Colorado Real Estate Journal - October 21, 2015
Boulder Housing Partners will complete large-scale renovations of six public housing communities in an effort to preserve affordable housing in Boulder. “Project Renovate is our top priority for 2015 and 2016,” said Betsey Martens, BHP executive director. “We’ll preserve housing opportunities for our most economically vulnerable citizens while creating more opportunities for residents to gain in self-sufficiency.” Boulder Housing Partners, the housing authority for the city of Boulder, is one of a select group of public housing authorities approved by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to recapitalize its public housing properties. By gaining local control over the properties, it can ensure quality affordable housing for the city’s most at-risk citizens in perpetuity, the authority said. Project Renovate will include work on 279 apartments, town homes and single-family homes at: • Diagonal Court, 30 town homes in north central Boulder; • Iris Hawthorne, 14 single-family homes in central Boulder; • Kalmia, a 49-town home property in the north central part of the city; • Manhattan, which includes 41 town homes and stacked flats in southeast Boulder; • Northport, a 50-unit senior apartment community in North Boulder; and • Walnut Place, a 95-unit senior apartment community in downtown Boulder. All of the properties were built in the 1970s and 1980s. Renovations will include new Energy Star appliances, bathroom and kitchen overhauls, open floor plans, added storage and new lighting. Exterior work will include new siding, roofs, windows, doors and landscaping. Improvements will meet the Enterprise Green Communities standards and city of Boulder Smart Regulations. In addition, Diagonal Court, Manhattan and Kalmia will receive new community centers to provide space for adult and child education and training programs. “Our mission is as much about creating opportunity as it is about providing housing,” said Martens. “A wide variety of educational and job training programs are offered in the on-site community centers,” she said. For instance, the Bringing School Home program, developed with the I Have a Dream Foundation 18 years ago, has resulted in a 92 percent high school graduate rate among BHP youths vs. a control group graduation rate of 63 percent, according to BHP. Boulder Housing Partners has assembled $42 million for the renovations and community centers. Funding sources include Low Income Housing Tax Credit equity and private activity bonds. Partners in the projects include the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Colorado Department of Local Affairs, Colorado Housing and Finance Authority, Enterprise Community Investment and First Bank. Palace Construction is the general contractor for the projects. Caddis Architecture and EJ Architecture are handling architectural design. According to Boulder Housing Partners, Boulder has lost an average of 471 units of market affordable rental housing annually over the last 12 years. If current trends continue, it said, the city will have no affordable housing for households with annual incomes under $50,000 by 2020, except for those homes in the city’s permanently affordable housing programs.