Letter: Send a message with your vote

Send a message with your vote

Wow — some of these letters about Base2 are disturbing: Young people can’t and won’t come here anymore without these two hotels; innovation, vitality and new businesses would disappear, as no young millennials can make it here without these two hotels. Rather than vote against it, because it has a bunch of variances that are not in keeping with existing zoning codes, those voting against it are just a bunch of no-growthers who don’t want anyone else here, especially young people. After reading some of those letters, I drove down to the Hickory House and parked so I could walk the length of Main Street on both sides and really look at what is there. Funny how one of the letters mentioned studying the issues. Well, it did not take long to educate myself on what Main Street looks like with its existing hotels and Victorian houses, where setbacks and parking are standard and maybe even some employee-housing mitigation transpired on some of the newer ones. Then I simply stood across from the Conoco and held up the rendering of Mark Hunt’s hotel. It is a shame that such a structure has been envisioned and promoted by our mayor and Community Development Department at all. Maybe they all should have taken a walk down Main Street before they contacted Hunt to save Aspen! I wish they would have contacted Aspen Skiing Co. instead and asked it to reduce room sizes and rates on its hotels instead of spending $60 million on a new Limelight up in Idaho. Yes, the Limelight here, which was supposed to supply moderately priced rooms, has become so profitable that Skico is building one in Idaho! You see, what the businessmen and politicians here, who offer up this hotel solution for the future of Aspen, won’t mention is the golden rule of economics, supply and demand. There is no more land to build upon here. Only growth through increased density can supply the growth they seek. A quick visit to Snowmass; Vail; Lahaina, Hawaii; or Chicago, where Hunt and his investors are from, will show you where that leads. We can foul our environment, or we can try to stop that from happening, at least abiding by the current zoning prescribed there. Please take a walk down Main Street and look at what we have, and do what you can to keep it that way. We can vote to save Main Street from ourselves. Let us send a strong message, and please vote “no” on Base2.

Bob Limacher

Aspen