Buying a Home in the Rapid City, SD Area: Box Elder and Ellsworth, the I-90 Towns, the Hills and What Is Being Built

Up on Skyline Drive, seven concrete dinosaurs have stood on the ridge above Rapid City since 1936, and the Skyline Wilderness trails begin right beside them. Visit Rapid City tells the story of how that Depression-era park came to be, and the trails run through about 150 acres of ponderosa pine. Down in the city, a public greenway follows Rapid Creek from one end of town to the other. The paved bike path runs along the water past Canyon Lake Park and the M Hill trailhead on West Omaha Street. Out here the Black Hills are simply "the Hills," as South Dakota Magazine's Black Hills lingo guide puts it. Everything on this side of the Missouri River is "West River," and the clocks run on Mountain time, an hour behind Sioux Falls.

I'm Jeff Moran, NMLS #483943, a mortgage broker licensed in South Dakota through C2 Financial Corporation, and I have been in the mortgage business since 1996. I wrote this page for anyone thinking about buying a home in the Rapid City area, which is Pennington, Meade and Custer counties. Most of the new homes in the Rapid City area are going up along I-90 northwest of the city, in Box Elder, Black Hawk, Summerset and Piedmont, and on the south and east sides of Rapid City itself. Ellsworth Air Force Base, next to Box Elder, is behind a lot of that, so I start there, then go through the city and the towns, what is being built, the roads, the schools and the hospitals. After that come the things worth looking up on any address before you compare it with another: the county, the school district, the owner-occupied tax classification, who sends the water bill, septic, flood and wildfire. The facts come from public sources, named in the sentences where they matter most, and they were checked in October 2026.

Ellsworth Air Force Base, Box Elder and the B-21

Ellsworth Air Force Base adjoins Box Elder, and it is the Air Force's first main operating base and training unit for the B-21 Raider. The aircraft are scheduled to arrive in 2027. Military Times reported on July 30, 2026 that an exact date is still to be determined, so if you have read that the bomber is already there, it is not. In July 2026 the Air Force accepted the first two B-21 facilities, a $161 million Low Observable Restoration Facility and an $81 million wash rack and maintenance hangar, as ClearanceJobs described on July 7, 2026.

The base already employs about 4,100 people directly, roughly 3,100 active-duty Airmen and 1,000 civilians, with $247.5 million in annual payroll, per a Rapid City Business Journal report from September 2024. KELOLAND reports that the B-21 transition adds more than 3,000 personnel and their families. Box Elder itself counted 11,746 people in the 2020 census, and the Census Bureau's estimate for July 2025 is 13,936.

Box Elder's answer to that growth is Liberty Plaza, a 110-acre mixed-use project by Dream Design International, marketed as the city's new downtown with a street named Main Street. Dream Design's project page, which carries no date, says the first phase of infrastructure is complete, the Union apartments and some single-family homes are built, and Liberty Center is near completion. The number of homes planned there is reported several different ways. Next door, Monument Health opened an 8,000-square-foot urgent care and primary care clinic on a 2.15-acre parcel on August 4, 2025, according to Monument Health's own announcement.

The Douglas School District, the base's district, is planning a new elementary school in Box Elder with $42 million in federal funding. KOTA reported on March 20, 2026 that the Air Force estimates about 100 new students a year for the next 15 years, and that the timing depends on when the federal money is released. Box Elder is also one city in two counties and two school districts, and I explain how to check that at the address in the county section further down.

Rapid City: downtown, West Boulevard and the creek

The City of Rapid City's own 2025 estimate is 86,484 people, which its Long Range Planning Division builds from building permits and 2020 Census household rates. The Census Bureau's July 2025 estimate is 80,589. Both numbers are from 2025, so whenever you see a population for the city it is worth asking whose it is.

Downtown got its first new hotel in more than a decade in July 2025, when Block 5 opened on St. Joseph Street between 5th and 6th. KOTA covered the ribbon cutting: ten stories, a 117-room Hyatt Place, loft apartments and about 330 parking spaces. Theatre 605, formerly the Black Hills Playhouse, cut the ribbon on its new downtown home at 512 Main Street in February 2026, as Rapid City's economic development group reported.

The Journey Museum at 222 New York Street holds five collections under one roof, covering Black Hills geology, paleontology, archaeology and Lakota history, and the Black Hills Farmers Market runs year round at Market Park on East Omaha Street. The Monument is the arena and events complex, formerly the Rushmore Plaza Civic Center, and the Black Hills Stock Show and Rodeo runs there from late January into early February, drawing from a 13-state region, as Travel South Dakota notes.

Southwest of downtown, the West Boulevard Historic District has been on the National Register since 1974, and a 1995 boundary increase took it to more than 600 historic homes and buildings that count toward the district. Its first significant development was the Boulevard Addition of 1885, four years before statehood, as the State Historical Society's 2015 resurvey records. If you buy a home there and want to replace the windows or the siding, add a deck or change the roof material, that is a permit question. The Rapid City Historic Preservation Commission reviews any permitted exterior work on a historic structure under the Secretary of the Interior's Standards for Rehabilitation. The commission can walk you through it before you commit to a design, and it is worth building that time into a renovation plan.

The neighborhood names you will see in listings and in conversation include West Boulevard, Robbinsdale, Canyon Lake, Chapel Valley, Red Rock, Rapid Valley and the Sheridan Lake Road corridor. The city's park list puts Robbinsdale Park on East Oakland Street on the south side, and Canyon Lake Park wrapping Canyon Lake on Rapid Creek. Sioux Park on Sheridan Lake Road is the largest park the city maintains, at about 210 acres. Rapid Valley, east of the city, is a census-designated place rather than a city, which matters for who sends the water bill, and Monument Health's Rapid Valley Clinic has been open there since September 2025.

The Rapid City Indian Boarding School operated from 1898 to 1933 on 1,200 acres in what is now west Rapid City. A 1948 federal law let the Department of the Interior transfer that land to local governments, schools and other bodies, and none of the 1,200 acres went to Native families. The Rapid City Journal has covered the work to return parcels of it to tribal trust status.

The I-90 towns: Black Hawk, Summerset, Piedmont and Sturgis

Drive I-90 northwest out of Rapid City and you pass through the part of the area that has grown fastest. Black Hawk is unincorporated, meaning it has no city government of its own, and it is Meade County's largest unincorporated community. The Wikipedia entry for Blackhawk gives it 3,026 people at the 2020 census. You will see it spelled both "Black Hawk" and "Blackhawk," and the water district that serves it spells itself the Black Hawk Water User District.

Summerset, between Black Hawk and Piedmont, was incorporated in July 2005, and its homes were built from 2001 to 2021. It grew 73.1% between 2010 and 2020, and the Census Bureau's July 2025 estimate is 3,140, according to the Summerset entry on Wikipedia. Three utilities serve one small city. The City of Summerset says most of the city gets water from the Black Hawk Water User District, Sun Valley Estates gets it from the Diamond D Water Company, and the city owns and runs its own sewer. Summerset Meadows Estates is platted with lots of 1.6 to 3.9 acres on paved roads.

Piedmont is where the biggest road project in the area is under way. I-90 Exit 46, along with parts of Elk Creek Road and Sturgis Road, is being fully rebuilt from June 2026 through December 2028 at an estimated $77.7 million, and the phase dates are in the roads section below. Piedmont Valley Elementary, a Meade School District school for kindergarten through fourth grade, and the Piedmont Valley Library on North 2nd Street both serve the valley between Rapid City and Sturgis.

Sturgis is the Meade County seat, and in August it is the Rally. The 86th Sturgis Motorcycle Rally ran August 7 to 16, 2026, and sturgis.com puts average attendance around 500,000 a year since the 1990s. The City of Sturgis reports that every home in its own Creek Side Subdivision on Woodland Drive has sold, and the city has commissioned a housing needs study looking 10 to 15 years ahead.

North of town on Highway 79, Bear Butte State Park is a place of worship for many Northern Plains tribes, and Game, Fish and Parks asks that the prayer cloths and bundles along the trail be left undisturbed.

The Hills towns: Hill City, Keystone, Custer and Hermosa

Hill City is on the George S. Mickelson Trail, with the trailhead in Tracy Park east of the high school. The Museum at Black Hills Institute on Main Street belongs to the fossil lab that excavated the Tyrannosaurus rex known as Sue. If you are buying in Hill City, the 2026 news is sewer. DRG News reported on April 13, 2026 that the state awarded the city a $1,659,000 Clean Water State Revolving Fund loan, a $2,000,000 construction grant and a $1,000,000 General Fund grant. The money repairs its wastewater treatment system and adds a second treatment unit, which expands treatment capacity.

Keystone is the gateway town below Mount Rushmore, which the National Park Service counted at 1.91 million recreation visits in 2025. U.S. 16 from Rapid City is the road to it, and the interchange work on that road is in the roads section. The 1880 Train runs between depots in Hill City and Keystone, and the state's water plan includes further phases of a regional water system to serve the Hermosa and Keystone areas.

Custer County is the third county in the area. The Census Bureau's 2025 estimate for the county is 9,431 people. Custer is the county seat, with the 1881 Courthouse Museum on Mt Rushmore Road and, in Way Park, an 1875 log cabin the City of Custer describes as the oldest building in the Black Hills. The Custer County Library runs the main library in Custer and a branch in Hermosa. Custer State Park covers about 71,000 acres, and a park entrance license is required to drive inside it.

East on I-90, Wall has a community library and Wounded Knee: The Museum on Main Street, and New Underwood is partway through a $4,010,000 drinking water project, per the city's own minutes.

What is being built in the Rapid City area

Rapid City issued 2,428 building permits in 2025 worth more than $390.9 million, the third-highest annual valuation in the city's history, as KOTA reported on January 8, 2026. Within that, single-family permits went from 119 in 2024 to 186 in 2025. South Dakota Public Broadcasting reported in August 2025 that 2024 had been an apartment year and single-family building was coming back.

Rapid City's first half of 2026 then set a record, with 1,340 permits worth more than $273.3 million, per KOTA on July 21, 2026, and August 2026 alone topped $55 million.

In southeastern Rapid City, Black Hills Area Habitat for Humanity has bought 4.25 acres at the southwest corner of East Saint Charles Street and Creek Drive for East Creek Village. It is 40 townhouse units, the largest project a Habitat affiliate has taken on in South Dakota. Dakota News Now reported on February 7, 2026 a target of roughly $350,000 or less for a three-bedroom, two-bath home. Most units sell to income-qualifying participants who complete financial classes and put in at least 200 hours of their own labor. As of that report the next step was final design, with construction hoped for by spring.

There is no permit cap, moratorium or growth boundary in the area that I know of. The two big counties do regulate land differently, though. Pennington County has a zoning ordinance, revised January 7, 2026. Meade County's comprehensive plan, adopted June 11, 2024, describes the county's regulating tools as a subdivision ordinance from 1980 and a floodplain development ordinance, and says the plan itself is not a regulating document. So for a lot near the Pennington-Meade county line, what can be built next door depends on which county the lot is in, and that county's planning office is the place to ask.

The road projects that change a commute

I-90 Exit 46 at Piedmont. The full reconstruction of the interchange and parts of Elk Creek Road and Sturgis Road runs June 2026 through December 2028, with Heavy Constructors of Rapid City as the prime contractor. The South Dakota DOT's project page expects Phase 1 to finish by November 25, 2026, with both roads paved by the end of November and I-90 lane closures through then. Phase 2 is scheduled for March through November 2027. If you will commute from Piedmont, Summerset or Black Hawk into Rapid City, you will be driving through that work for two more years.

U.S. 16, 16B and Catron Boulevard. On the south side, the state held a public meeting on August 4, 2026 about rebuilding the U.S. 16 and Catron Boulevard interchange in three phases of about two years each. The DOT's corridor page lays them out: new ramps first, then new bridges over Catron, then the rebuild of Catron Boulevard itself. Construction is expected to begin in 2027, and the reported completion horizon runs to 2032 or 2033 depending on the account. U.S. 16 is the road to Mount Rushmore, so this project is on the area's tourism road and one of its growing residential sides at the same time.

The airport. Rapid City Regional Airport boarded 206,010 passengers from January through June 2026, its highest first-half total ever, and a $20 million federal grant for a terminal expansion was announced in February 2026.

Schools: three districts and the November 3, 2026 bond

Rapid City Area Schools, District 51-4, serves all of Rapid City except the land with the airport, plus part of Box Elder. The Douglas School District, 51-1, is headquartered in Box Elder, has addresses in both Pennington and Meade counties, and had 2,808 students in 2025-26. The Meade School District, 46-1, is headquartered in Sturgis and runs 11 schools, including Piedmont Valley Elementary. Since one Box Elder address can be in either of two districts, please check the district's own map for the specific address rather than the town.

On November 3, 2026, Rapid City Area Schools voters decide a $107 million facilities bond. The board advanced it to the ballot in April 2026, and a 60% supermajority is required under South Dakota law. SDPB reported on April 9, 2026 that no Rapid City school bond has passed since the state adopted that requirement in 1973, so a yes would be the district's first in 53 years. The named projects include heating and cooling systems, security, a $12 million renovation and addition at South Park Elementary to remove portable classrooms, and about $20 million of upgrades at Stevens High School. A new elementary school is on the list too, and its location is reported as the east side in some coverage and south Rapid City in others.

The estimated levy is about $0.49 per $1,000 of assessed valuation. A levy is a tax rate, and South Dakota states it in dollars per $1,000 of assessed value; a mill is one dollar of tax for every $1,000. KOTA's bond coverage used the example of a home assessed at $400,000, where that levy comes to about $196 a year. If the bond passes, that line is added to the tax bill on a home in the district, and the tax bill is part of the monthly payment we look at when we figure out what you qualify for.

Hospitals: Monument Health's busy year

Monument Health is the hospital system here, and it opened three new access points in one year. A second emergency room, the Monument Health Emergency Services and Medical Campus at 1911 East Mall Drive, opened on June 10, 2026. Monument Health's announcement describes 16,750 square feet with a lab, X-ray and CT, and 24-hour emergency care on the I-90 corridor. The Rapid Valley Clinic has been open since September 2025 and the Box Elder Clinic since August 2025, both with urgent and primary care.

Rapid City Medical Center joined Monument Health on May 1, 2026, with family medicine, internal medicine, OB/GYN, pediatrics, rheumatology and urgent care moving to Monument locations, as SDPB reported when the letter of intent was signed. Many of the center's physicians joined Monument and others stayed independent, so it is worth asking where a particular doctor practices now. Black Hills Surgical Hospital is a separate hospital in Rapid City, and if you see "Regional Health" on an older document, that is Monument Health's former name.

The county and the school district on any address

The area is Pennington County, which is home to Rapid City and is the state's second most populous county; Meade County, which includes Sturgis, Summerset, Black Hawk and Piedmont; and Custer County. The Census Bureau's 2024 count for all three together is 156,227, up 6.0% since 2020. Custer County joined this metro when the federal government redrew metro areas in OMB Bulletin 23-01 in July 2023, so an older source that describes the Rapid City metro as two counties is out of date.

Two things are worth checking on any address before you compare it with another:

• Box Elder is one city in two counties. Most of it is in Pennington County and part of it extends into Meade County, as the Box Elder entry on Wikipedia notes. Each county has its own Director of Equalization, the county office that sets assessed values, and its own levies, so two Box Elder homes can get tax bills from two different counties. The same city is split between the Douglas and Rapid City school districts. The county's property records and the district's attendance map answer both questions for a specific address.
• A lot of people here live outside any city. Black Hawk, Rapid Valley, Green Valley and Ashland Heights are unincorporated, with no city government. An unincorporated address usually has a water or sanitary district instead of a city utility, pays a rural fire district's levy instead of a city levy, and follows the county's land rules rather than a city's.

How property tax works on a Rapid City-area home

South Dakota taxes a home you live in at a lower levy than other property, but only after you ask for it. The owner-occupied classification has to be applied for with the county Director of Equalization by March 15, by county office or the electronic form on the South Dakota Department of Revenue's property tax page. It turns on owning and occupying the home on November 1 of the prior year, and it means a lower mill levy rather than a dollar exemption. So if you close on a Rapid City home in December and move in afterward, it is worth asking Pennington County right away how the classification works for your next tax year, because the November 1 test has already passed.

The tax bill on a parcel here is a sum of several lines: the county levy, the city or township levy, the school levy, any rural fire, rural library or water district levy, and any special assessment. There is no single "Pennington County property tax rate," so the reliable way to compare a home in Rapid City with one in Black Hawk is to put the two actual tax bills side by side. If the seller had the owner-occupied classification and you have not yet filed for it, an escrow estimate built from the seller's bill can come in low for your first year. I explain how a purchase changes a tax bill in plain terms in what happens to your property taxes after you buy.

Pennington County's Director of Equalization mails assessment notices by March 1 each year, and the Rapid City Journal reported that the 2026 notices covered about 57,000 parcels at a median assessed level of about 96% of market value. If you disagree with an assessment, Pennington County's appeal page sets two deadlines. For a home inside a city, written notice goes to the local board of equalization by the end of the day on March 12; for a home outside one, it goes to the county by April 7. An appeal is about whether the assessment is accurate and fair, and it is not a way to argue that the tax itself is too high.

A 2025 law, Senate Bill 216, caps growth in a county's total owner-occupied assessed value at 3% a year for taxes payable 2027 through 2031, with room for new construction, so it does not affect a 2026 bill. And South Dakota's real estate transfer fee is paid by the seller under SDCL 43-4-21, which the South Dakota page covers along with the rest of the state's closing rules.

Water, sewer and septic

Inside Rapid City, the city adopted a multi-year rate schedule of about 10% a year for water and 12% a year for sewer through 2028, described on the City of Rapid City's utility rates page. Outside the city, a different utility sends the bill: the Rapid Valley Sanitary District in Rapid Valley, the Black Hawk Water User District for Black Hawk and most of Summerset, and the Diamond D Water Company for Sun Valley Estates. On the long view, Rapid City's water comes largely from Pactola Reservoir. Officials said on August 4, 2026 that the Pactola and Rapid Creek watershed should have enough water for nearly the next century if it is managed properly, as SDPB reported.

If the home is on a septic system, Pennington County has a rule that lands in the closing timeline. A new Operating License is required before the sale or transfer of a property with an on-site wastewater treatment system, unless one was issued within the previous six years and the number of bedrooms has not increased. Pennington County's operating license page puts the fee at $20, with the inspection done by a certified Liquid Waste Pumper of the owner's choosing, and county staff can attend at no extra cost. It is worth asking the seller early whether a current license exists, so it is in hand before closing.

If you are looking at acreage, section 331 of the county zoning ordinance requires an on-site system wherever there is no public sewer or community lagoon. With an approved central water system, a lot needs at least 20,000 square feet to carry one. The Pennington County Planning Department at 900 Concourse Drive, Suite 160 can tell you what a specific lot allows.

Flood: why there is a park through the middle of the city

The greenway along Rapid Creek in the opening paragraph is there because of June 9 and 10, 1972. About 15 inches of rain fell over a small part of the eastern Black Hills, and 238 people died. Most of the deaths and damage were in Rapid City, where businesses and homes had been built in the Rapid Creek floodplain, as the Association of State Dam Safety Officials records. Afterward the city rezoned the floodplain and rebuilt it as parks, and the greenway now runs the length of the city.

FEMA issued a flood map for the Rapid City area on February 18, 1998, then new maps and a flood insurance study for Pennington County on June 3, 2013. The city's floodplain management page lists later revisions in the Haines Avenue, South Canyon Creek and Robbinsdale drainage basins, approved in October 2016. Rapid City also participates in FEMA's Community Rating System, under which a community earns a discount of 5% to 45% on National Flood Insurance Program policies. The city's current class is something a flood insurance agent can confirm for a specific address. For a property in FEMA's high-risk flood area, called the Special Flood Hazard Area, the lender will require flood insurance, and that premium becomes part of your monthly payment. I explain how to price it in before you make an offer in buying a home in a flood zone.

Wildfire and homeowners insurance in the Black Hills

The Black Hills National Forest has averaged 92 wildfires a year over the past 30 years, burning about 7,507 acres a year, according to SDSU Extension, which also publishes guidance on protecting a home and its landscape. In March 2026, high winds drove fires across Pennington, Meade and Custer counties, with evacuations and a power shutoff in the southern Hills. KOTA reported on March 19, 2026 that the Coyote Flats Fire damaged homes near Rockerville before crews stopped it. Pennington County launched a wildfire preparedness campaign that month, and in September its fire officials described the city as in the 90th percentile of wildfire risk.

You will want a homeowners insurance quote on the specific home early, especially for a home in or near the Hills. The agent can tell you what the carrier wants to see about the roof, the defensible space around the home and the access road. That premium is part of your monthly payment, so it belongs in the budget before the offer.

Renting the home out, and the Rally

If you plan to rent the home out while you are away, Rapid City now registers vacation homes. Ordinance No. 6698, approved by the City Council in December 2025, defines a vacation home as a residence inside the city limits rented in its entirety with no owner or manager present. The rental has to be for no more than 28 consecutive days and for more than 14 days in a year to count. KOTA's coverage of the new rules puts the annual registration fee at $70, with fines of up to $500 a day for operating without one. Keystone, Hill City, Custer and the two counties set their own rules, so please ask each one directly. The way you plan to use the home also changes how the loan is written, so it is worth bringing up with me early.

The Rally is a scheduling fact for the whole area, too: Monument Health times its service expansions to it, and hotels, roads and emergency rooms plan around the second week of August. If you are moving in August, that is worth knowing before you book the truck.

Your mortgage payment and timeline in the Rapid City area

In 2024, lenders made 1,837 home purchase loans in the Rapid City area, according to federal Home Mortgage Disclosure Act data. Of those, 412 were VA loans and 325 were FHA loans, a 40% share that is the highest of South Dakota's three largest metros. The 412 VA purchases are the most in the state, and Ellsworth is the reason. If you are buying on orders or as a veteran, how VA loans work in South Dakota covers entitlement, the funding fee and the state's disabled veteran property tax exemption. The seller's exemption does not carry over to you, and your own starts only when you file for it.

There is no median sale price on this page. The Black Hills Association of REALTORS and the Black Hills MLS have not published one that I could find, and the portal figures that turn up in a search cover different footprints and disagree. All three counties share the same 2026 conforming and FHA loan limits, shown in the box below this article. The conforming limit is the largest loan Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will buy in a county, and a loan above it is called a jumbo loan. The page on conforming versus jumbo loans explains what changes when a loan crosses that limit.

The county and school levies, the homeowners and any flood insurance, and any association dues are all part of the monthly payment a lender qualifies you on. The septic operating license and the owner-occupied filing date are part of the timeline. Pre-approval in South Dakota covers what the letter is based on and why a generic closing cost estimate tends to run high here.

Once you're ready, you can run your numbers for a Rapid City-area purchase: rates for your scenario and South Dakota closing costs, with no credit pull and no account. Choose the option that works best for you, and the application opens from there.

Nothing here is a loan approval, a denial or a commitment to lend, and it is not tax advice. The value the county uses for a specific parcel, and whether it gets the owner-occupied classification, are set by that county's Director of Equalization, so please confirm them with the county office.

Common questions

Is the B-21 Raider at Ellsworth Air Force Base yet?

No. The aircraft are scheduled to arrive at Ellsworth in 2027, and as of July 2026 the exact date was still to be determined. The base accepted its first two B-21 facilities in July 2026, and the homes, clinics and the planned elementary school in Box Elder are being built for the personnel and families the transition brings.

Is Box Elder in Pennington County or Meade County?

Both. Most of Box Elder is in Pennington County and part of it extends into Meade County, and the city is also split between the Douglas and Rapid City Area school districts. The county decides which Director of Equalization assesses the home and which levies are on its tax bill, so please confirm both for the specific address before you compare two Box Elder homes.

Do I have to apply for the owner-occupied property tax classification in South Dakota?

Yes. You file with the county Director of Equalization by March 15, and the classification turns on owning and occupying the home on November 1 of the prior year. It gives you a lower levy rather than a dollar exemption. If you close late in the year on a Pennington, Meade or Custer County home, it is worth asking that county right away how the timing affects your next bill.

Why is there a park running along Rapid Creek through the middle of Rapid City?

Because of the flood of June 1972, which killed 238 people, most of them in Rapid City where homes and businesses had been built in the Rapid Creek floodplain. The city rezoned the floodplain afterward and rebuilt it as parks, and the public greenway and bike path now run the length of the city along the creek.

Does Pennington County require a septic inspection before a home sells?

Yes. Pennington County requires a new Operating License before the sale or transfer of a property with an on-site wastewater treatment system, unless a license was issued within the previous six years and the number of bedrooms has not increased. A certified Liquid Waste Pumper of the owner's choosing does the inspection, and county staff can attend on request.

Can I rent out my Rapid City home as a vacation rental?

Inside the Rapid City limits, a home rented in its entirety with no owner or manager present, for no more than 28 consecutive days and more than 14 days a year, is a vacation home under Ordinance No. 6698. It has to be registered with the city each year. Keystone, Hill City, Custer and the counties set their own rules, so please ask each one directly.