Dear Editor,

The reporting of the Candidates Forum was disturbing to me, in its lack of objective verbiage, responses by some of the candidates, ignorance demonstrated by the tone of some of the questions of what is being done.

Simply put, a few of what's being done are...

The Peak-to-Peak Housing & Human Services Alliance, that the Town is a member of, has been actively engaged for over a year, soliciting input and feedback from residents on Affordable Housing via public forums and assorted surveys.

Some of the work being done by members of the Alliance and Town Hall ongoing are: a) Identifying town-owned lots for infill; b) All that goes into the planning, funding, and design of the aforementioned; c) Looking into public-private partnerships for the building of affordable housing; d) Researching funding sources for building affordable housing.

A fact most of us are aware of is that Nederland, by its geography, is “land-locked” in a bowl. Infill helps, ADUs (not STRs) help, smaller housing units help. There is and won't be a resolution to our local affordable housing crisis. However, there do exist some options.

At a public meeting a while back, a long-time respected community member made a remark that has stayed with me. “When Nederland started to grow, buildings were built helter skelter everywhere with no planning, or future thinking. That's why it's such a mess today.”

Suddenly I'm seeing the words “development sprawl” quite a bit in Mountain-Ear articles. Do you really know what “sprawl” is? It started as a good thing to grow beyond limited city and town borders to build housing. However, there was no planning or forethought. However, for Nederland nobody is talking about or in support of random sprawl. That’s ignorant fear-mongering by some.

What's being proposed is thoughtfully planned-out below-market housing developments, not the sprawl of previous generations. Although not quite in the same category, some examples locally might be Indian Peaks subdivision, and Caribou Ridge subdivisions.

Atashnaa Medicineshield Werner

Nederland