Worried that Vail feels too much like a cruise ship where middle-class workers can’t afford to live, elected officials want to build new price-restricted housing in an offbeat place — the town manager’s residence.
Some of them want to tear down the six-bedroom home — of which three are in the basement — where the town manager lives in west Vail. In its place, they have plans to build a for-sale duplex and a price-restricted “lock-off” rental unit.
Town planners have been directed to draw up possible building plans and lay out current zoning regulations for town council members to discuss. Three units could be built on the site under current zoning regulations, according to the town’s community development department.
Town manager Stan Zemler declined to comment on the debate concerning his home.
He lives in the house rent- and mortgage-free, because it’s provided as part of his benefits package. It has been appraised at about $1.1 million by the county.
Second homeowners own about 70 percent of the homes in town. So while about 8,000 people work in town during ski season, only about 4,200 actually live there, a statistic that causes huge parking and community-involvement problems, among other things.
“A fixer-upper is a starter home in most communities, but in Vail, it gets bought by an oil baron and torn down,” said Mark Gordon, a town councilman who supports tearing the town manager’s house down. “So the emergency room doctor and the school teacher family are all competing against the oil baron from Venezuela who wants to build a mansion.”
One of town officials’ biggest goals is to provide housing for 30 percent of the employees who work in Vail. As a result, they have started looking to some unusual spots in recent years where they can build new, price-restricted housing.
Vail is building a new duplex on town-owned land near the town manager’s house, for example. The three-bedroom, two-bath homes with garages are slated to be sold to two housing-lottery winners in May for prices ranging from $375,000-$400,000.
The town also owns a 198-unit apartment complex leased to Vail Resorts during the ski season that it bought for $22 million in 2006 to try to preserve price-restricted rental housing. A plan to get a private developer to knock down and redo half of the aging complex appears to be stalled, however.
In addition, the town plans to set aside $500,000 in its 2010 budget as part of its plan to buy up more real estate to make available as price-restricted rental and for sale homes.
The town’s housing department oversees 661 units already.
Finding more “worker” housing might be all well and good, but that’s not a good reason to tear down the town manager’s house to build something new, said Andy Daly, mayor pro-tem.
“Whomever the town manager is, we need a quality residence for them, and to have a three-unit complex, I wouldn’t agree is the right solution,” Daly said.
Gordon says it’s important to focus on getting more folks living in town, whether they live at the town manager’s house or somewhere else.
“You have to preserve the housing so we’re not a cruise ship in the mountains,” Gordon said. “We’re just trying to be more strategic in our housing plans.”
