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Steamboat Springs — During the past 20 years, our affordable housing efforts were all talk and no action. For most of this time, we have depended on the free market to provide our housing solutions. This strategy was a failure. The 1995 and 2004 Community Area Plans created goals to address this problem. Some units were provided, but our need continued to outstrip the free market supply. Finally, in 2006, City Council took real action to address some of our shortcomings.

Inclusionary Zoning is expensive. Eventually, it is a price we all pay. The reality is that if the distorted price of housing continues unabated, the work force will no longer be capable of living close enough to work and will go elsewhere. No schools, no hospitals, no retail stores, no grocery, no libraries, no gas stations, nothing.

If, as a community, we ultimately will pay a cost for having a work force, it is cheaper to subsidize the price of work force housing than to pay workers a wage adequate for them to buy housing on the open market. The community has endorsed this intention in the Steamboat Springs Community Area Plan:

"Provide Affordable Housing - The community will take measures to allow the majority of people who work in Steamboat Springs, or who have lived in and retired in the community, to afford to live in the city if they desire. : This vision describes the community's values and aspirations and establishes the Steamboat Springs Community Area Plan."

The Routt County Board of Commissioners and Steamboat Springs City Council have adopted this plan.

The community also purposefully has stated guidelines to achieve the work force housing intention.

"The purpose of the Steamboat Springs Community Housing Program is to provide a diverse inventory of permanently affordable housing units for sale and for rent. Housing conditions and needs, as documented in the Housing Element of the Steamboat Springs Area Community Plan, are such that the majority of free-market housing opportunities, especially homeownership, is not affordable to low- to middle-income households. In addition to high housing costs, difficulty attracting and retaining employees, traffic congestion from commuting workers, overcrowded living conditions, and inability to foster a sense of neighborhood are all related to inadequacies in the housing supply." (from "Steamboat Springs Community Housing Guidelines 2008," p. 1)

The Steamboat Springs City Council has adopted these guidelines.

Have these goals become obsolete? Is a sense of neighborhood no longer desirable? Are time and money wasted on commuting no longer relevant?

I don't think our needs and desires have changed that much. What has changed is a tightening financial market. Developers have taken advantage of this situation to make Inclusionary Zoning a scapegoat.

What has changed is our memory of why these solutions are so important.

The Steamboat Springs community saw what was happening to the character of other resort towns. According to the Aspen Chamber Resort (www.aspenchamber.org), "Seventy-five percent of Aspen's work force do not live here. The towns located 'down-valley' serve our health care, education and shopping center needs. As the cost of living continues to rise, the densely crowded bedroom communities begin to experience higher taxes, urban crime and increased racial and ethnic tensions. The increasing numbers of commuters living far down the Colorado River Valley are symptomatic of the extremely stratified quality of life in the local economy, and they present new problems for extending public transit, day care and other social services."

Our community knew that this was not a situation we desired. In 2006, community activists and business leaders came together for a unified purpose. They realized that our economic viability depends on our unique sense of community. Numerous studies have shown that visitors love Steamboat because it feels like a real town. A real town has dishwashers, teachers and truck drivers participating in our civic and commercial activities. Our level of service is dependent on employees who are happy. Lose these real people and Steamboat Springs is just another artificial Disney World in the mountains.

Permanent work force housing is as vital to infrastructure need as water, sewer and roads. It sustains our unique sense of community, a reason why Steamboat Springs is attractive to visitors.

Money alone will not solve this problem. Our infrastructure housing needs to be incorporated throughout our community, not only where land is the cheapest. Integrated housing at Wildhorse Meadows, Steamboat Barn Village and Alpen Glow are good examples of inclusionary zoning.

What are our priorities? Do you want our teachers, nurses, police and firemen closer to town or farther away?

Wouldn't it be great if our teachers had more time after school to work with our children? Shouldn't all workers on whom our community depends spend quality time with their families and participate in community activities?

Do we want to maintain our unique character, or should we just become another Disney World?

White is president of the Community Alliance of the Yampa Valley.