At the annual Pagosa Springs Community Development Corporation (PSCDC) held May 1, the organization provided updates on several ongoing efforts.
Executive Director Emily Lashbrooke provided an update on the community’s workforce housing project.
Lashbrooke indicated that the PSCDC adopted its workforce housing initiative in February 2023, after being approached by the Town of Pagosa Springs, “to see if we could do something about affordable housing because there has been a lot of effort in this field, but nobody can seem to crack this.”
She mentioned the PSCDC partnered with Habitat for Humanity of Archuleta County to work on this initiative together, noting that Archuleta County donated 35 lots to the PSCDC and 10 lots were donated to Habitat for Humanity.
The county was able to donate these lots after legally obtaining them through a deed recovery process.
“We have made more traction and more movement in the affordable housing realm than we have seen in this county in a long time,” Lashbrooke said.
She explained that the PSCDC considered factors like economic diversity when planning where to build these homes, which will all be located throughout the Chris Mountain II and Trails subdivisions.
“Instead of segregation income-driven housing, we integrated them,” she said, explaining that these homes are intended to be purchased by residents earning anywhere between 80 and 120 percent of the area median income (AMI).
AMI is defined as the midpoint of a specific area’s income distribution and is calculated on an annual basis by the Department of Housing and Urban Development.
For a household size of just one person, 80 percent AMI in Pagosa Springs for 2025 is $58,240 and 100 percent is $72,800, according to PSCDC.
For a household size of two people, those numbers change to $66,560 and $83,200.
“It’ll be such a socially diverse neighborhood, it’s just magical how it’s all come together,” Lashbrooke said.
She went on to explain that the PSCDC, along with Archuleta County, recently secured a $1.9 million grant “to do all the infrastructure improvement in Chris Mountain and Trails.”
Lashbrooke noted that the PSCDC worked with the county in applying for the grant and got the application submitted in just two days. The grant was awarded in February.
“We can’t believe it. We had a lot of collaboration,” she added.
The grant was awarded by the Colorado Department of Local Affairs (DOLA) under its More Housing Now and Land Use Initiative and required a match requirement of 25 percent, for which the county and PSCDC used waived fees as an in-kind match, explained PSCDC Administrative Manager Kathleen McFadden in an email to The SUN.
Lashbrooke explained this grant will be used to upgrade roads, and extend electric and broadband lines throughout those subdivisions. The infrastructure improvements will also benefit more than 100 other additional lots in the area.
“It will also open up an additional 105 lots that can affordably now be built,” she said. “We could not be more excited. This is a huge game changer for all the affordable housing in Archuleta County in that area.”
Lashbrooke went on to explain that the PSCDC has secured $250,000 of funding to hire a multijurisdictional housing coordinator for the next two years “to help us grow the affordable market in housing.”
She noted the housing coordinator will work with the county and the town “to incentivise people to build affordable housing and to offset the costs to build affordable housing.”
She also talked about how the PSCDC is actively looking for homebuyers as the first 10 homes of the project are expected to be complete by December of this year.
“These houses will be complete and occupied by December this year,” she said. “We’re going to occupy all these homes.”
The PSCDC will be hosting a homebuyer information session at 5 p.m. on June 6 at the Ross Aragon Community Center, located at 451 Hot Springs Blvd. The session will cover topics like deed restrictions on the homes and lending options available.
Lashbrooke mentioned that the PSCDC has chosen to partner with a local builder BWD Construction to complete the first 10 homes.
“We couldn’t have asked for a better partner,” Lashbrooke said of BWD, noting that BWD has been helpful in keeping the project on time and on budget.
She also noted that this project has been a “community collaboration” with help from multiple organizations and community members.
“We’re trying to attract those young families to stay here and plant their roots here,” she said.
Region 9 Executive Director Laura Lewis Marchino also provided some information for Archuleta County’s economic outlook.
Marchino stated that Archuleta County is currently the most expensive place to live within the region that encompasses Archuleta, Dolores, La Plata, Montezuma and San Juan counties.
Marchino spoke about livable wages in the county, noting that in 2022 the minimum livable wage in Archuleta County for one person was $39,732, for one person and a preschooler the wage was $76,092, and for two adults and one preschooler the livable wage was calculated to be $92,796.
She explained the livable wage is calculated off basic expenditures like groceries, insurance and clothing.
“If you don’t make that amount, you have to make some undesirable choices like not have health insurance or have more than one job,” Marchino said.
Marchino also spoke about population trends in Archuleta County and around the state, mentioning that the majority of the county’s population is over the age of 65. She noted that counties along the Front Range are expected to experience the highest population growth rates in the working age (25-64 years) demographic. These counties include El Paso, Douglas, Denver, Arapahoe, Adams and Weld.
“We’re losing in this area our workforce population,” she said, primarily to the Front Range.
She also noted that Colorado is expected to have a total population increase of 1.7 million people from 2020-2050, 200,000 of which are expected to come to the Western Slope.
Board elections
The PSCDC also elected new members for its board of directors at the annual meeting.
There were five candidates, four incumbents and one new candidate. The four incumbents were Mont McAllister, Todd Mees, Bruce Stuart and Jenelle Syverson. The new candidate was Donna Rogue Muir.
All four incumbents were re-elected, filling the board. Members are elected for two-year terms.
Broadband expanding
Archuleta County Broadband Management Services Office (BMSO) Technical Manager Eric Hittle also gave a recap of what his office has been working on over the last year and future projects to improve broadband services in the county.
Hittle began by mentioning Internet speeds in parts of the county have increased significantly over the past three years.
He explained that he uses Wi-Fi speed tests through a company called Ookla to track uploading and downloading speeds.
Hittle noted that upload speeds in the county have increased by 295 percent since 2021, while downloading speeds have increased by 231 percent.
“We’ve seen some improvements,” he said. “That’s enough to do several video calls simultaneously, so that makes it more usable.”
Hittle went on to mention that the BSMO is entering a new phase of funding and having some success in getting redundancies in place in the local broadband network.
He explained the redundancies will make it to “where we don’t have those going dark moments in Archuleta County again.”
The PSCDC was awarded a $1.2 million grant from the state’s Capital Project Fund (CPF) under the state broadband office, Hittle mentioned.
Those funds will be used to connect new fiber lines to existing fiber lines owned by La Plata Electric Association (LPEA) from Town Hall south of U.S. 160 westward through subdivisions off of South Pagosa Boulevard back to U.S. 160, creating a local redundancy loop.
“So, now we have a complete ring,” he said.
Hittle also spoke about how those funds helped construct a new carrier-neutral location (CNL) station that was recently placed on an old LPEA substation pad on U.S. 160 across from the Parelli complex.
Hittle described the CNL to be “like a little maintenance center” that all Internet service providers will be able to use.
There is currently another CNL station located downtown at Town Hall.
Hittle went on to explain that the CNL’s are part of a much larger network of CNLs connected around the state. The CNL will be part of an 800-mile loop around the state from Denver down I-25, across Wolf Creek pass toward Durango, up to Grand Junction and back toward Denver along I-70.
The network will not be owned by a single company, but rather a super-regional broadband authority, Hittle explained.
“It’ll be very neutral,” he said, adding that all of the CNLs are already built or currently being built.
Hittle went on to highlight another grant awarded to the county and the BSMO.
The county was recently awarded $13.3 million from the CPF under the state’s broadband office, which will be used to install and upgrade fiber lines to many homes around the Pagosa Lakes area, Meadows, Timber Ridge, Big Springs ranch, Rock Ridge and addresses in the Town of Pagosa Springs, along with no-subdivision areas.
Hittle indicated that by the end of 2026, close to 3,000 out of the approximately 9,000 homes in Archuleta County will be connected to fiber.
Hittle noted that the state awarded a total of $113 million through the CPF, with $13.3 million coming to Archuleta County. That is approximately 8.8 percent of that funding coming to Archuleta County, which makes up approximately 0.3 percent of the state’s population.
“That means that much investment is going into the community,” Hittle said.
He mentioned that the Southern Ute Indian Tribe is also funding a last-mile connection project to connect homes in Arboles to high-speed fiber.
clayton@pagosasun.com
