By any measure, Tom Wirth has a big job ahead of him.
As a contract “sustainability coordinator” for San Miguel County and the towns of Telluride and Mountain Village, Wirth is launching a sustainability inventory.
His job is to gather data that will determine whether that region, which includes everything from a ski resort to remote ranching communities, is providing for today without compromising future generations. To make the determination, Wirth will count miles of hiking trails, check day-care availability and find out how far people are driving to get to work every day.
“There are some people who want to jump in … right away,” Wirth said. “But the only way to measure progress is to know where you’re starting from.”
One of the most pressing and contentious concerns being examined is the lack of affordable housing.
It has been more than a year since a home sold for under $1 million within the town limits of Telluride, 200 miles southwest of Denver. Many of those who work in Telluride or at the resort itself commute from as far as Montrose.
“Making a resort sustainable means making it possible for working people to live here,” said Nina Kothe, executive assistant to Telluride’s manager. “Unless we address those things, everything else is just a house of cards.”
Telluride is balancing the need for affordable housing with environmentally friendly building.
An ordinance requiring all residential new construction, additions and remodels to comply with green building regulations went into effect in the spring. The code, which does not apply to commercial construction, comprises four categories: energy efficiency, indoor air quality, materials and resource conservation. Environmentally friendly features are assigned points. Builders choose from the options to meet a required point total for the project.
“There are some costs associated with the code, but they aren’t a lot,” said Sam Samuelson, Telluride building official. “There is another layer of bureaucracy, and certain items are more expensive. But as it becomes more mainstream, prices for those items will come down.”
Green features add a cost of $3 to $4 a square foot, or about 2 percent above normal construction costs, in a recent study by Washington, D.C.-based group Capital E. The study also found that energy costs are cut by one-third with a green building.
In Colorado, Aspen and Boulder also have green building codes.
There has been resistance to making environmentally friendly features mandatory.
“We don’t see green being part of the code as being the best approach,” said Kim Calomino, director of Built Green Colorado, which is operated by the Home Builders Association of Metro Denver. “Our hope is that communities will encourage green building through the market approach.”
Such controversy will be a staple for Wirth.
Although large cities in North America such as Canada’s Vancouver and Calgary have done such inventories, the three governments in Colorado’s southwest corner are the first in the state to take on an inventory of this scale. Denver plans a similar inventory.
“Taking this type of inventory is the way things are headed,” said Margit Hentschel of the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives’ Local Governments for Sustainability, a consulting group that has completed sustainability inventories around the world. “Telluride is a leader – especially for a community its size. Some of the findings from Telluride will be transferable to other ski towns.”
Wirth was hired to collect data for the inventory. Once an action plan is completed early next year, the communities will make the position permanent.
In addition to providing a base line for future projects, the inventory will organize the efforts of the three governments and the more than 100 nonprofit groups in the area.
“In such a small area with so many overlapping governments, there could easily be duplication of efforts,” Wirth said. “Or it could go the other way, where one entity figures someone else is taking on an issue so they don’t bother with it. You’d think, in such a small community, these things would be obvious, but they’re not.”
The region’s residents who are concerned about sustainability suggested the inventory.
In addition to the principal three governments, other regional entities will be included: the town of Norwood, the regional schools, Tel ski, regional businesses, nonprofit organizations and residents of unincorporated areas such as Down Valley and Lawson Hill. The Telluride Foundation, a local charitable organization, and the San Miguel Watershed Coalition have joined the program and are providing funding.
“Sustainability is not always that popular, so it was important to us that we had an inventory that was unbiased,” Kothe said. “Some people are just into unlimited growth, while others are way over on the environmental side of things. It’s important that the coordinator be balanced in what he’s doing.”
