Loveland council looks kindly on micro-housing plan

LOVELAND – The Loveland City Council on Tuesday expressed support for a project that would construct several dozen micro-homes in an effort to address the problem of homelessness.

The Greenspire project, which would rise south of East 10th Street near Hayes Avenue, east of the city’s police and courts building, would add 40 to 50 325-square-foot studio apartments with a plan patterned after the Inn Between in Longmont. That 501(c)(3) nonprofit agency operates six buildings, serving more than 200 people each year with programs that help residents work to achieve long-term housing stability for their families.

Loveland’s Community Partnership Office presented to the City Council’s study session a revised plan to pay for the project. When council members first saw the proposal, on March 22, 2022, the city was asked to chip in $579,915, but the latest request calls for just $325,000, with the source of the matching funding changing from the city’s general fund to the Community Housing Development Fund.

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In the latest funding request for the $5.77 million project, besides the city’s contribution, a one-time American Rescue Plan Act grant of $4.1 million would also be matched by an estimated $300,000 in back-filled fee waivers, $595,000 in other fee waivers and $450,000 worth of land donated by the Board of Larimer County Commissioners, bringing the total match to 29% of the total cost, more than the 25% match ARPA requires.

Alison Hade, administrator of the Community Partnership Office, told council members that the residents of the Greenspire project would not be chronically homeless, as they are in the nearby St. Valentine project. Instead, she said, “we’ll take people who have some employment,” and charge them 30% of their gross income for monthly rent, a figure that would escalate as their income did, and their stay would be limited to 24 months, with the goal of moving them into permanent housing thereafter. Classes in life skills and financial management, case management and job-placement services would be offered on site, she said, and the complex would be managed by the Loveland Housing Authority with a preference for attracting members of the local unhoused population.

No vote was taken on the plan at the City Council study session, but council members expressed support for it. When asked if some residents might try to stay past their 24-month limit at Greenspire, Hade pointed out that the Inn Between in Longmont hadn’t experienced that problem and added that what the agencies have found is that as people’s income increases, they desire more space.