The city will use a $86,000 grant from the state to study Longmont’s housing needs, including where to build new affordable and middle tier housing. The grant — from the Colorado Department of Local Affairs — will also fund a review of the incentives available to developers to produce housing stock, said city officials.
The $86,250 grant will be coupled with $28,750 from the city’s affordable housing fund. The $115,000 total should cover both the housing and incentive study, according to a city staff report.
The study, once complete, will help inform a task force created last year at the urging of the city council to take on the lack of mid-level housing for workers who otherwise cannot afford to live in Longmont, said Erin Fosdick, principal planner for the city.
A group of business leaders have also formed Prosper Longmont, which is lobbying for more workforce housing. Eric Wallace, founding member of Proper Longmont, said the city must stem the flow of workers leaving the city because housing prices are too high.
The City Council this week approved an agreement with the Department of Local Affairs to receive the funding for the study. The money comes from state and federal stimulus funds, the staff report states.
The city will seek a consultant to do the assessment, Fosdick said, which should be finished sooner than later.
“The grant requires that all funding be spent before June 30, 2024, but I would anticipate we would complete this work much sooner than that,” she said.
Longmont is committed to having a minimum of 12% of its overall housing stock be permanently affordable for households earning equal to or less than 80% of the area median incomes (AMI) for for-sale homes and equal to or less than 50% of AMI for rental homes, according to a city staff report.
Fosdick said based on data provided by the city’s Housing and Community Investment Division, Longmont is about half way towards meeting its affordable housing goal, with 6.1% of units being affordable.
The assessment will build on existing data to provide a detailed analysis of:
- Housing units including unit type, unit size, age, tenure, monthly cost/housing value, overall condition and unit growth and projections
- Households including age, race/ethnicity, household composition, cost burden, household growth and projections, income and vehicle availability.
