Opinion: We Know How to Make Housing Affordable in Longmont

A Response to "Opinion: No More Apartments"

Left: The Coffman House, 303 Coffman Street, as originally built in 1902 served as a single family residence. Right: The Coffman House as it exists today, as a multifamily dwelling offering some of the most affordable housing in the city. | Source: Longmont Museum

The Longmont Herald welcomes contributions and op-eds from community members on local topics. All submissions are subject to editorial discretion, and published opinions do not necessarily reflect the views of the Longmont Herald or its staff. To submit a contribution, please email longmontherald@gmail.com.

---

Last week, Jen Morrison argued that the Longmont City Council should deny the annexation request on Quail Road because that project primarily consists of apartments for rent. Morrison argued that what Longmont really needs is more for sale Missing Middle housing. As a near-term solution, she says:

“Let’s take a pause. Let’s consider everything that’s already been approved, look at projected population growth, and make a deep-dive assessment into what type of housing is actually needed (and *wanted*) most here.”

Fortunately for us, the hard work has already been done. Let’s look at what we know.

In 2016, the City of Longmont issued the latest update to its Comprehensive Plan, Envision Longmont. Chapter 3 is called the “Growth Framework,” and predicted that by 2035 the population of Longmont would increase from 94,000 to 118,000. Looking at population data since then, we’re basically on track with some population loss since 2022, which the Colorado State Demographer attributes to the escalating cost of housing.

In the meantime, the median home in Longmont costs $575,000. If you still remember when you could buy a single-family home in Longmont for $50,000, your eyes have probably popped out of your head.

An excerpt from the 1987 Longmont Comprehensive Plan, complaining that housing in Longmont was too cheap. Simpler times. | Source: Longmont Museum

This is part of a national trend of rising housing costs in desirable cities. After the 2008 financial crisis, home building in the United States (and Longmont) reached the lowest levels since data collection started in 1959. Combined with the restrictive zoning which forbids the construction of anything except single-family homes or multistory apartment buildings, housing is going to be scarce and therefore expensive. Morrison’s assertion that we’re permitting too many homes falls flat—with only a few exceptions, we’ve never permitted less.

https://www.city-data.com/city/Longmont-Colorado.html

Morrison is right to say that newly constructed apartments are more expensive, but of course they are. Anything new is going to be more expensive than anything old. But that’s ok. Longmont needs expensive apartments to make housing more affordable for most people. The median household income in Longmont is $89,000 . There are a lot of people in Longmont who make more than $89,000 (half, in fact). One part of the solution to rising housing costs is to offer a wealthier person a more expensive home—that way the more affordable home is available for somebody else.

https://www.city-data.com/city/Longmont-Colorado.html

A $2,000/month, 1 bedroom apartment rent is targeted at the AVERAGE LONGMONT HOUSEHOLD of 2.5 people. The US Department of Housing and Urban Development has for many years recommended that families spend no more than 30 percent of income on housing. At $2,000 per month on rent, that’s $6,000 per month take home pay which taking into account taxes works out to… $86,400, just under the median income in Longmont.

Of course, if we only build housing for people making more than the median income, we are also failing to serve the other half of people. The Longmont Housing Authority does good work here, but the truth is that this is not a problem that can be solved with the existing resources of the city government.

Longmont needs a staggering number of homes for people making less than the median income. 14,000, in a city that has about 43,000 housing units overall. At typical land acquisition and home construction costs, 14,000 units will cost many billions in tax revenue for the Longmont Housing Authority to build. Not going to happen.

Longmont’s 2023 Housing Needs Assessment Executive Summary

I partially agree with Morrison here—the solution to this is more Missing Middle housing. Missing Middle housing refers to everything in between a single family home and the typical 4 story multifamily building: duplexes, quadplexes, townhomes, courtyard buildings. What I disagree with is that any new home built that isn’t one of these types should be prohibited.

What makes missing middle homes affordable isn’t just that they are denser than single family homes. Their real superpower is that historically speaking, missing middle housing types were rarely built from scratch. Instead, they were a natural part of the evolution of a neighborhood that already existed.

The truth is that if we want to add 14,000 affordable and attainable homes to Longmont, those homes need to be in neighborhoods that already exist. We have neither the undeveloped land area nor the billions of dollars that we would need to build these homes on green fields. It’s also not the right thing to do from an environmental or economic sustainability perspective. It is no longer tenable to think about “areas of stability” versus “areas of change.” No one’s neighborhood should be victim to the escalating housing costs that come with stagnation, nor should anyone be subject to sudden, dramatic change.

I appreciate Morrison’s sincere desire to find solutions to Longmont’s crisis of housing affordability. Finding those solutions is going to require us to move past the idea that growth is out of control, or that we don’t understand what is going on. The amount of research performed by our local government—just some of which was cited here—is clear evidence that our decision makers have done their homework.

Change is required to make the average home affordable to the average Longmonter. Objecting to change just because it is happening near us is asking everyone else to pay more for housing.

---