Brandon Leuallen, The Business Times

A new City of Grand Junction task force is taking a closer look at how the community can produce lower-priced, market-rate homes and increase housing inventory.

During its first two meetings, the Housing Affordability Task Force defined its roles, elected a chair and vice chair, and began identifying top priorities. The group, made up of industry professionals and nonprofit representatives with city staff listening and available for communication, met for the first time Sept. 4 in the training room at City Hall. It reconvened Sept. 18 and met again Oct. 2.

City Manager Mike Bennett opened the inaugural meeting by stressing how seriously the city is taking the committee’s work.

“I just wanted to make it clear, I mean this is a city priority,” Bennett said. “This is fully supported by the city council, fully supported by myself as a city manager, our deputy city manager Kimberly Bullen. And it’s also supported all the way into our development department.

“This is an opportunity for us to hopefully look forward and find productive ways to make process improvements, constructive feedback from the experts in the room, and make those changes as necessary.”

Bennett also framed the committee as a chance for a “reset” between city staff and the development community.

“We have to be able to evolve and adapt. No code is perfect as it starts. So this is a great opportunity to reset,” he told the group.

Members of the task force include developers, builders, nonprofit housing leaders and city staff available in a support role. They introduced themselves during the first meeting, sharing backgrounds ranging from construction to land-use consulting. Emily Powell from Housing Resources of Western Colorado, commercial real estate broker Mike Foster with Coldwell Banker, City Council member Jason Nguyen, Kelly Maves of Maves Construction and Mark Austin of Austin Civil Group were among those at the table.

The Sept. 4 meeting was mostly organizational. Members discussed how often to meet, ultimately deciding on every two weeks with flexibility to skip meetings if staff or committee members needed more time to research topics. The committee agreed to elect a chair at its first session and begin outlining priorities for discussion at the second. The chair is Kelly Maves, and the vice chair is Kevin Bray, development director at Bray Real Estate. 

By the second meeting Sept. 18, the conversation shifted from committee process to starting to formulate the top priorities recognized by the voices in the room.

Building a culture shift

Maves reminded the group to stay on task and be respectful, saying, “We work really closely with the staff, and we want to make sure that we’re addressing issues not people.”

Members discussed culture, particularly how to turn what some described as a “no culture” in city planning into a “yes culture” to help projects meet the code and get through the approval process. Bray recognized the relationship and culture goes both ways, saying, “We also have ownership in that, and we can work on it as a group.”

Cottage courts and density

Cottage courts, a type of missing middle housing, were part of the discussion. Sandra Weckerly highlighted current challenges with cottage court developments, saying, “I can get more density, with a house and adding ADUs than with a cottage court.” She suggested minimum lot-width requirements, set at 30 feet for detached units, are part of the issue.

Communication and code updates

Grand Junction Planning Commission member Keith Ehlers asked if the committee could receive an update from city staff on current code status, so the group doesn’t end up spending time on updates that are already complete. 

Ehlers later said an improved communication process between the city and the development community as codes are updated will benefit everyone involved.

“There could be code update communication in real time, so developers aren’t working with outdated code and having to resubmit,” he said.

Ehlers then pointed to recently updated fire-code provisions that aren’t yet in use.

“The fire code is updated, but the land use isn’t, and the fire chief doesn’t have them yet, so it’s kind of a goose hunt,” Ehlers said.

Austin noted Community Development Director Tamara Allan’s department produces a quarterly code update that is helpful to him. 

TEDS and bike parking

Issues with the 2024 Transportation Engineering Design Standards (TEDS) update were a major topic. Long-term bike parking requirements drew scrutiny.

“We have to build bike parking in the middle of a commercial building, and it doesn’t make sense,” said Mike Foster, suggesting long-term bike parking should be optional. “If a tenant for an industrial building wants to install bike parking for their employees, let them.”

Maves agreed, saying bike parking should be “market-driven rather than required.”

Committee member Christi Reece echoed that sentiment, saying, “If the developer wants to put bike parking in, great, that’s an amenity. If not, then don’t make it required that way.”

Planning time

Mark Austin of Austin Civil Group brought up how much longer it takes to get through approval.

“I’ve been doing this in Grand Junction for 25  years, and site-plan approval used to take three to four months maximum to get approval, and we are lucky to get one done in six to nine months. A subdivision that used to take, at max, six months is now easily a year-and-a-half to two years.” 

Organizing the work

Bray suggested dividing the committee’s concerns into four categories: code; policy; process; and outside factors such as infrastructure, where the city might partner with developers even though it isn’t directly under the city’s control, like utilities or power. He also called for a “Top 10” list of items to tackle within 60 days.

Among the top issues committee members marked down for code review were landscaping and trees, TEDS sidewalk and street standards, drive-through restrictions, pre-application processes, survey and legal requirements, detention ponds, and the length of review time between comments. Bray noted that many of the issues unnecessarily added to the price of the home by the end of the process for the purchaser. 

ADA Rejections

Toward the end of the Sept. 18 meeting, the group had a longer discussion around issues with automatic rejections due to ADA noncompliance.

Developer Ron Abelo of Chaparral West Inc. said many applications are initially completely rejected even if they have already run their plans through ADA-compliance software, costing time and money to resubmit.

Ehlers clarified it could be as simple as not rejecting the application, but just adding comments as part of the next step of the process.

“What’s coming into question is the rejection rather than getting comments and moving the process forward,” Ehlers said.