The Roaring Fork School District (RFSD) is experiencing mixed outcomes with two of its housing projects. One has alleviated teacher housing struggles, while another, intended for leadership recruitment, remains unoccupied.
The Sopris Sun recently spoke with Chief of Operations Ben Bohmfalk about the district’s two housing scenarios.
Meadowood
On Sept. 19, a ribbon-cutting ceremony saw key stakeholders and community leaders celebrating the completion of the 50-unit teacher housing project, located on Meadowood Drive between North Face Park and Roaring Fork High School in Carbondale.
In November 2015, Roaring Fork Schools passed a voter-approved $122 million bond. Fifteen million ($5 million each to Carbondale, Basalt and Glenwood Springs) was allocated to build 66 rental housing units. In 2024, RFSD leveraged rental revenue from those existing units and reserve funds to build the 50 Meadowood units, bringing the district’s total inventory to 116 rental units.
The Meadowood development includes eight 400-square-foot studios, 10 one-bedroom, 16 two-bedroom and 16 three-bedroom units. The buildings had staggered move-in dates, with the first tenants moving in in July, more in September and the remaining residents arriving on Oct. 4.
With the project’s successful completion, Bohmfalk explained, “It’s a huge step toward our recruitment and retention goals, and it’s the first year that we haven’t had many new teachers struggling to find a place to live. At the new teacher orientation in August, we asked about 60 new teachers if they were still struggling to find housing, and only one person said that they were in that situation — that’s the first time that we’ve been able to say that in over a decade.”
“Many people who’ve been here for a long time are now living closer to work.” Bohmfalk continued, “I remind people that when a new housing project is developed, anywhere in the Roaring Fork Valley, it might increase traffic in one spot, like at Meadowood and Highway 133, but if you zoom out there are fewer vehicle miles being traveled every day when people live closer to work.”
In July, Talitha Cutchin, a third-grade teacher at Sopris Elementary School, moved into a two-bedroom apartment with her husband, Cameron, and their four-year-old son, Parks, who is enrolled in Sopris Elementary’s Pre-K program.
She is currently in her 12th year of teaching at Roaring Fork Schools, and this is the first time she has lived in staff housing. “This has been huge for us, especially since Parks now has his own bedroom, and we’re close to the park,” said Cutchin.
The Cutchins can stay in their apartment as long as they want, a change from the seven-year occupancy stipulation the district used to have. They are also saving $600 monthly from what they were paying at their previous residence — a one-bedroom apartment behind Walmart in Glenwood Springs.
“We owe it to the voters for approving the bond back in 2015, which was our initial seed funding of $15 million, allowing us to build and buy 66 units in Carbondale, Glenwood, Ironbridge and Willits,” Bohmfalk said.
“It’s always worth celebrating that it’s an all-electric project. It’s pretty amazing. It exceeded the Town’s and meets the state’s most recent energy code,” he said of Meadowood. “It’s a forward-thinking project, and not because anybody said we had to do it that way, but because it’s reflective of our community’s values and stewardship of the future.”
Unoccupied
In February, RFSD purchased a $1.226 million, 1,900-square-foot, single-family end-unit townhome in the Crystal Bluffs Loop area of Carbondale’s River Valley Ranch. The three-bedroom, two-bath home sits on a 2,178-square-foot lot, according to Zillow.
Last year, the Staff Housing Committee developed guidelines for “leadership housing” — a unit purchased by the board to recruit and retain superintendents. Though Superintendent Dr. Anna Cole did not need the housing, the school board can allocate it to key leadership hires as needed.
According to a current Zillow real estate listing, the residence has appreciated to an estimated $1.331 million, or by $105,000, in eight months.
Bohmfalk said the home was offered to district leaders, including those from the district office, principals and assistant principals, but no one applied. He said the property will now enter the general staff housing lottery, which opened earlier this week.
However, selling the district asset is another option.
“Nothing’s off the table. If somebody rents it, it’ll be through the end of June. But if we have a financial situation that we need to address and we need to liquidate some assets and the board decides that that’s an asset they’d like to liquidate, that is entirely their decision.” Bohmfalk concluded, “I’d be surprised if we went in that direction because it was a really hard asset to acquire … One nice thing about it is that it’s an asset, so its value fluctuates with the market.”