STORY AND PHOTO BY KAREN BOSSICK
Occupy Ketchum Town Square will hold an anniversary rally Sunday to support housing and the LOT tax vote for workforce housing on May 17.
The rally will be held at 11:30 a.m. Sunday, May 1, at Ketchum Town Square, said Krzysztof Gilarowski, one of the organizers.
Speakers at the rally will address housing needs in the valley and discuss how the Local Option Tax ordinance on the May 17 ballot could support the implementation of Ketchum’s Housing Action Plan. Permitted uses for Ketchum’s LOT revenues do not currently include housing.
Ordinance No. 1235 asks whether the City of Ketchum should add Workforce Housing Provision and Support to the list of authorized purposes for which local option tax revenues may be used.
It would increase the local option tax rates in the City of Ketchum by an additional three-quarter percent on retail sales tax, an additional 2 percent on hotel-motel room occupancy sales tax, an additional 2 percent on liquor-by-the-drink sales tax and an additional 1 percent on building materials sales tax, excluding materials for workforce housing projects.
The new revenues generated by such additions would solely be used for the purposes of workforce housing. That could include rental assistance, incentives for converting to long-term rentals, measures to preserve existing affordable housing, homeownership assistance and new housing development.
The ordinance must get 60 percent approval to pass.
It’s estimated that Ketchum needs between 660 and 980 affordable homes in the next 10 years.
LEARN MORE ABOUT WORKFORCE HOUSING
Wendy Jaquet and Art Dahl will lead a discussion about Workforce Housing at 10:45 a.m. Sunday at St. Thomas Episcopal Church.
The church, which bills itself as “a village church,” surveyed parishioners who said two main concerns was getting more involved with the Hispanic community and with addressing the challenges of workforce housing. For the last several months a taskforce has been exploring the issue and ways that the church might help.