Yesterday, in Part One, we considered a discussion at the May 14 Town Planning Commission meeting, when one of the developers of the Aspen Village subdivision — Dan Sanders — asked for guarantees that Aspen Village will not be punished with future road improvement requirements, that might result from the use of its subdivision road by a neighboring master planned community — specifically, traffic expected to come from a proposed 50-unit workforce/low-income apartment complex.
The proposed project is called The Trails at Pagosa Springs, and it has received a promise of tax credit subsidies from the Colorado Housing and Finance Authority, as a Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) project.
Our local governments have unanimously been encouraging workforce and low-income housing projects lately, but these project often arrive as relatively large-scale projects, with relatively large-scale impacts.
The Town Planning Commission listened closely to Mr. Sander’s request, but apparently felt it could not make such a guarantee. Such decisions, far in the future, will be made by a future Town government.
The Planning Commission then approved the design for The Trails at Pagosa Springs.
One hurdle, cleared. More to go.
Last night, two principals from Dallas-based Generation Housing Partners, Chris Applequist and Travis Barber, appeared before the Pagosa Area Water and Sanitation District (PAWSD) Board of Directors, representing The Trails development team… Mr. Applequist in person, and Mr. Barber via Zoom.
Generation Housing Partners have been working with the Town of Pagosa Springs planning department for a number of years now, hoping to get approval for a 50-unit apartment building adjacent to Walmart. The proposed complex would provide needed housing options for working families and low-income households.
The Town Planning Commission approved the design of the apartment complex last week.
The project, if it goes ahead, will apparently cost about $20 million.
The developers were hoping for a waiver of about $900,000 in PAWSD Capital Investment Fees. If The Trails were not a workforce/low-income housing project, this waiver would not be available from PAWSD, but The Trails is promising that all of its apartments will be rented to households earning less than 80% of the county’s median household income.
The project would be deed restricted to remain rent-controlled for 40 years.
Disclosure: I currently serve as a volunteer on the PAWSD Board of Directors, but this editorial reflects only my own perspective and opinions, and not necessarily those of the PAWSD Board as a whole.
Generation Housing provided a few PowerPoint slides, to give an overview of the Trails project. The slides included this chart, illustrating the types of households that might be served by the 50-unit apartment complex.
Last year, the Region 9 Economic Development District analyzed the Archuleta County economy and determined that a family in Pagosa Springs needs an income of approximately $93,000 a year to meet all their financial needs, including housing. So looking at the chart above, a family needs about three adults working full-time at the jobs listed above.
More than half of our households do not meet the $93,000 threshold.
The five members of the PAWSD Board were faced with a difficult decision. $900,000 is a chunk of change… for a developer of affordable housing… and also for a small-town sanitation district with a somewhat precarious budget.
Due to a multi-million-dollar sewer system upgrade being demanded by the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, PAWSD did a rate study last year, and the Board determined that customer fees for wastewater treatment would need to increase substantially this year.
The increase was split, approximately 50/50, between existing customers’ monthly bills, and the Capital Investment Fees (CIF) charged to new customers hooking up to wastewater service.
That substantially increased the CIF for developers, from about $6,530 per dwelling unit, to about $24,700. So a 50-unit apartment complex would owe close to $1 million in CIF fees. But last month, the PAWSD Board revised an existing waiver policy, and promised to waive CIF fees for dwelling units serving households making 80% or less of the area median income.
The Trails at Pagosa Springs will serve 50 household making 80% or less of the area median income.
Generation Housing Partners were provided a letter, two years ago, informing them that PAWSD supported their project, and that the project would qualify for CIF waivers. I felt that the PAWSD Board was bound to honor that promise.
Some of my fellow Board members felt differently.
The PAWSD Board unanimously believes that we have a serious housing crisis in Archuleta County, and presumably understands that a $24,700 CIF fee, added to the already high cost of construction in Pagosa Springs, will kill certain affordable housing projects. And according to the policy approved last month, the Trails at Pagosa Springs qualified for CIF waivers.
But when it came down to an actual vote, only two of the five Board members — Glenn Walsh and myself — were willing to abide by the newly-revised waiver policy.
After that motion failed, Board member Paul Hanson offered a compromise, based on the previous waiver policy approved in 2020. That policy provided a 100% waiver for units serving low-income families, and a 50% waiver for units serving workforce families. So then, in the case of the Trails project, a waiver of about $700,000 instead of $900,000.
That compromise was approved by four of the Board members. I abstained from the vote.
We don’t know, yet, if Generation Housing will be able to move forward, with a partial waiver.
If they don’t, we may have shot ourselves in the foot.