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Sarah Thornstienson- Summit County needs housing for basic service employees

BrokerIPTV-Mark Eibner: This is Mark Eibner with broker IPTV and I am here with Sarah Thornstienson and she is the political affairs representative for the Summit Association of Realtors and I was just wondering if you could tell us the cities in your county that you cover and really what the purpose of your position is with the Board of Realtors up here?

Sarah Thornstienson: Absolutely. The Summit County are Breckenridge, Dillion, Frisco and Silverthrone and I also represent the Steamboat Board of Realtors, the Vail Board of Realtors and the Glenwood Springs Association of Realtors. So, I cover everywhere from the Summit all the way to the Board.

Mark Eibner: Great, so, you are appointee of CAR, Colorado Association Of Realtors or you just do this as a fill position?

Sarah Thornstienson: It is a really cool position that the National Association of Realtors has created it, it is called the Shared Government Affairs Directors Program. So, all the boards kept together and pulled their money together to pay for me, but I am actually employee of Colorado Association of Realtors. The biggest issue that we see across the mountains is the issue of affordable housing. Obviously, the cost of living here is incredibly high we have workforce issues, because there is no place for them to live, whether to rent or to own. Middle-class families cannot afford to buy anything here, we have got even in Summit County, and we have our fire fighters live in Denver and coming up here 3 days a week. We need people like our fire fighters to actually live here. Our nurses, teachers they cannot afford to live here. It is a huge issue across all off them mounts towns. So, that is a big priority right now at the mountain, as well as and Breckenridge has a huge issue, now where the town is considering restricting professional offices our main street including specifically real estate offices, they feel like they want to make sure that there is healthy mix to keep the tourist walking up and down main street, but our base concern is that the private property rights have been violated. So, I am working to fight that issue and to make sure that free market continuous to work as it is, because right now there is a great mix in our main street. This Summit County I would say it is a great advanced for the rest of the state in terms of affordable housing, they are combined housing authority that has worked really hard. The realtors, the builders and this is as our team together last year or two years ago to get a sales tax increase and actually go towards affordable housing. Breckenridge is doing a great job in building affordable housing, they are attractive building. I believe 900 affordable housing units.

Mark Eibner: That is incredible.

Sarah Thornstienson: Yeah, because previous town councils had the foresight to buy some land. So, they actually had something to work upon.

Mark Eibner: Oh great, well excellent thank you very much Sarah, my pleasure.

Sarah Thornstienson: My pleasure, yeah, my pleasure thanks.