Avon is refining the community housing plan to make things easier for those wanting to find affordable housing in the city

After updating its council housing policies last year, Avon is now focusing on the details to improve the document that governs the purchase, ownership, sale and (soon) rental of shared housing units in the city.

At its Nov. 19 meeting, Avon City Council conducted a thorough review on the revised Avon Community Housing Plan and conducted a line-by-line analysis of the document. Although the council agreed to some changes, no formal action was taken, and council members pulled out a handful of specific parts of the document that they wanted further review in the future.

The Avon Community Housing Plan will serve as a “secondary governing document” for any future deed restrictions, said Patti Liermann, Avon housing planner. All new deed restrictions reference the most recent version of the plan.

The Avon Community Housing Plan underwent a major overhaul last fall for the first time since its inception in 1990. Since then, Avon has brought Liermann on board as well as Nina Williams, the city attorney. Both lent their expertise to make changes to the document.

During the Nov. 19 meeting, Liermann presented the updates she and Williams made to the plan. The best practice is to review the document annually, and “a lot has happened since 1990,” Liermann said.

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The updates address five broad categories within community housing policy: suitability of owners, buyers and residents for community housing; allowable capital improvements for price-restricted units; the resale process for award-winning and resident-occupied units; the selection process for resale of units; and creating a template for future deed restrictions.

The updated capital improvement regulations will enable and incentivize people to make improvements to their homes as they age, within the relative price limits set out in the document. “It helps people maintain their home and not feel like they’re going to end up losing money,” Liermann said.

What changes are included in the plan?

Liermann’s updates revised definitions to align with current standards and created new language and policies governing affordable housing options that the city has not yet seen, such as deed restrictions on rental units.

There are currently no restrictions on rental agreements in the city, but this could change in the future. The updates create a policy document before a developer approaches the city with a proposal for a rent-based community housing project, streamlining the process from the start. The rental rules could also apply to future situations where owners of shared apartments in Avon may rent their units to other qualified residents.

The Mi Casa Avon program, for example, does not require the homeowner to live there, so the updates could allow the city to revise Mi Casa deed restrictions to cap the rental price for those who rent homes under the plan in the future Buy program.

“We have banned short-term rentals, but we have not banned excessive rentals for a weekend warrior every winter, and I think the intent of Mi Casa is to preserve workforce housing and community housing in our community,” said Mayor Amy Phillips.

Why is Avon working on its housing document?

Open market home prices in Eagle County skyrocketed during the pandemic real estate boom and never returned to pre-pandemic levels. As a result, many people who might previously have been able to afford to live locally were suddenly excluded from almost all housing options.

“The demand for these capped price units far exceeds the supply we currently have, and it’s crushing people when they can’t get it,” Liermann said.

Mayor Pro Tem Tamra Underwood called for a revision of the document to make it more understandable for those unfamiliar with housing language and policy.

“I know I’m being extraordinarily harsh on these policies, but I’ve heard from people in the community who are just throwing up their hands about this whole process and are so disheartened and feel like they’ve been treated unfairly or whatever “Because they just can’t understand it, they just don’t even understand how to start,” Underwood said.

One reason the process is so confusing is that each deed restriction is different and involves a different application, different required documents, and a different selection process.

“As we saw what was happening in 2021, we realized there was a reason we should have different processes at different locations because people who couldn’t come to Miller Ranch could at Eagle or the Eagle Ranch or the city of Avon,” said Liermann. However, “it’s so confusing when someone applies to Chapel Square and then the process is just a little different at Grandview. If you’re that buyer, it’s confusing.”

One goal of the housing document updates is to help clear up the confusion.

“The sales process has to be very transparent,” Underwood said. “All cases should allow for a completely clear and transparent process.”

Although the Avon Community Housing Plan is a public document, it is intended primarily to serve as an inward-looking key to answering any community housing-related questions that the City Council or its staff may face. Based on Council feedback during the meeting, a more user-friendly version specifically for the public will be created soon.

Types of home ownership in Avon and who is eligible for shared housing

There are three basic categories of home ownership in Avon. From Most Restricted to Least Restricted: Price Cap, Own Use, and Free Market.

This can be confusing because the first two housing types, both of which are subject to a deed restriction, must be occupied by the resident unless the deed restriction states otherwise. The difference is that the resale value of apartments with a price cap is set by the city, while resident-occupied apartments, although still community apartments, do not have a resale price cap.

Phillips highlighted chapter four of the document, which focuses on the needs of buyers, owners and tenants and had been minimally updated at the time of Liermann’s presentation to council. “It’s not fair or transparent right now,” Phillips said.

Phillips has divided the home resale process into three categories: requirements for the owner who wants to sell, requirements for those who want to apply to purchase a unit, and requirements that determine how the decision is made as to which applicant will receive the unit. Phillips called for greater clarity on the decision-making process, which is deliberately complicated due to various weighting systems that vary depending on the applicant for different reasons.

Council members also pointed to several other areas of ambiguity in the document, which Avon’s housing and planning department will revise in the future, including placing ownership-restricted units in trusts, reviewing homeowners’ association contribution limits for units with property restrictions participating in free market HOAs and Avon’s guarantee residents who have never been able to work due to a disability are eligible for community housing in the city.

Avon City Council is expected to continue the discussion during its Jan. 28 meeting.