Pitkin County gives $1 million to deed restricted housing coalition

Pitkin County commissioners are poised to give the Western Mountain Regional Housing Coalition $1 million after they unanimously approved the first reading of the resolution enabling that grant. 

At their Wednesday, April 23, meeting, commissioners heard from April Long, the executive director of the Western Mountain Regional Housing Coalition, on their Good Deeds program.

Otherwise known as the buy-down program, it offers to pay 30% of the purchase cost for a home in the Roaring Fork Valley for qualified buyers. That 30% is then treated as the purchase of a deed restriction on the home, and the buyer themselves gets to purchase the home for a significant discount. 

The deed restriction keeps the homes close to purchase value should they re-enter the market by capping appreciation at 3% annually. 

This means a hypothetical house on the market for $1 million, purchased through the Good Deeds program, would only cost the buyer $700,000. If that buyer wanted to sell to the market the following year, they could only sell it for $721,000, according to Long. 

The program has requirements for who can take advantage of this benefit and be considered “qualified.” 

“You do have to be employed locally by an employer who serves the local community, and you have to maintain local employment the whole time you’re in this home,” she said during an interview following the first discussion of this resolution in early April. 

Additionally, not all homes are eligible for purchase through the program. 

“We do have maximum prices that we would go to,” she said. “In Basalt and up-valley of Basalt, we’d go up to a $1.5 million purchase in Pitkin County. The Eagle County portion of Basalt and downvalley, including Glenwood Springs, can go up to a $1.2 million purchase. Downvalley of Glenwood Springs will go up to an $800,000 purchase.”

According to Ashley Perl, community resilience manager at Pitkin County, the county’s $1 million grant would be funded through a property tax that was approved by voters in 2024. The grant specified that the money raised by the tax could be used for buydowns or purchases of new deed restricted homes, which is exactly what this program does. 

The Good Deeds program is also “development neutral,” also according to Perl, meaning it does not encourage the development of new buildings in the valley. 

The money, if granted at the second reading of the resolution on May 14, would not fund the Good Deeds program for long. 

“It would be my guess that this funding would be spent by the middle of July, and so I think it would have an immediate impact,” Long said in the Wednesday meeting.