Councilors hope to improve opportunities for lower-income bracket
A three bedroom, two bathroom home on Delwood Avenue with 1,347 square feet of space was listed at $549,000 on June 4 and under contract by June 9. (Jerry McBride/Durango Herald file)
Durango City Council will hold a daylong study session next week to discuss how to promote and develop workforce housing for the city and its surrounding areas.
“The outcome of the meeting will be what paths we are going to go down, and how we get there,” said Mayor Kim Baxter. “This is mostly a conversation around making sure that all of the council has the same understanding of phrases and words and definitions, and that we agree on how high of a priority this is.”
Members of the public who are interested in learning more about potential workforce housing opportunities in Durango can tune in via Zoom through the city’s website.
Councilors will begin their discussion at 8:30 a.m. Thursday and will continue to discuss options for workforce housing through 4 p.m. The discussion will begin with defining workforce housing and identifying the need in the community.
“This will probably be a very brief conversation, but it’s basically defining workforce housing,” Baxter said. “It’ll probably come down to housing that is affordable for people in the 80% to 120% of the area median income.”
Then there will be a review of housing market data in La Plata County, and the council will look at other successful workforce housing and what other communities are doing.
After a break for lunch, the rest of the day will be spent looking into funding options and formulating a plan moving forward.
“We want to look at what state and federal funding we might have access to, or money that the city has,” Baxter said. “We want to look at what ideas are out there. What options do we have to start making a plan that tells us how much and when.”
Speaking to the need for workforce housing in the area, Baxter said Durango is missing the middle part of its housing continuum.
“There’s no place for people coming out of the lower-income bracket to move to,” Baxter said. “When they start becoming more successful and making more money and want to transition out of affordable housing, there’s nothing for them to buy.”
Baxter said real estate reports done in the area show that housing prices have increased by 120% in the city of Durango since 2019.
“We know that income hasn’t gone up by 120%. So from my point of view, we need to get started now,” Baxter said.
Baxter said her goal for the meeting is to help carve out a clearer path forward to address the area’s lack of workforce housing. She also hopes council members can clearly relay to city staff members what they hope to accomplish.
njohnson@durangoherald.com
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Durango City Council to hold all-day work session to address workforce housing - The Durango Herald
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