Brief by Central Staff
Growth – January 2005 – Colorado Central Magazine
Mountain resort towns are often surrounded by public land, which means that there’s no place nearby to build new houses — even though the demand for housing might be increasing on account of economic growth that inspires more employment.
So the employees commute, and the Wall Street Journal took notice in an article which began: “First there was suburban sprawl. Now comes high-country resort sprawl.”
The article focused on the Martis Valley near Truckee, Calif., which is getting the spill over from Lake Tahoe with a development that has 8,600 new houses, along with a million square feet of commercial real estate and three new golf courses.
“What’s going to happen here is that people are going to come up here and feel like they’re back in the suburbs,” according to Tom Mooers of Sierra Watch, a group fighting the development.
In Colorado, the phenomenon has led to rapid growth in Glenwood Springs, 40 miles from Aspen, and Eagle, 30 miles from Vail.
According to the Journal, “this sprawl has gone on largely unchecked by environmental groups, which have concentrated more on trying to contain the expansion of the resorts themselves.” Mooers said that as fair criticism. “We’ve done a pretty good job defending iconic landscapes like Yosemite, but clearly the threats are to the surrounding areas and we really haven’t advocated for those as much as we could have in the past.”
Locals worry about increased traffic on commuter routes, and a clothing-store owner in Truckee might have summed up the resident attitude. “All this development will put more money in my pocket,” said Stefanie Olivieri, “But it will destroy my quality of life.”
