The Colorado Department of Local Affairs selected Granby to receive technical assistance regarding affordable housing in July, and the town’s board of trustees approved a memorandum of understanding Aug. 8 accepting the offer.

Local affairs’ division of housing will provide Granby with an Affordable Housing Toolkit with training and consulting services to help the board and town staff better understand affordable housing and ways to improve it in the area.

Assistant Town Manager Nicole Schafer presented the memorandum to the board and explained what it will entail. She said the division of housing would do an on-site meeting with town staff and trustees to provide training.

“We would do some in-person training with some of the division of housing resources to get a better vision of what our scope should be, and to highlight what our priorities would be for affordable housing in the Town of Granby,” Schafer said.

Schafer added that the program will help the town examine the Fraser River Valley Housing Partnership’s housing assessment and the town’s draft comprehensive plan, which could be approved soon. Information from the meeting, housing assessment and comprehensive plan would go into creating a general affordable housing plan for the town.

The division of housing will examine things like zoning codes in Granby to identify things that might cause barriers to affordable housing in the town, Schafer said.

A house bill from 2021, HB 21-1271, provides the funding for the program, so there is no cost to Granby. One public commenter raised concerns about the state trying to take over local control of housing, referencing the controversial land use bill from the state’s last legislative session that Granby joined other municipalities in opposing.

“Their objective is to give us access to training, so that we can make a better informed decision, but not to mandate anything,” Schafer said. “I think the state has learned that mandating affordable housing guidelines may not be the best course of action at this point.”

Town Manager Ted Cherry added that the bill that Granby opposed was one in the state’s legislature and not a policy or program of the Department of Local Affairs.

The trustees approved the memorandum of understanding and opted for the in-person training session as well.

Other business:

• Trustees approved an improvements agreement between East Grand School District and the town that outlines improvements the district will make to town infrastructure during its construction of the new Granby Elementary School.