Housing partnership attains nonprofit status
Taos Housing Partnership reached several milestones this year, but making affordable housing a reality in Taos County will take more than fundraising, subsidies and education, according to Lisa O’Brien, the partnership’s executive director.
“Changes and updates need to happen in all arenas,” O’Brien said.
In mid-March the housing partnership gained its 501(c)3 nonprofit status, giving it the ability to secure government grants, as well as accept donations directly. It’s first homebuyer education class is set for April 20, and a community learning session is scheduled for April 22. The partnership is set to launch a media campaign to raise its profile, and now has its full seven-member board of directors.
“The nonprofit status is pivotal — it’s a big anchor in the ground,” O’Brien told the Taos News in an interview last week, adding that, most days, she still spends a lot of time explaining what the partnership doesn’t do.
“There’s this perception in community that Taos Housing Partnership is going to all of a sudden have development and houses going up all over the place,” she said. “’What does it look like, and where is it?’ Almost every single time, that’s what I get asked.”
O’Brien emphasized the housing partnership will never be in the business of building homes. It’s focused on creating new tools and leveraging existing ones to make home-buying accessible to more people.
“What we’re looking at is trying to get folks into homes they can afford,” she said. “In order to do that, we have this huge gap. We know what the thresholds are for folks; we don’t want them to pay more than 30 percent of what their income is. And we don’t have the housing stock in this community that supports that.”
The partnership is working to establish subsidies for qualified below-market homebuyers. A downpayment assistance fund, for example, would reduce a buyer’s initial cash investment, making a loan more attainable. O’Brien said she’s working with a realtor who wants to spearhead a separate fund to help cover closing costs. And she’s negotiating a mortgage point buyback program with a local lending institution.
But at the end of the day, O’Brien says Taos County’s housing stock has to increase to meet demand and drive down costs.
Governments “are going to have to figure out how they put their stamp on something that says, ‘If we’re going to make a decision to be a community that moves toward affordability, then these are the things we’re going to have to add to the menu,’” O’Brien said. “We’re going to need
probably 500 units in the county over the next five years.”
Both Taos and Taos County are actively pursuing affordable housing development projects. Taos has several million dollars in its housing fund, and is restarting its Chamisa Verde subdivision; Taos County is in the planning and design phase of an ambitious workforce housing project on land it owns west of Gusdorf Road and north of Albright Street.
Both governments are also in the process of updating their land use codes, presenting an opportunity to create new policies and enhance existing regulations to encourage more affordable home construction.
Other communities have experimented with waiving density or building height restrictions for projects with an affordable housing component, for example, or tried waiving construction permit or building fees when a certain percentage of a project’s units are going to be offered for sale or lease at below-market rates. Some communities charge a specific fee with building permits that directs money into an affordable housing fund.
“We hope to have the Land Use Regulations and Subdivision Regulations revised and approved by the Taos County Commission sometime in 2025,” said Andy Jones, senior planner with the Taos County Planning Department. “We will be looking at housing and affordable housing as part of updating the Land Use Development Code.
“Streamlining both sets of regulations will be a priority for sure, but we already have the ability to work with developers to provide incentives if affordable housing is part of a project,” Jones said. The fee schedule is approved by resolution, so the county could create a housing fund and put a certain amount or percentage of different types of fees toward a housing fund, which the county would also need to create. I would say all these options are currently on the table.”
Jones said there’s no silver bullet when it comes to responding to the housing crisis, “rather it will take a comprehensive approach that includes changes to regulations, new policies, identification of funding sources, the presentation of good projects that adhere to county regulations — and more buy-in from the community atlarge when it comes to accepting that planned development is necessary in order to help alleviate the housing crisis.”
Christopher Larsen, planning, community and economic development director for Taos, said the town is looking to update its Land Use Development Code with an emphasis on “housing and affordable housing development.”
“We are looking at all types of incentive options to make it more attractive to develop here,” he said. “It’s very much a work in process.”