Workforce Housing Series

How a story such as Whetstone sounds under the golden dome 4 hours away in Denver is something of a mystery to rural resort counties involved in affordable housing. Governor Polis, for one, doesn’t think the system for producing housing is working.

What would give a town with a population of 1,550 and 1,171 housing units, roughly 17% of which are Short Term Rentals pause about adding another 240 units of dedicated affordable housing? John Cattles, Gunnison County Assistant Manager who with Cathie Pagano, another Assistant County Manager is steering the Whetstone project through the entitlement process

Some argue that residential development never pays its own way since long-term assets like streets, underground utilities, and other infrastructure deteriorate over time, leaving maintenance and replacement costs as a burden to taxpayers greater than the new income generated by residents. Others posit that new residents visit local businesses, pay sales taxes, and property taxes,

The Whetstone project checks many boxes for a county regularly recognized for Excellence in Performance Management by ICMA for a unique integrated approach to strategic planning. As a result, Whetstone has been vetted through the lenses of sustainability, fiscal leverage, walkability, maintenance, and access to public transportation. Cattles’ full title is “Assistant Manager overseeing Sustainability

Many factors imperil a housing project as it winds from through the public processes of planning and early development review stages before a single shovel of dirt is turned. With public entities constructing housing, some now experience their own public land use processes and regulations from the perspective of a private developer. As they too