Across the West, Colorado, mountain communities, and here at home in Chaffee County, it is increasingly challenging to find an affordable home to rent or buy.

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AFFORDABLE HOUSING

• The monthly mortgage or rent cost for an individual or family is < 30% of their gross income. Most state and federal programs target lower income individuals and families between 30-60% AMI for rentals and 60-100% for homeownership. The greatest need in Chaffee County is for lower income options for homeownership and rentals.

 

ATTAINABLE HOUSING

• Many community members, including teachers, firefighters, nurses, and more will often have incomes too high to qualify for state and federal funded affordable housing, yet the price of rents or mortgages in our community are still out of reach. Attainable housing targets middle income individuals and families between 100-160% of AMI. Colorado has a few new “missing middle” programs but funding is very competitive. Access to other creative financing and tools is often required to develop units over 100% of AMI.

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WHAT IS CONSIDERED AFFORDABLE? 

• An average household in Chaffee County earns $75,400 per year. An affordable house would have to cost $252,000 (or less). As anyone who lives in Chaffee County knows, there are very few - if ANY - homes for sale at that price point. The average home in Chaffee County costs $690,000, and a household would have to earn $139,561 to afford it. This is well above what an resident can afford. The Reality: In rural resort regions across the country, housing prices continue to go up as new residents and businesses are attracted to amenity values that contribute to a high quality of life.​

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WHY WOULD THIS PLAN WORK?

• An adequately funding housing authority is a widely used strategy in addressing severe housing issues like those in Chaffee County.  Thankfully, the county has spent years developing and strengthening the Chaffee Housing Authority to the point where funding would be the next step.​  One of the most important strategies for Chaffee County is to preserve existing affordable housing and create new affordable housing that is permanently affordable long into the future. 

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WHAT IS PERMANENTLY AFFORDABLE HOUSING?

• Applies a one-time investment to reduce the cost of housing for income eligible low- and moderate-income home-owners or renters and preserves affordability into the future.For Homeowners: A buyers agree to a cap on their resale in exchange for the public investments that allowed them to afford a home. This resale cap ensures that the unit is affordable for the next purchaser and the public investment is protected for future homeowners.For Rentals: A developer agrees to place income-restrictions on units in exchange for public investments that reduce the costs of building the units to make them affordable. Deed Restrictions, Covenants, or Land Leases The legal mechanisms applied to income restricted units that ensure the unit remains affordable for a specified time period ( for example 15, 30, and 99 years).

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Given that it's estimated that ballot initiative #1 (the sales tax increase) would bring in $3.5 million a year for affordable housing projects in the area, what would the CHA do with that money? 

• Creating affordable housing is all about closing the gap between what it costs to build and how much a person or family can afford. That gap is reduced through all different types of strategies. With an additional $3.5M annually, the CHA can develop new programs and projects that it cannot currently pursue due to lack of financial resources.  One of the goals of the CHA would be to create a regional strategic housing plan with key stakeholders in our community to help guide how resources would be best invested and how we can get the biggest bang for the buck. There are many best practices being implemented in other mountain communities that we want to explore including:

  • ADU incentives for homeowners wishing to build deed restricted ADUs

  • land banking for future projects

  • repurposing motels or commercial space to apartments

  • converting existing units to deed restricted units through a buy down program

  • creating a rental subsidy program to prevent homelessness, prevent displacement from the community and retain our existing housing stock

  • down payment assistance programs  

 

With that newfound money would the CHA no longer pursue grant funding?

• On the contrary-with the funding from the sales tax measure the CHA would be better resourced to pursue and leverage grant funding to benefit our community.

 

What will happen with programs the CHA is already employing? 

The guaranteed, multi-year funding will allow CHA to continue to grow successful programs such as: 

• Housing Continuum of Care Committee

• Housing Navigation Services

• Management of Deed Restrictions

• Coordination of Inclusionary Housing Policies​

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Would it be possible for one measure to pass and one to fail and Jane's Place still be in the clear to be built? 

• Regardless of the outcome of either ballot initiative the Chaffee Housing Authority Board is committed to delivering the Jane’s Place Project to the community. However, approval of both measures will reduce further delays and allow us to deliver on the project as quickly as possible by reducing financing needed for the project and prevent further administrative delays. ​

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What percentage of Chaffee voters would have to be behind these ballot initiatives for it to pass? 

• We need 50% of the total votes cast, plus one vote, to pass a ballot initiative. We know that 100% of voters are impacted by the housing crisis. 

• Lack of accessible housing impacts everyone in our community whether you are a business owner struggling to find employees, someone who is seeing your favorite restaurant cut their hours due to lack of staffing, a member of the workforce living out of their car, or someone who could face losing their home with one financial setback. We are hopeful that everyone who is touched by the housing crisis will see the value the tax proposal and the TABOR proposal will bring. Both initiatives will give our community the resources needed to make measurable change in affordable housing. ​

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Sales taxes are regressive, this would be unfair to a lot of the population in the County.

• The study we conducted prior to announcing the ballot initiatives indicate that 91% of the community places a priority on creating solutions to housing affordability. We hope that the voters will see both ballot initiatives as an opportunity to solve the problem of affordable housing. The tax initiative will widen CHA’s toolkit of potential housing solutions by creating dedicated local funding. The TABOR initiative makes it possible to continue to bring state grant funds for housing solutions to Chaffee County.

• The need for affordable housing is an issue that impacts our entire community. We believe this measure is the most equitable way to create a new funding solution that also makes it so visitors contribute to funding new housing projects. Our research indicates that proposals such as a property tax increase do not have the support of the community and would fail at the ballot box

 

Will this solve the housing crisis? 

• There’s no silver bullet to solving this community-wide challenge but passage of the two measures could put a huge dent in the problem. These measures will put CHA in a strong position to work with public and private partners to bring more housing options to the community by giving us a dedicated funding stream to invest back into the community.  

• If the sales tax measure passes, CHA would leverage the funds with a goal to construct up to 250 units over 10 years in partnership with developers and the community using several different strategies that have been effectively used in other rural resort mountain communities also struggling with the affordable housing crisis

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Deed-Restricted Housing and Wealth Inequality: Does deed-restricted housing deepen wealth inequality by limiting opportunities for middle-class people to build wealth through homeownership, particularly impacting their ability to save for retirement?

•  Most of our workforce can’t afford to pay into a market rate house because the down payment and payments can be overwhelming.  Therefore they are able to purchase a subsidized deed restricted house.  In that case they are making payments every month.  They build equity through making payments that would other wise go to a landlord through rent.  After 5-10 years they may have enough equity built up that they can then afford the down payment on a market rate house which would allow them to build equity normally.
   

Impact on Community and Economy: How does having a significant portion of housing deed-restricted affect the community's economic framework, creating separate housing realities and potentially distorting the housing market and broader economy?

• If anything it has positive impacts on the other homes in the market because the amenities that people expect in the community, like servers and cooks at restaurants or teachers at schools can be fulfilled.  If those positions were empty because there were not enough homes for our workforce, our community would suffer and market rate housing prices would suffer as well.

 

Property Tax Assessment: Are property taxes for deed-restricted homes based on market value or deed-restricted value, and how does this impact homeowners amid rising property values and the broader issue of property tax relief?

• Great question! We are not sure but I would assume it would pay based on its appraised price (as market rate homes do), but that is not based on facts. We will look into this and get back to you. 

 

Quality and Safety of Deed-Restricted Homes: Concerns about the quality and environmental safety of deed-restricted homes, including their construction standards, potential use of low-quality materials, and the willingness of CHA to enforce high standards against developers.

• Building codes keep homes built to a particular expectation.  There are cheaper materials and some will have to be used to offset costs and make homes more affordable but  would not necessarily say the materials are toxic as a result. 

 

Community Aesthetic and Integration: Will CHA consider community aesthetics, architectural alignment, and overall integration of new developments with the town’s desired look and feel, beyond just quickly building affordable housing?

 

• Much of the design and aesthetic has to do with individual developers and the planning commissions and councils who actually give approval.  For every project there should be thoughtfulness, but CHA is not the organization who will decide on what the community expects or what projects get approved based on municipal architectural guidelines. 

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Evaluation of Projects: Is CHA open to reconsidering or scrapping projects like Jane’s Place if they are overly complex or not aligning with community needs, and instead focusing on simpler, more straightforward housing solutions?

• Janes Place/CHA and its partners has all the funding in place to begin construction, and it ready to break ground as long as the debrucing measure happens. This project is well supported by the community and will provide space and housing options to people who support the non-profits and other organizations. 

 

Focus of CHA's Housing Efforts: Is CHA primarily focused on emergency and homeless housing, including addressing associated challenges, or on workforce housing for the local community?

• Both are priorities. While the CHA is putting substantial efforts in workforce housing, the CHA has stepped up to address challenging housing emergencies. There really aren’t many other organizations who are prepared to deal with the frontlines of the housing crisis. 

 

CHA's Track Record and Plans: Given CHA's years of existence, what has it accomplished so far, and what specific plans justify the request for additional funding, addressing concerns about its effectiveness and clarity of purpose?

• It takes a long time for an organization like this to have a significant impact.  It’s a 3.5 year old organization that has started to build the foundations for addressing the housing needs of our community for the long term. The housing crisis is massive. The CHA has done an amazing job with comparatively little funding and staffing to build a solid foundation. It has raised 7 million dollars in grants, developed and systematized a government organization from the ground up while coordinating across the entire county. CHA has partnered with local developers to build 110 (and counting) affordable housing units which will be available between 2025 and 2027. It has also preserved 19 apartment units in Salida. That being said these problems are not possible to fully address without adequate funding.