How can a fast-growing suburban community, with plans to double in size, incorporate affordability into future development?

SUMMARY

The Town of Erie, CO is located directly north of Denver, east of Boulder, and south of Fort Collins and Greeley. Sitting between these job rich regions, and in relatively easy commuting-distance of all three, Erie is an ideal bedroom community. Among the communities in the Boulder orbit, Erie has been the fastest growing in the 21st Century, putting its ample supply of land to work meeting the growing demand for new, single-unit detached houses in the region. As Erie approached the likely halfway point of its growth trajectory, it found itself with very few housing options besides new, or relatively new, single-unit detached houses. With the median sale price of those houses surpassing $800,000 in the first half of 2022, Erie needed a plan to diversify its housing stocks and address serious affordability challenges.

The Needs Assessment and Strategy establishes the need for a new housing mix, suggests options for intervening in the housing market to address affordability, and informs the Town’s new comprehensive plan, under development in 2023 and 2024. A key feature of the strategy is a proposal for an inclusionary housing ordinance that would require 10% of all new housing units to be affordable at no more than 80% of the Town’s median household income.