Breckenridge’s efforts with workforce housing date back to 1988, and the mechanism it uses to ensure affordability, deed restrictions, have evolved over the years to keep up with the community’s needs. 

A 2020 housing needs assessment demonstrated a “notable migration of locals leaving due to housing and financial stress,” and a 2023 housing needs assessment showed that trend persisted.  

Looking to support the workforce, Breckenridge created a five-year blueprint for deed-restriction housing in 2022, and the town plans to invest $300 million into workforce housing over the next five years.

Town Council was provided an update on the blueprint, highlighting the progress of its projects and initiatives at a Jan. 9 meeting.

Housing and childcare planning manager Laurie Best sat down with council members to present a “hefty packet” that detailed the town’s five-year plan for deed-restricted housing. She explained the town added over 250 units in 2023 thanks to new construction and programs that aim to turn existing housing into deed-restricted housing. 

One pillar of the conversation was highlighting the importance of the programs that flip existing housing into deed-restricted units, like the town’s Buy Down and Housing Helps programs, since the town only has so much land to develop new construction on. 

“We have limited land, and construction costs are so high,” Best told Town Council. 

Elected leaders showed appreciation and support for the utilization of these programs, especially council Todd Rankin who noted, “I’d love to see us maybe ramp that up a little more as soon as we run out of land here.” 

Breckenridge set a goal of having 2,060 deed-restricted housing units by 2030. When the town began this five-year blueprint in 2022, deed-restricted housing units accounted for 11% of all housing in Breckenridge. The staff memo stated that a goal of the blueprint was to add 150 to 200 deed-restricted units per year.

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The town began the blueprint with 1,130 units and added 179 units in 2022 and 96 units in 2023. The town hopes to add 193 units in 2024, 173 units in 2025, 75 units in 2026, 103 units in 2027, and 111 units in 2028. The total number of units that the town hopes to add in 2029 and 2030 is currently undetermined. 

The town plans to invest $50 million that it hopes will translate to $300 million in private investment. 

“When the council adopted the blueprint in 2022, one of the goals was to leverage our local funds by encouraging private sector investment in workforce housing,” Best said in an email. “The hope was that $50M of public sector investment (which was an estimate assuming about $10M annual revenue from sales tax/STR fees) would incentivize $300M of private sector investment.”

She said the town expects that for every $1 it spends, the private sector will spend $6. 

Housing support programs

Breckenridge put around $2.3 million toward the Housing Helps program this year. Housing Helps is a countywide deed restriction acquisition program with a goal of maintaining housing stock for locals. The program does that by incentivizing homeowners, real estate buyers and sellers to place deed restrictions to their property. The county runs this program by paying owners, buyers and sellers to accept a deed restriction on homes that are currently unrestricted. 

The program funded 21 homes in Breckenridge out of the 58 applications it got in 2023. This program converted 48 bedrooms into deed-restricted housing, which cost the town nearly $49,000 per bedroom.

Additionally, ​Breckenridge spent $2.9 million on its Buy Down program this year, which has a similar goal of ensuring housing for the community of locals. This program is dedicated to both building new housing and preserving the existing housing stock by buying existing free-market units to convert them to permanent workforce housing. A driving force behind the program is the 154% increase in average buy-down program costs since 2019. In this program, nine homes were purchased, and 23 homes were sold in 2023. In total, 35 bedrooms were converted through the program last year.

Recent and upcoming deed-restricted projects in Breckenridge 

In terms of the 193 units expected to open in 2024, the Larkspur development by the Justice Center will contribute 52 units, Alta Verde II will contribute 86 units, Highlands Riverfront will contribute seven homes, the Stable Villages Neighborhood will contribute 15 homes and Housing Helps program will contribute 20 homes. Additionally, 10 houses are expected to be added from the Buy Down program, and three units should be created through the town’s development code, which is a mitigation policy that requires new developments to include workforce housing units.

Town Council received updates on the following projects, which are either in the works or recently completed:

• The Ullr Apartments opened in April of last year with 27 units, 18 of which are for town employees and 9 of which are for childcare employees. This is a net-zero development that cost $15 million to build.
• Alta Verde II, featuring 172 units, is anticipated to open mid-2024 with a phased opening. In 2024, 86 units will become available, and the other 86 will become available in 2025. This project is expected to cost $74 million in its entirety. These units are also net zero. It has a local workforce requirement, yet a lighter one than that of Alta Verde I, its predecessor. 
• Alta Verde I opened in the winter of 2022 and has 80 units. This development cost $32 million and is specifically aimed at assisting low-income residents. 
• The 52 units for the Larkspur development by the Justice Center are slated to open in March or April 2024 with 10 units allotted specifically for town and county employees. The project is expected to cost $22.6 million.
• The Stables Village Neighborhood has five single-family homes, 28 duplexes and 18 triplexes. This development hopes to target the middle-income earners and is all sold through a lottery, which has been split into four phases. Lottery winners from the first phase move in this summer, and the second lottery should take place in March 2024. The project is expected to cost $65 million. 
• The Block 11 neighborhood is in the pre-development stage and is slated to bring roughly 100 units in the form of single-family homes, duplexes and townhomes. The town said this development has a first-time homebuyer focus. The project is expected to break ground in 2025.
• Workforce housing for the Peak 8/ Gold Rush Lot Development by Breckenridge Grand Vacations is expected to break ground in 2025, according to planning manager Chris Kulick. Kulick said a few more things need to be hashed out in the development agreement before construction begins.