Lewis: My $80,000 pile of dirt
In 1980, I built a house. I had just graduated from high school, and a friend’s father was putting up a spec home in a modest mountain vacation community outside Colorado Springs — think Cordillera on a Costco budget with a Sears catalog aesthetic.
Three of us freshly minted graduates were hired to build it. And build it we did — from clearing trees and digging trenches to framing walls, wiring panels, sweating pipe joints, and pouring concrete. Sure, licensed professionals supervised us, but we learned how to do just about everything, including how to get it all done, start to finish (permits included), in just three and a half months.
Eight years later, in 1988, I built my second home near Colorado Springs. This time, I designed it myself and had the plans professionally drafted. I hired a general contractor but still handled a good chunk of the work — including a rather ambitious circular staircase and all the electrical. The entire process, including HOA and permit approvals, took about six months.
Fast forward to today, and we’ve just broken ground on house No. 3 — this time in the Vail Valley. Only now, the rules are more complicated than the Starbucks order placed by the teenager in line in front of me this morning, so we hired a professional architect. Still, I oversaw every detail of the design. But instead of five days for approvals like the old days, it took five months to get past the HOA, and another five months for the county permits. Ten months. Just for permission to start. For perspective: I built two homes in less time than it now takes to get an approval.
Thankfully, I found a builder who promised to finish in under a year — most quoted timelines more suited to geological eras (18 months to two years).
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The builder started last week with gusto. By the end of the week, we had a massive hole and an equally massive pile of dirt. Then came the call.
“We’ve got a problem,” the builder said, as I pulled up.
The county had shut down the site where they usually haul the dirt. The only option left?
“The dump,” he said grimly. “But they charge $800 a load.”
“Wait,” I said. “For… dirt?”
“Yes.”
If we hauled the whole pile, it would cost $80,000. That’s not a typo. That’s the price of a new BMW — for taking dirt. And let’s be clear: this isn’t garbage. This is perfectly good, earth-grown, possibly even organic dirt. The kind someone else would pay for. And yet, because of a bureaucratic shutdown based on some technicality and a lack of alternatives, this is what the county recommended. Who knows, maybe they get a cut.
People often blame high housing costs/affordability on materials, inflation, or wages but they would be wrong. Construction technology has become vastly more efficient — better tools, better materials, CAD software. What’s gotten a thousand times worse is the bureaucratic morass we now have to navigate just to build a home.
Imagine if, in the name of safety, we reduced speed limits to 25 mph nationwide and required cars to be built like tanks. Sure, traffic deaths would drop to zero — but so would sanity, productivity, and affordability. Cars would cost a million dollars and still be stuck in traffic.
That’s what it feels like to build today. The permits and fees for this house cost more than the cost of my first home. We’re talking building permit fees, tap fees, road use fees, HOA fees and so many more. Even with a designated building site and enough rules to rival the IRS code, the HOA still allows every neighbor within shouting distance to comment on my window placements. Why?
Because regulation today has lost any semblance of balance and spiraled out of control. Combine that with a legal system where anyone with a grudge and a lawyer can stall a project, and you’ve got a system tailor-made to fail.
If you’re looking for data to corroborate what I am telling you is true, read the book “Abundance.” It lays out the case for how we can have more — if we stop getting in our own way. The truth is simple: if we want affordable housing, we have to fix the regulatory system. Bring it back into balance. Until then, we’ll all be stuck in the slow lane, going 25 mph, honking at a mountain of red tape — and, apparently, $80,000 worth of dirt.
Mark Lewis, a Colorado native, had a long career in technology, including serving as the CEO of several tech companies. He’s now retired and writes thriller novels. Mark and his wife, Lisa, and their two Australian Shepherds — Kismet and Cowboy, reside in Edwards.
