How much money did Pitkin County’s affordable housing mill levy raise in 2025? 

Editor’s note: This story has been updated to reflect that the affordable housing mill levy is a Pitkin County-wide tax, not just Aspen, and that the the total county contribution to the Good Deeds program in 2025 was $1 million.

Last year, a new affordable housing mill levy collected a total of $8,527,200 for Pitkin County funding efforts to “attract and retain essential workers.” 

Voters approved the mill levy, or property tax, in support of “constructing, acquiring, preserving, and operating affordable housing,” in 2024. In 2025, Pitkin County spent a total of $621,807 of the $8,527,200 that the tax collected on affordable housing efforts, including more than $100,000 for a homelessness strategic plan, just short of $50,000 for a housing partnership strategy, $250,000 to help in the deed-restricted purchase of two Roaring Fork Valley mobile home parks, and $200,000 for the APCHA Repair and Maintenance Grant Program. 

“2025 was our first year of spending housing property tax dollars,” Ashley Perl, Pitkin County community resiliency manager, told the board on Tuesday. “I think we’re still working on the strategy and understanding how the board wants to spend those dollars long-term.”

A balance of over $7.9 million is left from the fund in its first year of collections. But the Pitkin County Board of County Commissioners already has plans for last year’s funds and the coming collections of 2026. 

As of Tuesday’s BOCC Work Session, Pitkin County is expecting to spend around $11.2 million of funds generated by the affordable housing mill levy, including some of the funds generated in 2025 and some in 2026. According to Connie Baker, budget director at Pitkin County, the county expects to raise a similar amount of money in 2026, albeit marginally smaller at roughly $8.3 million. 

For 2026, the county is anticipating a large expenditure at the Phillips Mobile Home Park, currently budgeted at $5 million, for a water infrastructure overhaul. The county purchased the park in 2018 for $6.5 million and has been planning to overhaul the water and wastewater systems since then. 

What’s happening in Aspen, in one click.

Sign up for our morning newsletter at AspenTimes.com/newsletter

The board is also setting aside $4.5 million for grants and contributions. On Tuesday, they specifically discussed the West Mountain Regional Housing Coalition, which they have contributed funds to in the past. The WMRHC’s Good Deeds program assists individuals in the valley in purchasing their homes in exchange for a deed restriction on the property that requires the home be owned by a local employee and limits the per year appreciation of the house. 

Last year, the county gave $1 million to the program, which, according to their website, has helped purchase 15 homes in the valley and placed deed restrictions on all of those homes. The Board considered a $1 million contribution to the program at their Wednesday Regular Meeting, which they unanimously approved on first reading. 

The $7.9 million from the 2025 affordable housing mill levy that was not spent in 2025 wasn’t used due to a commitment that the board made in 2022 to spend $5 million from the county’s general fund on affordable housing efforts. 

In the process of spending down that $5 million commitment, the board contributed some funds from the new property tax, but mixed and matched those funds with general fund dollars. 

“Between all of our funds, there were a few (efforts) that sat squarely in one fund, but we did a lot of mixing and matching to meet community need,” Perl said on Tuesday. “That provided the board a lot of flexibility to support a lot of items (in 2025).”

The $5 million had been spent across multiple years of APCHA repair grant contributions, multiple years of West Mountain Regional Housing Coalition Good Deeds program contributions, Habitat for Humanity contributions, Homelessness strategic plan funding, and the 2025 mobile homes park purchase.