Town of Taos officials and outside consultants presented detailed design options and financial context Monday for Chamisa Verde, a long‑planned affordable housing subdivision, and emphasized a narrow window to spend capital outlay and grant funds needed to extend water, sewer and roads to the remaining lots.

The council heard data from Economic & Planning Systems showing local home prices and incomes that underpin the project’s urgency. “The average household income of a Taos resident has increased significantly, over the last 5 or 6 years, up to over $79,000 annually,” said Matt Prosser, principal with Economic & Planning Systems, and he added that the average single‑family price in town is now about $655,000, creating a gap for households earning less than 120 percent of area median income.

Those affordability figures frame the purpose of Chamisa Verde, which was platted in the 1990s for 123 homes and already contains Habitat for Humanity houses and seven units now being 3‑D‑printed on site. Jonah Reynolds of Pangaea Design Build, the firm printing the first houses, told the council that his team rebuilt a malfunctioning industrial Cobod printer on site and is preparing to certify local operators. “Through the rebuild process, Pangaea’s team now knows this printer inside and out. We are in the process of formally taking over printing operations,” Reynolds said.

Presenters gave three main options for how to finish the subdivision: a near‑original approach of single‑family detached homes (roughly 70 unbuilt lots), a duplex‑heavy scenario that could yield about 115 unbuilt units, and a hybrid that mixes duplexes and single‑family lots (about 99–101 units depending on lot depths). Patrick Chen, a civil engineer with Bowman, said the town can install main “trunk” utilities now and leave lot‑level service later unless the council chooses very dense stacked flats. “We can get the main kind of trunk infrastructure in and then figure out services later,” Chen said.

Staff and consultants noted tradeoffs. Higher density makes per‑unit infrastructure cheaper but concentrates parking demand and reduces private yard space. William (Bill) Evans, the town’s community economic development director, gave a planning‑level infrastructure estimate: each additional home adds roughly $5,700 of infrastructure cost in the current plating assumptions. Consultants also flagged market risk for large quantities of deed‑restricted attached product, saying sales demand for many attached deed‑restricted units may be slower than for modest detached homes.

Council members debated whether to pause final plat decisions until the Land Use Development Code rewrite is further along. Several councilors urged moving ahead to use $2.9 million in state capital outlay funding before its reversion deadline in 2027. Town staff said the first tranche of about $1 million must be spent by Oct. 31 and the larger $2.9 million capital outlay by June 2027; a HUD grant of roughly $1.8 million was described as having a longer spending window. Matt Prosser cautioned that delaying a final design could imperil the town’s ability to spend the capital outlay award and miss an unusual opportunity to create lots with minimal town matching funds.

Council did not adopt a final plat at the meeting. Staff said the next steps are: finalize a preferred layout, complete construction drawings (8 weeks estimated after direction), advertise and bid the infrastructure work, then construct the trunk lines; Bowman estimated that, with prompt direction, infrastructure work could be bid in late winter and mostly complete by May of the following year so homes could be built starting in March.

Why it matters: Chamisa Verde is one of the town’s largest planned affordable‑homeownership efforts, aimed at households earning up to 120 percent of AMI. Decisions about density, unit type, and timing will affect how many homes can be built, whether infrastructure grants can be spent before reversion deadlines and how well the development meets family‑friendly design goals.

The council asked staff to continue refining options and to return with costed alternatives and market feasibility analysis; no binding land‑use changes were made at the meeting.