OCA Member Sarah Kellner Defends Vail Resorts in Town’s Efforts to Block Affordable Housing Project

In response to an emergency ordinance recently approved by the Town of Vail to suspend all permits for any activity on Vail Resorts’ property in East Vail, Colorado, pending the filing of a condemnation action to preclude a planned affordable housing project, OCA Member Sarah Kellner has filed a lawsuit against the Town calling its actions both “drastic and unprecedented.”

Vail Resorts objects to the emergency ordinance because the town was well aware of the proposed workforce housing project for months and even years. “A town cannot circumvent its own code by creating its own emergency,” the lawsuit states. The lawsuit also contends that Vail has permitted other projects “squarely in the middle” of bighorn sheep range but has raised environmental impacts as a reason for preventing Vail to build its project “on the very edge of that same range.” The lawsuit asks the court to overturn the emergency ordinance and require the town to issue permits as needed for the project.

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