Northfield could showcase FoCo metro district vision

FORT COLLINS — A condo community in the works for several years north of downtown is doing site work but nearing a start date for what could be a bigger deal: illustrating how the city envisions and will guide development of its metropolitan districts.

Northfield is 442 units on 55 acres, approved and underway. Scheduled for Thursday’s Planning and Zoning Commission meeting is an affordable housing part: 84 apartments on 6.5 of the acres.

Northfield is being built by Windsor-based Landmark Homes. The affordable housing, Northfield Commons, is under Denver-based Mercy Housing; it’s buying the land below market value, said Kuhl Brown, who heads Mercy’s Mountain Plains division, which includes the Front Range.

Mercy builds 500 to 700 units a year nationally, Brown said. It’s been rehabbing units in the state and hasn’t done anything new here since 2012. Its only other Fort Collins community is Springfield Court, built in 2005.

Brown plans to close on the land and begin the project in January. All units are for people earning 60% or less of area median income, a metric used by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to determine program eligibility.

Monthly rents will range from $500 to $1,000 for a one-bedroom; $650 to $1,300 for two; and $750 to $1,500 for a three-bedroom unit, Brown said.

More is More

Thursday’s hearing is to decide whether to bump units from 65 to 84. The Commons is approved for the former in nine row-houses; the new plan seeks seven 12-plexes, a clubhouse and a tot lot.

“It’s an amendment,” said city planner Kai Kleer. “They’re looking for an increase.”

The project failed in a bid for metro district status in 2019, then was approved in 2020.

Northfield’s affordable component was originally meant to be for-sale housing.

“Mercy doesn’t do townhomes,” Brown said. It owns and manages its rentals long-term.

The one-third hike in unit count “maximizes the site’s value; the underlying zoning would allow even more,” he said. “Our sweet spot with financing [and] a standard number for Mercy is 84 to 100” units.

Metro districts have been more than a little controversial over the past few years as developers began to depend more and more on bonds sold by districts to build infrastructure, and homebuyers began to raise concerns about district taxes levied to repay the bonds.

BizWest reported in August on the different approaches by Northern Colorado cities to metro districts.

During a moratorium on the districts, Fort Collins developed its rules; Northfield is set to showcase one aspect of them.

“We required affordable housing,” among regulations calling for “extraordinary public benefits,” Kleer said.

The city has “no options for payment in lieu,” which other cities, most recently Loveland, have explored.

“We define a community need for it [and] have a housing strategic plan [then] set certain targets,” Kleer said. “We want to integrate projects into the community.”

The method puts the onus back on a developer to hit the minimum numbers or, in the case of Landmark, to go beyond. Early planning documents on the project said Northfield would aim for 15%, above a 10% marker Kleer noted for the city.

Northfield will hit 20% of its units coming in as affordable if Planning and Zoning OKs the amendment.

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