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

Decades ago, Colorado’s mountain communities, struggling with sky-high real estate values, implemented “inclusionary” ordinances that required developers to set aside a share of the units they built at a lower price or lower rent.

In a nod to just how expensive things have become, the definition of affordable has risen to include households making above-average incomes, so that accountants, managers, and even doctors, not just ski lift workers and restaurant servers, can live near where they work.

As inclusionary rules have morphed into “workforce” housing requirements, more places now require commercial developers to build or finance units based on the number of jobs their projects will generate. Rather than waiting around for market-based solutions, more communities are building homes themselves.

“I very much like my job and I like Aspen very much, but I can tell you if I had to commute from Rifle, I would not be working here,” said Ben Anderson, community development director in Colorado’s most expensive place to live.

Seeking housing solutions

From the mountains to the prairies, Colorado’s housing crisis is squeezing state residents in ways that make drastic choices an all-too-common part of their cost-of-living calculus.

Anderson purchased a 550-square-foot condo built near the police station five years ago for $200,000. Comparable-sized market-rate units next door go for $2 million, or 10 times as much. He can live there as long as he works for the city. And he avoids a 136-mile roundtrip commute.

Matthew Owens, who lived in a ski resort subsidized apartment for 17 years, was about to relocate to another state because of a lack of affordable housing options for his young family.

Three years ago, he put his name in a lottery, literally, and his ball was drawn, giving him the right to purchase a deed-restricted three-bedroom condo that the town had built for $650,000. A similar property would have cost $4 million at the market rate.

“We wouldn’t have been able to stay. It is a total game-changer,” said Owens, who runs a property management company in Snowmass Village and has two children.

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