April Long, program director of the West Mountain Regional Housing Coalition (WMRHC), and Hannah Klausman, Economic and Community Development director for the city of Glenwood Springs, talked problems and solutions at Aspen Journalism’s housing panel on Wednesday Dec. 6. Long, an engineer by training, told the audience that she’s new to the issue, having left her 15-year position as stormwater manager and Clean River Program director for the city of Aspen in August. She remains head of the Ruedi Water and Power Authority and a member of the Colorado Water Quality Control Commission.
Affordable housing was actually one reason she left the city of Aspen for her new, part-time position. “I have lived [in Aspen] for 15 years,” she told the crowd. “I got out of the home ownership market at the worst time you could — early in 2020 — and got into the rental market and immediately got priced out of my community.” She couldn’t purchase a home without relocating. “And, moving downvalley meant I didn’t want to work in Aspen and do the commute.” Her experience drives her passion for WMRHC. “I believe wholeheartedly that we are better and stronger if we work together and begin to see something as a region.”
Klausman has been working with housing issues since 2013 when she took a planning job in Rifle. In 2016, she hired on as a planner for Glenwood Springs and, in 2022, became director of the department. She’s also secretary of WMRHC’s board of directors. She said what was a regional housing crisis in 2018 is now a “housing catastrophe”.
Regional housing studies, pre- and post-COVID, inform her assessment. Between 2019 and 2022, said Klausman, housing prices rose in the Glenwood Springs area by 42%. “That number has increased since then,” she added. “It’s the same for all the jurisdictions within [WMRHC’s] membership.” During the pandemic, remote workers moved to the area, which bumped the amount of second homes. “The wage increase for that same time was about 16%,” she explained. “So we see prices skyrocketing and people’s affordability not matching that.”
Long’s 2022 numbers were grim. The median income of a two-person household in Garfield County was $75,000. Pitkin County teachers made $54,000. Construction workers earned $57,000 and food industry workers, $40,000. “They could afford a $1,900 mortgage,” Long explained. “And, a $1,900 mortgage at 2022 interest rates gave you a $273,000 home if you spent 30% of your income on your housing.” At the time, there were eight houses on the market under $275,000 from Parachute to Aspen, she said, none of which was in the mid or upper valley. The median home price in Rifle jumped from $250,000 in 2015 to $440,000 in 2022. “If you work and make an income in this area, you cannot afford the home prices that we have seen,” she said.
Klausman said working together throughout the region is the best way forward. “I know a lot of fingers get pointed, like, that’s upvalley’s problem or that’s downvalley’s problem,” she explained. “But, it’s bigger than all of us.”
Where is GarCo?
WMRHC’s nine members include Glenwood Springs, Carbondale, Basalt, Snowmass Village, Aspen, Eagle and Pitkin counties, Roaring Fork Transportation Authority and the Colorado Mountain local college district. Conspicuously absent is Garfield County. Long said GarCo is taking a wait-and-see approach, but warns that things aren’t getting any better. “Garfield County will begin to understand that the problem has fully shifted into their area,” she said. “Housing prices will continue to increase, which will create a worse problem for them in the future.
Solutions
Audience members seemed to hold their collective breath, particularly when it came to discussing new housing developments in Glenwood Springs and Carbondale. But, WMRHC has ambitious plans, such as a buy-down program, which Long expects to launch in 2024. Similar to Eagle County’s Down Payment Assistance Program, WMRHC would fund a down payment on an existing home for qualifying buyers. “That home would then become deed-restricted,” she told The Sopris Sun. “So should you choose to sell it, then the next buyer would have to qualify [with WMRHC]. That means it’s forever an affordable home.”
Other programs include renters assistance and accessory dwelling unit assistance. All programs are development neutral. WMRHC hopes to get locals into homes close to where they work without building more rental housing that isn’t affordable. “We are not in the market of building anything or buying land,” explained Long. “We are simply taking homes that exist and bringing them into the affordable market.”
But, funding is a challenge. Long told The Sopris Sun that membership dues provide the primary funding. Next year, each WMRHC member will contribute $20,000 but she hopes additional funding can come in the form of state or federal grants.
Former Pitkin County Commissioner Michael Kinsley was in Wednesday’s audience. He said the housing problem is a political problem. “When somebody proposes a 200 unit condominium project and they say it’s going to have 30 units that are affordable housing, that has no value to the community,” he explained. “It creates a lot more jobs than it does affordable housing.” He added, “What you need is purely affordable housing projects.” And that, he said, requires money from various jurisdictions and involvement from elected officials and communities.
The 2019 regional housing study is at www.bit.ly/2019HousingStudy
The 2022 WMRHC housing data update is at www.bit.ly/2022DataUpdate