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County staff outlines strategic plan focused on affordability, housing trust fund and workforce supports
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Summary
Melissa Jeffers presented Grand County’s economic development strategic plan centered on four pillars—affordability, livability, resiliency and competitiveness—with affordability and a proposed housing trust fund highlighted as immediate priorities to address a local ALICE population estimated at about 50% and an average sales-price–based homeowner income need of $122,000.
Melissa Jeffers, economic development staff for Grand County, presented a high-level strategic plan to the Economic Opportunity Advisory Board on Jan. 28 that frames county work for 2026 around four pillars: affordability, livability, resiliency and competitiveness.
Jeffers emphasized affordability as the top priority. "We're sitting at about 50% of our residents who are ALICE residents," she told the board, using the United Way’s ALICE (Asset-Limited, Income-Constrained, Employed) metric. She said an affordability audit is the first step: the county needs detailed data on housing and childcare costs to qualify for larger state and federal funding opportunities.
On supply-side tools, Jeffers noted the commission adopted a housing gap-funding policy to fill capital-stack shortfalls for affordable housing projects; on the demand side she proposed creating a down-payment assistance program and a dedicated housing trust fund fed by multiple revenue streams (developer fees, matching grants, and other sources). "We need a down payment assistance fund," Jeffers said, explaining design options such as loans repaid on sale or buy-downs of mortgage points.
Other plan elements include aging-in-place services, youth programming, healthcare cluster development that could leverage the county’s critical-care hospital for destination training, and strategic retail efforts to recapture an estimated $90 million annually in sales-tax leakage. Jeffers also proposed updating the community profile used to market the county to potential employers and health-care providers.
Commissioner Melanie McCallis and board members raised process questions about which elements require formal commission policy and what returns to expect from investments such as airport improvement versus direct resident supports. Jeffers said many of these items will generate policy items that the commission will review and, where appropriate, vote on.
Next steps: staff will pursue the affordability audit, finalize housing policy elements for commission review (including the housing trust fund design), and integrate the board’s feedback into a timeline for RCG and RCOG funding recommendations.
