Vail resorts good or evil?:nimbyism in the inter mountain west.

[DouglasR]

This story’s just starting to break.
I mean, on one hand you have a few wild sheep living in a kinda random spot and on the other, thousands of employees over the years with no place to live.
I definitely see both sides of the argument here.
It’s like, do we really need these sheep sleeping on the side of the interstate while the hardworking seasonal employees who keep the town afloat are forced to sleep in dorms from the mining boom with walls constructed of 98% dab oil?
Sometimes, as an outsider it just really seems like a clear cut case of nimbyism.
Just wondering how you guys feel?

 

[Scott85]

Vail is the equivalent to a coal company before unions.

 

[AvidIndoorsman]

#*^@#* Vail

 

[marksjeep]

 

[DouglasR]

Vail is the equivalent to a coal company before unions.

When you give your employees a raise and raise the price of their housing on the same day.
#Businessgeniuses

 

[AvidIndoorsman]

When you give your employees a raise and raise the price of their housing on the same day.
#Businessgeniuses

Here is what you’re missing.

(1) Ski areas have tight margins, running lifts and selling tickets barely lets them break even. For a lot of resorts they get into the black from selling those $25 burgers.

(2) Vail makes most of its money on $3000 a night hotel rooms and Realestate development. All the little McMansions surrounding the areas. This was the driver for the first acquisition of Beaver Creek when I was a kid, then Arrowhead etc

(3) When vail went public they realized they need to make the books look better, so they decided to do this by reducing labor costs. Vail fired virtually every manager, senior employee or anyone who was making the bare minimum. These folks are the longtime locals, they had stuck it out in the valley paid their dues and managed to buy homes (back when prices were only terrible not epic).

Vail has shit in their own bed and now they want to be bailed out. They did have employees with housing, but they fired them.

This is a 40 year old story of greed buddy and you are jumping in at year 41.

 

[DouglasR]

#*^@#* Vail

1.Respectfully, I feel like you need to be careful in this debate and constantly be nimb checking yourself as I feel you almost certainly have a biased opinion on this one.

2. With all the issues with overnight parking and van life people, why don’t they just keep a few of the campgrounds open through winter and maybe add some rock to the parking lots and throw up some vault shitters at trail heads?
Probably a total smoke head idea, but the parking lots and campgrounds are already there, you don’t have to construct new buildings and this one’s really far fetched, but if people are living in vans and cars at least they’re building equity in something instead of just pissing it out the window on rent to some wealthy investor

 

[Straight Arrow]

NIMBYism is a natural human dynamic, particularly in those areas where wildlife, pristine areas, quiet rural lifestyle, and TRAFFIC are so adversely impacted by huge corporations from elsewhere exploiting the landscape and catering to the extremely wealthy who visit to recreate and temporarily reside in huge mega-millions mansions which intrusively and adversely impact the very "wilderness" they come to enjoy.

The necessary workforce of service workers and other low paid employees creates a real "affordable" housing problem which creates ripple effect throughout the region.
Prime example is the dense housing project at Gallatin Gateway along Die-way 191 leading to Big Sky where 350 new front doors are erected, primarily to house Big Sky and Yellowstone Club workers. The historic jumping off point from the Milwaukee Railroad terminus for travelers to Yellowstone Park back in the day is the beautiful Gallatin Gateway Inn, which is now a dormitory, kitchen, and center for hundreds of service workers who are bussed daily to Big Sky. On each end of that impressive building are constructed square box dormitory structures with architectural design of ugly contrast.
The little historic town of Gallatin Gateway, with less than 200 front doors, is being overwhelmed by this growth and facilities for support of Big Sky and Yellowstone Club, with no negligible benefit to the community. The fear is that this quaint little berg is becoming Cross Harbor Capitalville, overwhelmed by that corporation from back east.

As someone who has lived just west of Gateway for over 45 years, am I concerned with a strong bias? You can bet your sweet arse I am!

 

[TOGIE]

Building more employee housing won’t solve the employee housing problem.

Let the sheep live

 

[AvidIndoorsman]

1.Respectfully, I feel like you need to be careful in this debate and constantly be nimb checking yourself as I feel you almost certainly have a biased opinion on this one.

2. With all the issues with overnight parking and van life people, why don’t they just keep a few of the campgrounds open through winter and maybe add some rock to the parking lots and throw up some vault shitters at trail heads?
Probably a total smoke head idea, but the parking lots and campgrounds are already there, you don’t have to construct new buildings and this one’s really far fetched, but if people are living in vans and cars at least they’re building equity in something instead of just pissing it out the window on rent to some wealthy investor

Because Vail wants to keep out the riff raf to keep up those property values, hard to sell “exclusive”10MM castles with Douglas in the parking lot.

Vail has been the most evil and hated Corp in skiing for the last 25 years.

Read about how they got park city.

If you really want a rabbit hole look up the burning of 2 elk and all the protests about the blue sky expansion.

 

[Dsnow9]

1.Respectfully, I feel like you need to be careful in this debate and constantly be nimb checking yourself as I feel you almost certainly have a biased opinion on this one.

2. With all the issues with overnight parking and van life people, why don’t they just keep a few of the campgrounds open through winter and maybe add some rock to the parking lots and throw up some vault shitters at trail heads?
Probably a total smoke head idea, but the parking lots and campgrounds are already there, you don’t have to construct new buildings and this one’s really far fetched, but if people are living in vans and cars at least they’re building equity in something instead of just pissing it out the window on rent to some wealthy investor

Pot calling the kettle black… you have a bided opinion on this one. Will understands both sides of those one better than most.

 

[bayoublaster7527]

I thought Vail Resorts was offered an alternative location to build the employee housing (not on sheep winter range) and they refused the offer. As stated by others, giving up this last little bit of sheep winter range isn’t going to solve the housing issues in vail/eagle valley.

 

[AvidIndoorsman]

1.Respectfully, I feel like you need to be careful in this debate and constantly be nimb checking yourself as I feel you almost certainly have a biased opinion on this one.

Bullshit. You worked for copper 2 seasons dude, I’ve worked full or part time for vail for over a decade, and my family and friends have been dealing with the affordable housing issue for my entire life.

End of the day guys like you come for a couple of years, have some opinions and then leave such is the way of the mountain town. 1 in 100 stick it out, and those folks got hose by Vail.

Vail shouldn’t be allowed to destroy the little remaining winter range so that it doesn’t need to pay its employees fairly.

 

[Dsnow9]

The resort has been given the opportunity of multiple other locations and has refused to consider them. At this point it’s a d!ck swinging between the town/sheep and the resort. The resort has screwed over the locals and employees for years. Nothing has changed.

 

[Dsnow9]

Bullshit. You worked for copper 2 seasons dude, I’ve worked full or part time for vail for over a decade, and my family and friends have been dealing with the affordable housing issue for my entire life.

End of the day guys like you come for a couple of years, have some opinions and then leave such is the way of the mountain town. 1 in 100 stick it out, and those folks got hose by Vail.

Yep.

My mom worked for vail for over 20 years. Was capped out on pay and then they upped the minimum wage and people with no experience were making the same. This was three years ago. They also fired all managers above her. This has happened multiple times over the years. I have worked for vail like will on and off a lot. I grew up on vail mountain. I also grew up watching those sheep. There is no reason to put those sheep at risk.

 

[ammo]

 

[noharleyyet]

 

[DouglasR]

Bullshit. You worked for copper 2 seasons dude, I’ve worked full or part time for vail for over a decade, and my family and friends have been dealing with the affordable housing issue for my entire life.

End of the day guys like you come for a couple of years, have some opinions and then leave such is the way of the mountain town. 1 in 100 stick it out, and those folks got hose by Vail.

Vail shouldn’t be allowed to destroy the little remaining winter range so that it doesn’t need to pay its employees fairly.

This should be your screen name/profile pic

 

[DouglasR]

View attachment 268139

Trying to debate land use issues with an o&g tycoon.

 

[Dsnow9]

This should be your screen name/profile pic
View attachment 268143

This is what most locals/resort employees back yards look like.