Durango City Council met this week for its second daylong session to identify housing goals and how to achieve those objectives.
“There’s a real clear consensus around a vision for Durango, and a commitment to finding ways to incentivize development of attainable housing,” said City Councilor Barbara Noseworthy.
A housing study compiled by Southwest Colorado Council of Governments said a lack of regulations on short-term rentals has hindered some communities’ ability to address housing needs.
Durango’s Fair Share Ordinance was deemed problematic because it allows developers to pay a fee in lieu of providing affordable housing. Developers have been more inclined to pay the fee than to build affordable housing.
Councilors considered what other mechanisms they have to spur affordable housing. In doing so, they recognized the high cost of land and a general lack of developable land present hurdles to building attainable housing.
The city owns nine parcels that could be used for workforce housing developments, according to a recent inventory.
“This is not the city building housing,” Noseworthy said. “We recognize that land is going to be an issue, and that is one of the biggest costs to developers to actually consider building workforce housing. So we’re asking: Are there things we can do with our own city property?”
Noseworthy said providing land opportunities as an incentive to developers is called land banking. In some scenarios, the city might lease vacant land parcels or sell them to a developer.
Councilors came to an agreement they want to help middle-income workers.
Workforce housing focuses on middle-income households that have been in the workforce for a while, and would be looking at moving out of affordable housing. Skyrocketing housing prices in the Durango area have left few homes on the market for middle-income families.
“Where there’s a real focus is for those people that are working in Durango or retiring in place,” Noseworthy said. “There is a real sense of not building this so that others can come in and take advantage of what we build, but really taking care of the people who keep this community operational and thriving.”
Councilors said they hope to establish a ratio of attainability when thinking about workforce housing, so that years in the future, the city can track what actual progress is being made with its workforce housing efforts.
“We hope to be able to measure our efforts with a ratio of attainability that looks at how expensive market price homes are against what that middle-income group can actually afford, and use that to show whether or not we’re making progress,” Mayor Kim Baxter said.
Current discussions among council define middle-income residents as those in the $50,000- to $150,000-a-year household income bracket. Those residents would directly benefit from a city investment in workforce housing, but the idea is that middle-income workers moving up would allow more affordable housing options.
Moving forward, council will consider land, infrastructure and other funding incentives to kick off more workforce housing projects.
“We as a city can incentivize development into the area we’d like to see it, both geographically and mixed housing,” Baxter said.
At its last meeting about workforce housing, City Council identified different options for funding, including using the city’s $4.7 million American Rescue Plan Act, and $1.1 million from fees in lieu. Much of the fees-in-lieu balance came from transfer fees from Twin Buttes and Three Springs real estate transactions.
City staff members compiled an action plan for 2022 based on changes City Council said it would like to see. The plan includes things like overhauling the city’s Fair Share Ordinance, evaluating publicly owned properties for housing development and tracking state and federal funding opportunities.
Councilors were pleased with the action plan and said they would like to make sure ground is broken on at least one housing project during the 2022 fiscal year.
“We want to be able to show that we aren’t just pursuing partnerships, but actually be creating partnerships,” Baxter said. “We want to be able to show that we’re doing something with the money and that we’re creating a positive impact.”
njohnson@durangoherald.com
