ISSUE #24: KURA Portrays Their Parking Lot as Empty--Really?
A picture speaks a thousand words
I usually post once a week, but this is so blatant that here i go again.
As I write this, that parking lot is full—not one empty spot. Most days, it is 90%+ full. With the City removing 37 parking spots from Main Street and the side streets with its Main Street Project, the Washington Lot is almost always near capacity.
So, ask yourself, why did they use a photo of it empty?1
KURA is not being honest with us
KURA has never been fully honest with us about its intentions or transparent about how it spends our money.
Putting an apartment building on one of the two remaining parking lots in the commercial core of Ketchum is bad city planning. As I have repeatedly pointed out, there are other, better locations for workforce housing. We can have both people and parking, so why are we letting these unelected people destroy Ketchum?
The KURA Washington Lot situation is painful on multiple levels
— Gary Lipton is championing this project. He doesn’t live in Ketchum. How does a non-resident have this much influence over our future? You can thank Mayor Bradshaw, who appointed him to KURA.
— there has been no “try before we buy,” A good City planning practice would be to block off this lot for a couple of months during peak demand to see the impact before permanently eliminating it. That has been suggested multiple times to KURA and the City. What do they have against common sense?
— there has been no cost/benefit analysis of this project. KURA says the cost is “only” $8 million of our money that they are investing in the project—that we never get back. As I laid out in a previous post, I think the number is more like $20 million, not including the indirect impact on the retail businesses in the core. What is the benefit? What is the ROIC of our $20 million? This is terrible city planning.
— there has been no benefit from experience. Bluebird is just now taking applicants. It is the same-sized project in the commercial zone. Why wouldn’t we want to see how Ketchum adapts to Bluebird and see if we like that or don’t like that before we give up a valuable asset and potentially repeat a mistake? Again, this is terrible city planning.
What pains me the most is that the project is the first example of true workforce housing we have had for Ketchum (see my post on WRCHT). This project would be awesome on City-owned land in the LI zone or at the south end of town.
Isn’t KURA Supposed to Make Things Better for Us?
Look at the photo above. Imagine a four-story box-like building running almost lot line to lot line in place of the parking lot, filling in all that space. Imagine going to an event at The Argyros, having dinner at a nearby restaurant, carrying a 40-lb bag of dog food, or trying to get lunch at Nourish Me.
Where are you going to park? How can KURA be so…dumb? How can the City Council let them get away with this, knowing the damage it will do? Once the two new hotels are built next to the Limelight, and the demand for parking goes up even more, will your quality of life be improved by KURA?
Please, please, please go to the July 24th meeting. I will be out of town for my Ukraine work, so I will miss it.
Listen to what KURA has to say. Then, ask them why they aren’t doing the above-mentioned common sense city planning work. Listen to their excuses and rationalizations. Listen to Gary Lipton tell you this is all your fault.2 Make your voice heard. If we don’t stand up for our community, who will?
A long-time local attorney told me he thinks KURA’s establishment might not have been legal.3 Yesterday, I sent a public records request to the City for the primary information to help us assess his view. I will keep you posted.
An Opportunity for You to Be Heard—Please Speak Up
While we are on the topic of City Planning and your voice, please attend as many of these sessions for the Comprehensive Plan as you can. Despite pressure from the top, our City Planner is doing her best to listen to the community. We should give her the ammunition she needs.
Given the City Council’s directions to the Planning Department to only “audit” the 2014 Comprehensive Plan4 rather than to conduct a fully community-inclusive process, the people who go on these tours will likely significantly impact the 2024 Comp Plan.
My favorite line in this ad, in all caps no less:
“PARKING IS EXTREMELY LIMITED AT MEETING LOCATIONS.”
No kidding! And who’s fault is that?5.
I know. There are three cars in the picture. But it’s 96% empty, no?
A classic technique of people who can’t do their job is to blame the person who calls them out for it.
If you live in Hailey and are reading this, and you think that Hailey’s establishment of an Urban Renewal Agency to develop a rural ranch with nothing urban about it might not be kosher (hint hint), respond to this email and I will share with you the form of the public records request to help you do your own digging.
Hailey is right on track to become the Victor/Driggs to Ketchum’s Jackson Hole—but without a mountain pass to protect it. Maybe the Carbondale to Ketchum’s Aspen is a better analogy.
As far as I can tell, the City Council ignores the 2014 Comp Plan and feels no accountability to achieve its goals. In The Troika’s six years in power, there has been no regular reporting on progress against the Plan’s goals.
Sadly, this has been true for the two new Council members in their first six months. As I noted in my post about how the Troika exerts control via controlling the Council agenda, it requires an assertive Council Member to get the agenda modified to include plan updates.
The only times you hear about the Comp Plan is when it is cherry-picked to justify some Troika scheme. The Troika has basically ignored the 2014 Comp Plan to do what it wants. As one of them said in December 2019 when she voted to ignore the overwhelming opposition to the Marriott—”it doesn’t matter what people want; we got elected and we decide.”
This is one of The Troika of Bradshaw/Breen/Hamilton’s “achievements” for Ketchum during their rule over the past six years.
The City perceives the workforce shortage as purely a housing issue. Maybe it is but maybe it isn’t? Or at least not 100% of it. The assumption that everyone who works in Ketchum wants to live in Ketchum has never been examined. But clearly the City’s response to a workforce shortage with a policy to house anyone who wants to live in downtown Ketchum whether they work or not should have a right to that housing at taxpayer expense doesn’t seem like a policy to address a workforce shortage. It seems like something else.
Thank you Perry for your insightful newsletters , appreciated by so many! We have to keep fighting once it’s gone, it’s gone for good!