City of Cottonwood Director of Strategic Initiatives Ryan Bigelow, provided a brief update to City Council on affordable housing projects during its Tuesday, Jan. 20, meeting, but no action or direction on the matter was voted on.
Bigelow’s presentation was a followup to council’s Oct. 14 work session that included 15 directions to staff regarding housing, including: Updating the city’s housing study to include a gap analysis identifying local housing needs and target demographics to present to developers, develop a housing marketing plan and lobbying the Arizona State Legislature for the expansion of expansion of Low-Income Housing Tax Credits and to be able locally regulate short-term rentals.
Council unanimously approved its state legislative priorities as a consent agenda item.
The actions on housing the city will be doing over the next three months include: Creating a marketing packet for developers, updating on stalled housing projects, administrative review of standards and design guidelines and meeting with non-profit developers to explore affordable housing options.
But “first is the update [to] the housing study,” Bigelow said. It will also look at incentives for developers such as reducing fees for multifamily and smaller single-family units.
The study “is going to be the baseline for a lot of what we want to do moving forward. Community development [is] often approached by developers looking for confidence to build here,” he said. “What they’re looking for is a needs assessment, a Gaps Analysis. ‘If I build here, will people come and either rent or buy the property?’ Updating our housing study …. hopefully that can be step one, giving those developers that confidence that they need.”
Bigelow said the city is working on housing actions in the 90 days to six months including updating Municipal Code 15.44 for off-site improvements, assisting with Low-Income Housing Tax Credit Application, pre-approved housing plan approvals and National Housing Accelerator Program outcomes.
Municipal code 15.44 “basically says that if you have a development that costs over $300,000 you are required to put in sidewalk utilities and all other kinds of improvements,” Bigelow said. We want to update those numbers so the threshold is higher, so they don’t have to come in and create all these improvements.” He said it’s a move that he said will hopefully translate to lower costs for customers.
Bigelow said the department is discussing the creation of a program modeled after Yavapai County “A Home of My Own,” that provides f r e e p r e – a p p r o v e d housing plans for future homeowners.
City goals beyond six months include: Complete the Revitalization Plan, explore land purchase for affordable housing, abandoned or derelict housing program, Rough Cut for adaptive reuse housing and explore adding infrastructure to encourage housing development including traffic reduction infrastructure and water infrastructure such as wells in areas for future development.
“Has any outside agency expressed any kind of interest in doing something with the Rough Cut [Building] from a housing standpoint?” Councilman Bob Marks asked.
“On, on a very high level, yes,” Bigelow said, adding “a conversation has been started,” but did not elaborate.
The council voted on Sept. 3, 2023, to begin the process of selling the Rough Cut building at 635 N. Main St., which the city purchased in October 2021 for $2.95 million with the intent of converting it into a new City Hall.
