Aspen’s elected officials last week decided to not make the preservation of locally serving businesses a critical goal due to the complexity of the issue, but they lamented that the town has changed significantly and local residents are being priced out.
“What I mean are places for locals to still enjoy this community, and we’ve seen such a deterioration of it,” Mayor Torre said during last week’s council goal-setting retreat. “Currently, we have several locally priced affordable restaurants that are not in operation because of redevelopment, and it’s impacting us community wide.”
Recognizing that controlling the market is nearly impossible, council members agreed to continue working on the issue with willing partners, like the chamber of commerce and the business community.