Full-time Gardiner residents are struggling to find affordable housing as the tourism economy booms.
NOW: SCENERY ECONOMY
PHOTO BY LOUISE JOHNS
A S T H E Y H AV E I N D E S T I N AT I O N T OW N S
Is this going to be a town of locals or not?
Yellowstone National Park saw more than 4 million visitors last year, with more than 360,000 vehicles passing through the North Entrance at Gardiner. PHOTO BY JACOB W. FRANK/NPS
across the West, Airbnb and their “live like a local” marketing has eroded what was once a clearer distinction between residential and tourist housing. When Gardiner property owners face the choice between renting a house to a full-time resident for $1,000 a month or offering it to tourists for upwards of $250 a night, it’s tough to leave the difference on the table—particularly when wouldbe-landlords are trying to scrape together a living themselves. The U.S. Census Bureau estimates that between 50 and 150 of Gardiner’s 600 housing units are vacant, an indicator they’re used for tourist housing. Airbnb’s website alone listed 25 full-home rentals in the town proper, pre-tourism season in April, their nightly rates averaging $278. “You can make more in a week than you can in a month,” said Don Knight, a Gardiner businessman who operates Cowboy’s Lodge and a number of vacation rentals. Like most of the town’s business owners, Knight and his wife, Gina, say they have to provide housing to attract employees. In addition to vacation rentals, they also point at rising property taxes—partly a product of higher property values—as something that’s making the town less affordable even for residents who own their own home. About half of the Gardiner homes advertised for sale on real estate websites in April were priced above $600,000. One of them, a boxy-looking, 2,760-square-foot house on Park Street, was listed as pending sale at $749,000. In comparison, annual wages across Park County average $43,000 a year, according to the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis. The average hotel and food service worker is paid $23,000. “Prices don’t reflect local wages at all,” said Bill Berg, a Park County commissioner who’s lived in the Gardiner area for 30 years. “It almost feels like we’re becoming a little bit of a theme park,” he said. “Is this going to be a town of locals or not?”>>
M T O U T L AW. C O M / MOUNTAIN
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