Town moving toward workforce housing by Rainbow Park

Potential residents provide feedback

By Mark Reaman

The town of Crested Butte is working to get everything set so that Block 76, the parcel next to the Rainbow Park soccer field, can be developed as affordable housing next summer.

Because the town wants to develop Block 76 before all the affordable housing lots in the Paradise Park subdivision are built out, the town needs the okay from the original developers, Bill Lacy and Daniel Dow. Then an amendment to the annexation agreement would need to be executed by both the town and the developer. That process appears to be moving in a positive direction.

The council passed a resolution to amend the Verzuh Annexation Agreement on Monday, August 20. That paves the way to start development of the block next year. As part of the agreement with the developers, the project has to be completed in one phase.

“The biggest thing I see with doing Block 76 in one year is that it will minimize the impacts to the park and the neighborhood,” community development director Michael Yerman told the Town Council at the August 7 meeting. “It will also provide efficiencies that can help keep the costs down.”

Yerman said the town conducted a housing survey for potential buyers and had 184 responses. Yerman said the “key takeaways” were that long-term locals need housing; only 38 of the people who responded would qualify for a conventional loan, while 81 would need a subsidized loan; and most people would like to live in a two-bedroom, two-bath type of unit. Yerman also said 96 of the respondents had pets.

The town received four submittals from developers interested in building the potential units on the site. Council followed the advice of a local review committee and chose three to move to the next step of meeting with council and the public. They include Bywater, LLC; Coburn Development; and The Morrison Group.

The groups will take community input and develop individual proposals that will then be presented to the community at a September 17 meeting. The town will subsidize all three groups to the tune of $5,000 to develop a plan. From there the council will select a developer for the project on October 1 and begin the BOZAR (Board of Zoning and Architectural Review) process. That is expected to take much of the winter. Breaking ground on the project is expected to happen next spring.