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Albertans eye B.C. resort collaborative

BANFF, Alberta — Twelve resort communities in British Columbia, including Whistler, established a collaborative to gain a larger, more effective voice in both provincial and national affairs.

BANFF, Alberta — Twelve resort communities in British Columbia, including Whistler, established a collaborative to gain a larger, more effective voice in both provincial and national affairs. That collaborative, established in 2002, has been successful in wringing some concessions, including a greater share of the tax collected on hotel rooms.

Now, a handful of communities in Alberta are hoping to do the same. They include Banff, Jasper, and Canmore.

Money, of course, motivates this organizing. While jurisdictions at most U.S. resorts have authority to collect sales taxes that finance their infrastructures, Canadian municipalities are reliant on property taxes and fees from licences and permits. That leaves them hard-pressed to finance infrastructure improvements for seasonal influxes.

To be eligible to be part of the B.C. collaborative, communities must show they have a ratio of tourism accommodation beds to permanent population beds that is two-thirds greater than the provincial average.

Height an issue in Vail

VAIL, Colo. — Vail residents on July 11 will decide whether to stay the course with the redevelopment of one of the town’s 1960s-style shopping complexes, called Crossroads. Nobody questions that the project seems as dated as shag carpet. What is being debated is whether the new building, which will nudge 100 feet, will be too tall and bulky.

In a sense, this coming vote is a referendum on all of Vail’s redevelopment projects. With cranes dotting the town’s commercial core at the base of Vail Mountain, more than $1 billion in redevelopment is well underway. When all is done, 700 to 800 new hotel beds will be provided. But the phoenix of new buildings will, in every case so far, be taller and bulkier than the old buildings. And more, including the redevelopment project in question, could be coming.

The Crossroads redevelopment is called Solaris, and it was rejected last year by the town council in a 4-3 vote. In November, two of the older council members, who were in their 50s and 60s, were turned out. Taking their place were people in their 30s and 40s. The new council then reversed the previous vote.

Solaris is to include a 10-lane bowling alley, which seems to be a major attraction to Vail’s younger residents, many of whom are occupants of deed-restricted affordable housing. The project also includes a three-screen moving theatre, an ice rink, and 69 condominiums. Also: $1.1 million in public art and a public plaza suitable for small concerts.

The Vail Daily has solicited opinions from a variety of individuals. Andy Wiessner, who lives in the nearby Potato Patch neighborhood, one of the town’s most exclusive neighborhoods, argues that Solaris would be too much. "I don’t quarrel with the renewal," he said. "I just quarrel with the size of the buildings." This trend of bigger and taller, he said, is removing Vail from the status of "village". "It won’t be quaint," he added.

The background for this is a changing demographic. The ski mountain itself has become proportionately less important. Vail’s summer economy has broadened in the last 20 years. And aging boomers, who remain Vail’s core audience, are less athletic. This altogether suggests a stronger need for what are called urban amenities.

"Fifteen to 20 years ago, the mountain was a very large part of a person’s decision about where to vacation," said Ralf Garrison, a ski industry analyst with The Advisory Group. It is less important now in Vail, and also other ski towns.

Ford Frick, an economist who has worked with resort areas for 30 years, lauded Vail’s risk-taking. "Its’ taking some chances. It’s realizing it can’t be just faux Bavarian." He told the Daily that the success of Solaris would depend heavily on its lowest 20 vertical feet: its storefronts and restaurants. Density, he added, is a good thing for ski-based resorts, as it engenders vitality. It’s just a matter of how best to configure that bulk.

As for the development of this particularly project, it’s a difficult decision, with "no real objective truth," Frick says. "One person can find it is an appealing environment, and one person can find it over the line."

The editor of Ski magazine, Greg Ditrinco, said Vail has so far managed to avoid going over the line. "Vail, in its current iteration, still pulls off an urban buzz with a small-town feel," he said. "That’s hard to do."

Garrison said that with the proliferation of formulaic base-area "villages," it’s increasingly important for resorts to preserve their distinctiveness. Vail, he believes, has done so.

Already, Vail has a variety of tall buildings, six and eight stories high. In addition. two new hotels are planned at the town’s main roundabout intersection, lateral to Interstate 70. The Vail Plaza Hotel, which is rising rapidly, will have a tower 99.75 feet. A Four Seasons planned for across the street is to be 89 feet tall. Elsewhere, the buildings of LionsHead Mall will be taller than their predecessors.

Copper losing community?

COPPER MOUNTAIN, Colo. — In developing real estate at the base of Winter Park, Intrawest vows that it will make Winter Park more like Winter Park. But at Copper Mountain, where Intrawest began the village-building process several years before, that certainly hasn’t been the story.

At a recent hearing before the county commissioners attended by the Summit Daily News, a number of local residents spoke to complain. Gone are the post office, athletic center and basketball courts – all of them tangible signs of a community that is ceasing to be, several residents told commissioners.

"Its’ a very, very lonely place," said Ruth Hertzberg.

Bill Wallace, a county commissioner, also took Intrawest to task. "For 20 years, Copper was a growing, viable community," he said. "Why have businesses left Copper? Why isn’t there a sense of community?"

Intrawest went on a building spree after buying Copper Mountain, but still has permission to build another 703 units. That isn’t enough, says Intrawest, which for several years has been seeking entitlements to build additional units during the next 10 to 15 years. Those units will provide the critical mass, Intrawest says.

Summit County’s commissioners are not yet formally considering the new proposal, and they won’t until Intrawest completes previous obligations. This, too, has generated some hostility. "You’re developing a pattern that tells me if I was going to deal with your personally, I can’t trust you," said Tom Long, another commissioner.

Revelstoke readies housing

REVELSTOKE, B.C. — Revelstoke continues to prepare for a transition from a resource-extraction-based economy to one firmly based on recreation and leisure. The small ski area is to be developed in a major resort called Mount MacKenzie, with a major real-estate component at its base.

To that end, the town has retained consultant Jill Zacharias to prepare an affordable housing strategy. The Revelstoke Times-Review did review the nuts-and-bolts, but says the strategy’s mission statement emphasizes creativity, vision, and access. "Revelstoke will be a community where residents can choose to live their entire lives," it says.

Three Sisters will be Built Green

CANMORE, Alberta — The gigantic Three Sisters Village project in Canmore, near the entrance to Banff National Park, continues to move forward. Municipal authorities have approved a large commercial component of 350,000 square feet of commercial space to be located on a 20-acre parcel near the interchange with the TransCanada Highway. The project will also include several hundred living quarters.

The Rocky Mountain Outlook reports a small snag with the project. Canmore officials are insistent that the project be developed using the most progressive environmental standards. For some, that achievement is validated with the LEED certification system. But the developers balked at that, because of the cost and the bureaucratic process that they believe is onerous, and instead enrolled in Built Green, a process launched in Canada in 2002. Built Green was good enough for most of Canmore’s councillors, if not all, and the project advances.

Occasional rentals ill defined

CANMORE, Alberta — Canmore continues to wrangle over limitations on rental of homes on a short-term basis. The latest cause for outcry was a proposed bylaw that some residents believe would prevent them from renting their homes on an "occasional" basis. And for some residents, doing so allows them a better life. One resident, for example, said he and his family rent their home while they are on vacation. While what constitutes "occasional" remains a conundrum for the town, a town staffer said occasional renting would still be allowed, and that enforcement would continue only in response to complaints, reports the Rocky Mountain Outlook.

Raising Mtn children

SUMMIT COUNTY, Colo. — A study commissioned by Breckenridge’s town government about youth in Summit County brings to mind the saying, "It takes a village to raise a child."

The 31-page study noted that many local parents lead relatively non-traditional lifestyles. People who moved to the mountains during the 1960s through the 1980s (and seemingly even today), were part of the "immediate-gratification cultures," says the consultant, Lynn Johnson.

There are problems with absentee parents, and there is less rootedness. Fewer than 30 per cent of the county’s residents lived in the same house in 2000 that they lived in five years earlier. That is the lowest rate of housing stability of any county in Colorado. And there is a lack of positive role models among the 20somethings, who tend to have money, time, and a lack of responsibilities.

The report found that substance abuse is the most common problem, although intense methamphetamine use is lacking. So is gang violence. ACT and other test scores are higher than average. However, the drop-out rate among Hispanics is disproportionate to that of Caucasians.

The government is rearing Summit County’s children, Johnson told the council. "No matter the reason, many parents, but not all, have removed themselves from the universal tasks of parenting that is guiding and shaping the young," the study stated.

The cost of snow

PARK CITY, Utah — A microcosm of changes in the ski industry can be found at the Park City Mountain Resort. Rising prices of electricity and other forms of energy are driving some changes, but so are the baby boomers that continue to linger on slopes in substantial numbers, if with less sturdy knees and legs.

In response to rising electricity process, ski area managers last year installed 10 fan guns for snowmaking. Instead of using compressed air, which requires a great deal of electricity to create, the water in this form of snowmaking is dispersed in front of fans.

The change-out saves money, although a Park City spokesman portrayed it as an environment-friendly gesture – which it is: The energy savings will be equivalent to not driving 321,000 miles. In terms of greenhouse gas emissions, it’s like planning 33,021 trees.

On the other hand, reports The Park Record, the resort is grooming more ski trails. To that end, it is purchasing three new Snocats. No word as to how many trees can be struck from the balance sheet as a result of this added snow grooming.

The cost of cars

BRECKENRIDGE, Colo. — Breckenridge Town Council members continue to struggle with the sea of cars that routinely descends upon the town. The town had planned a parking structure near the town core that will add 39 parking spaces, but the bids came in unexpectedly high, about $40,000 a space, reports the Summit Daily News.

In March, Colorado Biz Magazine addressed the broader issue of cars on I-70 and in the resort towns. Roger McCarthy, the chief operating officer for the Breckenridge ski resort, told the magazine he believes the town should instead invest in buses to metropolitan Denver. Based on his experiences in resorts around the world, he said, it would be less costly than investing in the car infrastructure.

Climbers remembered

CANMORE, Alberta — In separate services held in Vail and in Canmore on the cusp of summer, two of the continent’s leading women climbers, Karen McNeill, 37, and Sue Nott, 36, were remembered for their bubbling spirits of adventure. The two disappeared in May while climbing a daunting route on Alaska’s Mount Foraker.

McNeill, a native of New Zealand, began climbing after a trek in Nepal in 1989. From the New Zealand Alps she expanded her ambitions to Peru and then with expeditions to Greenland, Nepal, Patagonia, and Alaska.

She was known for her high energy, but also her sense of audacious fashion. In her honor, many people at the memorial in Canmore were dressed in bright, shiny colours, and even her widower, Brad Bennett, was graced with a yellow feather boa.

Not so well known was that she was also a devoted teacher of the Stoney people, the aboriginals of the Bow River Valley, where she moved in 1994.

Why did she climb?

"I know that Karen thought about this question deeply, with honesty," explained a fellow ice climber, Kim Csizmasia. "She had to do this because she had committed – climbing was her art. Climbing was a part of her like her curly hair was, and it had just as much style. Karen’s style was classic. It was about mountains. Mostly really big mountains. And it was about exploration and about the culture of the lands she visited. But it was more than that. Karen’s style sparked. It sparked with inspiration."

In Vail, friends and family members told a somewhat similar story about Nott. "They remembered her as sunny-tempered, of her ability to whip up a gourmet meal in a freezing bivouac, of her messy car that doubled as a closet, and of how, as a friend, Mary Haynes, put it: her "crazy laugh echoed over Vail."

Wildfires a concern

LAKE TAHOE, Calif./Nev. — A poll of the residents in the Lake Tahoe Basin in 2005 found that the potential for catastrophic wildfire was the single greatest topic of local concern.

A new fuels reduction strategy for the basin has been released. It calls for $123 million to be spent during the next 10 years to thin the forests and for prescribed burns. Some consideration is also being given to using the slashed timber for a biomass plant.

Three-quarters of the forest plots studied in the report have enough fuel to turn a low-lying burn into a crown fire, notes the Tahoe Daily Tribune.

Some 18,4000 acres in the basin have been worked on, but treatment is needed on another 36,000 acres during the next decade, says the draft report issued by the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency.

Heartburn about Rainbow gathering

STEAMBOAT SPRINGS, Colo. — The gathering of the Rainbow Family of Living Light 35 miles north of Steamboat Springs that is now beginning has been producing both heartburn and smiles.

So far, the news has followed a predictable arc. Organizers arrived to scout locations where up to 20,000 people could gather on the national forest. The Forest Service said no such locations existed – particularly given such short notice, but also because of the great risk of fire danger this summer in an area with so many beetle-killed trees. A permit was refused.

People began arriving anyway. Some 230 tickets for illegal occupation were handed out. There has been some panhandling, a bit of shoplifting, a drug arrest or two. It now seems the Forest Service has acquiesced in the face of the human wave.

The reports from other locales that have hosted the annual Rainbow Family gatherings is mostly of balmy clouds, but with some dark edges, reported The Steamboat Pilot’s Scott Stanford in the days after the first scouts arrived.

"It’s a neat experience if you have never been to one of the events, but it also is a nightmare," said Bob Alkire, sheriff of West Virginia’s Pocahontas County, where the Rainbow Family gathered in 2005 and also 1980.

Although the Rainbow Family followers include a large number of indigents, who may leave behind junk cars, it also includes lawyers and doctors, engineers and computer consultants who meld high-tech camping systems to the harmonic convergence of peace-and earth-loving spirits.

"Some of the folks at the gathering are really interesting people to talk to," said Walt Weiford, the prosecuting attorney in Pochahontas County.

They report the Rainbow Family is faultless in its cleanup. The West Virginia site was "just as nice or nicer than before the Rainbow Family got here," said Alkire, a report that was echoed in California.

"A lot of people are up there just to be one with the earth; there are a lot of really good souls who come," said Kelly Crosby, the assistant public health director in California’s Modoc County, site of the 2004 gathering. "But you also have a lot of people who are there just to party – to drink, do drugs, and get naked."

"The bad apples tend to be younger, and they have no clue what the gathering is really all about," said Weiford, the attorney in West Virginia.

Steamboat resident Sarah Burkhardt, a self-described Democrat, vegetarian, and believer in communal living, reports she spent time among the Rainbow Family’s bad apples. In a letter published in The Pilot, she blamed drugs. She reports observing the same degeneration from ideals into abusive behavior when she was a Grateful Dead follower in the 1990s.

In Telluride, San Miguel County Commissioner Art Goodtimes, a frequent attendee at Rainbow Family gatherings, was cranky at the Forest Service response. It was, he said, "heavy-handed and confrontational."

He was also upset by reports of the local response. "Steamboat Springs is so rude," he writes in his weekly column in The Telluride Watch. "They’ve been arresting Rainbows for ‘loitering’ and allegedly ‘harassing’ folks outside a convenience store by begging… Since when is it a crime to ask others for help? Only in the most uptight of communities. You’d think a resort town would be liberal enough to allow street musicians and hippie saddhus."

Indeed, Steamboat does have various personalities. It named a bridge after the singer James Brown, although a dissident later spray-painted a racial epithet on the bridge.

The city in lower Eagle

EAGLE, Colo. — If foreseen for decades, the urbanization of the lower Eagle Valley is now proceeding rapidly. Blink your eyes and you may not recognize the landscape once you return to the towns of Eagle and Gypsum.

Located 30 miles west of Vail, Eagle has been growing in population at a rate of 15 to 20 per cent in recent years, mostly as a result of decisions made in the late 1990s. Gypsum has been close behind. The major question was who and where the first big-box store would be.

Eagle voters last year settled that by rejecting a major commercial and residential development along I-70. Instead, even now a 159,000-square-foot Costco, a discount store, is being built on the border of the two towns, but within Gypsum. Eagle, for the time being, will absorb most of the traffic impacts but get only a small portion of the tax revenues.

And it appears Gypsum may get even more commercial development. The town council there approved annexation of a 130-acre parcel located on Highway 60 west of the Eagle County Regional Airport. The project is being called Tower Center, and the sketch plan envisions 518,000 square feet of commercial development. The project includes a 120-room hotel and 300 employee housing units. The project includes a major component of single-family homes (140) and multi-family units (190).

Early estimates see Gypsum getting $5.6 million in annual sales tax revenues. Some would be given to Eagle, as per a revenue-sharing agreement reached last year. The developer is Washington D.C.-based Next Realty.

Meanwhile, Eagle is not standing still. The location envisioned for the big box complex last year now is being proposed for 567,000 square feet of commercial space in what is being billed as a "lifestyle" centre.

HOV lanes considered

KETCHUM, Idaho — The Wood River Valley, where Ketchum and Sun Valley are located, is intent upon non-traditional solutions to growing traffic problems. The valley is bisected by Highway 75, and that highway struggles with increasing commuting patterns. As well, the region is expected to double in population in years ahead.

But Blaine County, the local jurisdiction, wants to try high-occupancy vehicle lanes on the outside, as a way of avoiding creating a bigger highway. Usually, such HOV lanes are done in the middle, and Colorado’s Roaring Fork Valley, where Aspen is located, is the only other place that had flirted with such outside HOV lanes. However, the Aspen-based HOV lanes have "virtually collapsed for lack of funds, monitoring and public support," reports the Idaho Mountain Express.

The Federal Highway Administration said it would override Idaho state government in supporting this plan, which would cost $100 million. However, the feds are insistent there be a long local commitment to getting the HOV lanes used as intended. To wit, the feds insist on: increased public use of buses and improved bus stops, including subsidized transit passes; significant park-and-ride facilities; an aggressive carpooling program and use of vans; and an enforcement program to ensure the HOV lanes are not used by solo drivers.

Hunters question plan

GRAND LAKE, Colo. — Rocky Mountain National Park has become a refuge for a large and growing number of elk. After all, no wildlife hunting is allowed within the park, as specified by Congress in 1915 and reaffirmed in 1929. And while mountain lions remain, the wolves that once kept elk numbers down have long since been extirpated from the Southern Rockies.

With that in mind, reports the Sky-Hi News, the National Park Service may hire sharpshooters to reduce the elk population within the park by 1,200 to 1,700 during the next four years, and by another 50 to 100 each year for the next 16 years. The protocol would be to equip the sharpshooters with silencers, and have them do their work at night during late summer and fall in the Never Summer Range north of Grand Lake. Total cost is estimated at $16 million or more.

In Grand Lake, the western gateway to the national park, this idea was met with some incredulity. "Taking millions of dollars to hire people instead of selling licenses to hunters doesn’t make any sense," said Jim Peterson, a town trustee.

Larry Gamble, a Park Service representative, said the agency does not have the authority to allow hunting. As well, there are concerns about establishing a precedent for other parks – even though Congress in the 1950s allowed hunting in Grand Teton National Park.

If all else fails, says the Park Service, up to 14 pairs of gray wolves will be released into the park for the next 20 years. Those wolves would be removed if they wander outside the park boundaries.

Engineering gov’t help

JACKSON HOLE, Wyo. — There are no ends of jobs in the West’s wealthiest, most rapidly growing communities. So why should government subsidize a private business for the sake of jobs.

That’s the crucial question in Jackson Hole, which is as high end as they come. There, a five-person engineering firm called Square One Systems Designs is gaining respect among scientists in the national defense and health agencies because of advances it has made in developing robotic technology. The company needs room to grow, a place of it own. To that end, an economic development group in Jackson applied for an $810,000 grant from the Wyoming government, to help provide the company with below-market cost office space.

The subsidy – which was granted last week – also drew criticism. A state representative, Peter Jorgensen, a Democrat, said the tourism-based economy is already struggling with land and other cost economies. Helping this new business only exacerbates the problem. Another legislative hopeful, Peter Moyer, said the subsidy has no public reward.

The firm’s Bob Viola responds that the subsidy will help Jackson Hole in particular and Wyoming more generally diversify its job base, with zero impact on the landscape – unlike the mineral mining that is the foundation for the state’s economy.

Meanwhile, Jackson Hole drew some criticism in nearby Idaho Falls, Idaho. Jackson Hole is planning to export its garbage to Idaho, some 100 tons daily. Meanwhile, Jackson Hole worries about potential harm from nuclear research at the Idaho National Laboratory.

"The irony here is that rich, Jacksonites won’t trust Idaho with nuclear research, fearing that radiation could get past more than 100 miles, prevailing winds, and mountains, to threaten them. Still, we’re good enough to take their waste," harrumphed Marty Trillhaase of Idaho Falls’ Post Register.

Oil, immigration, war debated

VAIL, Colo. — At the annual Vail Institute conference, all the big issues from oil to immigration were addressed, reports the Vail Daily.

Former Colorado Sen. Gary Hart predicts a coming economic conflict between the United States with China and India. "We have to think about energy, and America’s 60 per cent dependent on foreign supplies of oil," he said. "This is driving our foreign policy, it’s driving our military policy, and I think it will ultimately drive us into disaster."

Another speaker, Wayne Cornelius, a political professor at the University of California at San Diego, said he believes the large-scale immigration of both low- and high-skilled immigrants does nothing but benefit the United States. It ensures robust economic growth, dampens inflation pressures, and finances Medicare and social security, he said.

But he strongly dislikes the high cost of the tightened border with Mexico, which has cost $20 billion since 1993. The human consequences have also been steep, with 516 deaths recorded along the border last year alone.

He wants instead to integrate immigrants, provide legal opportunities, teach English, and find ways to close the income gap between Mexicans and Americans.

Another speaker, William E. Odom, a retired lieutenant general in the U.S. Army, called the U.S. invasion of Iraq a blunder, one which ultimately has benefited both Iran and al-Qaida. With Saddam gone, Iraq is now safe for al-Qaida cadres. He said they are not only killing Americans and Iraqis, but also exporting their trained soldiers of terror to other countries. He believes the U.S. must withdraw if it is to retain its status as the world’s only superpower.

Builder challenges zoning

DURANGO, Colo. — Durango’s informal policy of inclusionary zoning is being publicly challenged by a builder, Emil Wanatka. The informal municipal policy of recent years requires developers to set aside 10 per cent of housing for lower-income residents. Lately, the city has been requiring the units be deed-restricted, to ensure their continued affordability.

But Wanatka, who the Durango Herald describes as the leading builder of attainably priced housing, disputes the policy. When building townhomes for $270,000, he says, he must increase the price by $5,600 to subsidize the price of the deed-restricted homes. That, he says, pushes some buyers out of the market.

Beyond that, he wants a more formal policy. He also specifically wants a governmental authority to oversee deed restrictions. Currently, homeowner associations administer the restrictions, but he said neighbors don’t want neighbors sifting through their financial information.

The Herald reports that Durango’s mayor, Sidny Zink, does not like the informal policy, but also does not believes that "just having new development be the answer to the affordable-housing shortage" is not the answer, either.