Following the adoption of the Housing Action Plan, several recommendations were made to facilitate housing development for all income levels in Alamosa. Given the dearth of housing options and availability in Alamosa and a shortfall of 500 units, different strategies are proposed to increase housing stock by reducing or removing regulatory barriers while attempting to mitigate any strain on infrastructure or neighborhood impacts.

Additionally, state legislature has passed House Bill 21-1271, which opens up large pools of funding to combat the housing crisis across the state. Funding eligibility requires local governments to choose from a "menu" of affordable/attainable/workforce housing options to incorporate in their regulations. Most of these options are already in place within the UDC (such as allowing for small-sized residential units and PUD-Rs with affordable housing units) or are otherwise unfeasible given our community's size, funding constraints, and other considerations (such as creating a dedicated funding source to subsidize infrastructure costs). The bill is attached with the "menu" options starting at the bottom of page 6.

As discussed in the work session, this ordinance does the following:

• Opens up more options for Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs, otherwise known as casitas, granny flats, etc.) by relaxing the minimum lot and size standards
• Changes certain density calculations and standards, by exempting ADUs from density calculations and adding a density bonus for certain affordable housing developments
• Allows accessory structures to be up to two stories instead of one if it includes an ADU
• Reduces the minimum lot size and width for duplexes
• Allows townhouses in the Established Neighborhood zone
• Reduces the separation requirements for cottage cluster (tiny home) development in certain zones

Since its work session with Council, staff has added two additional provisions. Currently, new multifamily (apartment) housing is allowed with some limitations in the Established Neighborhood (EN) zone. The current restrictions allow for a maximum of 8 dwelling units in a building and all other development standards must be met. This ordinance adds an additional option for multifamily housing in this zone. If the multifamily use is an adaptive reuse of a building existing as of January 1, 2018 (when the development code went into effect) and meets all other development standards, it is allowed - regardless of how many units are in the building. The other addition is to count duplexes as one unit for density calculations, which further allows the reduction of duplex lot requirements as otherwise discussed above.