Aspen/Pitkin County Housing Authority unanimously approves resolution to support Pitkin County ballot question
Question 1A asks voters to support property tax to help fund affordable housing
Austin Colbert/The Aspen Times
The Aspen/Pitkin County Housing Authority unanimously approved a resolution to support county ballot question 1A, a proposed property tax increase to help fund affordable housing.
The new property tax is for a mill levy of 1.5 mills up to the next 25 years. For homeowners, the tax is approximately a $121 increase per $1 million of property value annually. For commercial property owners, it is approximately a $435 increase per $1 million of value annually. This would bring in about $8.5 million to the county.
“You all know the need,” County Commissioner Kelly McNicholas Kury said during Wednesday’s Aspen/Pitkin County Housing Authority meeting.
Housing Authority Vice Chairperson John Ward immediately motioned to approve the resolution to formally support the ballot question.
A question was raised, however, about what other initiatives the property tax is going to fund and how it is going to be split up — other than just for workforce housing.
Kury said the goal of the property tax is to deliver 250 new units in 10 years, as well as to build senior and transitional housing, support housing partnerships, convert free-market properties to deed-restricted ones, and preserve and restore current affordable housing.
Potential partnerships include nonprofits — like Habitat for Humanity of the Roaring Fork Valley and the West Mountain Regional Housing Coalition — but also governmental entities, like APCHA, the town of Snowmass Village, the city of Aspen, the town of Basalt, and Eagle County.
“We also are prioritizing the money that we would bring to the table in an equity stack of a project for what we’re calling critical community services,” Kury said. “So, that would be to house, road and bridge, transit, public safety, health care, child care (workers), and teachers.”
Portions of the revenue will also be allocated for a buy-down program, a capital reserve maintenance fund, and homelessness solutions.
Another question that was raised was exactly how much of the revenue will go toward homelessness because Kury has been met with some resistance from some objectors who voiced concern on even funding homelessness.
In her conversations, she has said that homeless will not be a large portion of the revenue, maybe 5% max.
“We don’t need a lot there. We’re talking about maybe 10 people,” she said. “The good thing about what we’re doing with homelessness in this community is we really have a very good sense of who we’re serving and the population we’re serving, and how they move in and out of homelessness. So, it’s really a solvable problem. The low number is what we really think we need to make a big impact in this area.”
Regan Mertz can be reached at 970-429-9153 or rmertz@aspentimes.com.
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