Authored by: ouraynian on Tuesday, May 03 2005 @ 05:52 PM MDT

It is all a question of context. A $200,000 home in a major metro area with a healthy and balanced economy could be considered affordable. However, Ouray's economy would seem to be based on tourism and second home ownership. This is a potentially devastating combination that is bound to create a divide between wealthy second home owners from the diverse economy in the rest of the US and poorly paid ($10-$15/hr.) workers in the tourism economy. Retirees from cities will consider $200K a steal while workers in the local economy can not generally afford mortgage payments on a $200K home.

In addition to thinking about affordable housing programs that may be available, one obvious thing that can be done is to give an honest story on what it is like to live here. Shatter the misonception that this is purely shangrila. Emphasize that the roads are not paved and probably will not be in the near future. Winters are long and snowy, the springtime is muddy, the roads are dusty, there is not a good hospital nearby, thin air breathing is difficult, and services will never match those of the big city. :-) In short, if growth is driving locals out, then don't stretch resources to provide improvements until we can fix the housing problem for our most valuable community assest, our current residents.

Secondly, while OCRA has been very successful in marketing Ouray as a tourism destination, they should consider what other chambers across the US do, marketing the town as a general business destination. This may help to diverseify the economy and bring Ouray more in line with the rest of the US. Since OCRA is partially taxpayer funded, (a lodging tax *is* a tax and includes accountablity to the voters of the community), the community should consider asking OCRA to include this type of marketing.