Every few years our community protests the negative impacts of growth in their lives. Those responsible make small adjustments to placate the community, to indicate they are listening.

There are the “be kind to locals” campaign and destination management programs. Yet, at the same time the number of flights are increased, the size of the ski area is enlarged and marketing is increased to fill up the expanded ski terrain with more skiers.

The results: more growth, more traffic, more people, more events, more unaffordable housing.

From 2000 to 2023 there were 309 living units built each year in Routt County and some years over 500 units. Almost all of them were not affordable for the average local citizen. They resulted in more congestion, more people, more need for employees, more need for housing and a feeling of being overrun by growth.

So why didn’t we put a stop to this high rate of growth? To be honest, it would have been very difficult to stop because of our present City regulations, developers’ influence and the addiction we have to growth and sales tax.

But, the annexation of Brown Ranch ballot vote was the perfect straw-man to stand in for our response to the negative impacts of growth and the power of developers. It required no extra effort, no meetings or research. Just vote “No”. It didn’t seem to matter whether it was affordable housing or unaffordable housing that was increasing the population, the traffic and loss of community.

John Spezia