KETCHUM, Idaho — As the effort to increase the supply of workforce housing continues in Ketchum, the city presented two city-owned parcels as possible locations for new affordable housing units on Tuesday.
The city of Ketchum has identified housing as the top priority for both residents and businesses, according to community surveys. The challenge is exacerbated by the conversion of long-term housing into short-term vacation rentals.
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"The number-one priority for both business and residents is housing," said Daniel Hansen, the city's communications manager.
Vacation housing has always been a component of mountain resort towns, but the disparity has grown since the 1970s. In the last decade, Ketchum says it has lost 300 long-term housing units, as short-term vacation rentals gained popularity, and now more than half of all housing in Ketchum is "vacant," or short-term vacation rentals.
"I think it's— go go go, in terms of as many units as we can," Mayor Neil Bradshaw told Idaho News 6. "Preserve as many units as we can build to support our community and support our workforce."
Charlotte Chadwick, a resident who moved to Ketchum in 2010, noted the difficulty in finding housing compared to when she first arrived.
"It was a lot different," Chadwick said. "Then, it wasn’t that difficult to find a place to live. Especially an affordable place to live."
After the rental market became more of an ordeal, Chadwick was able to buy a condo in 2019. When that condo burned in 2022, she struggled to find a new place and eventually left town for a few years.
Last year, Bluebird Village opened, offering 51 affordable units. That project used a similar process of identifying suitable city-owned land for housing, and forming a leasing agreement with developers
Ketchum city staff continue to evaluate city-owned parcels for potential workforce housing development, aiming to make 572 new and preserved long-term rentals available in the next eight years.
