PART 1: Affordable Housing in Colorado Springs – How Architects and Building Designers Can Help
As a residential designer in Colorado Springs, I’m keenly aware of the challenges that many in our community face when it comes to finding affordable housing, and I’m on a bit of a mission this year to try to find creative solutions.
This three-part blog series will touch on the current state of affordable housing in our region, explore some ideas that inspired me back in the 1980s when I was just getting started in this business, and ask if both old and new design solutions may be relevant and expanded upon in today’s market. My goal more than anything, though, is to be part of a dialogue on this topic. Affordable – or attainable – housing is a challenge that will take many creative professionals working together to find solutions, and I hope we as an industry can share ideas on an issue that affects millions of families nationwide.
So, why is it so hard to build affordable housing in Colorado Springs specifically? There are a number of factors that contribute to this problem. First and foremost, land is expensive here. According to the city, the population of Colorado Springs grows about 2% each year, making it one of the fastest growing regions in the Mountain West. This makes it difficult to build new housing units at a price that low-income families can afford.
Katie Sunderlin, a Senior Affordable Housing Coordinator in Colorado Springs, told a local news anchor that the cost of living here still outpaces local average wages. As a rough baseline for determining what defines affordable housing, the city states that the cost of a family’s rent or mortgage plus utilities should be around 30% or less of their total income. In that case, according to a recent report by the National Low Income Housing Coalition, a full-time worker in Colorado would need to earn $28.94 an hour to afford a two-bedroom apartment at fair market rent. This means that many families are forced to spend more than they can afford on housing, or they have to live in substandard conditions. Saving up for the old concept of a “starter home” seems out of reach for far too many families nowadays.
Additionally, there are strict zoning laws that limit the density of housing in many areas. This means that developers can only build a limited number of units on a given piece of land, which drives up the cost per unit. A recent proposal called “More Housing Now” could usher in a sweeping new plan that would explicitly allow more density in the form of duplexes, townhomes, and accessory dwelling units (ADUs). For Colorado Springs – classified as a Tier 1 city in the proposal – residential neighborhood lots would allow not only single-family homes, but ADUs, townhomes, and multiplexes with up to six units. This could dramatically improve the availability of affordable housing, and could create thriving communities and revitalize neighborhoods and land that are no longer being used.
Though the proposal is far from signed law, it’s an extremely encouraging step, and an invitation to rethink how land can be better used to serve our residents’ needs. Even abandoned strip malls and sprawling parking lots could be reimagined and redeveloped into pocket neighborhoods – bringing life and community to otherwise dead zones. There are exciting possibilities for developers and builders in identifying underutilized or vacant land that can be repurposed for new affordable housing, or opening the door for infill development in existing neighborhoods that can accommodate higher density housing.
Another obstacle to building affordable housing is the cost of construction materials and labor. These costs have been rising steadily in recent years, making it even more difficult to build new units at a price that low-income families can afford. Creativity and thinking outside of the box is necessary here to encourage the use of innovative construction techniques and materials that can help reduce the cost of building new housing units. This might include modular or prefabricated construction, or the use of alternative materials like straw bale or adobe.
Habitat for Humanity has been leading the way on affordable materials and smart and efficient ways to meet code requirements for decades. Recently, in the Glenwood Springs area, Habitat for Humanity has even been experimenting with ways to build homes that are not only affordable, but net-zero as well. And the Roaring Fork Habitat for Humanity chapter hopes to develop a modular home factory in Rifle that could produce 200 net-zero homes a year made from recycled steel and ready to assemble.
A final obstacle to address is the opposition from local residents to the construction of affordable housing units in their neighborhoods. This opposition can take the form of NIMBYism ("not in my backyard") or concerns about increased traffic or overall architectural appearance. This is not a concern to be taken lightly and is an area where developers and designers can and should work together to create beautiful neighborhoods that serve their residents and community. Proposals such as the previously mentioned “More Housing Now” should still allow cities to customize their codes, and design requirements may be added as a way of keeping neighborhoods looking architecturally cohesive. Designers love thinking about this sort of thing. I, for one, would gladly offer my services on this subject, and I know a lot of urban design professionals who would love nothing more than to do the same.
Despite the complex challenges I’ve only briefly touched on here, I think we can all agree that there’s a real need for attainable housing in Colorado Springs, and an opportunity to be part of the solution if we’re determined enough to do it. There must be ways to overcome these obstacles and provide greater access to safe, decent, and affordable housing. And what are builders, designers, developers, engineers, realtors, and industry professionals, if not creative problem solvers?
We in Colorado Springs are a community of smart, resourceful, and adaptive business people – many of us well-established, and many others fresh, sharp, and just getting started, and our city is at an inflection point right now. Well-designed and thoughtfully constructed affordable housing would meet a massive market need with great potential for all of us to innovate and could represent a model for taking on a nationwide problem at a local level.
Imagine a city filled with fewer vacant strip malls and more opportunity – where more residents have the ability to purchase a small home of their own in which to build their lives and take pride in. It will take all of us working together to get there. From industry professionals with ideas and skills to share, to creative developers with a passion for this community, to nonprofits, local government, community leaders, and residents – we all have something to contribute. It will be worth it if we do.
As I stated at the beginning of this post, I want to be part of the dialogue on finding solutions for this topic. If you’d like to collaborate and share your own expertise, ideas, or opportunities relating to the subject of affordable housing in Colorado Springs, please send me an email or fill out this interest form. I’d love to hear from you.