ISSUE #18: Housing Propaganda?

Why does the City shut down opposing viewpoints?

Listening, But Not Hearing

One of the complaints people have about the City of Ketchum is that they don’t listen to the community. I can attest that they listen—there are many meetings, open houses, and focus groups. But they, the Troika of Bradshaw/Breen/Hamilton, don’t hear.

The City communication process is designed to provide the appearance of inclusiveness without being inclusive. As evidence, listen to Ms. Breen and Ms. Hamilton in Council meetings. They acknowledge what the community is saying to them, but they ignore the community in how they vote.

In one area of the City government, it is worse than not listening. Not only are they not listening, but they are running a campaign to “educate” us that their narrative is the only correct narrative. The subject: housing.

The Housing Propaganda Campaign

The City of Ketchum’s Housing Action Plan is heavy on narrative and light on data, with a veneer of analytics rather than actual analytics (like fundamental cost/benefit analysis). I have addressed the specifics of this in other posts.

This focus on narrative carries through to the propaganda campaign that the Housing Director uses to sell her agenda. I know the word “propaganda” conjures up certain emotions. Still, I use the word purposefully because there is an organized information campaign to push a particular ideology around housing as if it is “fact.”

Elements of the campaign include publicly paid-for emails from the City, postings on the City’s “Project Ketchum” website, Op-Ed pieces from BCHA in the Mountain Express, and a collaboration with the Community Library. The only city department that regularly gets airtime with the Council is the Housing Department.

Ketchum’s Housing Director has enlisted several allies in her propaganda campaign. Some of these are admirable organizations, like the Hunger Coalition, Blaine County Charitable Foundation, Spur Community Foundation, the Mountain Express, her other employer (BCHA), and the Community Library. Along with the City of Ketchum, they have been promoting a series of talks at the Library designed to generate support for the Housing Action Plan.

I have no problem with them stating their case, although I don’t think they should use taxpayer money to do it. What I object to is how they shut down any source of information that strays from their orthodoxy. We have come to expect that from our newspaper. However, I find it concerning that the Community Library participates in the propaganda campaign. This is the library we have been supporting in its fight in Boise to keep the government out of our library. Yet here, they are promoting a government narrative without context or balance.

For last summer’s housing talks, sponsored by the City and hosted by the Library, I offered to get Elizabeth Milias as a speaker. Elizabeth lives in Aspen and has long-standing ties to Sun Valley. She authors The Red Ant blog and used to write a column for the Aspen Daily News. She has analyzed Aspen’s housing program to determine whether it achieves appropriate goals. Of course, the City was not interested in having her speak.

Don’t get me wrong. I love the Library. We are lucky to have such a well-run one in a community of our size. In this particular instance, I think the Library is being used for an ideological purpose.

Ketchum Housing Action Plan—Wasn’t it Supposed to be WORKFORCE Housing?

As I have laid out in other posts, there are many problems with Ketchum’s Housing Action Plan. Particularly its basic premise that Ketchum residents should subsidize housing for anyone who wants to move to Ketchum but finds it too expensive. They don’t confine themselves to Ketchum. It is possible to game the City to subsidize your WRV housing even if you don’t live or work in Ketchum.

To make a square peg fit in a round hole, the Ketchum Housing Department has changed the meaning of common English words to mean…their opposite. For example, the Plan defines “workforce” to include people who choose not to work and “unhoused” to include people who have housing but don’t like their location.

If you think I am overstating this, please read the Housing Action Plan and the recent changes to Lease to Locals, and leave a comment on where you think I am off base.

Feeding the City Council A Line of You Know What

This week’s City Council meeting was part of the propaganda campaign to make the Council think that workforce housing can only go in the retail core.

The Housing Director presented a chart with the options available to the Council, along with estimated costs and timing. The data on that chart doesn’t match up with the experience. For example, she asserted that big box housing developments of 50+ units can be available in four years. That has never happened in Ketchum. Bluebird will have taken over six years, and the KURA project will be even longer.

But I found it striking that there was no debate on prioritizing housing for people being squeezed out of their homes…today.

There is little in the Housing Action Plan for the people who live here today. All of the major efforts are to accommodate the low-paid transient workers of the future. Oh, and retirees. Does Ketchum need more retirees?

Interestingly, the Housing Director ascribes zero value to taxpayer-owed property. In her calculations, it is “free.” Perversely, the more valuable it is, the more “free” it is. For example, in her plan for Bluebird 3 at Lift Tower Lodge, she wants that land to be worth as much as possible to look like the City is contributing a lot to that project. Of course, that land is valuable. Probably one of the most valuable pieces of land owned by the City. It could be sold, and less expensive land could be purchased to build a larger number of units. But it wouldn’t be in the community core.

Lying to the Council

The Housing Director stated that various zoning regulations mean that the highest housing density is only an option in the City core. This is a “fast one.” When one Council member pointed out that zoning can be changed, and indeed was changed to accommodate Bluebird 1, the Mayor interrupted him to assert that wasn’t true—that no zoning was changed to accommodate Bluebird 1.

That is a rather blatant lie on the part of the Mayor. Zoning was changed not once but twice to accommodate Bluebird 1. In November 2018, the code was changed to permit “community housing” in the retail core. This was done in a footnote to a table. Then, in 2021, the code was again amended, at the developer's request, to require only an average setback rather than a minimum setback for a fourth floor in community housing projects. According to the developer, this saved him several million dollars in construction costs. Thanks to this change, we now get a four-story building straight up from the sidewalk because it is cheaper to build that way.

The four-story box of Bluebird 2 that KURA is going to build on the Washington lot would not be possible without either of these zoning code changes nor would the four-story (or maybe even higher) projects for the rest of the Bluebird program.

The Mayor’s lies about Bluebird 1 (i.e., that it is for first responders, teachers, and health care workers when he knows that wasn’t true for Northwood Place and won’t be true for Bluebird 1) are part of the propaganda campaign.

The Better Path to Workforce Housing

There is a better path to workforce housing for Ketchum that doesn’t destroy our downtown core.

Integrate the Housing Plan into the Comprehensive Plan

The tail wags the dog. The City has said it plans to make the Comp Plan reflect its other plans (housing, parking, transportation, etc.). This is precisely an ass-backward approach to planning. We should build community consensus around the Comp Plan and then use that to drive action plans for its goals (with timelines, success metrics, etc.—all the basics of good planning, which we never do in Ketchum).

Make Decisions Based on Data/Analysis

Start by doing at least an annual survey of employers and employees on what kind of labor shortage they face, what type of housing would help them, and what they are doing about the problem. Let’s prioritize the allocation of dollars based on cost/benefit analysis rather than opportunism.

Prioritize Current Ketchumites over Future Ones

Almost all of the City’s focus is on building more Bluebirds for new Ketchum residents. But what about the current people getting squeezed out of their long-term rentals? How do we help the people who are our neighbors today? The vast majority of our housing budget is going to future residents rather than current ones.

Prioritize Essential Workers

We have limited resources: scarce money, scarce land, and scarce community character. Let’s not continue to squander them on housing solutions that won’t achieve community goals (and much of which is corporate welfare). Let’s prioritize housing for teachers, first responders, non-profit workers, and healthcare workers.

Require Tenants in Subsidized Housing to Work

The City justifies its Housing Plan on the workforce shortage. Yet, amazingly, its housing program does not require tenants to work and includes preferences for retirees. The WRCHT has a financing structure that can require tenants to work and can prioritize essential workers. Let’s do more of that (but in the right places). Likewise, ARCH focuses on workforce housing for non-profit employers—like teachers and hospital workers.

Increase Density Where it won’t Change Ketchum’s Character.

End the Bluebird program. Stop focusing on massive four-story, lot-line-to-lot-line low-income housing projects on costly land in Ketchum’s retail core that destroy parking while increasing demand for parking. Build high-density workforce housing south of town and in the light industrial zone that won’t kill the retail core.

End the False Narrative of Parking Versus People

We don’t destroy one for the other. We can have both. We need both. To insist otherwise is ideological and divisive.

Get Rid of the In-Lieu Fee

To build a large building in the Ketchum core, developers must dedicate a portion of their project to workforce housing. Or, they can pay an “in lieu” fee and not provide that housing. Guess which most choose? The in-lieu fee slows the addition of workforce units, concentrates them in large low-income housing projects, and gives the City Council almost total control over how workforce housing is built in Ketchum. The in-lieu fee is how we get six Bluebirds.

Be Accountable for Achieving Workforce Housing Goals

There is zero accountability in Ketchum’s approach to housing. There is no public reporting mechanism on whether the taxpayer dollar spent on housing is achieving community goals on housing. The City gave millions of dollars in taxpayer assets to build Northwood Place. Have you ever seen any report on whether it has achieved its goals? Of course not. And yet, we are repeating Northwood Place on a much grander scale in a much worse location with Bluebird 1, and the City has plans to build four more of them.

This all seems obvious.

None of it is part of Ketchum’s Housing Action Plan.

Ketchum’s Housing Strategy: Don’t Be Ketchum

The implicit message in the propaganda campaign is that Ketchum should be more like other places in its approach to housing. I reject that. I do not believe that Ketchum should be more like Aspen, Jackson Hole, or anywhere else. Ketchum should be Ketchum. We should have our own agenda for our future.

By all means, let’s be informed about what is happening elsewhere. When it makes sense for Ketchum, let’s use it as inspiration; in many cases, it provides a valuable cautionary tale. But let’s not shut down information that contradicts the orthodoxy of the Ketchum Housing Department.