When it comes to affordable housing, qualifying rules are about as clear as mud. So Thursday evening, housing officials were on hand at City Hall to answer questions from potential applicants for the new Burlingame development. Thirty-one units at Burlingame will soon be for sale through a housing office lottery.

The rules governing applicant priority were an issue for some at Thursday's meeting.

For example, in a lottery for a three-bedroom unit, a single person who has lived in the county for decades receives lower priority than a three-person household that has lived in the area for less than a year.

That's frustrating for people like Joe Casteel, a widower who has lived in the valley off and on since the early 1970s. In applying for a three-bedroom unit, Casteel is given 10th priority in a housing department lottery, placing him behind households of two or three that might have been here less than a year.

"It's discouraging," he said. "But that is what I came over to find out - how they determine certain things."

David Gibson and his wife are in a similar boat. He's lived in the area for 12 years; she's been here nine. The housing office looks at the longer time period, not combined history. But Gibson's 12 years still give the couple lower priority for a three-bedroom unit than two adults with a dependent who have lived in the county for less than a year.

The Gibsons have been married about a year, and David Gibson said the couple does have plans for a family someday, although not necessarily right away. But having a child immediately would give them better odds for winning a three-bedroom unit at Burlingame.

"It's certainly a topic of conversation," he said.

Further frustrating to Gibson is the scant number of Burlingame units in his category. He and his wife qualify in Category 4, but the current wave of homes in the first Burlingame lottery contain only two Category 4 two-bedroom units. Several three-bedroom Category 4 units will also be for sale, and the Gibsons are eligible to apply for a three-bedroom unit, but they drop in priority for those units. The couple would prefer a three-bedroom in case their family grows, Gibson said, and because he works from home and needs office space.

Cindy Christensen, operations manager at the housing office, said such frustrations are common. Although it seems intuitive to some that a person with a longer work history should get higher priority, that's not the point of the affordable housing program, she said.

The goal for city and county officials is to house employees, she said.

"They would rather have the resource being used fully with every bedroom being used than have [empty bedrooms] with someone who's been here 20 years," she said. "We're employee housing. We're not for people's office space."

That doesn't mean buyers won't be able to create office space. A number of the Burlingame units will have unfinished attics. Owners can finish that space at their own expense. Also, the development's zoning rules designate certain units as "expandable," meaning owners can add an additional story - at their own expense. Deed restrictions on the units cap how much of that money owners can recoup when reselling the homes, although in the case of adding a story, the housing office is still looking at how the cap will be structured.

Although she doesn't expect the lotteries to go past the first priority level, that doesn't mean it's out of the realm of possibility that someone at a lower level will win that unit eventually. In past lotteries, some winners later backed out because they couldn't afford the units. In that scenario, Christensen said, the housing office begins looking at applications in lower priority levels.

For more information, go online to www.aspenhousingoffice.com.

Abigail Eagye's e-mail address is abby@aspentimes.com