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Letter to the Editor: Something should have been done about short-term rentals earlier

Richard Mason
Breckenridge

Regarding the recent letter from a former Breckenridge mayor and town manager, it’s interesting that at least some past leaders of the community have chosen to speak up and attempt to deflect blame. They were leading and managing during a time when it would have been relatively easy to spearhead lower-wage workforce housing projects, yet it appears that little was done. Where are the badly needed dormitories and other minimum-wage, hourly workforce housing options? The days of the $200,000 long-term rental flop house with four cars in the driveway and one on the front yard are over. That same house now is worth over $1.1 million. No one is going to pay that much for a house and then rent it the same way.

This situation was entirely foreseeable. I’m a hick who grew up skiing using an Appalachian rope tow, but even I could see this current housing situation coming from as far back as 1998. That’s when my wife and I pinched every penny we had and purchased a vacant lot in the Peak 7 neighborhood. With the extremely limited real estate supply in the county, the ever increasing population of Colorado and the long-term trend of people working remotely, these factors should have been fairly obvious clues that real estate prices in Summit County, and in fact the entire state, would rise dramatically. Statistics show that the county is on par with statewide price increases.

I would like to encourage our current elected leadership to not make the same mistakes as leaders have done in the past. As mentioned above, we need dormitory style housing with shared kitchen and bath access, streamlined and incentivized accessory dwelling units (see my earlier letter) and reasonable/appropriate taxes and “fees” shared across all contributors to the current housing situation.


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