Aspen outlines housing lottery priorities for new development

Aspen City Council on Monday decided emergency workers, and those who work locally, should get lottery priority in a soon-to-be built affordable housing development.

Council decided those who work within the Urban Growth Boundary, which includes Aspen and the Aspen Airport Business Center, should see priority to live in the three-building, 277-unit Lumberyard project. 

The city also directed staff to give priority to emergency workers, defined by the Aspen-Pitkin County Housing Authority as “a career employee or volunteer law, fire, EMS, or Mountain Rescue personnel who are called out to emergencies; or emergency dispatch staff; or on-call responders that give on-scene emergency care to victims,” in addition to on-call hospital staff with short response requirements. 

“(I) absolutely think that it should apply to Lumberyard,” Council Member Bill Guth said of APCHA’s emergency worker prioritization. 

But the $360 million Lumberyard project will be managed by site developers Gorman & Company, rather than APCHA. As such, the city directed staff to draft regulations that would be pinned to the APCHA regulations, so they would evolve alongside one another.

Council also asked staff to explore how the project, which will offer one, two, and three-unit options, could offer temporary housing for those who would see displacement through government action — like when the city condemns or rebuilds a housing structure. 

“We’ve talked about it at other times, about the challenge of giving people a place to live while their own structure is being redeveloped or repaired,” Aspen Mayor Rachael Richards said. “And so I just thought it might be a very handy tool for the city to have as it’s continuing to work on housing issues that are going to go far beyond the Lumberyard.”

A slim council majority directed staff to pursue an Employer Partnership Program, where “local area employers could enter into an EPP agreement with the city of Aspen to give a number of their workers priority in the Lumberyard housing lottery,” as written in a city memo. 

A maximum of 50 of the 277 units would be allowed in the Employer Partnership Program. Details will still have to be worked out. 

Additionally, the city asked staff to prioritize “rightsizing” for those in APCHA housing, giving those who feel they live in a unit too large for their needs an affordable option to change units. 

The city hopes to adopt a formal resolution regarding Lumberyard lottery priorities on Dec. 2.

Skyler Stark-Ragsdale can be reached at 970-429-9152 or email him at sstark-ragsdale@aspentimes.com.