The city of Lone Tree, known for its golf course and luxury shopping mall, is now slated for hundreds of units of affordable rental housing centered around a forthcoming light rail stop.
Lone Tree’s City Council unanimously approved Coventry Development’s “attainable housing plan” for the eastern side of the company’s long-in-the-works RidgeGate neighborhood on July 17. The plan calls for a minimum of 350 housing units that will be reserved for residents making between 40 and 60 percent of the area median income for the Denver-Aurora-Lakewood statistical area. Of them, 150 will be reserved for people age 55 and over.
“Attainable housing was always part of the vision (for RidgeGate),” Keith Simon, Coventry’s vice president and director of development said of the master-planned community that was annexed into Lone Tree in 2000. “The issue has certainly gotten more important, and I think the city realizes that. They are in total alignment with us that it is a critical component to building a complete community.”
Affordable isn’t a word that comes to mind when thinking Lone Tree real estate. The city’s annual median household income is $121,514, 76 percent higher than the state as a whole, according to its economic data. Its average home sale price cracked $820,000 in June, officials say. Between 2012 and 2016, the median value of a home there was $521,000, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
In recent years, the city has broadened its housing horizons, adding more apartments and rental options, particularly near its Lincoln Station light rail stop. Its comprehensive plan supports building a range of housing types at a range of price points, said Jennifer Drybread, the city’s planning manager.
The apartments could be years away. Coventry has had talks with potential builders, Simon said, but those builders will need to obtain federal tax credits to fund construction, then get to work. Coventry knows where it wants apartments to be: North of the still-under-construction RidgeGate Station light rail stop on the east side of Interstate 25, the third and final stop being built now as part of RTD’s $238-million Southeast Rail Extension project. Testing on the extension is expected to be done by mid 2019, RTD says.
What excites Lone Tree officials about the stop, and RidgeGate’s future 4-square-mile community east of the highway, is that it is largely undeveloped greenfield that can be shaped as the city and developer see fit.
Lone Tree Mayor Jackie Millet, in a statement, said the city hopes Coventry’s plan “can begin to address the housing needs of the essential workforce in our community including first responders, school personnel and medical staff.”
Also getting a new stop as part of the RTD project is Lone Tree’s Sky Ridge Medical Center. The hospital/ER on the west side of I-25 employs 1,300 people, spokeswoman Linda Watson said, including housekeeping, food service, nursing and lab staffers who make far less than your average doctor.
“We employ people who come from across the metro area, so having affordable options close by Sky Ridge is going to be absolutely a wonderful thing,” Watson said.
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In a study released earlier this month, Denver-based Shift Research Lab found that construction and rehabilitation of affordable housing units within a half mile of RTD rail or bus rapid transit stations accounted for $97 million in spending in 2017, creating 2,587 jobs. None of that development occurred in Douglas County, which has two active light rail stops: Lone Tree’s County Line and Lincoln stations.
Douglas County is currently home to 1,640 income-restricted rental units, said Diane Leavesley, executive director of the Douglas County Housing Partnership. A comprehensive needs study has not been done, but anecdotally, the demand for affordable housing in the fast-growing southern county is great. The 156-unit Apex Meridian Apartments, not far from Lone Tree, amassed a 1,700-person wait list shortly after opening in 2014, Leavesley said. In Castle Rock, the Auburn Ridge affordable senior apartments has an 800-person wait list.
“Anything that’s being built is being flooded with requests for people to live there,” Leavesley said.
The partnership this year was allocated roughly $17 million in state private activity bonds. It hopes to put them toward expanding the Apex Meridian development.
