As noted yesterday, the Pagosa Springs Town Council published eleven priority goals for “2022-2023” back in July. The first three on the list — each marked with a “highest priority” asterisk — are:
1. Sanitation District*
Stabilize the pumping system, continue maintenance and upgrade efforts and explore long-term community solutions with the goal of the Town getting out of the Sanitation business.
2. Workforce Housing*
Address current and projected needs by supporting efforts to add more deed-restricted units to local inventory through the public and private sectors.
3. Explore Recreation District*
Engage the support of the wider community beyond the town in providing and managing parks, trails, open spaces, and recreational amenities in a coordinated and thoughtful way.
Speaking as a town resident and taxpayer, I find these three “highest priority” goals somewhat fascinating, for different reasons.
We discussed the Town’s sanitation district yesterday and the possibility that the Town government might someday get out of the wastewater business, considering that — among other things — they are no longer actually treating any wastewater.
The Town’s two high-powered pumping stations were definitely in a crisis situation last winter and spring, as reported here in the Daily Post. The crisis has since moderated, following $800,000 worth of repairs and upgrades.
“Workforce Housing” is still an obvious concern, and a serious one. A survey of working households in the summer of 2021, conducted by the non-profit Pagosa Housing Partners in cooperation with the Town and local media outlets, collected responses from about 7% of the employees and self-employed business owners in the community. The survey found that — of the 204 working households that responded to the survey and who also earn less than 60% AMI — about nine out of ten families are ‘cost burdened’, meaning that they were paying more than the recommended 30% of household income on housing.
About six-out-of-ten of those households were ‘severely cost burdened’, paying more than 50% of their income on housing costs.
Six, out of ten. ‘Severely cost-burdened’.
Among lower-income working households, the percentage who are ‘severely cost burdened’ had basically doubled in three years. I’ve not seen any evidence that things have improved since summer 2021, when this survey was performed.
Disclosure: I currently serve on the Pagosa Housing Partners board of directors.
A quick survey of the Classified Ads in last week’s Pagosa Springs SUN revealed 41 “Help Wanted” ads — with some of the ads representing multiple unfilled job positions. The newspaper listed four ‘Residential Rentals’, and two ‘Houses For Sale’.
The two houses were priced at $650,000 and $750,000.
On the other side of the ‘housing’ picture, Pagosa tourists visitors presumably feel welcome. According to the website AirDNA — visitors have plenty of vacation rental homes to choose from, in Archuleta County… an average of about 1,303 active Short-Term Rentals (STRs) during the third quarter of 2022.
The ‘tourist housing’ options seem to be plentiful.
Meanwhile, some would call the lack of ‘workforce housing’ in Pagosa Springs a ‘crisis’. (I am among them.)
While Pagosa Housing Partners were conducting the 2021 housing survey, the Town of Pagosa Springs was developing a housing ‘RFP’ (Request for Proposals) promising to provide free vacant land — publicly-owned land — to a company or organization willing to build deed-restricted workforce housing on the property.
Deed restrictions are a common tool for preserving the affordability of housing. In some Colorado communities, most deed-restricted housing is rental housing owned by the town or county government, or by a special district or a non-profit corporation; renters must be employed in the community in order to qualify for a unit. In a very real sense, this is ‘workforce housing’ — a tool to keep the local economy functioning.
In some cases, the housing programs may be directed at households earning less than the ‘area median income’ — but not necessarily ‘low-income’ households. This approach differs from federally-subsidized ‘Low Income Housing Tax Credit’ projects, such as the Rose Mountain housing that became available this year, across the street from Town Hall on Hot Springs Boulevard. LIHTC housing generally serves ‘low-income’ households, even in cases where no one in the family is actively employed.
The Number Two ‘highest priority’ goal published by the Town Council last summer specifically uses the term “Workforce Housing”.
Presumably, the Town Council is talking here — not about ‘low-income housing’ — but about housing for local employees and self-employed households.
Most of the dozens of ‘Help Wanted’ ads that appeared in last week’s SUN did not include information about the wage offered. But a few did. For example: Archuleta School District is advertising for a Special Education Aide, at $25,796 – $28,388 for nine months of work. That would be roughly equivalent to $34,400 – $37,900 over 12 months. According to the Colorado Housing and Finance Authority (CHFA), a person earning $34,400 a year should pay no more than about $850 a month for housing, including utilities.
The four cozy rentals advertised in last week’s SUN averaged $1,500 per month — not including utilities. Apparently, about double what our Special Education Aides ought to be paying.
For the past year, the Town government has been negotiating with Dallas-based Servitas, a company that specializes in student housing, to bring into existence perhaps 90 or so ‘workforce housing’ units. But at the most recent public discussion about the proposed project this past November, it became apparent that the Servitas proposal would not likely meet the needs of our typical working individuals and families.
You can read our analysis of the project here. Overall, the project looked like rather small apartments for rather wealthy residents. And that’s not what we need to be subsidizing, IMHO.
A Daily Post reader contacted me recently, expressing concerns about migrants moving into Colorado, and needing food and housing… and wondering if Pagosa Springs was likely to get impacted the same way Denver has been, recently.
I would suggest that our crisis here in Pagosa does not involve migrants. It involves our existing workforce.
But not everyone is comfortable with the idea of using local taxes and fees to address a problem like housing.
Let’s seriously talk about an important question. What exactly is the job of local government?