Jay Emmer, your anger is misplaced. It’s the Blaine County Housing Authority who has failed Tara, Dillon, Bella and Tucker; BCHA failed to meet the standards of construction that executive director David Patrie agreed to in email communication to neighbors and verbally in public meetings. If they had, there wouldn’t have been an issue, just as there was no issue when the Agave Place residences were finished (which were finished as affordable housing, initially). Please understand that, before it was turned over to private ownership, several neighbors tried to work with BCHA and offered to donate tens of thousands of dollars to bring the building up to what was promised – identical to Agave Place in dark stained wood siding, berming with significant landscaping, and all vehicle parking contained in covered, screened parking.
In our rural-character part of the county, we have 1-2 acre per house zoning. There are probably 150-250 homes here that have CC&Rs that restrict what can be developed on a lot, protecting home values through shared vision. The president of The Valley Club HOA spent some time working with Patrie on a design plan for this Buttercup house that would blend it in to our zoning and our part of the county; Patrie agreed to it and then executed none of it. Please note that the letters written by neighbors to BCHA, ARCH and the County Commissioners were all written before the transfer.
As the building progressed this spring, it was becoming clear that it was going to be nothing as agreed upon. The BCHA refused to meet with neighbors, calling them “NIMBYs who wanted to hassle the project.” It seems that Patrie, BCHA and ARCH (BCHA’s developer) view existing neighbors in Blaine County as enemies from the get-go. It appears that the tactic was to try to rush this conversion of open space picnic-bench public space to private ownership before anyone noticed. I have asked Patrie for a list of neighbors noticed about the county transfer of land and he has not provided it. The County Land Use office didn’t notice neighbors by letter about the transfer. I believe that there has been a fundamental due process violation by the county and BCHA in this transfer. The county retained no mechanism to ensure what was agreed upon for the development actually happened, as they require for any normal subdivision developer, nor did they debate with adequate notice that turning public open space to private home ownership is creating the greater public good. Are all open space and park areas now potential for conversion to private homes?
In another example of BCHA “being creative” with agreements made, at the Lift Tower Lodge – a hotel that had been turned over to BCHA for the public good to house Blaine County residents looking for permanent housing – Patrie solicited a group contract from the general contractor of the new hotel to house construction workers during the week. Now the majority of the rooms are taken up by out-of-town construction workers that leave for the weekends and don’t intend to become Blaine County residents. Patrie justifies this as getting a higher room rate, but he has again missed understanding the public good that the City of Ketchum was trying to achieve here.
The BCHA is not only failing their clients, they are failing the community. If the community wants to have more homes for families like Tara, Dillon, Bella and Tucker, then neighbors need to be able to count on the agreements made by BCHA and we need the county to be able to enforce them.
Kiki Tidwell
Hailey resident