The City of Glenwood Springs would ideally approve or somehow create another 1,824 housing units over the next 10 years to help meet the region’s anticipated need for new workforce housing.
That was the upshot of a report given to Glenwood Springs City Council on the newly completed Roaring Fork/Colorado
River Valley Housing Needs Analysis during their regular July 16 meeting.
The study, commissioned and paid for by the City of Aspen, Snowmass Village and Pitkin County, contains critical data and conclusions that can be used by jurisdictions from Aspen to Parachute to develop their own action plans, explained Glenwood Housing Development Manager Watkins Fulk-Gray.
The regional study also meets Glenwood’s obligation to assess its housing needs under a new Colorado law (Senate Bill 24-174), he said.
“It both complements and differs slightly in its methodology from our strategic housing plan that we adopted in 2023,” he said.
A housing action plan, due by January 2028 under the new law, is needed to qualify for state funding under the voter-approved Proposition 123, Fulk-Gray said.
Presenting the Needs Analysis before Council was Rachel Shindman from Economic & Planning Systems, Inc. (EPS), the consultants who conducted the study.
In addition to compiling demographic and economic data and related trends for the region, and outlining the challenges for people to find affordable housing options, the analysis gets into just what it would take to meet the housing need based on current and future population growth and workforce needs in the region.
The numbers are daunting.
Across the region, Garfield and Pitkin counties would need to add another 7,686 housing units over the next 10 years to meet the anticipated needs, according to the analysis.
Excluding the number of units already in the pipeline, that number drops to 7,168 units — 1,239 in Aspen and another 1,299 in other parts of Pitkin County, and 4,630 across Garfield County from Carbondale to Parachute.
Glenwood Springs has been doing its part during the two years that the study has been in the works, with 98 units coming onto the market during that time — in places like Glenwood Meadows and at the Benedict Senior Housing and Habitat for Humanity Confluence projects — resulting in a net need of 1,824 more units.
Glenwood also checks all the boxes when it comes to housing resources such as deed restrictions, down payment assistance, employee housing and rental assistance programs, plus partnerships with groups like Habitat and the intergovernmental West Mountain Regional Housing Coalition, Shindman said.
While some Council members embraced the study and its conclusions as useful information, others were skeptical.
While the study does not dictate that Glenwood Springs must come up with 1,824 additional housing units, Councilor David Townsley put the number into perspective.
“So, we’d need to increase [Glenwood’s] population by 30 or 40 percent to meet need,” Townsley offered, asking if the study considered whether employers are providing a livable wage.
Wages and housing costs are factored into the study, Shindman said. But there’s also a breaking point for businesses to increase the cost of products in order to pay a higher wage, she noted.
Councilor Ray Schmahl also challenged the notion that housing costs should be held to a third of a household’s income, suggesting that 40% is a more realistic number to work with. Schmahl suggested the population growth projections in the study may be “distorted” when considering national trends toward lower birthrates and reduced immigration numbers.
Councilor Sumner Schachter, though initially skeptical himself about a study done by upvalley governments, said he was impressed with the findings.
“It has tons of data that we can break out for our own needs,” he said. “And it’s not a prescriptive study. It’s just what’s out there, and what may be needed.”
It also takes the pressure off of Glenwood Springs to conduct its own study, Schachter said.
West Glenwood water concerns
Appearing before Council under the public comments portion of the meeting, a handful of business owners whose properties are within the old Mitchell-Cooper water utility service area lamented a recent shut-off notice from the City.
“Aggressive actions by the City are threatening our business,” said Jennifer Victor, co-owner of Vicco’s Charcoalburger Drive-In.
The City and Mitchell-Cooper shareholders are embroiled in a legal dispute over water service to a grouping of commercial and residential properties fronting U.S. Highway 6 in West Glenwood.
The private utility is unable to deliver its own water to customers due to an inadequate treatment plant, so it purchases water from the City to run through its service lines.
The City late last year took action against Mitchell-Cooper to collect several months’ worth of water bills and threatened to shut off the water supply. Council members said at the time that they did not intend to leave any customers without water, and that steps would need to be taken for those customers to formally connect to City water.
Victor said all overdue water bills have been paid through a special assessment, but that the City sent out a final disconnection notice in early July demanding all shareholders purchase a City water meter and that Mitchell-Cooper dissolve as a company.
“This goes way beyond collection of a debt,” Victor said. Her concerns were echoed by several members of the Del Rio family who own and operate the Ponderosa Lodge.
City Council requested a private attorney-client executive session to discuss the situation ahead of their next regular meeting on Aug. 6.
In other business at the July 16 meeting, City Council unanimously approved the consent agenda, including a new ordinance prohibiting soliciting at several busy intersections, like the entrance to the Roaring Fork Marketplace, on or near the Interstate 70 on/off ramps and at all of Glenwood’s roundabout intersections.