FREDERICK, Colo. — With rent and home prices skyrocketing in metro Denver, many families are making the choice to live outside the city.
One community seeing a lot of growth is Frederick, about 30 miles north of downtown Denver. On Tuesday, the first-ever affordable housing project in the town opened.
Brigit's Village had its grand opening, attended by many community leaders.
"We have a beautiful mountain view, we have a historic downtown, we have great opportunities," said Frederick Mayor Tracie Crites.
What the town hasn't had, until now, was much-needed housing that is accessible to those who make the town so special.
"It's the young school teachers, the young policemen, the firemen, the electricians, the plumbers," said Jon Peterson, one of the developers involved in the building of Brigit's Village.
The 40 units are inter-generational housing. The idea is to create a community where the neighborhood is filled with stories and lessons shared between seniors, families and little kids.
"I always thought it was so fantastic that you would have the collaboration between the young and the old, supporting each other and building each other up," said Peterson.
Crites agreed.
"It's incredible that we're now valuing and elevating the voice of our community to say, 'we want to continue living here on an aging place,'" said Crites.
It's a solution that's long overdue for the entire region.
"It's been 25 years since affordable housing has come to this area. Frederick, Dacono and Firestone are the Carbon Valley, so that's important to us to bring it and to be kind of first on the block to do it," said Susan Pilon, board president of Brigit's Village.
The hope is that other projects take shape to make the area a more affordable place to live.
"In a town of 17,000 people, to have only 40 affordable housing units for the families is is just barely a drop in the bucket," said Peterson. "The average price of a home here in Frederick is over $600,000 and so we need to allow people to get their start, and then once they get their start, they can continue to just make the community flourish."
