On Monday, Oct. 3, Vail Resorts responded to the town’s $12 million offer for the contested East Vail property with a resounding “no.”

“For Vail Resorts, this is not, and has never been about money,” wrote Bill Rock, Vail Resorts’ executive vice president and chief operating officer of its mountain division, in a letter to the town of Vail on Monday. “This is about building affordable housing that the town desperately needs now to support the hundreds of employees who are the town’s lifeblood and who make both Vail Mountain and the town of Vail a world-class destination.”

The $12 million offer was sent via a letter from Vail Town Manager Stan Zemler to Rock and Vail Resorts on Wednesday, Sept. 21.

Zemler wrote that the town wanted the land for “open space purposes,” adding that Vail Town Council determined that acquiring the land “is necessary and serves a public use and purpose.” The letter stated that the offer would “remain open” until noon on Monday, Oct. 3.

On Monday afternoon, Rock sent a response to the offer, addressed to Zemler. The five-page letter not only “declines to accept that offer,” but also details the ways that “despite recent council comments to the contrary, Vail Resorts has, for years, sought to work collaboratively with the Town to provide affordable employee housing while preserving the bighorn sheep habitat.” In support of that claim, the letter states that “for the benefit of the bighorn sheep,” Vail Resorts, in 2017, sought approvals to rezone 17.9 acres of the site as a natural area preservation district, as well as sought — from 2017 to 2019 — a series of entitlements for the property.

“After five years of collaborative efforts between Vail Resorts and the Town Council, including significant effort on the part of both entities to prepare a robust and meaningful mitigation plan to protect the bighorn sheep and numerous negotiations over the past year to discuss alternative options for collaboration, this Town Council’s decision to eradicate those efforts and turn shovel-ready affordable housing into open space in a town that is so limited in available, developable land, and in an area that already has luxury homes and significant human activity within it, is inexplicable,” Rock wrote in his letter.

Vail Mountain Vice President and Chief Operating Officer Beth Howard emphasized the workforce challenges that Vail Resorts has, specifically with regard to affordable housing in a statement provided to Vail Daily News.

Hiring a team is “increasingly difficult for me and my fellow business leaders in the community due to the lack of affordable housing in and around Vail,” Howard wrote in her statement. “I’ve lived here for decades, and the problem continues to get worse.” 

Rock’s letter also, in several instances, urged the town to use the $12 million in a different manner.

“Even a fraction of the Town’s $12 million for shutting down affordable housing could have a huge impact on protecting the herd from all potential domestic threats,” Rock wrote.

In a phone call with the Vail Daily on Monday, Vail Mayor Kim Langmaid said that, to this point, “what we heard from the wildlife biologist is that we should avoid any development on that site in total because of the impact of ongoing daily disturbance to the sheep will compromise their health and ability to persist in the future. … That is why we have requested many times over and offered alternate sites that have no impact on big horn sheep,” Langmaid said.

Overall, Langmaid said that Vail Resort’s denial of the offer was “disappointing because this was a generous offer, and we had really hoped that they would accept the offer and we could move forward in renewed partnership and work toward housing at some of the other locations that we’ve offered up to them: Residences at Main Vail, Middle Creek and the redo of Timber Ridge.”

On these, Rock wrote in his Oct. 3 letter that “Vail Resorts remains willing and eager to engage with the town on each of the proposals the town has put forth.” However, Rock claims that “the town has steadfastly refused to meet with us for the last several months.”

To this point, Langmaid clarified that these housing projects were offered to the company as “alternative sites” to the East Vail property and that while the town is open to discussing these proposals with the corporation in the future, the time isn’t right.

“We’re definitely willing to talk to them about those other sites when the time comes, but it hasn’t quite come yet because we aren’t far enough along in the development process and we’ll be including all other businesses and the town of Vail in that discussion,” she said. “It’s a matter of timing, and we had offered those other sites as alternate locations. They could expedite that timing, tremendously, if they were to see them as alternate locations, but they don’t want to see it that way.”

Conversations about this East Vail parcel — while ongoing for multiple years — hit a point of contention between the corporation and town earlier this year, when the town voted in May to begin condemnation proceedings in order to preserve the big horn sheep herd that resides on the property.

The disagreement took a legal turn in September when Vail Resorts filed a complaint in the Eagle County District Court, accusing the town of improper use of an emergency ordinance process. The town had invoked this emergency ordinance in August to place a moratorium on new permits for the site.

With the matter likely to be determined in the courts, the town is considering, via a resolution, setting up a dedicated fund for public and private contributions toward any costs associated with the town of Vail’s pursuit to acquire the East Vail property for the purpose of conservation of habitat and open space.

Langmaid said that with Vail Resorts’ decision, this fund would “help us pay for whatever the ultimate amount is that the courts decide.”

Town Council is scheduled to discuss this resolution at its Tuesday, Oct. 4 Town Council evening meeting. Any other next steps will be discussed in an executive session with the town attorney, said a spokesperson for the town of Vail.

The Tuesday, Oct. 4 meeting begins at 6 p.m. both in person at the Vail Council Chambers, 75 S. Frontage Road, as well as online via Zoom. Interested participants can register at VailGov.com/Town-Council. The meeting will be streamed on the town’s Facebook page or at HighFiveMedia.org/Live-Five.

This story is from VailDaily.com.