Yes... we need affordable housing, but not another city!

This Brown Ranch plan adds 6,100 new people to our community. Think about this. That’s a thousand more people than the town of Breckenridge and would account for a 45% Increase in Steamboat population.

Worse yet, this dense population would be confined to just 420 acres (vs. Breckenridge, which spans 3,700 acres).

The Brown Ranch would generate 17,000 new vehicle trips per weekday on highway 40 at buildout. Not only would that explode our already congested traffic issues, but the City of Steamboat (not the YVHA or Brown Ranch developers) would be responsible for $55 million in Highway 40 improvements. Brown Ranch isn’t included in the Colorado Department of Transportation’s 10-year regional plan for grant funding, or the 20 year state CDOT plan. Where will the funding come from? Steamboat taxpayers? And we can't simply build our way out of the 13th street “bottleneck” that this additional traffic would exacerbate.

Question: Do you have $52 million? When we look at the proposed Brown Ranch annexation plan, it shows that the City would have a $52 million shortfall in infrastructure obligations. Infrastructure includes items like highway 40 improvements, City parks, and public safety. Steamboat City staff had serious concerns about proceeding with the annexation because of this shortfall. If this plan were to pass on March 26, that debt would have to come from other sources which could include additional taxes or a reduction in City services like road repair, snow removal, and deferred maintenance of our existing amenities like parks. (remove And) $52 million works out to be $9,062 per Steamboat Springs household! Are you prepared to pay that?

The Brown Ranch development plan outlines their intention to allocate just two vans for the entire subdivision. That's just 2 vehicles slated to serve 6,100 people! And these vans will only deliver residents to an existing City bus stop, not their final destination. The City doesn’t currently have the money to add additional bus service for that many people. But when polled, 62.8% of the Steamboat Chamber’s Young Professionals Network said they would (remove likely) use public transportation if they lived in Brown Ranch. But based on Brown Ranch's lack of transit, these people will mostly have to drive and sit in traffic.

The hardworking families that might choose to live in Brown Ranch should have sports fields for their kids to play games. But City parks have been cut from the Brown Ranch plan because there's no money to pay for them. So where are residents going to go to play sports? They'll have to drive to the City where the City’s sports fields are already congested. City parks are essential to a basic quality of life, and the City’s $52 million deficit includes amenities like City parks.