Maloit Park residents press school board for answers on housing development
The district is looking into what it would cost to phase the development, leaving the current residents in place for as long as possible
Eagle 久久热精品视频app School District/Courtesy Photo
For the Eagle 久久热精品视频app School District, Maloit Park in Minturn represents an opportunity to add around 138 units of employee housing to its inventory. Starting the 2023-24 school year with 62 vacant positions, the development represents a significant opportunity to tackle one of the district’s top challenges: recruiting and retaining quality educators and staff.
“The need and demand to fill 138 units, it’s been there,” said Sandy Farrell, the district’s chief operating officer, at the April 10 Board of Education meeting. “We can’t meet the salary demands that people need to live here. So the only other option we have for attracting and retaining is to have housing.”
The district’s current plans, however, include the removal of the 15 mobile home units, which are owned and occupied by district employees, retirees and their families.
In March, many of the residents of the units spoke out at a board of education meeting, expressing their concerns over how the current plans would impact their families. A week later, on Thursday, April 4, the school district met with the residents at Maloit Park to share an update on the development as well as hear directly from residents.
The current Maloit Park residents have made it clear they are not against the development of employee housing at the site but rather want to make sure the district is considering all its options with the development and the removal of their homes.
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“I am in favor of the development. I want other teachers to have the same opportunity that my family and I have had,” said Kari Bangston, a teacher at Vail Ski and Snowboard Academy, at the Wednesday, April 10 school board meeting.
Bangston has lived in Maloit Park and worked for the district since 2007.
“I think we can have our cake and eat it too: take care of our current residents, provide housing opportunities for the new residents and do so in a way that respects taxpayer dollars,” Bangston added.
Project status
At the April 10 meeting, Farrell shared an update on the Maloit Park development with the school board during its afternoon work session.
The school district first started revisiting the Maloit Park housing development in 2022. Since then, the district has pushed forward on the entitlement process for the site, with the board approving a $258,000 budget to initiate the process in November 2022. The work has included coordinating with the town, going through background planning and site work, schematic design, development drawings and more. In spring 2023, it conducted a staff survey to gauge interest and demand in the project.
In the fall, the school board approved the initial plans to be submitted to the town of Minturn. The plans include the construction of 138 units of housing: 38 duplexes, 52 townhomes and 48 condo units. They also call for the removal of the 15 mobile homes before the start of construction.
One of the discussions still being had is how many of the new units will be rentals and how many will be available for purchase. Farrell said that the district is looking to offer a portion as for-sale units and a portion as rentals, with rentals comprising the majority. She added that this is because of warnings district officials have heard from other rural resort school districts about the risks of having for-sale products.
“The response we get is they never would’ve done any for-sale product, they would’ve kept it as rentals because they’ve lost their inventory. You lose your inventory, you lose your land and eventually you’re right back in the same situation we are today,” Farrell said.
“We can do purchase with deed-restricted units, but we need to maintain that they stay within ownership of the district. … All of those details would need to be worked out,” she added.
Superintendent Philip Qualman added that having home ownership opportunities at Maloit is “really contingent on Habitat for Humanity.”
“The only way we can get into something that’s affordable is through their model. So, it’s going to depend on their availability (and) their willingness to partner on this project,” he said. “I just want you to understand that we can’t just assume that that will happen because we decide that. It will require partnering with Habitat and their willingness.”
With the zoning in place, the preliminary plan was submitted to Minturn, where it received feedback from the town. That feedback is being added to a final plat submission, Farrell told the board. Currently, the district is planning to submit the final plat this winter. The district is hoping the initial construction of infrastructure 鈥� including roads and laying utilities such as water, drainage, etc. 鈥� can begin in the spring or summer of 2025.
Seven million dollars of the voter-passed bond for the district in November 2023 will go toward this horizontal infrastructure, Farrell said. Qualman said that the district is also pursuing grants to help offset these costs as well.
The 15 homes in Maloit Park fall underneath the state’s Mobile Home Park Act Oversight, enacted in 2019. Per the terms of the act, the district must give residents a one-year notice to vacate their homes on the property. This notice has not been sent.
“If we can get to doing the development by next summer, it’s in our best interest 鈥� and what we’d want to do 鈥� to give them as much notice as possible that they would be displaced,” Farrell said.
After the notice is issued, each resident will have two options based on the act.
“Each resident is required to send a letter to the district requesting immediate relocation or purchase, and then whenever that comes up, we would be obligated for that cost,” Farrell said.
What residents are requesting
Over the past two board meetings, residents have expressed a variety of concerns as well as made several requests to the board as it moves forward with its plans.
Summarizing the requests from residents, Farrell listed that they include:
- Leaving the mobile homes and developing around them
- Phasing the project so that they can stay in their homes until they can move into a new home on-site
- Phasing the project so that each phase is occupied before the next is started
- Giving current mobile homeowners and residents priority to move into a new home at Maloit Park
- Ensuring that homeownership opportunities are included in the development, not just rentals
- Creating some opportunity for district retirees to have access to employee housing
- Ensuring affordability of the homes
- Communicating consistently and often with the residents
Speaking during public comment on Wednesday, Bangston indicated that her top priority would be “phasing so we aren’t displacing the 15 of us that currently live there in that process.”
“My priority is actually not to leave our homes there. My priority is actually to phase us into the current build,” she said. “I think that is economically responsible, I think that is responsible in terms of development because it gives us a safety net as we have no idea what could happen over the next couple of years.”
Katie Brandl, who has taught at Vail Ski and Snowboard Academy for 11 years and lives in Maloit Park, said she too was pro-development and pro-phasing.
Brandl also reiterated the importance of the district having homeownership opportunities in its inventory at Maloit Park.
“I want you to consider the branding of ‘attract and retain.’ As an English teacher, I tell them words mean stuff. 鈥� I know there’s a crisis and we need to fill those rooms, but if all we can do is attract right now, then let’s change the branding to just say attract,” Brandl said. “If it’s all rentals, it’s just attracting and that’s the reality of that. To me, retain would look like, I get to buy a deed-restricted three-bedroom so my family of four can stay.”
Renting to employees with a five-year cap just continues the cycle, Brandl added.
“I just wanted to look you in the eye and shoot my shot and say, ‘Please retain me.’ Attract and retain mean different things and they’re different plans and I want to be here and I want to teach,” she said. “Retain me so I can, please.”
Next steps
On Wednesday, Farrell said the district is currently looking into what phasing could look like, and what different options would cost.
In sharing some of the initial phasing proposals, Farrell indicated it could lead to fewer units, higher density products, more grading and site disturbance as well as increased costs to put in utilities and roads.
All those potential impacts are “why we kept going back to the development that we’re proposing and that’s been submitted,” Farrell said, adding that the current plan uses the land in the most cost-effective manner.
Still, the project team is currently working on obtaining specific numbers for different phasing options, which it hopes to bring back to the board in May, Farrell said.
Kelly Alter, one of the board members who also serves on the district’s land resource committee, shared that she didn’t feel leaving the mobile homes long-term makes sense.
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“The design as it is was really thoughtful and I don’t think shimmying the design around to leave the homes makes sense. 鈥� It was thoughtfully laid out and is going to be a really nice community,” Alter said.
However, with “a lot of unknowns,” Alter added that her questions are “What’s the cost of phasing it, and then also what’s the potential timeline?”
In the future, armed with more information, the board will have to make information on how the development will move forward 鈥� including considerations on rentals versus ownership, prioritizing current residents, phasing and more.
