I think one of the ideas on changing zoning is that it can start to resolve the supply issue of housing, not provide housing for those that need it immediately. This gets to the root of the problem, rather than just fixing the surface. Whether or not this will work in the long run...
Auuugh on The air BNB units! So basically an absentee landlord or more accurately hotel owner is supposed to tell ‘guests’ to do something with no real local teeth to enforce it. Outside of having the other owners in the condo explain to recalcitrant guests? That’s just obnoxious. I rent the apartment I have seasonally. So that does make me a short term renter. However I am not going through a management company, which handles the upstairs unit, but rent directly from the owner who is a friend. This leaves me more than occasionally explaining to people how to get into the building since they can’t figure out lockboxes. Or masks last year from time to time. Although mostly people were pretty good. And keeping the door locked.
I think you are right that the idea is, if you build enough housing and address supply, there will be trickle down affects that eventually benefit workers. That's definitely how people here think about it. But it hasn't worked so far, and I can't see how it will when there's no incentive for developers to build anything that won't maximize profit. And if the subject at hand is how to address ski staffing shortages, and how to accommodate workers in the towns where they work, now, especially in the very constrained area (usually) of a ski town, I personally don't see rezoning and building market rate multi-unit housing as the solution. I think that the only housing crisis ski towns have right now is for workforce housing. No one else needs to live there.I think one of the ideas on changing zoning is that it can start to resolve the supply issue of housing, not provide housing for those that need it immediately. This gets to the root of the problem, rather than just fixing the surface. Whether or not this will work in the long run...
Auuugh on The air BNB units! So basically an absentee landlord or more accurately hotel owner is supposed to tell ‘guests’ to do something with no real local teeth to enforce it. Outside of having the other owners in the condo explain to recalcitrant guests? That’s just obnoxious. I rent the apartment I have seasonally. So that does make me a short term renter. However I am not going through a management company, which handles the upstairs unit, but rent directly from the owner who is a friend. This leaves me more than occasionally explaining to people how to get into the building since they can’t figure out lockboxes. Or masks last year from time to time. Although mostly people were pretty good. And keeping the door locked.
Or my personal favorite from last year: finding someone who didn’t enter the common area ‘ because there were lights on so we thought someone was in there‘ but got into my fire escape space/door and was trying to open the door which goes into my bedroom! I didn’t hear them initially. The cat went flying through the living room with a 4 inch wide tail, she was so freaked out by what was happening! This will be my seventh year in this apartment. I have to say it was a lot quieter before the pandemic. And especially the first two years when there was another single seasonal renter upstairs who left to go teach college a few days a week. Memories!
Bentonville has made itself into quite a mountain bike destination in recent years; Wal-Mart has put a ton of resources into making NW Arkansas an attractive place to live so as to entice corporate workers to want to live there. I've heard good things about it, but not, like "Let's leave Seattle/Portland/SF/Austin/Asheville/Burlington to move there" good. More like "I already live in the Midwest and have a mountain bike and I wouldn't mind living in a relatively affordable and sort of outdoorsy town and I think I'd be willing to try putting up with the politics."
That image is LITERALLY THE WORST IMAGE. As a marketer, I’m horrified at who the f did that.
so, then I couldn’t help myself. While I was eating lunch, I went on a little due diligence expedition.
There are two different Northwest Arkansas groups…one is Explore Northwest Arkansas, which looks like the official Tourism board and has gorgeous images.
The other one is the one that put up the ugly board… it’s called Finding Northwest Arkansas and looks like a resource group for employers trying to recruit talent to a challenging area. That organization has NO transparency and is frankly probably a groupthink write off using subpar and inexperienced marketing talent.
Which does bring us back to the thread topic, which is labor availability and access. Employers REALLY need to think about who their STAKEHOLDERS are. For a long time, customer centricity was well practiced - and employers generally understood that employees could delight customers if they themselves were happy.
in my career, what I’ve seen is that in the last 10-20 years, shareholders have wagged the dog, and employers have cut benefits, balance, and career support. Large employers (like walmart and its vendors) are now trying to attract employees when they have spent the last 20 years making themselves attractive to shareholders but not to existing employees…their reputations are tarnished.
When you treat recruiting as a cost center, rather than a core competency - as this Finding Northwest Arkansas group appears to do - then you’re going to be bad at it. That concept will apply to all employers, including ski areas.
PS: hope y’all enjoyed how I tied that ugly image
I don't know, but housing costs are far less there. They have Mt Spokane and 49 Degrees North pretty close, and Schweitzer is within 2 hours.
nbcmontana.com
