To: VVHA Membership
and Interested Parties
From: Jim Lamont
Date: August 21, 2006
RE: VVHA Status
Report: Vail Community Visioning - Conflicts And Consensus Ahead
Community Development - Conflict and Consensus
Ahead: It is an open question, if public
sentiments can affect the form and function of Town government sponsored
development projects, except through the referendum election process. The
Town, in an effort to calm intense emotion and uncertainty about Vail’s
future, is hosting a “community visioning process”. The purpose of the
community vision is to layout options with the intent of shaping a community
consensus on critical social equity, infrastructure, environmental, planning
and development issues.
The Homeowners Association has an ongoing
interest in these issues as any substantive change in vision or the balance
of power between the Town of Vail, its citizens and property owners affects
the outcome of community’s quality of life and residential experience. The
Association has been requested to participate in this process as an
institutional stakeholder.
In the Town
Council's discussion setting the Crossroad referendum election, two
councilmen proposed a Home Rule Charter amendment be placed on this
November's ballot that would make it more difficult for citizens to call for
a referendum vote. They propose to double the number of required
signatures. The Town of Vail’s referendum petition signature requirement,
through prior amendment of the charter, is already double that required by
Colorado State Statute.
In a counter
response to the proposal, others have suggested that a Charter amendment
should be placed before the voters that would provide for a liberalization
of voter residency requirements to include enfranchisement of all property
owners. The residency amendment is in response to the disproportional
impact upon the broader community interest that voting “seasonally
transient” employees are having upon Town of Vail election issues. The
Colorado Appellate Court open the door to this prospect.
Some local
development interests have been effective in concentrating their
electioneering efforts, which favors large redevelopment projects, by
appealing to entertainment gratification rather than infrastructure
improvements. Two incumbent councilpersons failed to regain their
seats because they opposed controversial aspects of the Crossroads
redevelopment. Similarly, the Crossroads Special Election in the view of
some observers turned on gratification rather than infrastructure or
urbanization issues.
The subject of
further restricting Vail’s democratic participation process was first
brought to the attention and reported by the Homeowners Association in
reference to the Town of Vail's current effort to redevelop the Lionshead
Parking Structure and portions of the Civic Center Site. The redevelopment
is to include a major hotel, commercial and residential development as well
as certain public amenities that have yet to be fully articulated.
The Town of Vail
is sensitive to the potential that this redevelopment proposal could
negatively affect public opinion. There is a historic thread in the
community that objects to the Town government giving subsidies such as tax
revenues, publicly owned land or density concessions to underwrite
commercial development. Voters have consistently rejected such proposals.
Troublingly,
negotiation over the design and planning for the redevelopment of the Town
owned Timber Ridge affordable housing has been taking place largely behind
closed doors. It is rumored that one of the proposals, being given serious
consideration, is three to four times the size of the Middle Creek
affordable housing project. The Middle Creek project itself was and remains
a source of community debate about urbanization. It is being said of Timber
Ridge by some public officials, as was said of the Middle Creek affordable
housing project, the size of the project isn’t a problem because it won’t
affect anyone’s view.
Nearby Timber
Ridge on the North Frontage Road, neighborhood activism about the proposed
redevelopment of the Roost Lodge caused the developer to lower the height of
the proposed building. The project awaits final design review approval by
the Town of Vail.
It remains to be
seen, if citizen action may still be an effective tool in reshaping
redevelopment projects. The Roost Lodge developer initiated litigation over
alleged misleading statements about the project made by opponents to the
redevelopment of Crossroads in the recent Town special election campaign.
The Roost litigation, the outcome of the
Crossroads Special Election and the possibility of a Charter/referendum
amendment represent a transformation in the ongoing debate and conflict over
redevelopment of the community. The mixture becomes more worrying when
added to the mix is the Town of Vail’s method of dealing with some of its
own development proposals, the abuse of Special Development Districts, and
the lack of consistency in its enforcing and updating master plan
protections. Particularly, when some public officials tend to drift towards
deciding, behind closed doors, important aspects of development proposals
that would otherwise be shaped by legitimate public participation and
debate.
It is perceived
that certain local development, real estate, and business interests are
positioning themselves to take full political control the Town government in
the coming Council election. There is the view that the ability of
non-residential property owners to affect the outcome of growth related
issues is being steadily eroded with each successive development
conflict.
There is a trend
towards a rapid acceleration of speculative development in Vail Village,
Lionshead, and the West Vail commercial center. Other redevelopment
projects in the offing are the Four Season Hotel, Manor Vail, Ritz Carlton,
Apollo Park, the Willows, Rucksack, Evergreen Lodge, Enzian/Vail Glo Lodge,
Lion Square North, Rams Horn Lodge, West Vail Holiday Inn, West Lionshead,
Vail Medical Center, as well as several other large and small projects that
are in discussion phase. Interval ownership is appearing in many of these
projects.
The last time, in
the early 1970’s, the community saw this rate of speculative development;
there was government intervention to reduce densities. The timing of
government intervention was too late to significantly reduce speculative
development. A market glut ensued, resulting in a notable decline in real
estate values. There was during this and other periods of economic
downturn, large buildings in Vail and elsewhere in the Vail Valley that sat
for several years, empty or partially completed.
It is being
reported that presently the real estate market is softening in the Vail
Valley. Some informed sources maintain that Vail’s lack of available
inventory and the advent of the baby boomer retirement market will not
appreciably affect the community’s rate of growth or prospects. Locally, it
is being heard more frequently that there is a desire to slow the rate of
growth. How that is accomplished is problematic and will be the subject of
much debate.
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