Summit Daily Affordable Housing

162471 Resource 78724 78558 162077 1174152492029 1204997711061 Controlled A Turn in Summit County's Affordable Housing plans and how we can Learn from Other Resorts Like Jackson Hole and Aspen

Town of Breckenridge CO discusses a Land swap for Affordable Teacher Housing

<img alt="Colorado ski country, lift access, Breckenridge" hspace="0" src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/136/407185759_948d341757.jpg?v=0" align="baseline" border="0" />This shot was taken on the new Imperial Express Lift at Breckenridge.  Currently, it's the highest lift in <place w:st="on" />North America</place />.Seventeen years ago, the cost of a home in <place w:st="on" /><placename w:st="on" />Summit</placename /> <placetype w:st="on" />County</placetype /></place /> 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 <placename w:st="on" />Summit</placename /> <placetype w:st="on" />School District</placetype /> is working in conjunction with the Town of <city w:st="on" /><place w:st="on" />Breckenridge</place /></city /> 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 <a href="http://summitdaily.com/article/20070315/NEWS/70315013&SearchID=73275241118633">here</a>.              Bonnie Osborn is the executive director of the Summit Combined Housing Authority and is leading the charge in <city w:st="on" /><place w:st="on" />Summit</place /></city /> to have affordable housing.  She states that it takes close to $10,000 to hire and train new teachers in <place w:st="on" /><placename w:st="on" />Summit</placename /> <placetype w:st="on" />County</placetype /></place />.  When teachers can not afford to buy homes in the county or when they have children and money gets tight, <city w:st="on" />Summit</city /> losses its teachers to less expensive areas, mostly <city w:st="on" />Denver</city /> and the <place w:st="on" />Front Range</place />.         Our resort community is not the only one with affordable housing issues.  <city w:st="on" />Aspen</city /> has an affordable housing unit that costs over 1 million dollars- clearly a mistake in planning that <city w:st="on" /><place w:st="on" />Summit</place /></city /> can learn from.  <place w:st="on" />Jackson Hole</place /> offers us another solution-gone-wrong.  Teachers in <place w:st="on" />Jackson Hole</place /> got a huge salary increase.  Starting teacher salaries in <city w:st="on" /><place w:st="on" />Jackson</place /></city /> are $50,000- a 32% increase.  The idea was to give teachers enough money to buy homes in the inflated market of <city w:st="on" />Jackson</city /> thus reducing the turnover in the school district; over the last seven years wages in <city w:st="on" /><place w:st="on" />Jackson</place /></city /> 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  9 application/xml false Affordable Housing Breckenridge CO Jackson Hole median income School subsidized housing Summit County Summit Daily teachers Summit Daily Affordable Housing Our Local Newspaper details this issue http://summitdaily.com/article/20070315/NEWS/70315013&SearchID=73275241118633 Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 5.1; .NET CLR 1.1.4322; .NET CLR 2.0.50727) 127.0.0.1 127.0.0.1 jbrewer 66.198.200.154 false true false false true 205866 false false true false false false true 78724 blog blogsite/SnowHome/web