The Crested Butte News Serving the Gunnison Valley since 1999
Gathering input for a late October draft
by Mark Reaman
In an effort to formulate a tangible affordable housing operations plan for the county, the Gunnison Valley Regional Housing Authority has hired affordable housing consultant Willa Williford and is reaching out to the various government entities in the valley for suggestions.
Williford met with the Crested Butte Town Council on Monday and they supplied her with some ideas, including the need for a good public process when talking about any affordable housing development.
“We want to build on all the planning efforts of the last five or six years,” Williford told the council at the September 24 meeting. “All four entities [Crested Butte, Mt. Crested Butte, Gunnison County and the city of Gunnison] have identified different goals and methods so we want to meet with each and come up with an overall plan.” Williford said the hope is to release a first draft of a completed plan by the end of October.
The draft mission statement for the housing authority plan would be to “support the character and economic vitality of each of the communities in the Gunnison Valley by increasing housing choices and opportunities for local residents.”
“Each community is unique and all will have different goals in this area within the larger goal of more housing,” noted councilman Chris Haver.
“I am encouraged with the progress from everyone at the moment,” added mayor Jim Schmidt. “The county is building some units at Stallion Park, the city of Gunnison just had a LIHTC [Low Income Housing Tax Credit] project approved and is looking at some other areas. Mt. Crested Butte is moving with the Homestead subdivision. We are moving on the Paradise Park projects. It is encouraging to see everyone doing real projects.”
Councilman Paul Merck noted that local wages were not growing at the same rate as housing costs and should be addressed in the plan. Williford said that element was part of the draft “Guiding Principles,” where not just physical units would be part of a successful plan, but also “a holistic approach to affordability is needed—we acknowledge that physical deed-restricted homes are the most tangible element of housing affordability, but energy efficiency, transportation, healthcare, childcare, and local wages are all ingredients in a sustainable local cost of living.”
Schmidt added that including ways to provide people with down payment and mortgage assistance along with exploring ideas such as buying down free market units would be valuable as part of the holistic measures.
“This is not a situation you build yourself out of and recognize the place 20 years from now,” Williford said of the local housing shortage. “So purchasing existing units and putting on a deed restriction can be one tool.”
As part of the draft plan there is a chart showing what each of the four entities are doing to encourage affordable housing; Crested Butte has most of the boxes ticked off. The two areas without a checkmark were using an expedited development review for affordable housing projects and updating the land use code to remove barriers.
“I feel good about our code,” said Schmidt. “Some people say they want us to change it to remove barriers so we can add more density but that probably means eliminating parking and places for snow removal. We need those things. Allowing taller buildings would change Crested Butte.”
“I would love to see a list from the staff of things in the code considered low hanging fruit that we might address,” said councilman Jackson Petito. “There may be a few things out there we can talk about to make it easier.”
Yerman also pointed out that while the current Paradise Park project is in an R-2 zone, the upcoming annexation north of town would provide a place where higher density units could be located.
Haver wanted to ensure that in the case of an economic downturn, the housing authority did not give up deed restrictions on properties. He also requested some expert guidance to help come up with strategies. He acknowledged the success in the public process used to move forward with the Paradise Park subdivision project near Rainbow Park. “I love what we did with Block 76 [the block near Rainbow Park] and the public process,” Haver said. “We should review the process and tweak it to make it even better.”
Yerman said the public engagement aspect has sometimes been lacking with some projects throughout the county.
“It is public money or public land so the public has to be involved,” said Haver.
“The town has done a good job with public engagement,” said Yerman. “It is important to community partnerships. We need regional buy-in for regional projects with the big need we have.”
Schmidt noted that the controversial Brush Creek proposal might have benefited with some more early public involvement.
“My subjective criteria for the public process is that it makes the project better,” said Williford. “What I worry about is a NIMBY [Not In My Back Yard] group stopping good projects, so I want to think about that more.”
“The amount of public process is scalable,” suggested town manager Dara MacDonald. “The county doing four duplexes probably doesn’t need much. The town doing Paradise Park calls for more.”
The council wanted, as part of the town goals, to have at least 30 percent of the housing units in town be deed restricted. Councilman Will Dujardin said he wanted it known that the council aspired to have 70 percent of the homes in town occupied by year-round locals. In 2012 that number was about 67 percent, when 733 out of 1,099 dwellings were occupied by long-term locals. The 2018 town census is being conducted and updated number will be released later this year.
Yerman said the council should be looking at income levels that need housing, given that in the recent town housing survey, several long-time local households making more than 200 percent of the Area Median Income (AMI) said they needed housing.
“This plan is meant to guide the spending of the money if the tax initiative that is out there this fall is approved,” said Yerman. “It can be a guiding document for the next ten years. And it will probably mean more to our neighbors since town probably doesn’t have a lot of projects left.”
Yerman also made it clear the housing authority had no desire to compete with the free market but rather was meant to fill in the gaps that come when the free market is busy, such as now.
Williford said the county commissioners and the councils from Gunnison and Mt. Crested Butte would also be polled on what they want to see in a comprehensive plan.
