Windham Mountain Going Private?

[Ripitz]

Feels like you might have a personal interest here?

Sure do. That’s how I’ve made a living along with a lot of other people. Taxing someone for their lake house, ski house, horse farm, hunting camp, whatever, because they are not there all of the time is silly talk.

 

[Harvey]

First time posting here...

Welcome to the forum.

 

[Andy_ROC]

Sure do. That’s how I’ve made a living along with a lot of other people. Taxing someone for their lake house, ski house, horse farm, hunting camp, whatever, because they are not there all of the time is silly talk.

Vacancy tax is hardly a new concept and not an idea of mine. I responded as one possible option when Harvey asked what can be done. Google search vacancy taxes. You'll see they're in use, or being discussed by some localities because affordable housing isn't available for the working classes needed to sustain the town or region.

Places like Bannf addressed this another way by having requirements to own/reside then you must work in service of the visitors.

To be clear I'm not for redistribution of wealth as you seemed to imply about yourself. I don't want someone else's money. I'm just for not having a small class of people own everything at the expense of the masses. It's haunting many areas already and has been discussed on this site.

 

[Ripitz]

No doubt there is an affordable housing issue in ski towns, which has only been magnified by AirBnb and VRBO. I am very familiar this problem. In Big Sky I lived in all types of housing, condos, apartments, dorms even a trailer in the parking lot. Each season I barely got by. I woke up at 5am to work breakfast, worked the bar late into the night. As a side hustle I shoveled snow from vacant homes that are bigger than most ski area base lodges. I was able to live there because of the wealthy. Without them there are no jobs.

 

[Peter Minde]

It's a thorny issue. On one level, I agree: without the wealthy, there would be *fewer* jobs: I sell wine to the affluent. However, second houses / STRs account for ~22% of housing stock in the Tri Lakes. I know people who commute from Plattsburgh to work at the Hannaford in Lake Placid. That's a 60-minute trip.

Am acquainted with a woman who missed a spot on the 1998 Canadian Olympic snowboard team by less than a second. Living in Whistler, she was tending bar, teaching [boarding] at Whistler, and sleeping rough because she couldn't afford housing.

 

[Low Angle Life]

There is a critical point that many of you are hinting at that is a real key to all of this. When prices are driven up in a particular locale so much so that the service industry workers can no longer afford to live in said community there is an issue, for everyone. I am very interested in urbanism and over the past few years the idea of the 15 minute city has been proliferating in writings about the topic. The most critical stance I've heard about the concept is essentially, it is not a 15 minute city if your barista had to commute an hour. A thriving community has housing available for all income levels, something is wrong when the people that make a particular way of life possible in an area can no longer support themselves to live there. To Peters point, Lake Placid is getting there, city's like San Fransisco really all of costal California have been past the point of no return and lately it feel like this issue is bleeding into the Catskills. I don't view employer provided housing as a solution, Rip in your zone there is also plenty of relatively affordable housing to support those who make their livings servicing the mansions in the hills, the dynamic changes a lot when that is no longer the case.

 

[tirolski]

Whattabout all the wasted energy needed to heat the unoccupied joints & also the wasted energy for the worker bees coming and going from further away than needed?

 

[Ripitz]

it is not a 15 minute city if your barista had to commute an hour.

My barista? Haha, holy shit, I make my coffee at home.

I can’t afford a house in Beacon since the hipsters took over, that’s for sure. I’m fine with that. That place used to be a shithole.

 

[MC2]

Sure do. That’s how I’ve made a living along with a lot of other people. Taxing someone for their lake house, ski house, horse farm, hunting camp, whatever, because they are not there all of the time is silly talk.

Yeah, I support a land value tax, so you pay it regardless of whether you are there or not.

I was able to live there because of the wealthy. Without them there are no jobs.

I don’t think this is true, but I do think that your background & current job might lead you to believe this.

Gotta be careful when you ascribe your personal situation to everyone’s situation.

The idea of rich people as “job creators” is a myth. Demand creates jobs (demand from all wealth categories). Lots of people in this thread are (correctly) focusing on the supply issues (workers, housing, etc.) that the demand is creating.

 

[Ripitz]

I don’t think this is true, but I do think that your background & current job might lead you to believe this.

Gotta be careful when you ascribe your personal situation to everyone’s situation.

The idea of rich people as “job creators” is a myth.

Billionaire Bill Ziff spent decades building an arboretum with houses and ponds on his 2,000 acre estate in Pawling. At one point he had 350 people working there making him the largest employer in Dutchess County aside from IBM. Was he not a job creator?