Editor's note: This is the second in a two-day look at the problems emerging from the popularity of Utah's national parks, and solutions to help nearby communities.
MOAB — Colin Fryer is a plain-spoken man who believes his employees need stable, affordable housing, even in an environment dominated by the roller-coaster whims of seasonal tourism.
As the owner of three older hotels in town and the scenic Red Cliffs Lodge near the Colorado River, Fryer depends on a workforce of 160 employees. So he pays them 20 percent higher than industry standards and confronts Moab's housing crisis head-on.
"I have always believed it is an employer's job to take care of the crew and part of that is to have housing. It's not the government's job."
Fryer bought a trailer park, refurbished and furnished the mobile homes and put in a laundry facility. He's been accumulating Avion travel trailers, ripping out the propane heating systems and replacing them with safer electrical heat.
Depending on the size, the trailers in the mobile home park can accommodate a trio of workers, who also use a shuttle service Fryer provides for transportation to and from work at the Red Cliffs Lodge.
The travel trailers — he has 17 of them — provide an inexpensive way for seasonal workers to have a place to call home.
People board a shuttle in Zion National Park on Thursday, Sept. 15, 2016. | Spenser Heaps
"They are a perfect fit for seasonal housing, but they are not a substitute for long-term housing."
Both Moab and Springdale are shouldering the challenges of any other resort community, caught up in wave of a limited affordable housing, a dire need for workers and congestion woes.
Community leaders are working to get the problems under control, engaged in traffic and transportation studies in Washington County and dedicating an inter-local task force in Grand County to tackle housing issues.
Angel Aala, 55, a restaurant employee at Colin Fryer's Red Cliff Lodge, stands for a portrait in the trailer where he lives in Moab on Thursday, Sept. 8, 2016. | Spenser Heaps
Fryer believes that community leaders enacted zoning ordinances discouraging the advent of affordable housing because they were stinging from the unsightly, dilapidated housing left over from the uranium boom and bust.
"Once the old stuff dried up and there was no new housing coming behind it, we went from being just fine to being behind the eight ball," he said. "It has become a real crisis. Employers are doing things on their own, either buying homes or buying old trailers to furnish housing for their key people."
There has been progress as leaders and advocates attack the problem on multiple fronts.
Brothers Orlo and Durk Knight, of O Knight Construction, work on the Valley View Subdivision in Moab on Thursday, Sept. 8, 2016. | Spenser Heaps
Community Rebuilds, for example, was launched as a pilot project in 2010 in Moab and has taken hold, building an average of four single family homes a year at a cost of $70 a square foot.
The nonprofit keeps its houses simple and small, using donated labor and straw bales as insulation. The homes are energy-efficient, so qualified buyers experience no utility bills.
The $8.8 million Cinema Court comprised of 60 affordable housing units opened in Moab in 2012, financed in part by the Olene H. Walker Housing Fund.
The Valley View Subdivision is also under construction, offering four duplexes and 24 single family homes.
In Springdale, the RedHawk development came online in 2009 and was the first low-income housing tax credit project in the community.
A mobile home park owned by Colin Fryer and used to house some of his many employees is seen in Moab on Thursday, Sept. 8, 2016. | Spenser Heaps
Grand County has taken several steps to encourage the development of affordable housing, including:
• Streamlining the review process so developers don't wait as long for approvals.
• Reducing the setback requirements to achieve greater land use efficiency.
• Relaxing regulations for accessory dwelling units such as mother-in-law apartments.
Colin Fryer gives a tour of a mobile home park he purchased to house some of his many employees in Moab on Thursday, Sept. 8, 2016. | Spenser Heaps
Grand County's community development director, Zacharia Levine, said leaders are also taking a hard look at implementing an "assured housing" ordinance that would require hotel or resort developers to provide a certain level of housing to offset the impacts of the employees they bring to the community.
Learning from Park City
Park City has had such an ordinance on the books since the early 1990s, borrowing development requirements implemented on the East Coast that helped communities cope with the dearth of affordable housing.
"We needed affordable units," said Rhoda Stauffer, the city's affordable housing program manager. "So many developers were coming in and not having to mitigate the impacts. This has helped some. We have just over 200 units as a result of our housing resolution."
Stauffer said the 2002 Winter Olympics put a floodlight on the desirability of Park City as both a tourist destination and a place to live, work and play.
"Any community that had the Olympics like Park City, we can directly link our housing issues to the fact that we became a world-class resort on a world-class stage."
Colin Fryer shows off one of several Avion trailers he purchased to house some of his employees in Moab on Thursday, Sept. 8, 2016. | Spenser Heaps
Available housing is being snatched up by vacation property owners and for investment, she said.
"It creates an untenable situation. Land is at a very high cost. It is impossible for a person earning hospitality industry wages and the middle income," she said. "Any community that becomes attractive for tourism and vacationers ends up under this kind of pressure."
Grand County's inter-local task force is focusing on building partnerships that tap the efforts of schools, police agencies, hospitals and others to find transitional housing for new recruits and to develop parcels that are already owned.
The national parks, the canyon rim and the Colorado River hem in development potential in the Moab area, with only so much room left to grow.
"Part of our base issue is our county is 97 percent public land, so when you only have 3 percent private property to begin with, it does not leave you with as many options like Ogden, Salt Lake City or Provo that can spread out," Fryer said. "We are pretty defined for the land that is available."
Using trailers
Fryer bought two pieces of property and will put in seven more Avion travel trailers for his employees. One five-bedroom home is already on the land, but the entire place was so full of junk, it took 20 pickup loads to clear it all away.
"For me the trailers were a quick way to get there," he said. "One-hundred percent of my employees who need it will have housing. My little part of the world is solid."
The trailer park he's building is technically illegal as employee housing, but legal as an RV park.
"Everybody knows what I am doing, we are just winking at each other," he said, because the need is so significant.
Angel Aala, 55, a restaurant employee at Colin Fryer's Red Cliff Lodge, stands for a portrait in the trailer where he lives in Moab on Thursday, Sept. 8, 2016. | Spenser Heaps
Fryer believes Levine's approach to the housing issue will be a catalyst to effect change, that the leaders of today are wise to the errors of the past.
"It will take a little bit of time, but there are entrepreneurs and developers who will come."
Utah State University, for example, is partnering with the Utah Schools and Institutional Trust Land Administration for a 300-acre development that will help take care of student housing needs and provide some mixed used development.
Springdale and Washington County, similarly, are on the cusp of changes that will address some of the issues posed by the tourist boom in southwest Utah.
The Utah Department of Transportation plans to widen the shoulder along state Route 9 between Rockville and Springdale and reconstruct the roadway in the town of Springdale itself. That reconstruction will include bike lanes to improve the flow of traffic.
Washington County will ask residents to vote on Proposition 1, a quarter of a cent sales tax to go to transit needs, including new commuter bus service between St. George and Springdale.
Dave Demis, a transportation engineer and planner with the Five County Association of Governments, said a preliminary study by a Texas firm showed the route would support ridership anywhere from 270,000 to 350,000 people on an annual basis.
"The study is showing there are pretty good needs along the corridor. The high population of tourists visiting Springdale is one of them, and the hundreds of people who work in Springdale, who don't live there, that is another one.
Right now, the area only has a St. George-owned transit system called Suntran.
Demis said a commuter line would take a lot of cars off the road for Springdale, but it won't solve the entire problem.
"There is tremendous need there in Springdale and there is such a high level of cars coming there is no one solution. It will take a series of small things that are improvements to help that happen. Transit won't be the cure-all, but it will help."
Spread the season
Springdale Mayor Stan Smith and Fryer said one of the best options for gateway communities to help themselves is to spread the tourist season out longer and get more people to visit in December, rather than July.
A more steady and moderate pace of tourists would be easier on employers, seasonal workers and the community in general, Fryer and others say.
LaVerkin, seen here on Friday, Sept. 16, 2016, provides a less expensive living option for those who want to be near Zion National Park. | Spenser Heaps
Melinda Snow, the Grand County Middle School principal and recruiting officer for the school district, said a pall settles over about half the students in October. That's when parents are getting laid off, being forced to move.
"They're not talking about Christmas," she said. "And one day, they've just picked up and moved."
Fryer said community leaders are toying with ideas of a big Christmas or New Year's celebration as a lure for tourists to switch up vacation schedules.
"If we can do that, we can give January away."
Smith believes much of it rests on educating the public about the beauty and lack of crowds during the "shoulder" seasons, when rates are lower and the weather is still manageable.
"We need to let people know they can hike Zion in January and the weather is beautiful."
Smith hears the lament of those who talk of the crowded summertime conditions in town or packed hiking trails at the park.
"I hear from the purists that they miss the days 10 years ago when you could hike Angels Landing and not encounter a bunch of people," he said. "That day is gone because visitors are not going to stop coming to Zion National Park. And you can't separate tourism from Springdale. We just have to manage it."
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