Beginning with the Monday Chaffee Board of County Commissioners work session, the Chaffee County Housing Authority (CHA) staff and Board of Directors plan briefings for elected officials in Salida, Buena Vista, Poncha Springs, and Chaffee County about the possibility of placing a taxation question on the November 2022 ballot to fund affordable housing across the county.
These work session discussions with local authorities are intended to elicit input from the CHA’s jurisdictional partners on whether, and how, increased tax revenue might help to address Chaffee’s significant housing crisis – especially for the county’s workforce, seniors, and families.
The intended schedule for meetings is as follows:
- April 4, 1:30 p.m.: Chaffee County Commissioners’ work session
- April 4, 6:00 p.m.: Salida City Council work session
- April 12, 6:00 p.m.: Buena Vista Town Council work session
- May 23, time TBD, Poncha Springs Town Trustee work session
“The scope and scale of the housing crisis in Chaffee mean that 64 percent of all households in Chaffee County pay more than half of their income on housing expenses, making them extremely cost-burdened,” said Becky Gray, Director of the CHA. “Many businesses are already closing or being forced to curtail hours, and everyone is feeling the pain. We need a sustainable funding source to create more housing opportunities that our workers, seniors, and households can afford, while also providing renters with the assistance they need to stay in their homes. Right now, we simply don’t have that level of funding.”
The CHA was founded to address Chaffee’s affordable housing issues, as a partnership between Chaffee County and the municipalities of Salida and Buena Vista. The organization has identified four key steps needed to address the current crisis:
- Improving policies that make housing more attainable
- Construction and/or acquisition of affordable housing units (especially rentals)
- Establishing and supporting local programs for those with housing insecurities
- Building a sustainable organization with the mandate and financing to address affordable housing
Proposed allocation of new funds for housing. Graph courtesy Chaffee Housing Authority (CHA)
During Monday’s presentation with the Chaffee BoCC, Gray and CHA board member Jamie Hayes laid out what they envisioned as close to a $3 million budget broken down into allocation areas. The budget sets a 14 percent organizational operations allocation, and two areas of owned-housing development:
- Workforce housing development — 38 percent
- 65+ housing development — 31 percent
Gray pointed out that this kind of budget to support housing development in the county is going to take more than the current investment from the county, the City of Salida and the Town of Buena Vista; an agreement which will sunset in 2025.
She also noted that although state legislation related to the county lodging tax may allow local jurisdictions to vote to use some of that tax toward housing, the CHA doesn’t recommend two tax ballot questions on the Nov. 2022 ballot because it confuses voters. The CHA, she added wants to participate in any proposed ballot language for what could potentially be a four mills property tax to help fund housing for the county’s critically-needed workforce. “We’d be happy to participate in the language and in any potential campaign messaging,” added Gray.
“The reality is that building attainable and affordable workforce and senior housing, and creating sustainable rental support programs is costly,” said Craig Nielson, CHA Board Chair. “However, we believe that a community problem requires a community solution. We are excited about opening up a public discussion about how, and whether, using tax dollars may be a viable strategy to make significant progress in affordable housing in the coming years.”
For more information on the Chaffee Housing Authority, visit www.chaffeehousingauthority.org
Featured image: A group gathered in 2020 to celebrate the formation of the Chaffee Housing Authority. Photo by Jan Wondra.
Paraphrasing here – “It’s so expensive to live here. What if we made it even more expensive to live here? Surely that will solve the problem of how expensive it is to live here.”
Regarding the idea of using property tax dollars to subsidize affordable housing via ANOTHER tax, when our property taxes are already increasing every year, I’d encourage the folks behind this idea to look elsewhere for the money they need. I imagine that there is going to be a lot of opposition to the idea of increasing property taxes again, especially in BV, where we just approved a mill levy for the nice new BV school a couple years ago, and even that took two tries. The first try obviously viewed taxpayer dollars as something with a bottomless supply, and the voters said “no” pretty clearly. The commissioners should keep that initial rejection in mind when they’re considering sources of funding for this idea.
They can’t ask us to raise our taxes every time some outfit with an idea blows through town. How long until they’re asking us for tax money to build a monorail?
I am happy that Chaffee County is considering a move to fund affordable housing by using a portion of the lodging tax. It makes sense. The people who work for low wages in our restaurants, stores, and so on are the ones who staff the many attractions that visitors come here to enjoy.
I also have a suggestion to help make the county more affordable to those with housing insecurities. Let’s think about establishing a program to offer sales tax relief to residents in the lower income brackets. The families and individuals spending half or more of their incomes on housing are likely spending most of the remainder on essentials – and paying our high sales tax with every purchase. Sales taxes are extremely regressive, meaning that our lower income folks are doing more than their fair share to pay for county and city amenities that are supported by sales tax. I would like to see that made more fair. An income-based tax abatement card maybe, something like a reverse charge card? Some sort of mechanism to exempt residents below a certain income from city sales tax, or maybe the tax on food? It’s worth thinking about.
Susie Shallers
Salida, CO
So increase taxes on homeowners, of whom many are struggling as well, to subsidize housing for others? That will luckily never pass voter’s approval. Why not look at some more creative solutions to help the market alleviate the issue itself? Just a couple ideas:
Rezone R1 in the towns to R2-3 to allow greater density on existing land. Many people don’t need or want a single family home on .25acres. How about a duplex with two ADUS on that property?
Speed the approval process for permits and subdivision approvals especially within city limits. Same for subdividing existing lots.
Lower fees to promote more construction.
Promote projects and approve them quickly such as the BV Commons. (I can’t find it but wasn’t such a project planned on the old Town and Country property but met stiff resistance?)
I would guess that a countywide vote for any type of tax would never pass and would be a waste of time and no affordable housing would result.