In response to an Oct. 30 article in Sky-Hi News titled, “Fraser trustees oppose six-month building moratorium as housing developers luck out,” Fraser presented a study earlier this month that they needed six months to complete at the hearing as their justification for the moratorium.

Although the board ultimately voted down the moratorium (with just two trustees in opposition), the “developers luck out” headline is missing the point. The free market and more housing development is the best way to reign in pricing. A moratorium would raise housing prices and reduce revenue for the town. We don’t have the demand for more commercial development until we have significantly more year-round residents, and stopping housing development is counterproductive to that.

More commercial space isn’t going to create more revenue, the demand for commercial space simply isn’t there. More community building, like schools, is the only pathway to generating the year-round residents that will lead to the demand for more commercial space and subsequent sales tax revenue that Fraser wants.

Every other ski town has a significantly better housing to resident ratio than Winter Park and Fraser. If we build a school, it will not take away from Granby, it will add to our collective communities of people willing to put their roots down. 

This proposed moratorium appeared to be primarily about stopping the one developer that the town keeps fighting instead of working with. Everyone on the town board ran on the promise of creating more housing. So, I’m pretty concerned why so many trustees voted to stop the very housing they have been asking developers to build. 

That one developer that everyone loves to hate has led to more community building than anyone else. Let’s change the cycle of conflict and build something creative and beautiful together.