Steamboat Springs’ big workforce housing project is on ice after voters rejected a key annexation vote Tuesday night.
The project, referred to as Brown Ranch, is a 534-acre piece of property that the Yampa Valley Housing Authority purchased with $24 million in money from an anonymous donor. The annexation agreement would allow the housing authority to build up to 2,264 units for workforce housing.
Steamboat Springs City Council President Gail Garey said the community is still grateful for the donation and hopes to eventually capitalize on it.
“I don't think that anybody disagrees that we desperately need housing for our workforce, for our families, and for everybody that makes this community work,” Garey said. “So I think it's just a pause and we'll figure out how to move forward and get this over the finish line.”
City Council initially approved the annexation last fall, but organizers opposed to the effort were able to gather enough signatures to force a public vote. Tuesday’s unofficial results from the Steamboat Springs City Clerk had the measure failing 3,149 to 2,280. The city said there were also 88 signature discrepancies that may be resolved within the next 8 days.
The land is owned by the Yampa Valley Housing Authority, which will continue to work toward developing the project.
“During our community engagement process, we learned so many workers are barely hanging on and the Brown Ranch gave them hope for the future. They told us they were optimistic there was a plan to provide homes they could afford,” said Jason Peasley, Executive Director of the Yampa Valley Housing Authority, in a press release after the vote. “My heart aches when I think of the people who told us the Brown Ranch would be their first legitimate opportunity to own a home, and they compared it to the good fortune so many others had over the past decades to buy a home. With this vote, that same opportunity for those community members is two to three years further out of reach.”
The property sits just west of Steamboat and has long been eyed as a potential for workforce housing development. The annexation agreement called for a blend of rental properties and properties for sale, as well single family and multi-family structures. Notably, the housing would be available to a wide range of income levels.
In the Yampa Valley Housing Authority’s plan, properties would have been open to residents earning 20 percent of the area median income, all the way up to 250 percent of the area median income.
That would have put people earning as little as $15,180 a year in the same neighborhood as people earning up to $189,750, according to housing authority numbers.
While the land was purchased with donated money, funding for the construction of actual housing was supposed to come from a mix of revenue sources. Steamboat voters already approved directing 75 percent of tax revenue from short-term rentals to the Yampa Valley Housing Authority to support Brown Ranch affordable housing.
Garey said the Council will meet in the coming weeks to chart a path forward.
“We were given the gift of the land, and there's been a lot of work that got us to where we are today, but the vote reflects that there's more work that needs to be done,” she said.
