Reading the article in Wednesday/Thursday print edition of Summit Daily News concerning the development of the Wayside Inn property made me wonder where Breckenridge Town Council members Steve Gerard and Dick Carleton live.

I have lived in Vic’s Landing, the complex abutting the Wayside to the east, since May of 2008. When i moved in, we were told the Wayside’s days were numbered. So in a sense I’ve been living on borrowed time for 18 1/2 years. But to hear these gentlemen talk about “housing density” the way they do clearly tells me two things. One, that it won’t effect them and two, that they don’t care about the impacts on surrounding properties. I cannot imagine a building any bigger than the one which is to be demolished being constructed on the property. I don’t see how it would fit into the space they’ll have to work with. 

A bigger question to me is how much “workforce housing” do we really need? It’s been a talking point for so, so long, and nothing seems to be improving the actual living conditions the “workforce” has to accept if they want to live here. It doesn’t matter how many units you have if those folks cannot afford the rent. 

A recent letter from Dillon resident Joel Schwartzman also posed the question about property space for senior housing, a subject that appears to take not just a back seat but a back row seat to employee housing. We’ve been hearing talk of being “built out” and having nowhere else to build for many years, too, but somehow more space is always discovered. John Denver’s prophesies in “Rocky Mountain High” were dead on.