Following a $1 million contribution from Glenwood Springs City Council to Habitat for Humanity’s affordable workforce housing project last month, the nonprofit returned before council on Thursday with an ask for $2 million in additional funding. 

During their June 20 meeting, city council voted unanimously to provide a $1 million grant in 2C funds to Habitat for Humanity for the purchase of an 88-unit apartment building to house residents currently working from Parachute to Basalt. 

The existing residential apartment building, which currently functions as a rental project, would be condominiumized into studios and one-bedroom units and made available for purchase at “prices affordable” to buyers earning 80-120% of the area median income. For a two-person household, that equates to home prices between $250,000 and $400,000, according to a June 20 staff report. 

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The apartment building is located in West Glenwood and is less than three years old, however Schwartz said the nonprofit is not at liberty to disclose the building’s location or price at this time. 

With a positive recommendation from the Workforce Housing Advisory Board, who are tasked with evaluating projects for 2C funding, council approved the $1 million in exchange for 10 priority units for buyers employed at a business within the city limits of Glenwood Springs, or whose employers’ headquarters are located within the municipal boundary. In other words, at any given time while the 88 units are full, at least 10 units must be occupied by employees working in Glenwood Springs.

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Were a resident working within city boundaries to quit their job or begin working outside of Glenwood Springs, Schwartz said the resident would not be forced to sell their unit in order to avoid destabilizing the county’s workforce; instead, the “lost” priority unit would then be moved to another applicant working in Glenwood — something Mayor Pro Tem Marco Dehm said he didn’t think was fair to the city’s tax-paying workforce.

Gail Schwartz, president of Habitat for Humanity Roaring Fork, said they would honor the leases of the apartment building’s existing tenants until the expiration date, after which residents would have the option to purchase their condominiumized unit only if they meet employment and income requirements. Schwartz added that “just shy of half of the current residents” are already employed in Glenwood Springs. 

On Thursday morning, Glenwood Springs City Council held an hour-long executive session with Schwartz to discuss project costs, funding and contributions from other partners — all of which Schwartz had previously said she could not disclose to the public. As of that morning, Habitat still faced a $3.89 million funding gap to purchase the building. 

The discussion was then brought to Thursday evening’s regular meeting, where council voted to give Habitat a $500,000 grant from 2C funds for five additional priority units, along with a $1.5 million loan “with terms to be negotiated by staff … with funding sources to be determined.” Combined with last month’s contributions, the city has approved $3 million for the project (a $1.5 million grant and a $1.5 million loan) in exchange for 15 priority units. 

“This is a one-off opportunity to get development-neutral units of this quantity,” Councilor Sumner Schachter said. “I believe Habitat is a huge benefit to the mold that has been broken in the Roaring Fork Valley about how to proceed with housing. It’s a huge opportunity for them as well as us.” 

City Manager Steve Boyd said during the meeting that council had not taken the question of additional funding to the Workforce Housing Advisory Board for a recommendation like they did for their initial contribution. 

“I don’t know that we had time to do that … it was a time issue,” Boyd said. 

Director of Economic and Community Development Hannah Klausman clarified that during initial conversations with the board, however, they had expressed they’d be comfortable with approving an additional half a million in the form of a loan. 

“The loan funds they were comfortable with, because that is revenue coming back in, and we certainly work with Habitat on timing … to make sure the fund doesn’t go too low, below our programmatic efforts,” Klausman said. 

The city’s 2C fund generates roughly $1.75 million every year according to City Manager Steve Boyd. The $500,000 grant from 2C funding leaves the fund close to empty for 2024, according to Boyd. 

Councilor Shelley Kaup pitched the possibility of replacing part of the $1.5 million loan with a grant from the city’s general fund in exchange for priority units reserved specifically for the City of Glenwood Springs as an employer, however several councilors were against the idea, citing community pushback they’d received after using general fund money to purchase priority units for the Little Adventures child care center. 

“I don’t like the idea of prioritizing for a very small group of folks. It’s taxpayer money, it belongs to 81601,” Councilor Mitchell Weimer said. “The first tranche of prioritization does just that, the second tranche really is being done just because it’s the right thing to do.”