Carbondale needs 621 housing units in the next 10 years to meet the predicted local demand.
That’s according to the final report of the Regional Housing Needs Assessment, which a City of Aspen staff member presented to the Carbondale Board of Trustees on Tuesday evening. The report, required by a 2024 Colorado Senate bill, analyzed housing and income trends from Aspen to Parachute.
“We just really thought it was important because of how … much these two regions are intertwined between the Roaring Fork Valley and the Colorado River Valley,” Aspen Housing Policy Analyst Liz Axberg said of the regional outlook.
The 621 houses needed in Carbondale constitute 13% of the housing need across the region, which sits at 7,686 units in the next 10 years, the assessment shows. The need doesn’t necessarily mean new unit construction, Axberg said. Existing developments, for example, could be converted to housing.
The region includes Parachute, Rifle, Silt, New Castle, Glenwood Springs, Carbondale, unincorporated Garfield County, Basalt, Snowmass Village, Aspen and unincorporated Pitkin County.
This gross housing need is determined by two analytical categories, “catch up” and “keep up.” “Catch up” takes into account the housing demand that presently exists, analyzing factors like overcrowded housing, temporary housing, unfilled jobs and commuter trends, Axberg said.
“Keep up” analyzes housing needs in the future, including employment growth expected to attract employees, and as such requiring housing units, over the next 10 years, as well as units required to fill jobs vacated by retirees. When someone retires, a job opens, but the unit occupied by the retiree will remain occupied, so a new unit is needed.
The net housing need is slightly lower as it considers housing already in the pipeline over the next decade. Carbondale’s net housing need is 596 units, while the region’s is 7,168.
Garfield County has a regional net housing need of 4,630 units, 36% of which is “catch up” need and 64% of which is “keep up” need. Pitkin County, with a net housing need of 2,538 units, has roughly the opposite trend.
“This is because of the employment growth that’s projected within Garfield County over the next 10 years,” Axberg said.
The assessment also compared the region’s Area Median Income (AMI) with housing prices.
In 2024, 100% Area Median Income for a two-person household was $82,000, which would enable them to afford monthly housing costs of $2,050, according to the assessment. Median sales price for upper Roaring Fork Valley homes was $3.53 million, midvalley, including Basalt and Carbondale, was $1.42 million, downvalley was $640,000 and Colorado River Valley was $418,000, according to the assessment.
“To be able to afford a median price home in Basalt or Carbondale, that household needs to earn more like 300% AMI, so that’s around $246,000 for that household to be within reach,” Axberg said.
Pitkin County has a vacancy rate, or a rate of unoccupied homes, of 41%. Garfield County has a vacancy rate of 8%.
Water shortage and restrictions
The trustees decided they would impose mandatory water restrictions in two weeks.
The decision comes after trustees heard from the Colorado River District and the Town’s Public Works staff, who presented multiple perspectives on local water management.
“This is not just a dry year, it’s not just a poor snow pack year,” Colorado River District Director of Government Relations Zane Kessler said. “The combination of record heat, depleted soil moisture, low snowpack has resulted in water supply conditions that exceed any of the worst case scenarios that our system is built around.”
The district emphasized the importance of collaboration to manage the water crisis, which the region has already seen — something the district urged trustees to consider when acting on water usage.
“The water we use here is not in a silo,” said Melissa Wills, Colorado River District community funding partnership program manager. “The water that we use here in Carbondale has a direct impact on fish flows and downstream users.”
Public Works staff, however, did not recommend the board impose immediate water restrictions, though surrounding municipalities including Glenwood Springs, Basalt and Aspen have their own in place.
They supported continuing the communication campaign, which began in the spring, urging users to practice water conservation to prepare for potential restrictions later in the summer. That campaign already led to 15-20% reduction in water usage since the spring, staff said.
Even without mandatory restrictions, they said the Town could still help its neighbors by looking for ways to conserve.
“Our message is not, ‘Oh, don’t worry about this, everything’s going to be hunky dory,’” Public Works Director Kevin Schorzman said of his department’s suggested messaging to the community. “It’s ‘Let’s balance those three things:
help our neighbors, do what we can within the community for
fuel moisture content and watch the supply.’”
Additionally, Carbondale relies on real-time water supply from the water flowing through town, with only about a single day’s worth of storage, Public Works staff told trustees in April. Saving water now won’t keep it for later in the summer when drought conditions could be worse.
According to Town code, Carbondale triggers voluntary water usage restrictions when the amount used by local water users hits 70% of the amount available in the system. Restrictions become mandatory when the amount used hits 80%, and increase as it approaches 100%. At the moment, water users in town are using 50% of the water in the system, staff said.
Trustees, however, decided they needed to put some teeth behind local water conservation.
“This isn’t just about Carbondale,” Trustee Kade Gianinetti said. “It’s about Palisade peaches. It’s bigger than this.”