Voters in Steamboat Springs have rejected the city’s annexation of Brown Ranch, killing a plan to build affordable housing for more than 6,000 residents.
The Brown Ranch project started when an anonymous donor in 2021 gave the Yampa Valley Housing Authority $24 million to buy a 534-acre ranch west of the city. The authority spent two years working on a plan to build 2,264 affordable units by 2040 and the city annexed 420 acres of the parcel last year.
A group of residents thought the project was too big for the community of 13,000 and forced a special election. More than 5,300 voters weighed the proposal, rejecting the annexation Tuesday. Results updated at 10 p.m. showed 3,149 voting to reject the annexation and 2,280 voting in support, with about 88 signature discrepancies to be cured.
Jason Peasley, the head of the Yampa Valley Housing Authority, said in a statement Tuesday night that he was disappointed but the authority would continue working “to solve the affordable housing crisis in our community.”
“During our community engagement process, we learned so many workers are barely hanging on and the Brown Ranch gave them hope for the future,” Peasley said in a statement late Tuesday. “They told us they were optimistic there was a plan to provide homes they could afford. My heart aches when I think of the people who told us the Brown Ranch would be their first legitimate opportunity to own a home, and they compared it to the good fortune so many others had over the past decades to buy a home. With this vote, that same opportunity for those community members is two to three years further out of reach.”
Brown Ranch was one of the largest affordable housing proposals ever on the Western Slope, with plans to use $240 million in tax revenue from short-term rentals, along with municipal debt and grants to cover an estimated $484 million for infrastructure, open space and public safety facilities in the community.
The Steamboat Citizens for a Better Plan group that forced the vote wanted to see free-market homes in the community plan, with profits from market-rate homes helping to offset the cost of development.
Jim Engelken, a former city councilman who organized the campaign to force a special election on the October 2023 annexation, said the project now returns to the city council.
“The council are the ones who need to rein this in and make it acceptable to the people of Steamboat Springs, which they did not do this time and hopefully they can do next time,” Engelken said late Tuesday. “My biggest hope is in the city staff. I know these people and they are very good at what they do. If they had written up this plan, it would not have looked like it does. I hope the council can look to the city staff for guidance and we can move this forward with a better plan.”