Wheat Ridge Housing Fund

Creation and accomplishments

The Wheat Ridge Housing Fund was created in 2023 as a dedicated resource for affordable housing activities. The housing fund is funded by a portion of the short-term rental lodger’s tax revenues and receives a small portion of those funds annually.

Since 2023, the city has used the Housing Fund to provide gap funding to Foothills Regional Housing to acquire NOAH properties and land to further the construction of affordable units. The funds have been used to support the acquisition of Foothills Regional Housing Vance Street Lofts and multi-phased development of the Ives Campus.

The Affordable Housing Strategy directs staff to be opportunistic by pursuing strong grant opportunities as they arise, and that approach has paid off with over $9 million in secured funding. Formal programming of the Housing Fund has been deliberately sequenced to follow this grant work, and key planning decisions are still underway.

Next steps

Before determining how to program the housing fund, the city is working through several important questions:

• Evaluate a housing impact fee nexus study (funded by a $50K grant), to identify a secondary funding source for the fund. The RFP will be released in the summer to select a qualified firm to conduct the study.
• Clarify the future role of the Wheat Ridge Housing Authority, which has been dormant for several years. WRHA does not control the Housing Fund, but its future direction may have financial and procedural implications for how the fund is structured and deployed.

Once these questions are better understood, staff will return to City Council to discuss priorities and program options. Possibilities include gap financing for affordable projects, support for accessory dwelling units, first-time homebuyer assistance, housing preservation, and other housing initiatives. Council will ultimately set the direction based on community needs and available resources.