The Crested Butte News Serving the Gunnison Valley since 1999
“The town is still committed to completing this project”
By Kendra Walker
The town of Mt. Crested Butte is working to take lessons learned from the unfinished Homestead affordable housing development and move forward with a communicative developer with experience in mountain towns, gather community feedback on the redesign and complete the project in a timely manner.
During a Homestead Housing Project Open House on October 19, the town and its new Homestead developer Bywater Development/SHM Architects shared the current plans for the 22-unit development and opened the floor for feedback and questions from the community, neighbors and former Homestead contract holders to help inform the redesign. Mt. Crested Butte town manager Carlos Velado shared with the Crested Butte News that he was pleased with the turnout and the feedback they received from both the current residents in the subdivision along with the prospective buyers.
Background
To kick off the meeting, Velado gave an overview of the Homestead affordable housing development. In November 2018, the town of Mt. Crested Butte, Prospect Development Company, Inc. and Homestead Housing, LLC entered into a construction contract to buy, sell and develop deed restricted housing in the Prospect Homestead Subdivision. Neither the town nor Prospect retained any ownership or development rights related to the Homestead property while development was underway. Construction of the 22-unit Homestead affordable housing project began in 2020 by Lance Windel of Homestead Housing LLC; however, Homestead Housing failed to fulfill its contractual requirement to construct and sell the units by December 31, 2020 and negotiated some time extensions to build the units. In the fall of 2021, Windel went into default of his contracts with the Homestead unit owners, leaving the construction incomplete. Earlier this year, the town closed on a General Mutual Release and Settlement Agreement and agreed to pay Homestead Housing $750,000 for all the Homestead property rights. The town is currently working with Bywater Development to finalize the main contract to complete the project.
“I want to first extend my sincerest apologies for where we currently sit with this project right now,” said Velado. “The goal is to start moving forward to get this project finished in a quality and timely manner and as soon as we can to get these units filled with valuable people in our community. We’re taking it back to the drawing board to get feedback from you all on what you want to see and what you don’t want to see, do’s and don’ts, etc. The town is still committed to completing this project.”
Project timing
In the coming weeks, Bywater Development will work with a subcontractor to begin demolition of all the existing buildings and infrastructure. The demolition will begin in early November and all the framing and existing structures are scheduled to be removed by Thanksgiving. The remainder of the concrete foundations will be removed in April or May and the site will be prepped for construction. Joel Wisian of Bywater said he anticipates construction to begin in May or June 2024, with the goal to have all homes ready for occupancy within 12 months. “We’re looking at June of 2025,” he said. “Timing will go fairly quickly once we do get to break ground.”
Design
The design of the redevelopment is still conceptual, said Wisian, but Bywater/SHM Architects plans to initially build six two-bedroom and 16 three-bedroom units, ranging from 1,100 to 1,350 square feet. During the meeting, Wisian took a straw poll from interested contract buyers to learn their desired bedroom count, with approximately nine interested in three-bedrooms and three interested in two-bedrooms.
The interiors will be redesigned to create more openness, functionality and livability than the previous layouts. All the units will have a one-car garage, be energy efficient, and include durable materials for easy livability and long-term maintenance.
Bywater also built the Paradise Park affordable housing units and numerous other projects in the area. “We have experience building here,” said Wisian. “We understand the climate and difficulties.”
Pricing
Based on 2023 AMIs, the proposed unit prices range from $295,570 to $563,807. Velado said that the town is working to help make the units as affordable as possible, including providing down payment assistance from the town’s affordable housing fund covered by a 2.9% excise tax on short-term rentals. “The town plans to underwrite a substantial contribution to help offset some of those costs,” said Velado. He said the town’s contribution will most likely be a few million dollars and they are pursuing various state and federal grant funding opportunities as well. “We’re doing everything we can to make the units more affordable.”
Gunnison Valley Regional Housing Authority (GVRHA) executive director Andy Kadlec also noted the GVRHA is working on its own down payment assistance program in the next year to hopefully help with the unit prices as well.
Homestead lottery
Kadlec explained that any previous Homestead contract holders are still guaranteed a unit. “If you were a buyer under contract in the past, your space is honored and you will have first rights to reenter into a new contract on a home,” he said. “We’ll work with you all to decide what makes the most sense for you. The goal is to make it as equitable to the stakeholders that were there in 2020 as possible.”
Kadlec said the GVRHA intends to get all the former contract holders back under contract before bringing any leftover units into a lottery for the general public. “By the end of year we’ll have a much better timeline of when that re-lottery process will happen,” he said.
Neighborhood concerns
Several neighbors in the Prospect subdivision expressed their concerns regarding construction impacts, parking and snow storage.
Regarding parking and snow storage, Velado said the design plans are still preliminary but the town and Bywater/SHM Architects will use community feedback to help inform those decisions. “We recognize the challenges of snow storage, we recognize the challenges of parking,” said Velado. “We’re trying to fix what was originally approved based on what we already know and take into consideration as part of the new design.” Velado also confirmed that the town plans to repave the roads once the project is complete.
“We just lived through three years of construction with trash and broken glass and food and mariachi music all day, every day,” said resident Amy Honan.
“We have a lot of distrust up here in this neighborhood with the town and with developers,” said neighbor Theresa Henry. “We’ve seen it all, we’ve been told the last developer was vetted. We were told we’d be in a construction zone for one year. There needs to be some reparations for us that live up here and some kind of plan. There are quite a few of us that have concerns and we just want to feel like we’re part of the process. Last time we felt like our voices weren’t heard and we were ignored. This is where we live and are raising our families.”
Wisian addressed their concerns regarding construction oversight. “Our goal and driving factor is to make it as least impactful as we can, working with the town on traffic control, material storage, making sure we have the site off limits with fencing and signage.” He noted he will be on site regularly along with a full-time site manager.
Wisian said that Bywater plans to notify the neighbors and community as they go through design review with the town. “In everything we do we are sensitive to our neighbors. It’s a project for us, but we understand it’s your home. We’re going to do our best to make it as manageable as we can throughout the process. If you have an issue, let us know and we’ll resolve it.”
Community resident Veronica Jarolimek lives in a house developed by Bywater and spoke her praises of Wisian and the Bywater team. “I’m a big fan of Bywater. I have had nothing but an amazing experience and have a lot of faith in them.”
Lessons learned
“There’s no denying that it was a disaster,” said Velado of the entire Homestead situation. “Not only do I work for the town, I live in the neighborhood, and also was a contract holder for one of those units. I’ve experienced this from all different angles.”
He continued, “We’re trying to do this project much more diligently this time around to avoid that situation and not do it the way we did it before. Let’s have these meetings, we have a contractor with local experience, let’s get this design input, let’s talk about all these things. While timing is important, let’s still take our time as well.”
