This week, the Basalt Town Council was provided with a decades-long look at housing needs across the Roaring Fork Valley and where Basalt stands among trending rises in home vacancy rates, median home prices and rental costs with an assessment that projects the Town may have to construct over 600 units in the next 10 years.
In 2022, the Town directed staff to pursue funding from Colorado’s Proposition 123 — the initiative that created the State Affordable Housing Fund to support statewide housing programs. However, in order to receive that funding, Basalt needed to conduct a housing needs assessment.
Municipal governments which have completed and filed housing needs assessments are prioritized to receive grant funding from any program associated with the Colorado Energy Office, Office of Economic Development and the departments of Transportation, Natural Resources, Public Health and Environment and Personnel and Administration.
In 2024, the Town contracted Economic and Planning Systems (EPS) to complete a local housing needs assessment. However, state legislation requires that this housing needs assessment to be updated in order for Basalt to re-secure priority for grant funding. Instead of completing another entire local assessment, the Town held out for regional housing assessments to be completed for both Eagle County — which completed its own housing assessment last week — and the Roaring Fork Valley.
Pitkin County, Snowmass Village and the City of Aspen contracted with EPS in 2025 to fully cover the Roaring Fork Valley region. Liz Axberg, Aspen’s housing policy analyst, presented the assessment, which aims to provide the scaffolding for regional collaboration. While this assessment does not provide Basalt’s housing needs relative to the entirety of Eagle County, it does account for all of Basalt’s housing needs, including parts of town within Eagle County.
The regional housing needs assessment found that, between Aspen and Carbondale, there is no municipality where the median price of a single-family home is less than $1.5 million. The report combined Basalt and Carbondale’s home-sales statistics under the “mid-valley,” and found that 47% of all sales were only affordable to households earning over 400% of the area median income (AMI).
The regional housing needs assessment found that, from 2015 to 2023, Basalt experienced a 2.6% increase in the amount of housing units — the fastest growth of all municipalities in the region. Conversely, Basalt’s vacancy rate increased from 16.7% to 18.1% between 2010 and 2023. In this region, a “vacant” home typically means a non-primary residence or vacation rental. While Basalt’s vacancy rate is much lower than the 2023 Pitkin County average of 41.4%, the rate continues to rise regionally.
Furthermore, while Basalt has the lowest percentage of affordable housing among Pitkin County municipalities at 18.3%, its ratio is still well above that of all other Garfield County municipalities; Carbondale has the highest ratio of affordable housing thereof at 8.3%, with Glenwood Springs following behind at 2.4%.
Ninety-percent of the region’s affordable housing inventory is in Pitkin County. In fact, 65% of that inventory is in Aspen alone. Either way, the housing needs assessment projected a need of 2,853 new housing units in Pitkin County over the next 10 years. Roughly half of that need is concentrated into Category 2 (51% – 85% AMI) and Category 3 (86% – 130% AMI) housing. This 2,853-unit need is based on a 59% existing shortage and 41% projection of estimated regional growth.
In order to meet that regional need, the report projects that Basalt will have to construct 606 units within the next 10 years. Entitled units and units under construction in Basalt (such as at Basalt Center Circle and the Tree Farm, respectively) are excluded from that estimate. However, it is not a binding commitment for Basalt to build this amount of housing.
Councilor Ryan Slack thanked Axberg and her team on behalf of the Town of Basalt for going well beyond their own boundaries for the good of the region.