When Colorado mountain towns couldn't find affordable housing for workers, they started building homes themselves

Inclusionary rules traditionally are based on two ratios. One defines what is affordable, as a share of the area median income. The second tells developers what must be set aside as affordable, based on either the number of units or square footage.

The set-aside for affordable ranges from 10% in towns like Eagle and Hayden to 30% in Aspen, but 20% is typical. A developer wanting to build 20 condos in Carbondale, for example, would need to make sure four were affordable, said Jared Barnes, the town’s planning director.

In Basalt, the requirement is based on square footage, with 25% of the footage required to be affordable, said James Lindt, assistant planning manager in Basalt. It also requires commercial developers to provide “mitigation” or affordable housing units based on the number of jobs their projects will generate.

Redefining affordable

At the core, inclusionary ordinances represent a realization that the free market, left to its own devices, won’t supply enough affordable housing to lower and even middle-income workers in expensive real estate markets.

“Housing is inextricably tied to economic success and our community can’t exist without a strong housing program,” said Betsy Crum, housing director for Snowmass Village. “People need to be able to live close enough to where they work, or the town will face an existential crisis.”

An influx of high-earning remote workers during the pandemic caused housing costs, already high, to surge even more in desirable places to live.

About 75% of remote workers in Colorado’s mountain resort areas in 2021 were making $150,000 or more a year, while only 30% of locals were making that much, according to the Mountain Migration Report from the NWCCOG.

In a fight for housing, locals were the ones who lost out to newcomers. In Snowmass Village, home prices have risen 81.5% in the last four years, in Steamboat Springs, they are up 81.5% and in Basalt, they are up 76.3%, according to Zillow.

Although it isn’t the norm, Aspen has a deed-restricted home valued at $2.5 million, in part so it can attract doctors to work in the city, Anderson said.

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