Limo Service in Avon, IN

Avon and Eagle County are coming together to lead the effort to form a regional housing authority within Eagle County to provide much-needed community housing for locals.

According to the 2025 Eagle County Regional Housing Needs Analysis, Eagle County needs to create 6,375 units of affordable housing over the next 10 years, with 2,638 units immediately required to address the existing housing shortage.

There are 703 units already under construction in the county, and an additional 632 units are entitled to address this need. But that still leaves a shortage of more than 5,000 units.

Avon and Eagle County combined account for about 49% of the county’s housing need, while Vail accounts for about 26%.

A countywide collaboration could be the secret sauce to staunch the rising need for housing. Avon and Eagle County leaders discussed the potential regional housing authority during a joint meeting on Nov. 18.

Why a regional housing authority?

The median annual household income in Eagle County is $100,000. However, six of the county’s 10 largest professions offer median wages below $50,000 per year, including food and beverage, retail sales and cleaning jobs.

In 2023, the median home on the free market in Eagle County cost more than $1.3 million. To afford a $1 million home, a household needed to be making more than 230% of the area’s median income in 2023.

This is where local municipalities have been stepping in to ease some of the burden. Eagle County and several of its constituent towns offer housing assistance, from providing funds to local homebuyers to developing and selling or renting new community housing units.

But the need is still outpacing the solutions.

“We know that this is going to end up at some type of ballot question to generate more revenue. There is really not a way to substantially do more housing without more revenue,” said Avon Town Manager Eric Heil. “The idea is to get a broad base of awareness and, hopefully, support for this.”

Earlier this year, Avon signed a contract with the consulting firm Government Performance Solutions to build a structure that would put a Regional Housing Authority on the table.

There are several other regional housing authorities throughout Colorado, including in neighboring Summit, Routt and Pitkin counties, that Eagle County can learn from as it works toward one of its own.

In the early stages of planning for the regional housing authority, the team has been looking at what works well and what does not for other regional housing authorities and holding presentations for local stakeholders.

The main takeaway is that more funds are needed.

“Money is the ingredient that helps the most with building more housing,” Heil said.

At an average subsidy of $150,000 per unit, it would cost $15 million per year for 15 years to develop half of what is needed over the next 10 years.

“The housing authorities that have more money can do more,” Heil said.

State statute allows a regional housing authority to be funded by up to a 1% sales tax, a 1% use tax and a 5 mill property tax.

“I don’t see a single silver bullet that gets us to what would be ideal, but anything that’s more will help us do more,” Heil said.

Avon alone has nearly 750 entitled units that could be developed over the next 10 years, with $7.3 million in annual funding. To fund housing, Avon currently has a 2% short-term rental tax and a 4% use tax. Fifty percent of the town’s Downtown Development Authority’s TIF revenue is dedicated to housing, along with 10% of the town’s 2% Real Estate Transfer Tax.

But a regional housing authority could do much more than the town on its own.

“Ideally, the more the merrier. If we could get from Vail to Gypsum, it would be rocking what we could get done,” Heil said.

Any community housing would be built with the goal to be near job centers and accessible by public transit.

“The principles of placemaking and … building great communities, that we all want to live in … should be a core aspect of this,” said Eagle County commissioner Tom Boyd.

“We aren’t trying to just build units. We are trying to build homes where people will enjoy living, where they will meet their neighbors, where they will meet their future spouses, where they will play with their dogs and where they will enjoy this great community,” Boyd said.

Where will the money come from?

Any funding source for a regional housing authority would need to be approved and supported by voters.

“We’ll just keep working through it until it feels like there is something the voters would support,” Heil said.

This November’s ballot saw two tax questions: a 6% tax on short-term rentals to fund more community housing in Vail and a 2% lodging tax to fund early childhood education and public safety in unincorporated Eagle County and Gypsum. The former failed, while the latter passed, both by small margins.

“I think what I learned from the last election … is that education, an issues committee, broad support, broad education, is super, super important, more so than being quick,” said Avon mayor pro tem Rich Carroll.

“If we can lay out the right plan, I think people could get behind it,” said Eagle County commissioner Jeanne McQueeney.

“I think taxpayers are not tolerant to see the tax questions on every ballot every year,” said Avon mayor Tamra Nottingham Underwood.

This is not Eagle County’s first time building a regional authority. In November 2022, all Eagle River Valley jurisdictions except Gypsum approved a regional transit authority funded by a 0.5% sales tax. The transit authority combined with ECO Transit in August 2024 to become Core Transit, which has used the additional funding to expand its service and go fare-free for almost all passengers.

“(The transit authority) wasn’t government’s idea. It was the business community’s idea,” said Eagle County manager Jeff Shroll. “At some point along this journey, I would love to see that same business community take the mantle from us and run with this.”

“It would be best to do this right and have it cross the finish line with really strong consensus like the regional transit authority, and not be a nail-biter with all the effort going in,” Heil said.

Many questions remain

As Eagle County sets out on its journey toward a potential regional housing authority, there are many variables to consider.

This includes whether the authority will function administratively and pass through funds to its members, manage properties and/or develop new housing units. The authority’s tasks also determine the amount of funding it needs, and therefore, potential funding sources.

A housing authority can have its own staff or simply a board of directors.

The authority’s boundaries can be drawn to include parts of member jurisdictions, and the authority’s funds do not have to be spent within those boundaries.

“What the map boundaries looks like would probably best be based on voter polling,” Nottingham Underwood said.

“I think that’s the strategy, is to look at where there is consensus for support for a tax, and ideally if that can overlap where there is the value, and then really focus on that,” Heil said.

What comes next?

The team leading the regional housing authority is currently on track to do voter polling in May, with the option to put a question on the November 2026 ballot.

“I think we should have a timeline that sets us up for a faster rollout of this,” McQueeney said. “What we hear more than anything is, ‘what are you doing about housing and why are you still talking about it?'”

“I want to get to the next step as quickly and efficiently as we can, make sure that it’s fully fleshed out and it’s thorough,” Carroll said. “I think when we go to the ballot, we’ll find out what makes sense in terms of what the support is.”

Avon and Eagle County plan to hold another joint meeting about the regional housing authority in January.