By Owen Woods | owen@alamosacitizen.com
ON Wednesday night, Alamosa’s City Planning Commission will hear more details and take up action to further a proposed 412-unit housing project. The project is spearheaded by the Community Resources and Housing Corporation.
The monumental Tierra Azul project is proposed for 43 acres near West 8th Street and South Craft Drive. If approved, this project would be Alamosa’s largest-ever housing development and would “help fulfill our housing needs and stabilize the housing market over the next ten to twenty years,” the Planning Commission document reads.
“The intent for this parcel is to develop it with a diversity of affordable housing typologies to appropriately address the housing needs of Alamosa,” the project narrative reads.
The project is expected to be constructed in six phases and will take up to 25 years to complete. The plan documents state that these 412-units will be made up of a “spectrum of residences,” such as single-family and multi-family dwellings, townhomes, multiplexes, and apartment buildings.
KEPHART, the Denver-based architecture firm that has been charged with designing the houses, said that they will be “designed to fit an American rural style that appropriately complements the City of Alamosa.”
KEPHART will consider color palette, architectural elements, and amenity site features that create a “sense of place for future residents of Alamosa.” The City’s Comprehensive Plan designates this property as “Residential Opportunity” at the edge of the city’s growth.
The Tierra Azul project is located next to the Tierra Nueva development and a developing single-family subdivision to the North.
South, West, and East of the proposed development is county property characterized as land intended for agricultural use.
Within the single-family subdivision is Adcock Drive, running North to South. It will continue South through the Tierra Azul project and divide Phases 2 and 3.
The existing Craft Drive will split Phases 1 and 2. Between those two communities, Tierra Azul has an existing 75- foot easement for overhead utility lines. This provides a large buffer for existing residents near the proposed construction. While there is no residential development adjacent to the East, there is an existing street network that Tierra Azul will connect to. The street network includes Eighth street, which will continue through the Tierra Azul project. All phases will use Eighth Street as its North or South boundary.
The property was purchased in 2021 by CRHDC and was annexed into the city limits in June 2022. According to the attached documents, CRHDC has built approximately 16 percent of Alamosa’s housing stock over the course of 37 years.
The current project has been in talks since January 2020. City staff met with CRHDC to discuss potential projects and opportunities. Staff recommended that CRHDC seek a professional designer to assist with future phases. CRHDC took this feedback then returned with an entirely new development concept. According to the documents, city staff has been meeting with CRHDC every week since October 2021 to develop “a plan that conforms to relevant codes and meets the requirements” of public works, streets, sanitation, and the Fire Department.
More than 50 renditions and layouts have been presented to city staff. The applicant is now ready to seek the necessary approvals and is requesting a designation of Preliminary Development Plan (PDP) for the site to develop it “harmoniously and efficiently by planning it all as a single entity and subject to one land use regulation.”
The PDP is the first step in a two-step process of a Planned Unit Development (PUD). The first is a special land use process that looks at creative design and flexibility of standards. The PUD protects the public interest by “coupling more flexible local government regulations with a higher level of forethought and design.”
These standards require developers to prepare a more detailed application and development guide than a standard zoning application. There are specific controls that must be met and evaluated, such as uses, density, open space, and potential setbacks for the entire project.
As well as these controls, a series of analyses was required. The first of these was a Traffic Impact Analysis. In that analysis, Loveland-based Delich Associates looked at 10 street intersections that will be most impacted.
The next analyses conducted were a stormwater system analysis, sanitary sewer system analysis, water distribution analysis, and of course, the fiscal impact of such a project.
With the density of such a project, therein lies the goal: the units will provide the housing needed for Alamosa’s workforce.
The Needs Assessment, an employer survey, found that “79 percent of employers felt that availability of housing that is affordable for employees is a moderate, serious, or severe problem.”
Employers noted in the survey that employees filling entry-level jobs have the most difficulty finding housing, followed by skilled labor and mid-management positions.
The city states that is in line with many employer interviews, noting that current high rents affect lower-wage employees and the lack of housing choices, nicer rentals, and entry-level homeownership affects the mid-level employees.
In this survey, the employers also noted a lack of studio and one-bedroom rentals and not very diverse inventory of housing.
“Options for households that earn too much to qualify for income-restricted rentals is also a perceived problem.”
This project targets the very low-income, or “Emergency/Subsidized,” to middle-income, or “Entry Level Market Housing.” Essentially, the project is looking to create a more open affordability to renters who make anywhere from $15,000 to $60,000 area median income.
The application was sent to agencies such as CDOT, Xcel Energy, City of Alamosa Economic Development, and Alamosa County Land Use.
Land Use administrator Richard Hubler provided more insight into the specifics of such a plan. In the city’s project materials, Hubler states that the ability to fund improvements and extensions of city infrastructure “is a difficult balance of limited capacity and finances versus the City’s long-range goals.”
Improved, unannexed property presents an additional level of difficulty, he said. Many tracts are less developed, but require a “substantial amount” of upgrades to integrate it all into the standards and character of the city, such as paved streets, curbs, gutters, sidewalks, and of course, water, sewer, and stormwater infrastructure.
He highlighted the emergency annexation of the Stockton Addition in 2002. This was done because residents’ wells were contaminated by surrounding septic systems.
Hubler said that in 2002, the City Council discussed the roads at length and decided that the residents were responsible for forming a Special Improvement District to build roads. The city installed water infrastructure with enterprise funds in 2003. The property owners were asked to contribute $1,000 each. Then in 2007, the city received a DOLA Community Development Block Grant which allowed it to install a new sewer. After it was all said and done and tap fees were applied, 47 households were given “a half million dollars” worth of infrastructure through city funds and grants.
“Although there are many grant sources available to fund new development, there are very few for existing developments,” Hubler writes. “This results in a situation that inevitably prioritizes the annexation of vacant properties for ground-up development instead of upgrading existing developed properties since it is more fiscally responsible.”
In the city’s materials, the Planning Commission intends to recommend this project to the City Council. However, in order to make this project work, city staff says three things need to coalesce: community need, financial means, and political support.
“This is a designed community the likes of which we have not seen in Alamosa before, but desire to see much of in the future.”
The Planning Commission states that in the Housing Needs Assessment and Action plan, the community’s needs are well documented.
The presented plan “manages to maximize the effective use of the property in terms of density, housing variety, and thoughtful amenities while still being financially feasible.”
However, the city says, in order to achieve this undertaking, political support is needed to modify Alamosa’s specific Unified Development Code.
“The Tierra Azul neighborhood results from months of planning and professional consultation to provide the highest and best use of the property and serve the desperate need for housing in the City.”
