Colorado Town Ponders the Price of Progress
About 25 years ago, when the first real estate developer began to eye a big housing project in Basalt, Colo., he threw a weekend carnival to draw attention to a model home in their fledgling Basalt South subdivision.
Today, developers and property owners in the chic Basalt market don’t need carnivals to sell homes, according to the Vail Daily News. The supply is so scarce and the demand so great that housing, particularly single-family homes, gets snatched almost as soon as it hits the market.
In the Willits subdivision, one of Basalt’s newest, home prices started topping $1 million in January. The previous high sale was $770,000.
There were 33 sales of single-family homes in and around Basalt for more than $1 million last year, according to statistics tracked by the Aspen-Glenwood Springs Board of Realtors. Those kinds of sales are changing the complexion of who is buying.
As outside developers and well-heeled home buyers take increasing interest in Basalt, so are current residents beginning to resist the pace of change. The election of a new slow-growth majority to Town Council signals a new and contentious period in the once-quiet Roaring Fork Valley.
With Colorado mortgage demand raging in this hot market, it should come as little surprise that development proposals are stacked up at Basalt Town Hall. Every open piece of ground deemed appropriate for development by the town’s growth policies seems to have a proposal connected to it.
Four projects seeking approval for 250 residences and 230,000 square feet of commercial development are under review.
Basalt Town Councilman Chris Seldin labeled the growth pressures facing the town “tremendous.” When elected, he became part of a new council majority that was prepared to vote against two development proposals - the Roaring Fork Club expansion and Sopris Chase - because they didn’t comply.
Critics of the slow-growth council contend its actions limit supply, keep affordable housing at a bare minimum and drive up mortgage costs as well as values of other property.
“With the no-growth attitude of some of the deep thinkers in Basalt, there is more value today than there was before,” real estate agent Wendy Lucas said. “When you restrict building prospects, values are going to go up.”
Seldin called it a “fantasy” that restrictions have had a huge impact on this segment of the Colorado housing market. As the Vail and Eagle County market show, prices still soar even when there are fewer restrictions, he said.
Seldin said the challenge for Basalt is to keep housing affordable without sacrificing qualities that make the town attractive for so many residents, like strict zoning, rural buffer areas and preserved open space.
In other words, Seldin isn’t willing to allow suburban sprawl to try to keep housing affordable. Besides, he said, there is no guarantee developers will build affordable housing if the council simply approves a lot of projects.
“To me, raw supply is not the solution to that demand. You could have sprawl up and down the valley and still have home prices over $1 million,” he said.
If Basalt doesn’t accommodate more of the people who want to live there, it will just promote sprawl and growth pressures further down the Roaring Fork Valley toward Glenwood Springs, critics have said.
Growth restriction poses as great a threat to Basalt’s small-town character as growing too much. If Basalt evolves into a high-end resort, its current residents will not be able to afford mortgage loans, and existing small-town character will deteriorate.
“Everybody is allowed to approve their own plans - polluting the air and congesting the highway,” Jacque Whitsitt, a growth-control advocate and former Basalt councilwoman, said.
Right or wrong, governments make most decisions based on what’s best for the people within their borders, despite the potential impacts on their neighbors. Aspen, for example, is considering stricter growth controls.