Image: Proposed workforce housing for 2024 in Trails subdivision, courtesy BWD Construction.
It’s complicated, ensuring that subsidized homes behave the way you want them to.
A Daily Post readers sent me a note yesterday, expressing concern about the conversation at Tuesday’s Board of County Commissioners work session, when Pagosa Springs Community Development Corporation (PSCDC) executive director Emily Lashbrooke suggested that Pagosa employers might be invited — in the future — to purchase some of the 40 ‘affordable’ homes that PSCDC plans to help facilitate over the next four years.
Those local employers could then rent out the homes to their employees. At a reasonable rate, of course. But that proposition might not align with the housing grants the PSCDC has applied for.
My Daily Post reader wrote:
Don’t know where you are going with the Deed Restrictions columns, but a couple things to consider.
“Company” towns – they were common back in the days of single-industry economies, like coal mining. The company owned the stores (“I owe my soul to the company store…”) and they also owned the worker housing, and used the threat of eviction to coerce compliance with less-than-optimal working conditions.
Another problem with company-owned housing is that it restricts employee mobility, by using eviction as a means to keep them from finding another job — even in the area.
I agree with this perspective. I recently heard a story (second-hand) about a Pagosa employee at one of our larger resort businesses who had been provided company housing as a condition of employment. When he decided to look for a different job, he realized he would lose his housing if he quit. Frustrating.
I got the impression, from the conversation at the Tuesday work session, that the BOCC was not excited by the idea of employers purchasing the proposed PSCDC housing. Nor would such an arrangement appear to align with the grants the PSCDC has been applying for, which require the homes to be sold to low- to moderate-income families.
My reader also expressed concerns about future legal challenges to ‘deed restrictions’ that might be attached to the proposed PSCDC homes. I have less worry about that issue; deed restrictions have been used successfully in numerous Colorado resort towns to try and keep government-subsidized housing affordable over the long haul.
I wasn’t clear, from Ms. Lashbrooke’s presentation, whether the PSCDC was borrowing ideas from any of those successful and existing deed restrictions from around Colorado… or if the draft she presented on Tuesday had been ‘invented’ by her board of directors. I often hear people suggest that the wheel does not need to be ‘re-invented’.
Currently, the grants coming down from the state government generally require subsidized for-sale housing to be affordable to a family at 100% AMI (Area Median Income) which is pegged, in 2024, at about $69,000 a year in Archuleta County. Rumor has it that the state is going to allow ‘mountain resort communities’ to modify that limitation — perhaps increasing the qualifying income at $120% AMI or even higher.
But the families earning 120% AMI and above are not typically the ones living in RVs and camper trucks and tents in remote locations in Archuleta County… or paying more than 50% of their monthly income for rent or mortgage.
If we are going to use taxpayer revenue to subsidize housing, it really ought to serve those families that are most challenged by our tourism economy. IMHO. Those are the families earning 80% AMI and below.
Ms. Lashbrooke:
“We were awarded the ‘Local Capacity Grant’ that the Town applied for, that will create a staff position; a shared, multi-jurisdictional housing coordinator. Part of the funding is to have this individual develop an ‘affordable housing’ deed restriction that everyone can live with… It will work with the Town; it will work with the County; it will work with both planning departments… There will eventually be a deed restriction from that [coordinator]…”
PSCDC is not the only organization hoping to build affordable workforce housing in Pagosa, and a shared deed restriction might prove to be a handy document.
I asked Ms. Lashbrooke if the current, proposed deed restriction — which lasts for 33 years, and requires at least one person to be employed in Archuleta County — would allow a person to stay in their home after they retire. She said the current draft requires a family member to be employed for at least the first 10 years of home ownership. Then they can retire and stay in the home.
Commissioner Ronnie Maez wondered if a future BOCC would have the authority to change the deed restriction, County Attorney Todd Weaver answered, no, because the County will not own the property. The vacant parcels in Trails subdivision were once owned by the County; they have been deeded over to PSCDC, and will eventually be deeded over to the purchasers of these homes. I’ve not heard of any communities ‘changing’ established 33-year deed restrictions after the fact, and I doubt that is even legal.
One question discussed on Tuesday, that didn’t seem to come to a clear resolution: What if a person buys a deed restricted house, requiring them to be employed in Archuleta County, and they then get a better job in La Plata County? Do they then forfeit their deed restricted home?
No one had a definitive answer to that question.
Neither the BOCC nor the PSCDC nor Executive Director Lashbrooke nor the Archuleta County Housing Authority have previously dealt with deed restriction of this type. This is uncharted territory. Gray areas exist. All the more reason to reach out to other communities and find out what is working elsewhere in Colorado. Perhaps charts exist elsewhere.
The next issue brought up by Ms. Lashbrooke concerned money. A request, for a promise from the BOCC.
A $300,000 promise, to be exact.
Apparently, the BOCC will hold a special meeting at 7:30am tomorrow morning to consider such a promise.