A recent report from the NoCo Foundation, Housing at a Crossroads: Affordability, Access, and the Future of Northern Colorado, offers a clear reminder that housing challenges are not isolated, temporary, or limited to the Estes Valley.
They are structural. They are regional. And they are deeply connected to whether our communities remain healthy, functional, and sustainable over time.
The report focuses on Northern Colorado, particularly Larimer and Weld Counties, but many of its findings should feel familiar to anyone following housing in Estes Park. The report identifies five key factors shaping housing outcomes:
- continued growth and demographic change
- a mismatch between what is being built and what people need
- a widening affordability gap
- development costs and processes that limit what can be built
- and the role of policy, land use, and community factors in determining what is possible.
That framework matters because housing is often discussed as one project, one parcel, one neighborhood meeting, or one controversy at a time. But the housing challenge is bigger than any single project. It is a system. And if we want different housing outcomes, we need to understand the system that is producing the outcomes we have now.
The NoCo report
The NoCo report estimates that Larimer and Weld counties will need approximately 47,500 additional housing units over the next 10 years, including about 20,500 rentals and 27,000 for-sale homes.
It also notes that nearly 80% of Larimer County households and 65.5% of Weld County households cannot afford the homes available in their respective markets. Those are not small gaps. They are evidence of a housing market that is not meeting the needs of the people who live and work in the region.
Estes Park shares many of these same pressures, but with our own local conditions layered on top. We are a mountain gateway community with limited developable land, high construction costs, environmental constraints, a tourism-based economy, a significant second-home and seasonal-use housing market, and strong demand from people who want to live, retire, invest, or recreate here.
One important distinction is that Estes Park’s housing need is not primarily the result of rapid population growth. Recent Census data estimates Estes Park’s 2024 population at 5,795, down from the 2020 Census count of 5,904. In other words, our population is not meaningfully increasing.
But that does not mean our housing pressure is easing
In Estes Park, the issue is less about more people moving here and more about whether existing housing is available to year-round residents, workers, families, seniors, and local households. According to census derived data as presented in the 2023 Housing Needs Assessment and Strategic Plan, the Estes Valley rate of vacant homes continues to increase from about 24% in 2000, to 32% in 2010, and about 44% in 2022.
It appears the vacancy increase is being driven by the transition of formerly owner-occupied units into seasonal, recreational, or occasional use. The trend reinforces what many in the community already feel, a housing unit on paper is not the same thing as a home available to the year-round community.
That distinction is central to the Estes Park conversation. A home used seasonally, held as a second home, used primarily for visitor lodging, or otherwise unavailable to local households does not meet the same community need as a home occupied by a hospitality employee, young family, retiree, teacher, firefighter, nurse, childcare worker, nonprofit employee, or tradesperson.
The NoCo report also emphasizes that what we build does not always match what people need. Across the region, much of the housing produced in recent decades has been larger and more expensive, while many households need smaller, more attainable options. Estes Park faces the same mismatch.
Our community needs apartments, townhomes, condominiums, deed-restricted ownership, shared equity opportunities, workforce rentals, senior-friendly options, and smaller homes that align with local wages and household sizes.
The private market, left entirely on its own, will not reliably produce that full spectrum. That is not because the private market is bad. It is because the private market responds to the strongest financial signals. In a high-cost, tourism-driven mountain community, those signals often favor higher-end ownership, second-home demand, short-term lodging opportunities, or prices disconnected from local incomes.
Housing work is not about changing Estes Park into something it is not. It is about making sure Estes Park can continue to be what it says it values.
The 2023 Estes Valley Housing Needs Assessment and Strategic Plan reinforces this point locally. It found that the Estes Valley needs approximately 1,220 additional dwellings to meet current demand, with another 1,500 needed by 2030 due to retiring workers and projected job growth. It also identified a five-year target of creating or preserving hundreds of workforce-attainable homes. That is the scale of the challenge in front of us.
The affordability gap is not limited to the lowest-income households. In Estes Park, households can work full time, earn a decent local wage, contribute to the community, and still be unable to rent or buy here.
The 2025 and 2026 Annual Housing Supply Plans note that between March 2020 and September 2022, the median home sale price in Estes Park rose by 50%, from $392,000 to $585,000. By the end of 2025, the median sale price of single-family detached homes had reached $815,000, while attached dwellings, such as townhomes and condos, had reached $550,000.
Housing has become one of the defining issues for our community
Those numbers matter because they help explain why housing has become one of the defining issues for our community. This is not about people failing to budget carefully or not working hard to earn a living in the Estes Valley. It is about a market that has moved beyond the reach of many of the people who sustain the Estes Valley every day.
The NoCo report also makes an important point about development costs and delays. Housing does not become easier or cheaper to build when communities wait. In Estes Park, every delay, redesign, downzoning, appeal, or abandoned commitment has a cost. That cost may show up as fewer units, higher per-unit costs, deeper subsidy needs, weaker financing, or projects that no longer work.
For market-rate development, delay may reduce profit. For workforce and affordable housing, delay can eliminate the housing entirely.
This is where Ballot Issue 6E becomes so important
In 2022, Estes Valley voters approved 6E by approximately 63%, increasing the lodging tax and dedicating the additional revenue to workforce housing and childcare. That vote was not a small decision. It was a clear statement of community values. Voters recognized that housing and childcare are not side issues. They are essential infrastructure for a functioning community.
6E gives Estes Park a local tool with real power. It allows us to invest directly in housing production, acquisition, preservation, partnerships, rental assistance, ownership strategies, childcare capacity, and the ability to leverage state, federal, philanthropic, and private resources.
It does not solve everything. No single funding source can. But without a tool like 6E, Estes Park would be left hoping the market solves a problem the market has already shown it will not solve on its own.
The NoCo report describes Northern Colorado as being at a crossroads. Estes Park is at one as well. We can treat each housing proposal as an isolated controversy, or we can understand each decision as part of a larger system.
We can focus only on what we do not want, or we can define what we are trying to preserve: a year-round community, a stable workforce, local families, small businesses, public services, schools, neighborhoods, and the people who make this valley more than a destination.
Housing work is not about changing Estes Park into something it is not. It is about making sure Estes Park can continue to be what it says it values.
The good news is that our community has already shown it understands the need. The passage of 6E demonstrated that Estes Park is capable of solutions-focused work.
Now the responsibility is to use that tool wisely, stay committed through complexity, and keep moving toward housing solutions that match the scale of the need.
Scott Moulton is the executive director of the Estes Park Housing Authority, a local quasi-governmental body created in 1993 that provides, manages, and develops affordable housing options and services for low- to moderate-income households and the local workforce in the Estes Valley. The EPHA manages rental properties, offers homeownership programs, and implements workforce rental assistance, often partnering with the Town of Estes Park to address housing shortages.
You must be logged in to post a comment.