Session VII - Housing in COS and El Paso County
What did you learn with regards to housing last night that impacted your understanding of your neighborhood, or our region more broadly? Do you see any implications for this new information in the way you approach working in your neighborhood?
Housing is always the elephant in the room when speaking about COS's future. I appreciated how the county and city integrated their presentations so they were addressing issues in tandem.
ReplyDeleteMy neighborhood, Mesa Springs, is older, but new apartments are coming in with the Centennial Road construction. I think most residents just think about how new projects will effect them, but the affordable housing crisis here must be viewed from a whole city perspective.
Andrew Hoskins
The presentations were excellent. I believe the statistic that stood out to me the most, was when it was mentioned that homelessness has risen approximately 73% since the year 2000 in COS. That's a staggering figure. I am also alarmed to learn that there are approximately 453 students that experience homelessness in COS and El Paso County.
ReplyDeleteFadil Lee
Indigo Ranch @Ridgeview
This session was, for me, a sequel to the "Retool:COS City Council Work Session." What struck me, in particular at the City Council session, was the relatively high cost per unit of building affordable housing for families and the extreme shortage of "affordable" housing. Although I agree with city and county efforts to create greater flexibility in zoning with a concomitant variety of housing types, I hope that the City Planning Department learned from a particularly bungled ADU approval in a covenanted, historic Skyway neighborhood. There is virtually nothing functionally or visibly "auxiliary" about the ADU or the residents except perhaps the shared, .single utility bill and the front yard divided in half by twine stretched between sticks...
ReplyDeleteThe presentations were spot on. Affordable housing is essential for most cities however no one seems to be paying attention to it or focus is diverted to other issues. All sectors-primarily the private sector-need to be driving the train here as they are the ones with the skills as developers. The key is blending all these different kinds of of housing initiatives together. Overall excellent!
ReplyDeleteHousing is a huge topic here in COS and on the westside so I was very much looking forward to Catherine and Eric's presentation. I appreciated the organization of the massive amounts of information they provided especially in reference to the specifics as to why home buying is so out of reach for most. I knew of the increasing popularity of COS but had no idea just how rapidly our city is actually growing. I grew up in Denver so to hear that we will soon surpass "the big city" in population blows my mind. I live to the south of Old Colorado City and housing availability in our neighborhood is increasing as many homeowners have double lots and are building 2-3 dwellings instead of one. A lot of the options in the budgeting exercise for new homeowner incentives could go really far for homebuyers in our area as it's one of few that's still somewhat affordable. We bought our first home here in 2015 and can't believe the growth in less than 10 years.
ReplyDeleteYet another excellent class that could easily go for 2 sessions. I have a much greater appreciation, and thanks, for all the data, research, vetting and considerations that go into the affordable housing discussion, funding and implementation. I would like a more in depth understanding of those living in poverty and their locations. Perhaps identifying a few of the major streets on the map would help with that in the PPT presentation. And how has that changed, or expected to change, with these last couple pandemic years? I'd also like a class on the the other half of the equation - the non-profit entities vetting and implementing funded applications and projects. This broader understanding of all the entities and considerations would greatly facilitate conversations with community and city government around affordable housing.
ReplyDeleteCyndi Long
Middle Shooks Run
Fantastic overview of affordable housing. Appreciate both the perspective of the City (Catherine) and the County (Eric). Very timely, indeed.
ReplyDeleteData is key and we reviewed interesting facts, thank you.
Great discussion about the tools available to the City and County to incentivize, develop and maintain affordable housing in the local area. Very important we focus on this. In fact, the HNP has been supporting the Affordable Housing Collaborative since last year to develop recommendations for City Council (those were presented last week to the Council).
I truly appreciate the “exercise” we participated in for it brought to light the challenge of appropriately spreading limited resources across demand.
Dianne Bridges
I learned how big an issue the lack of affordable housing is. House prices seem to have more than doubled in the five years I've lived here, so it's not surprising that people are sadly becoming priced out of home ownership or being able to afford rent payments. The growing disparities put into context some recent City Planning Commission and Council decisions on multi-family housing developments. However I can't help but think the City zoning codes don't favor affordable housing per se. Instead of apartment complexes, which seem to be desperately needed, developers want the maximum profit from their land, leading to huge single family homes or high-end townhomes/condos, often at the expense of demolished lower-end homes. The statistics show families are smaller and more people are living alone, but it doesn't appear that development is catering to that segment, probably again because it's not as profitable as McMansions and McCondos.
ReplyDeleteJo Lucey
I find the planning for affordable housing a very important part of the city's future. I am happy to hear all the wonderful things they are implementing, the real estate industry has changed for the locals, and providing a stronger more robust down payment assistance program would be nice. Not allowing investors to buy all our affordable housing would be a nice mandate.
ReplyDeleteOne thing that I wondered about during the presentation is how the poverty rate has grown over the years. 73% increase is a startling statistic but is it a percentage increase (we used to have 10% of residents experiencing poverty now we have 17.3%) or strictly a numbers increase (we used to have 50,000 people experiencing poverty, now we have 87,500)? There is a big difference between the two and I just wonder.
ReplyDeleteGood to see that Colorado Springs is becoming more diverse. Sad to see that, like everywhere else, the median income for residents has not kept up with the increasing costs of housing/rent. Figuring out the affordable housing crisis is the next big step the city tackle (like most of America) but it can be extremely difficult when every place that is suggested receives a large NIMBY response from the neighbors. ("Oh I support affordable housing, just not close to me.") Add on top the increase in money that developers are able to make now that housing costs are so high and, unless the city requires a set % of new developments to be affordable, I believe we will just continue to push less wealthy people further and further away from the city center.