JACKSON, Wyo. — During the Feb. 7 Town Council and Board of County Commissioners joint meeting, both elected bodies voted in favor of continuing support for the housing preservation program and including the program in the 2022 Housing Department rules and regulations updates.
Councilmember Jim Rooks was the only elected to vote against the motion. While Rooks said he supported to program overall he said, “this is year one, 60% of the funds were used. At this point, I would just be in favor of continuing it as a pilot for the next year.”
April Norton presented the item to the council and board. Since the pilot program began in Feb. 2021, 19 households have been pre-qualified for the program and three households have utilized down payment assistance to purchase homes on which they recorded a permanent workforce restriction. One sale is currently pending.
In total and including the pending sale, $613,420 has been spent to purchase four deed restrictions. An average of $153,355 has been spent per unit. This equates to 86,243 per bedroom.
“We are spending less on preservation program units right now per unit per bedroom than we are on new construction,” Norton said. The average price per bedroom for new construction is about $93,000 Norton explained.
$386,580 remains from the initial $1,000,000 allocation for the program.
Nineteen households are currently pre-qualified for the program. These households make a median income of $171,049 per year. Norton described these families as local workers in “no man’s land.” They don’t earn enough to get into the market but earn too much to qualify for other affordable housing through the Affordable Housing Department.
Currently, the program allows the Housing Authority to purchase a deed restriction up to 20% of the appraised value or sales price, whichever is lower, capped at $200,000.
Norton explained that this program is “not the only tool and not the only answer.”
“When we think about our housing needs, the initial findings tell us that 13% of our workforce, at least, is set to retire in the five years. that’s about 1300 workforce housing units. The preservation program is a tool that helps us to secure these homes for our workforce in perpetuity and the homes are already built,” Norton said.
Norton hopes the program will become permanent and asked the council and board to direct and authorize another 1 million dollars for the program. The funds requested are from the 2019 SPET voters approved for 5.5 million dollars, for “the purchase of deed restrictions to house the local workforce.”
While the motion to direct staff to include the preservation program in the 2022 Housing Department rules and regulations update was approved, two more motions were continued to “a date uncertain.”
Those motions would direct staff to expand the preservation program and allow for the purchase of workforce rental deed restrictions on existing units for a maximum of 10% of the home’s value not to exceed $100,000 and to authorize the Jackson/Teton County Housing Authority to allocate $1,000,000 in 2019 SPET funds for the preservation program.
