The Steamboat Springs City Council was presented with a housing needs assessment last week, reaffirming a well-known truth in the city: Local housing need overwhelmingly outpaces the available pathways to meet it, and that the disconnect between wages and cost of living is exacerbating a problem that has grown increasingly dire since the COVID-19 pandemic.
The study is the result of a state mandate passed in 2024 that requires most local governments throughout Colorado to publish a housing needs assessment by Dec. 31, 2026 and update it every six years thereafter, Principal Planner Brad Calvert told councilors.
Presented at council’s June 9 work session by Brian Duffany and Karlyn Russell-Carlson of Denver-based consulting firm Economic and Planning Systems — the same firm that helped conduct last summer’s Yampa Valley Housing Authority-commissioned housing demand study — the assessment serves not as a binding document, but as an informational tool for both local governments and state agencies to use for planning and grant funding purposes.
Much of the data presented in last year’s study remained largely consistent in the recent assessment.
The region is still shifting toward an older, wealthier, more part-time population, with unearned income holding firm as…. READ FULL STORY