Basalt Vista a team effort
As a former long-term board member for Habitat for Humanity-Roaring Fork Valley, I want to commend Mr. Condon for his recent article about the Basalt Vista net zero affordable housing. The project being nationally recognized as the best multi-family housing concept by Habitat for Humanity International was indeed well deserved. While the article acknowledged that it took a village to make it happen, there were a few key players missing that were essential to Basalt Vista becoming a reality in establishing what this energy efficient affordable housing could and would look like. I would like to submit this “letter to the editor” to serve as an amendment to Mr. Condon’s article:
For Basalt Vista to happen, there were some other key contributors: CCY Architects under Rich Carr’s leadership did the initial concepting, 2757 Architects Erica and Brian Golden took the project to the execution stage, and Dana Della Betta worked tirelessly on the grueling approval process as well as the infrastructure work and oversaw the completion of the first few homes being built by Rick Farr’s dedicated construction team. In addition to the key role governmental groups played, several incredibly generous donors were the special ingredient to filling the large gap between what owners ended up paying for their homes and the true cost.
In the end though, none of this would have happened without Scott Gilbert, the now retired former long-serving president of Habitat in the valley, who was the true visionary and brave soul that spearheaded this teacher-housing effort (as well as the ReStore along Highway 82 and the other Carbondale, Silt and Rifle affordable housing projects). He was relentless in working to provide housing for the teachers, tradesmen and other hard-working people who had all but given up on their hopes of owning a home and staying in this valley by giving them “a hand up, not a handout.”
This is wonderful proof of what strong leadership and an engaged community can do.
Mogli Cooper
Glenwood Springs
