By Heather McGregor
Staff Writer
February 5, 2001
New ideas are surfacing for ways that local governments can encourage development of housing that’s affordable for working class folks.
Colin Laird, director of Healthy Mountain Communities, recently offered the Glenwood Springs City Council an update on new ideas now under consideration in Carbondale and Basalt.
Some of the ideas may turn up later this month, when a second draft of a proposed Glenwood Springs affordable housing ordinance faces City Council review.
The new incentives could kick in when developers propose new residential or commercial projects, Laird said.
In each case, local governments must prove that the new development creates a need for affordable housing in order to require affordable housing units or fees.
That proof, in the jargon of government officials, is called a rational nexus.
For residential development, affordable housing advocates are contemplating three new incentives.
– A size limits incentive would reduce the required percentage of affordable housing units in a development if the free-market homes were limited in size to, say, 1,100 to 1,400 square feet.
"It’s better to get as many small units as possible, rather than a few big ones," Laird said. Size limits would also reduce the price on the free-market units, he said.
Carbondale plans to include this incentive in its affordable housing ordinance, Laird said, and Basalt is considering it.
– A below market-rate incentive would offer developers a reduction in the required percentage of affordable housing units equal to a reduction in the sale price of free-market units.
For example, cutting free- market prices by 10 percent would translate to a 10-percent cut in the affordable-housing requirement.
For now, said Laird, Carbondale passed on this idea.
– An owner-occupied incentive builds on the below-market idea, offering developers an affordable-housing credit for ensuring that free-market homes, priced 5 to 10 percent below the market rate, are also owner-occupied.
"Carbondale liked the idea of homes as a place for people to live, not a way to make money," Laird said.
Glenwood Springs Councilwoman Mary Steinbrecher asked how long the owner-occupied requirement would stay in place. Laird said that issue, and many other details associated with the new ideas, haven’t been answered.
For commercial and monster home development, three more ideas are on the table.
– Basalt requires developers of commercial property to provide affordable housing units for 20 percent of the new employment that results from the development. It’s called commercial linkage.
But applying this to businesses with fewer than 20 employees gets tricky. Laird explained a "sliding scale" concept in place in Basalt that links the number of new employees to the percentage requirement.
For example, a new commercial development that creates 10 jobs would have to provide affordable housing for 10 percent of the workers — or one unit.
Laird said Carbondale is waiting to see what Glenwood Springs does with the commercial linkage requirement in its affordable housing ordinance.
Carbondale wants to encourage commercial development and affordable housing, Laird said. But the town is reluctant to impose housing requirements on commercial development unless Glenwood Springs does the same.
– A similar idea deals with monster homes, which end up creating jobs for housecleaners, gardeners, snowplow drivers and other service workers.
The idea, called residential linkage, is to impose a proportional affordable-housing fee for new houses that top a certain size, such as 5,000 square feet.
The concept is similar to the water and sewer improvement fees that the city charges for new homes, said city manager Mike Copp. Those fees are saved for future expansions of the city’s water and sewer facilities.
Laird said Summit, Gunnison and San Miguel counties jointly funded a residential- linkage study to prove that monster homes fuel employment.
Valley governments would need to do a similar study, at $10,000 to $15,000, in order to impose such a fee requirement, he advised.
–"Replacement housing" is the other new idea on Laird’s list.
It applies to low-cost rental housing and trailer parks that are slated for demolition and redevelopment into commercial or upscale residential uses.
Basalt requires a 100 percent replacement rate of affordable housing lost to redevelopment, but the measure has never been tested, Laird said. Aspen requires 50 percent replacement.
"Basically, this keeps property from being redeveloped," Laird said.
"We’re not against redevelopment. But we don’t want to lose those units," he added.