Rent increases at Wintergreen workforce housing complex near Keystone prompt review by Summit County commissioners

Summit County Commissioners Discuss Rent Increases in Wintergreen — an affordable housing complex for workers near Keystone — with the company that owns and manages the property Tuesday, July 2, during a work session.

Gorman & Co., the company that owns the project, sent a notice to the county that it plans to raise Wintergreen’s rents by an average of about 6.3 percent this year. The rent increases come as some Wintergreen residents have reportedly filed complaints with the county about Wintergreen’s parking fees.

“We’re trying to get our property back to a break-even operation,” Kimball Crangle, market president of Gorman & Co. Colorado, said of the rent increases.

The Wintergreen neighborhood was created through an amendment to the Keystone Resort unit development project in 2017, according to a staff memo written by interim housing co-director Lina Lesmes.

Vail Resorts signed a contract with Gorman & Co. to build the Wintergreen neighborhood, and people began moving into the units around 2019, the staff memo said. The development would include 40 low-income housing tax credit units, 36 seasonal units that would be rented by Vail Resorts and 120 year-round workforce housing units.

Housing covenants for the property require that Wintergreen’s 120 long-term workforce rental units be offered at a maximum average rental rate set at 100 percent of the area median income, the staff memo said. The agreement for the Wintergreen project also included a provision requiring the developer to provide 30 days’ notice to the county if rents are expected to increase by more than 4 percent.

Crangle said the 6.3% rent increase was necessary because Gorman & Co. has kept rent increases at Wintergreen low throughout the pandemic, even as the costs of managing the property have increased.

“When it came to the pandemic, we saw what was happening in Summit County, so our rent increases were exceptionally limited,” Crangle said. “We were concerned about keeping people housed at the time and not losing residents.”

On average, residents who renewed their leases at Wintergreen between 2020 and 2022 saw their rents increase by only about 1.3%, Crangle said. However, “inflation has not been our friend,” she said.

During the same 2020-2022 period, Wintergreen’s operating expenses increased an average of 7% per year, Crangle said. In 2023, when Gorman & Co. increased Wintergreen’s rents by an average of 4.6% for renewals, expenses increased another 8.5%, she said.

Crangle added that insurance costs have increased significantly, utility costs have increased and Gorman & Co. also pays property taxes on the property, which have increased significantly throughout the county over the past year. The increase in those costs is directly related to rising rents, she said.

“In a normal multifamily building or any other type of property that you manage, your rents have to balance with your expenses,” Crangle said. “Our expenses are unfortunately increasing at a rate that we can’t stop.”

Commissioner Tamara Pogue suggested the county could go back and reconsider whether Wintergreen could qualify for a property tax exemption to potentially help reduce expenses and, therefore, rents.

Pogue also noted that in addition to concerns about “significant rent increases,” the county government has also heard concerns about parking fees.

Crangle said there are about 369 parking spaces on site for the approximately 364 rooms associated with the project. She said Gorman & Co. charges a $150 monthly parking fee to long-term residents, which helps cover the company's costs of building and maintaining the parking lot.

“Building parking lots has not been cheap,” Crangle said. “These are additional costs. I mean, it’s a math problem. It costs what it costs, and these are the costs. We have to maintain our roads. That’s our responsibility. We have to maintain our parking lots. That’s our responsibility.”

Crangle suggested he work with the county housing department to “work out some ideas.”

Curator Eric Mamula suggested that Gorman & Co. come back with more than one idea.

“Don’t come with one proposal: ‘Here’s what I think would work,’” Mamula said. “Come with two proposals: ‘Here’s what would work, here’s the price.’ You know, that kind of thing, so we can have a serious discussion.”