A Turn in Summit County's Affordable Housing plans and how we can Learn from Other Resorts Like Jackson Hole and Aspen

This shot was taken on the new Imperial Express Lift at Breckenridge.  Currently, it's the highest lift in North America.

Seventeen years ago, the cost of a home in Summit County was four times the median income.  Today, it is ten times.  As this gap between median income and housing costs increase, long-time teachers in our school districts will retire and new teachers will struggle to find a place to buy in the county.  In an effort to offset this trend, the Summit School District is working in conjunction with the Town of Breckenridge and the Summit Combined Housing Authority to undergo a land swap in exchange for teachers having the first pick at affordable housing.  The idea is that having access to affordable housing may improve the district's ability to attract and return high-quality employees.  Read more here.  

            Bonnie Osborn is the executive director of the Summit Combined Housing Authority and is leading the charge in Summit to have affordable housing.  She states that it takes close to $10,000 to hire and train new teachers in Summit County.  When teachers can not afford to buy homes in the county or when they have children and money gets tight, Summit losses its teachers to less expensive areas, mostly Denver and the Front Range.

         Our resort community is not the only one with affordable housing issues.  Aspen has an affordable housing unit that costs over 1 million dollars- clearly a mistake in planning that Summit can learn from.  Jackson Hole offers us another solution-gone-wrong.  Teachers in Jackson Hole got a huge salary increase.  Starting teacher salaries in Jackson are $50,000- a 32% increase.  The idea was to give teachers enough money to buy homes in the inflated market of Jackson thus reducing the turnover in the school district; over the last seven years wages in Jackson have increased 22% but average home sales have risen 79%.  Now the teachers are paid to well to qualify for government subsidized housing, but still earn too little to be able to afford the free market housing. 

 Blog by Jason Brewer