The Park City Chamber Bureau will be financing the cost of purchasing new Rossignol skis, snowboards and bindings for those who participate in year two of the WE RIP program. The program is a partnership between the Chamber, Mountainlands Community Housing Trust and Rossignol.
Mountainlands Community Housing Resource Center Director Megan McKenna says it's based on a program that started in Colorado called Tenants for Turns in which the Aspen Skiing Company offers free skiing for homeowners who rent a room, unit or guest house to a company employee.
“WE RIP stands for Workforce Employer Rental Incentive Program," McKenna said. "We partnered with Park City Municipal last year as the season began as we saw a shortage of available rentals for our workforce. The city approached us and asked if we could launch a similar program to Aspen. We reached out to Deer Valley and we partnered with Deer Valley last year, and they were gracious enough to offer a season pass to anyone that rented to one of their employees.”
This season, McKenna says Deer Valley opted out. Park City Mountain has never participated. Now, the WE RIP program is open to all chamber member businesses.
Scott House, the vice president of partner services for the Chamber says Rossignol jumped on board and offered to provide the incentives this year, which will include a pair of new skis and bindings - either alpine or Nordic – or a snowboard with bindings.
“There's no cost to the homeowner for that product,” House said. “The chamber is going to support this and we're going to purchase that equipment directly from Rosignol as the incentive for those homeowners this year. And again, it's a pilot program. So, we're going to we hope to incentivize say 15 units, I think is the goal, potentially up to 20, if we get the community interest. We're just going to run with that and see how far our budget and what kind of interest we get, and then we'll modify and refine for next year, hopefully.”
For those who have a room to rent, McKenna says they can go online to find all of the terms and conditions and fill out a simple application.
“We're looking for this year for rooms that are within the Park City transit or High Valley Transit bus routes. We put a maximum rent of $1,000 a room, or $1,500 for a studio or one bedroom unit, ” she said.
Even though tenants – or one of the 2,000 J1 visa holders who are coming to town - may not be arriving until mid-December, an application must be filled out by Oct. 31 to be considered for the incentive program.
Click here for more information and to apply for the program.
