Workforce housing pilot project coming to Prospect?

Mt. Crested Butte, Community Rebuilds poised to partner on low-income housing

by Alissa  Johnson

A nonprofit organization dedicated to building low-cost, energy-efficient housing has approached the town of Mt. Crested Butte about a partnership to create affordable housing in the Prospect Homestead subdivision.

At a September 1 work session, Community Rebuilds outlined a proposal to build a duplex on a town-owned affordable housing lot as a pilot for what could become a long-term affordable housing program.

The proposal is based on a development model that Community Rebuilds has successfully implemented in Moab, Utah, down valley in Gunnison, and on Navajo and Hopi Reservations. The organization’s executive director, Emily Niehaus, sees expansion into the north end of the valley as a natural step for Community Rebuilds.

“The affordable housing issues that face a tourism-based economy are similar in Moab and Mt. Crested Butte. We hope to learn a lot from how affordable housing is maintained and encouraged here by participating in the solution with your community,” Niehaus wrote in the proposal.

The council’s response to the idea was overwhelmingly positive, with some remorse expressed that the units will not be reserved for Mt. Crested Butte employees or residents.

A proven record

According to Niehaus, Community Rebuilds started in Moab four years ago “to address affordable housing needs and help families living in single-wide trailers replace their homes with a unit that has a modest mortgage and create something so energy efficient they could actually trade a utility payment for a mortgage payment.”

To do that, the organization utilizes straw bale construction and natural plasters both inside and outside of the home, and builds passive and active solar homes. Interns in Community Rebuild’s sustainable building education program also do much of the construction under the supervision of a professional builder, even earning credit through Utah State University. As a result, the organization has been able to reduce the cost of building by half.

“At the end of this year we’ll have built 15 homes and educated more than 160 students,” Niehaus said at the work session, adding that the houses have become so popular that families with higher income levels have inquired about how to get one.

While the interest is a compliment, Community Rebuilds serves only families that make less than 80 percent of the Adjusted Median Income (AMI).

Possibilities in Mt. Crested Butte

While Community Rebuilds has its roots in Moab, it’s no stranger to the Gunnison Valley. Local engineer, Dodson Harper of REG (Resource Engineering Group) sits on the board of directors and the organization partnered with builder Dusty Szymanski on a home in Gunnison in 2013. They have also signed an agreement to work with Crested Butte architect Andrew Hadley should a project move forward in Mt. Crested Butte.

According to town manager Joe Fitzpatrick, staff in the Mt. Crested Butte Planning Department started meeting with Community Rebuilds a few weeks ago. “We have a great need [for affordable housing] in the valley but don’t have funds for construction. This is what I would consider an out-of-the-box idea to make something happen. We have a subdivision where the infrastructure is in place and the only thing missing is a building,” Fitzpatrick told the council.

Niehaus said she is very confident the project would be successful in Mt. Crested Butte, particularly after site visits and consultations with the town, Harper, and Hadley. “We are very positive… and we would love to show you all what we can do and hopefully replicate it and scale it in the future,” she said.

The proposal is to design a duplex according to the Prospect Affordable Housing Master Plan and Design Guidelines as well as associated deed restrictions, with some modifications to allow three-bedroom units instead of two-bedroom units. Allowing for in-home offices has been successful on past projects.

Using local advertising, Community Rebuilds found and pre-qualified two families to purchase the units using USDA loans. Both have roots in the community, one working at the Adaptive Sports Center and the other at the Crested Butte Nordic Center.

The goal is to complete the house by fall of 2016. An aggressive timeline seeks to complete the foundation this November, start framing in April and conduct a three-month student education program over the summer to complete construction (Community Rebuilds plans to hire a local contractor to complete the foundation and framing). Plans are also in the works to have Western Colorado State University provide housing for interns.

The timeline might seem aggressive, Harper acknowledged, but pointed out that Community Rebuilds has a history of completing projects on time and under efficient timelines.

Council supportive with some hesitations about pre-qualified families

Despite a couple of reservations, the council spoke overwhelmingly in favor of the proposal. Mayor David Clayton pointed out that weather in Mt. Crested Butte might make the proposed timeline difficult to meet, with snow falling early in the season and melting late. Councilmembers Danny D’Aquila and Todd Barnes expressed some concern about the selection of families to occupy the homes.

“Who’s going to determine that they exactly meet our requirements?” councilmember Todd Barnes wanted to know.

“They still have to be qualified under everything that’s in that deed restriction,” Fitzpatrick explained.

“If we’re going to put people in there and give them decent land, we want people who are going to pay the note and stay,” Barnes said.

“The two people have been here for a long time, and I’m almost positive they meet the deed restrictions of the county,” Harper said.

“They do,” Niehaus confirmed.

“They’re definitely people that are ingrained in the community,” Harper added. The idea still gave D’Aquila some trouble.

“I was getting excited before understanding you’ve pre-qualified two families…” he said. ”Couldn’t we put our people [current town employees or town residents] first, or are we beyond that?”

Dodson explained, “After the 2013 build we were trying to move forward to the next one, so we advertised. We have some USDA requirements we have to meet, so we’ve actually been talking with these people for two years.” He suggested that down the road, they could discuss how to make the homes available to employees or residents. “Right now for us, in terms of trying to fast-track this and get the foundation in, the USDA process is cumbersome. We’d like to come in here and prove to the community that this process works here.”

“We are willing and open to taking applications from anybody in this community,” Niehaus said, emphasizing that the council could direct staff and residents to the Community Rebuilds website. When the topic resurfaced later in the meeting, she also pointed out that if the council wanted to give preference to staff or residents, applicants would still need to meet Community Rebuilds requirements.

“We as a nonprofit are held to [the income level of] 80 percent or below AMI… We are targeting the families that could not otherwise attempt to get into home ownership,” Niehaus said.

In the end, the council was overwhelmingly in favor of the idea. Councilmember Gary Keiser seemed to capture the sentiment when he said, “We have to keep in mind that our objective is to build units that people can live in at little or no cost to the town. It’s a no brainer.”

From this point forward, the actual design for the building will go through the Mt. Crested Butte Planning Commission for approvals. An agreement will also need to be reached between the town and Community Rebuilds that would allow them to build on a town parcel in the Prospect Homestead subdivision.

That agreement still needs to be outlined, according to Fitzpatrick, but he’s “very optimistic we’re going to make something happen.”