Future facility upgrades and heating and cooling system improvement projects may soon see funding in a small western Colorado school district.
Voters in the Telluride School District will decide in November on a $31.8 million bond that is also designed to fund science lab upgrades at the Telluride Middle/High School.
But perhaps the most unique feature of the bond is its support for the expansion of workforce housing in a part of the state where the average one-bedroom monthly rate now stands at around $3, 000.
As proposed, the bond would fund the development of around 30 new housing units and will also being used to acquire land to build future housing. Ultimately, according to district documents, the goal is to provide housing options for roughly one third of the district’s roughly 150 employees.
Hannah Richman, vice-president of the Telluride Education Foundation, has noted that the district has lost teachers because of a lack of affordable local housing. “We want to make sure we can always attract and retain high quality teachers,” Richman told the Telluride Daily Planet.
Increasingly, many towns and school districts in Colorado have been trying to tackle the affordable housing challenge through a variety of means. A group called the Colorado River Board of Cooperative Education Services is spearheading the construction of tiny homes for teachers and staff in the towns of Aspen, Carbondale, and Parachute.
And the affordable housing efforts has also seen the Colorado Department of Transportation announce a plan to build housing for employees working on road projects. One particular project in the town of Frisco is seeing the building of a 22-unit housing complex.
By Garry Boulard
