Friday, June 16, 2006

Affordable housing going countywide

Plan to boost affordable housing in county all but approved


By STEVE BENSON
Express Staff Writer

Community housing is close to securing a major victory, as an ordinance forcing all future developments in unincorporated Blaine County to include 20 percent affordable housing will likely be adopted next week.

County commissioners Sarah Michael and Dennis Wright spent Wednesday night and Thursday morning fine-tuning the legislation, which only needs to be refined before official approval. Commissioner Tom Bowman was absent from the two sessions.

The commissioners will render a final decision in a hearing Thursday, June 22, at 9 a.m. at the Old County Courthouse in Hailey.

The ordinance is designed to aid the county's ailing affordable housing market. There are fewer than 60 community housing units in the entire county. Aspen, Colo., which often draws comparisons to Ketchum and Sun Valley, has about 2,500 affordable housing units in the city alone.

The cities of Hailey and Sun Valley have already adopted similar inclusionary housing ordinances, with Hailey requiring 20 percent and Sun Valley 15 percent.

According to data in the ordinance, in 1994 the cost of a median-priced single-family home in the county amounted to 321 percent of the annual income of an average family. By 2004, that figure had jumped to 583 percent.

"If these present trends continue, an essential component of the county's middle class will be threatened since most of the workforce and their families can no longer afford to reside in the community," the ordinance states.

In January 2005, the county enacted a moratorium on subdivisions to determine how and where growth should occur in the next couple of decades. The affordable housing shortage was one of six major issues the county wanted to address before the expiration of the moratorium in July 2006.

The county's inclusionary housing ordinance is specific to people in income categories 3, 4, 5, and 6—households making between 60 and 140 percent of the county's median annual income, which is $71,200.

Developers, none of whom attended hearings on Wednesday and Thursday, will have four options to meet the 20 percent requirement:

• Build community housing on the site of the subdivision.

• Build it off the site of the subdivision.

• Convey land for community housing.

• Pay a fee in lieu of housing.

The commissioners initially reviewed the ordinance, crafted by Will Collins, a planning consultant from Jackson, Wyo., in early May. At that time, they determined the "fee in lieu" option would be abused by developers since it would be the least costly alternative. Therefore, the commission decided that density bonuses should not be included in that option and an additional 50 percent charge will be included as an additional disincentive.

The other three options will include density bonuses.

The fees will be deposited into an account managed by the Blaine-Ketchum Housing Authority, which will also be a part of every future subdivision application process in the county.

Another major concern focused on the character and location of the affordable housing units in relation to the free-market homes in the rest of a subdivision.

"You don't want people to point at them and say, 'Oh, that's the community housing place,'" Carol Brown, a Hailey city councilwoman who was speaking on her own behalf, said Wednesday. "We want them to fit in."

Tim Graves, Blaine County chief deputy prosecuting attorney, on Thursday expressed similar concerns.

As written, the ordinance stated that the affordable housing units should "to the extent practical" be dispersed among the free-market lots to create an integrated subdivision.

Graves expressed concern that that language could give developers leeway to put the affordable housing units in the least desirable locations.

"It's an opportunity for the developer to come in and say, 'It's not practical,'" Graves said. "My view is, it's always better to start off with a strict standard, with the bar high."

Commissioner Michael agreed and county planner Jeff Adams rewrote the section to read that community housing on site should be located to "promote a neighborhood of year round residents with similarity in character of design and access to community amenities dispersed among free market lots to create an integrated subdivision."

Rebekah Helzel, director of Advocates for Real Community Housing, and Michael David, executive director of the Blaine Ketchum Housing Authority, both attended the hearings Wednesday and Thursday and thanked the commissioners for their efforts.




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