentimes.com<\/a><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

via:: The Aspen Times<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ten years ago, Aspen and the rest of the U.S. were still reeling from the Great Recession. The big local questions then concerned the futures of massive stalled development projects at Willits Town Center and Snowmass Base Village, while Aspen was wondering how sustainable the tourist- and luxury real estate-driven economy could be after the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2452620","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-local-news"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-19 00:22:44","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSPN The Valley's Quality Rock","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2452620","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2452620"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2452620\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2452620"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2452620"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2452620"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}