News

This is the KOTO Community Radio news for Wednesday, Feb. 19. I’m Julia Caulfield, and I’m Mason Osgood.

Headlines:

• San Miguel County behind in affordable housing.
• Imogene Pass repair process begins.
• Local governments identify regional goals and objectives.
• A mountain weather forecast.

When it comes to housing, local governments in San Miguel County should be doing one thing, according to Brian Daphney.

“Our main message is: keep building,” said Daphney, who is with Economic Planning Systems (EPS), a consulting company working with the region to develop a San Miguel County housing needs assessment. He spoke at an intergovernmental meeting last week before representatives from San Miguel County and the towns of Telluride, Mountain Village, Norwood, and Ophir.

Daphney categorizes housing needs into two categories: “catch-up,” which refers to the number of housing units needed to support unfilled job openings and employees commuting due to a lack of housing, and “keep-up,” which is the number of new units needed to accommodate job growth.

EPS relies on survey data from employers and households, receiving 200 and 1,300 responses, respectively. It also uses state data to make calculations. The last housing needs assessment was conducted in 2018. At that time, San Miguel County needed to catch up by 441 units and keep up by 325, leaving the county 766 units short.

“This time, in this current study, our catch-up need is just shy of 600,” Daphney said. “And then in keep-up, pretty consistent in this analysis, we’re just shy of 300 units.”

That amounts to a total shortage of 888 units, but the story does not end there.

“Those numbers are just comparing apples to apples,” Daphney explained. “The new study also takes into account other living circumstances, things like overcrowding, temporary housing—sleeping on a couch, living in a car—not by choice.”

Factoring in those conditions, the catch-up need rises to 808 units. Maintaining the nearly 300 keep-up units means San Miguel County is actually short approximately 1,100 housing units.

While the numbers are daunting, Daphney said county and local governments are making strides.

“We think you’re doing as well as you can. We think you’re doing really well,” he said. “This is always a resource question. You’ve built about 170 units since the 2018 study, and that’s a remarkable investment, by the way. But it’s never enough.”

Imogene Pass Repairs

Last August, a series of high-country rainstorms caused several road blowouts along Imogene Pass, resulting in a closure since mid-August. The storms eroded the Royer Gulch retaining wall, a tight technical section of Imogene Pass.

Imogene Pass Road is a high-country jeeping road that connects Telluride and Ouray, climbing just above 13,000 feet. The road is revered for its high-country views and jeeping opportunities. Local outfitters run tours on the pass, and it is used by several mountain trail races, including the Imogene Pass Trail Run.

The pass road is on U.S. Forest Service land but is maintained and operated by San Miguel County. Megan Eno, Norwood Forest District Ranger, joined Ryan Righetti, head of County Road and Bridge, at the county commissioners’ meeting on Wednesday, Feb. 19.

“Since November, Righetti has worked with local contractors to build a conceptual plan on how repairs to the Royer Gulch retaining wall will look,” Eno said. “For the Forest Service, once they have a conceptual plan, they can begin the rest of the process.”

She added: “Optimistically, if we can get a conceptual design in the coming months, as in the next 60 to 90 days, that allows us to start fundraising.”

Eno ruled out any immediate funding from the Forest Service but committed to contributing staff for engineering, facilitating fundraising, and community engagement. She expects local businesses, jeeping groups, and outfitters might be interested in supporting the repair efforts.

Nicholas Mayor, a local contractor from Access in Motion, estimated the cost for fixing the Royer Gulch retaining wall at $5 million.

“There are other concerning spots along the pass road that should probably be fixed,” Eno said. “To keep this road open as long as we possibly and humanly can, we’re going to need to start getting ahead of work rather than just responding to it.”

Regional Government Goals

Local governments have their individual projects and goals, but recently, the region has been working toward greater collaboration. Telluride Town Manager Zoe Dohnal spearheaded the effort.

“The first thought was, how about I take everyone’s master plans and see where we overlap?” Dohnal said.

Among the identified focus areas are addressing critical infrastructure, community vitality and inclusivity, economic vitality, and building climate resilience.

“When we get to building climate resilience, it was really to promote sustainable land use and environmental stewardship, looking at wildfire and forest management, encouraging environmentally responsible growth to reduce the community’s carbon footprint,” Dohnal said.

She emphasized the importance of the intergovernmental group: “The beauty of this exercise is twofold. One, it was really nice just to have a conversation and really understand where we are aligning. And two, speaking from the town of Telluride, we sometimes get stuck in our own little East End bubble.”

This working group will prioritize action items and assign leads to ensure accountability and implementation.

“The hope is that this will really move us forward effectively and make good use of that intergovernmental time when we’re all together, only once a quarter,” Dohnal said.

Weather Forecast

The National Weather Service forecast for the Western San Juans calls for a slight chance of snow showers tonight, with a low around 25 degrees. Thursday brings snow showers with an accumulation of around 1 inch and light winds, with a high around 40 and a low of 20 at night.

This has been the news for Wednesday, Feb. 19. Thanks for listening. If you have a story idea or a news tip, call the news team at 970-728-3206.