Each week, we talk with our colleagues at The Colorado Sun about the stories they're following.
This time, Sun Editor Lance Benzel joined us to discuss a drawback of increased tourism in the Colorado mountains and why Xcel Energy customers are seeing rate hikes.
Benzel said a new study finds some Colorado mountain towns are being loved to death.
“Montana's Headwaters Economics puts an interesting name to the problem, he told KUNC. “They call it the amenity trap.”
The mountains, rivers, hot springs, and ski slopes of high country towns attract many visitors — too many of them.
Benzel said the "amenity trap" has fed a boom in short-term rentals in these towns.
“That's depleted the stock of affordable housing and it's made mountain living pretty much impossible for some people,” he said.
The study's authors suggest limiting vacation rentals and investing in more housing to ease the affordability crisis.
In another story, if you’re an Xcel Energy customer, you might be wondering why you’ve received a notice about your power bill going up. Benzel said those rate hikes are connected to infrastructure upgrades.
“Xcel makes a lot of its money by building new power plants, new pipelines, new transmission lines, and those things are passed on to consumers,” Benzel said.
The state utilities commission sets rates and returns for Xcel. Last year the company posted nearly $2 billion in profits. Some have criticized the century-old regulatory compact as being out of balance.
Colorado lawmakers passed a bill during the recent legislative session to try and address rising utility rates.
