FORT COLLINS, Colo. — Affordable housing was one of the concerns residents shared with Denver7 during our "Your Voice" special in the City of Fort Collins.
Now Denver7 is following up on one of the city’s latest moves to bring more affordable housing to the area, adding two more acres of land to their Affordable Housing Land Bank.
The new piece of land is located at 1900 Laporte Avenue. It was purchased in partnership with the city’s natural areas department.
Sue Beck-Ferkiss, the social policy and housing programs manager for the city, said this area is “ripe” for redevelopment.
“We are buying land ahead of the demand so we can lock in the price now and have it available for good distribution of affordable housing throughout our community in the future,” Beck-Ferkiss said.
Local
Fort Collins sells land for affordable townhomes
Once city leaders add land to the Affordable Housing Land Bank Program, they wait a couple of years for the surrounding development and infrastructure to help shape the kind of affordable housing that is placed on the purchased property.
“In this case, we have two acres with a house on it so we can rent out the house while we wait,” Beck-Ferkiss said. “Typically, we wait at least five years, but in the past, we've waited considerably longer. So we bought these properties, some of them in 2002 2006 before the 2009 kind of repositioning of real estate, right? So, we had to wait a little bit longer on some of these to develop them, but several of them are looking like they might be ready soon, and we're looking at the program to see how we can deploy land to meet the needs of our community that we know are now.”
Since 2002, the city has purchased seven properties through the program and sold two for affordable housing. Beck-Ferkiss cited the two developments being the Village on Horsetooth and Birdwhistle Townhomes.
“As our city develops and starts to look at infill and the last of the greenfields. It's really important to us that we preserve opportunities for future affordable housing,” Beck-Ferkiss said.
Though it may be a few years until affordable housing is built on the property, at the time of the interview, Beck-Ferkiss said the real estate department is getting ready to make a listing for the house already on the property.
