The City of Aspen had an inventory of acquired or available sites suitable for development of affordable housing as well as two dedicated revenue streams designed to support this type of development (a sales tax and real estate transfer tax). However, because of intense community debate about the impacts from growth and sprawl, and the costs of affordable housing subsidies, there had been no new affordable housing proposals for several years and no clear direction on how to proceed.
The City of Aspen retained EPS to provide a strategy for increasing the inventory of affordable housing in the City. The strategy was grounded in a housing needs assessment, which resulted in the formulation of multiple housing development options and pro forma models for seven sites and three prototypical infill projects. Based on the results of this analysis, EPS prioritized the development opportunities using policy-based evaluation criteria, which included the relative subsidies required for each site. In addition, a financial analysis of the costs and revenues associated with the aggregate housing program over a ten-year period was provided to document how the City could accomplish its goals.