Legislators hear Taos housing woes

At around $40,000, median annual household income in Taos County is $11,000 less than the median income across New Mexico; and Taos County households earn over a third less than the average American household, which makes about $62,000 annually. Meanwhile, the median home price in Taos County has long been well above the state average. And with Taos County home prices increasing at a rapid clip between 2018 and today, the cost of buying a home in Taos County — which in 2018 only just exceeded the average cost of buying a home in the United States — now far exceeds the national average.

"It sounds to me like most of these homes are purchased by folks outside the area," said  Patricia Lundstrom, interim committee chair and District 9 state representative, noting that Taos County has "a high unemployment rate" and asking: "Who is buying these homes?"

Taos Mayor Pascual Maestas told Lundstrom and her fellow committee members that, according to a survey completed during the pandemic, "40 percent of our homes are vacant" or occupied only part of the year.

"Many of them are short-term rentals," Maestas added. "We just got our data back just a few weeks ago that in the county there are 1,400 short-term rentals and in the town of Taos about 138. So, many of them are second homes or vacant homes."

Taos' 2022-26 Infrastructure Capital Improvement Plan is a funding wish-list that serves to guide legislators' capital outlay choices. It also provides a roadmap for other funding sources, and makes "affordable housing" the town's No.1 infrastructure priority. But it's also the only item — with a price tag of $2.85 million — among the municipality's top five infrastructure projects that has yet to receive any funding. 

Newly-formed nonprofit Taos Housing Partnership estimates that a prospective Taos homebuyer with an annual income of $39,350 (the median household income in Taos from 2016-2020 was $41,973, according the the U.S. Census Bureau) could afford a mortgage on a home costing $157,200.

But the average market price for a two-bedroom house over the past year-to-date, however, was $434,251, according to the partnership, signifying a gap of $277,051, which puts home ownership out of reach of most Taos residents. In response, the housing partnership says it "will sponsor development that is priced below market rates and provide mortgage assistance" in order to lessen the affordability gap. The group wants to see 500 new homes or housing units either in place or underway "in the first five years of its operation."

Jennifer Lopez, a consultant engaged by the group, told the Taos News that existing-but-unfinished housing projects within Taos could help produce as many as 180 new homes in the near future. 

"At last one private developer is trying to negotiate 81 units below market, and the town of Taos is activating the Chamisa Verde subdivision," Lopez said. "I think it's ambitious, but we have ambitious leaders."

Affordable housing projects like Chamisa Verde can struggle to attract buyers in rural New Mexico, either because the target income bracket for buyers is too narrow to draw sufficient interest, or because the prospect of building and owning a home — even with the benefit of state and federal subsidies and affordable mortgage programs — is too daunting.

"We're looking to incentivize builders to construct a different housing product, to build new starter homes," Lopez said, adding that not all of the 500 dwellings proposed by the Taos Housing Partnership will be new. "And we're going to look at providing financial literacy programs at the same time we get this pipeline of housing together. It's such a dynamic environment right now, because there is a lot of ARPA funding, and state funds at this time to do this."

"Housing is the foundation of everything else we might talk about," said AnJanette Brush, District 4 commissioner and vice chair of the Taos County Commission. Brush then moved on to public safety and transportation needs in Taos County, which spurred a discussion regarding the volunteer nature of rural EMTs and firefighters across New Mexico. 

"In rural areas like ours, our first responders are often volunteers; volunteer firefighters and EMS are also public safety," Brush said. "It might be time to consider how we need to support them more."

Taos, Taos County, Red River and Questa have paid fire departments, but the bulk of the county relies on 13 volunteer fire departments — which have faced recruitment challenges for years.

District 6 state Sen. Bobby Gonzales, who sits on the Senate Finance Committee, agreed with Brush. He told his fellow interim committee members that "maybe our remote, rural EMTs should be paid," adding, "it may be too much to ask someone to give that much of their life for free." 

Taos County Fire Marshal James Hampton said he hopes Gonzales's comment is an indication of changes to come.

"Without meaningful change, we face a difficult task ahead of us, and we need to be proactive in how we look to the future," Hampton told the Taos News. "It has become so difficult to recruit new members. And the ones we do get have jobs and lives and families that they have to tend to alongside their duties as firefighters. They often miss family events, holidays and many other things to help their communities. 

"We need to recognize that the volunteer fire service that we have been so accustomed to is dwindling and there are just not many people coming in to replace the aging members we still have," Hampton added. "If we don’t do something and do it soon, we may see volunteer fire departments just cannot  respond in the capacity that our communities need and deserve."

Chris Stagg, Village of Taos Ski Valley councilor and a Taos Ski Valley, Inc. vice president, told legislators about the ski corporation's plans for a gondola that would alleviate traffic congestion between the resort's two basins and added that the village is "preparing to work with the [North Central Regional Transit District] "to ramp up the electric bus service between Taos and Taos Ski Valley — and throughout the county, really. 

"That's one of the things that's really important to us," he said, a comment that he backed up this week during a village council meeting. Stagg and his fellow councilors voted unanimously to enter into an agreement with the North Central Regional Transit District (RTD) to bring daily bus service between Taos and Taos Ski Valley during the winter season. The agreement calls for 100 days of daily service during peak ski season, as well as 29 days of night service. Eventually, the plan is for RTD to transition to electric-powered buses.

The additional $19,500 annual cost of the expanded "Green Service Expansion" between the Ski Valley and the Sagebrush Inn will be shared by Taos, Taos County and the Village of Taos Ski Valley, which still bears the largest cost-share of the three governments. The total annual cost of the route will be $150,000.

Stagg also told legislators that the ski valley is part of a larger initiative that is focused on restoring and preserving the watershed within which the resort and municipality sits, as well as other watersheds in north-central New Mexico. 

"All of us are very active in the Rio Grande Water Fund, and that's a forest health restoration project throughout Northern New Mexico. And 600,000 acres I think is the total of that. And we've done here in Taos Ski Valley about 400 acres of forest [restoration and wildfire mitigation] this summer, so we're working diligently if you look around the forest, you'll see places where things have been cleaned up and thinned out in order to reduce the fire danger," Stagg said.