The Crested Butte News Serving the Gunnison Valley since 1999
Council ‘does the right the thing’ and avoids retroactive restrictions
By Mark Reaman
The Crested Butte council on November 18 approved a number of changes to its affordable housing guidelines and the town codes that address such housing.
Goals include moving toward more common deed restriction applicable to all affordable units that have buyer qualification requirements. Current residents would be governed under their existing deed restriction while whoever buys the unit next would be shifted to the updated restrictions. The new restriction will maintain all the material aspects of the original deed restriction, like appreciation caps and income limits, but will reference the new guidelines for administrative process and policies.
The lottery system will be simplified and those in “essential jobs” will no longer get a leg up in the process. Incentives will allow “empty nesters” to easily downsize to smaller affordable units opening up units with more bedrooms to larger households.
The new guidelines loosen the prohibition on owning improved residential real estate. Current owners and applicants for units with buyer qualification requirements may own improved residential property outside of Gunnison County; however, the income and value of the property will be added into the tally of an applicant’s income and assets on homes with those restrictions. Other changes include updated restrictions on allowable transfers of ownership, expanding the list of capital improvements that are eligible to be added to the maximum allowable resale value, and requiring that qualified capital improvements be depreciated.
A majority of council agreed to allow owners of Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs) to have them vacant for up to 90 days instead of 60 while searching for a qualified tenant. The idea there is to perhaps incentivize owners of property to bring more ADUs online throughout town.
The council did agree to not retroactively apply new restrictions to current ADUs in town. Some on council had advocated to apply recently updated restrictions on ADU tenants making them meet more stringent workforce restrictions. Many ADUs did not have a workforce requirement. The new restrictions will now apply only to ADUs approved after May of 2023.
“I don’t like it, but it is the right thing to do,” said councilmember Beth Goldstone who initially wanted to apply the updated regulations retroactively.
After lengthy discussion about whether a two-person household should be allowed to apply for a three-bedroom unit with the idea that the household might eventually expand, the council supported “right sizing” larger households for larger units in the lottery. Thus, households of three or more would maintain a priority for units with three or more bedrooms. Rightsizing on smaller units would not come into play, as all households would be in one lottery, regardless of household size.
There was no public comment on the issue and the changes were approved unanimously.
