Prior to this week’s meeting, Town Council held a public work session with the West Mountain Regional Housing Coalition (WMRHC) to learn more about their recently-launched Good Deeds program, which provides buy-down assistance to Roaring Fork Valley employees looking to shift from renting to homeownership.
Good Deeds works on a basic exchange: WMRHC offers up-front funds to homebuyers, ranging up to 30% of the cost of the home. In exchange, the applicant accepts a permanent price-cap deed restriction on the property.
WMRHC created the program in August of 2024 with a regional focus, and therefore opened applications to anyone working full-time for an employer physically or principally based in Pitkin, western Eagle and Garfield counties. The program was created primarily for moderate-to-high income households who are just out of reach of homeownership and still rent. In addition to increasing deed-restricted housing inventory in the Valley, once these households make the jump to homeownership, the rental market will be relieved of some pressure, and as a result, lower income households will have more rental opportunities.
So far, WMHRC has collected $2 million from the municipalities of Glenwood Springs, Snowmass Village, Carbondale and Aspen, plus Pitkin County — yet no direct funds from the Town of Basalt.
WMHRC has used this funding to close on one home thus far and has five other homes under contract. However, the organization estimates that, in order to convert 30 homes to deed restricted housing using Good Deeds, the program will need $13.5 million in total.
During the work session, Betsy Crum of WMHRC asked that the Town of Basalt consider contributing financially to the program. Town Manager Ryan Mahoney responded by stating that for Basalt’s 2025 budget, funds have already been put aside for funding housing projects. However, this pool of funding was created before the Town was aware of the Good Deeds program and has restrictions barring it from use by the WMHRC.
“We’re all in on supporting the coalition,” Mahoney said. “Our challenge is taking money from the general fund … we still need to provide services to the community and we have capital improvements that we need to make on our own.”
That being said, Mahoney stated that there is $100,000 in funding available in the 2025 budget for the Good Deeds program, but this funding can only be used by WMHRC should there be an applicant from Basalt in the near future. Until then, that funding can’t be used for up-front funding elsewhere in the Valley.
Budget talk
Speaking of Basalt’s finances, Town Finance Director Doug Pattison presented a draft of Basalt’s 2025 budget.
The 2025 budget proposal began with an analysis of Basalt’s current demographics, especially in regard to housing. In 2022, the median home value in Basalt rose to roughly $1.1 million — nearly double the median home value across the State of Colorado at approximately $590,000. However, median household income in Basalt is roughly $103,000, only 18% above the state average.
The finance department estimated that the Town will have a total beginning fund balance of $34.6 million going into 2025, with $12.4 million in the general fund.
Around 68.6% of the Town of Basalt’s total funds will be derived from taxes, with tax revenue at an estimated $15 million.
With all of the town’s planned expenditures, including paying for personnel, capital projects, operation costs, etc., expenditures are expected to exceed revenue in 2025, and the finance department estimated that the Town of Basalt will end 2025 with an approximate total of $30.8 million in total fund balance.
Of that nearly $4 million difference, approximately $2.4 million can be attributed to expenditures in the capital construction fund which are being used to construct affordable housing units on Town property at Stott’s Mill and Sopris Meadows, hopefully keeping more employees in Basalt in the coming year.