Council President says city needs ‘all of the above’ approach to Steamboat’s biggest issue in reelection bid
- Dylan Anderson
- 6 minutes ago
- 4 min read
A lack of housing remains Steamboat's biggest issue for Gail Garey, as she seeks another term representing District One.
For Steamboat Springs City Council President Gail Garey, one of the things that give Steamboat its small-town charm is the lack of honking on Lincoln Avenue.
“Potentially it’s your kid’s teacher or your dental hygienist,” Garey said. “To me, that’s the small-town culture. We know each other and we take care of each other, and we treat each other the way you would want to be treated.”
It's that small-town feel that brought Garey and her family to Steamboat 25 years ago, and it’s one that she said the city needs to work to preserve. Garey, who was first elected to Council in 2021, took over as Council President in 2023 and is now looking for her second, four-year term representing the city’s first district. She said the best way to preserve community character is by working to address Steamboat’s housing woes.
Garey is running against challenger Kelly Phillips, a local business owner in Steamboat and member of the committee that successfully forced last year’s Brown Ranch referendum.
In her mind, anyone who works in Steamboat Springs — seasonal workers, healthcare workers, teachers, young professionals, families and retirees who have served the community — should be able to live in Steamboat Springs.
“The lack of housing … absolutely impacts our sense of belonging and small-town culture,” Garey said. “You’re spending a lot of time on the road commuting in and commuting home… To me, housing again remains the top priority and is one of the critical components to maintaining our small-town culture.”
Garey said she would continue to take an “all of the above” approach to housing, especially when looking at how Council can utilize revenue from the city’s Short-Term Rental Tax. One opportunity, Garey said, she wants to continue to pursue is reaching out to developers who are close to breaking ground on a project to see if the city can secure affordable units with STR dollars.
“I think that’s probably one of the most powerful tools we have in our toolbox is the STR funds,” Garey said. “There are some developments that have been approved but they haven’t started work on them yet. That’s an opportunity to look at our development partners in the community and say, ‘Is there a way that we can use the STR monies in the development that’s being planned?’”
Council has used STR dollars in this way during Garey’s time as Council President, including a $2.6 million loan to developers of the Riverview development downtown made last year in exchange for first access to 11 units priced at 80% AMI or less and $5 million for the Yampa Valley Housing Authority’s Cottonwoods at Mid Valley project in January in an effort to buydown sales prices of those units.
Garey said Council’s work on STR’s is one of the best things they have done in her time on Council. In 2022 the city passed STR regulations, overlay zones and city voters approved the 9% tax to support housing. The latter of those is what allowed the city to support the local purchase of Casey’s Pond — Council’s best decision over the past four years, Garey said.
As for how Brown Ranch fits into the housing question, Garey said she was awaiting the results of the city’s Deliberation and Stewardship Team. That group will end phase one of their process next week, after which Garey said council would talk about the timeline going forward.
On the policy side, Garey pointed to Council’s ongoing effort to create an inclusionary zoning or linkage fees for the city, which would require developers of certain projects to provide a number of affordable units as part of their project. Additionally, the city should create downpayment assistant or rent buy-down programs to help people struggling to afford housing at various income levels, Garey said.
“Right now we have no mobility,” Garey said. “We have people who I know would like to downsize, but that means pretty much leaving the community. There’s certainly families that we’re losing because they want to move into a home or buy something bigger, but there is just, again, no mobility.”
When it comes to fiscal sustainability, Garey said the city is facing growing financial pressures and the next council needs to focus on “smart and equitable revenue solutions.” Garey was in the minority of a vote that killed the city’s Vacancy Tax proposal earlier this month, Council’s latest attempt to shore up revenues.
While Council should be looking at ways for the city to cut costs, Garey said that alone would not be enough, especially when they are also looking at declining State and Federal funding. Still, Garey said she isn’t totally sold on a property tax.
“The concern I have with property tax is that, again, because we don’t have housing mobility,” Garey said, noting that a lot of Steamboat’s housing has seen steep value increases and in turn, the tax bills. “To put a property tax on a family that is potentially already cost-burdened or on retirees on a fixed income is just not a fair solution.”
If the city were to pursue a property tax, Garey said that should be paired with some sort of sales tax reduction or rebate program to lessen that burden on locals.
“We’re going to need to get creative,” Garey said.