https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/01/us/politics/ballot-initiatives-voters-voting.html
” Gearing up for ski season at her restaurant along the main drag of this fabled mining town perched at 10,000 feet between clusters of resorts, she is going to have trouble finding workers, she said, because few of them can afford to live in Leadville anymore.
“I don’t look at this politically, I look at it economically,” said Ms. Lundeen, co-owner of the Golden Burro. A sign in the window promotes a ballot measure on Tuesday that would charge visitors staying at hotels, motels and short-term rentals a 3 percent tax, earmarked to create more affordable housing. “I have several potential employees not able to work for us because there is no place to live. That was a motivating factor,” she said.
The Leadville initiative is one of nearly a dozen measures that will be on the ballot in Colorado to address the state’s growing housing shortage, one that predates but now mirrors hundreds of communities around the nation. Numerous other counties and towns, especially in the West, are mulling similar initiatives on Tuesday’s ballot, as housing stock remains scarce and prices remain high.
Years of stalled building, labor and supply problems and the rise of short-term rentals like Airbnb have all contributed to the housing shortage, which has frustrated first-time buyers, squeezed renters and contributed to homelessness.
Migration patterns during the coronavirus pandemic have worsened the problem in some places as people shift from more expensive cities to new areas, boosting prices as they alight in search of the closest Trader Joe’s. The median existing-home price was $352,800 in September — up 13.3 percent from the same period last year, and the 115th straight month of year-over-year increases, according to the National Association of Realtors.”
We have been reading about this for over 18 months now. Now there is more and more action and there are many interested spectators.
Where do you see this going? Where do you want it go?
