Albany County Housing Coalition addresses affordability, supply issues

LARAMIE — The Albany County Housing Coalition convened last week to review findings from the 2025 Albany County Housing Survey and provide updates on ongoing initiatives addressing housing supply and affordability across the county.

The coalition, a community-driven effort involving local government, developers, realtors, lenders and nonprofit partners, has organized its work into four teams, each focusing on a distinct area: data and survey results, regulatory barriers, financial barriers and project actions through land trust.

“There’s no magic bullet. There’s no one thing that we have done that will solve all of these problems,” Laramie Main Street Alliance Executive Director and Rep. Trey Sherwood, D-Laramie, said. “This is just an opportunity for us to pause, reflect and share with the community the work that we have done as a collective to move the needle on solving housing here in Albany County.”

Housing affordability, supply and quality remain pressing concerns for Laramie and Albany County, according to the survey data presented during the Monday meeting on the Laramie County Community College-Albany County campus.

The survey collected more than 600 responses, though City Planner Joseph Shahidi noted the results leaned toward long-term residents, as it was conducted while University of Wyoming was not in session. It shows a strong preference for single-family homes, despite the high costs and long construction time associated with them.

“The first choice was single-family housing, but we also looked at other housing options,” Shahidi explained. “We have townhouses, condos, mobile or manufactured housing, apartments and others. The second one was definitely townhouses for younger and lower-income households.

“We did pull a few anonymous quotes from our responses and this one stuck out: ‘Not only is housing old and unaffordable, most homes are not first-time buyer- friendly and new homes are far too expensive. Developers are charging Colorado prices where people do not make Colorado salaries.’ We know housing is really expensive for what we normally see as our median income here, and so that does mean it’s an issue.”

The survey highlighted widespread cost burdens. 

More than 65% of renters reported spending more than 30% of their income on housing, compared with about 40% of homeowners. Competition in the market is also steep, with buyers struggling against outside investors and families purchasing homes for college students.

Looking ahead, Shahidi pointed to growing needs among older residents, with nearly 40% of respondents saying they are unlikely to remain in their current homes for retirement. That reality underscores the importance of planning for accessible housing, retirement communities, and accessory dwelling units.

Regulatory barriers

Regulations and infrastructure costs are among other significant barriers to housing development, according to City Planning Manager Derek Tieni.

Tieni noted that his group initially identified a wide range of regulatory issues — including zoning, permitting, building design standards, rental registries, covenants, and infrastructure requirements — but soon realized they could not tackle everything at once.

Franchise utilities became the decided focus, and agreements regarding those utilities are already embedded in city ordinance, Tieni explained. They are generally similar to agreements across Wyoming, but as Laramie renews some of them, Tieni and the team saw an opportunity to better align the rules with community needs.

“There are rules at the state level that regulate how we can do these types of agreements, and it just so happens in the city we are currently working on some renewables of these agreements. So we think it’s kind of landed in terms of a right time to really look at this,” Tieni said. “We also learned that we have the Wyoming Public Service Commission that really can help us as a community understand what some of those rights are and where franchise utilities relate to how we get them put in and how we use them within our community. They also can aid us in advocating and helping us there, and in feeling that there are issues that we need to address.”

Still, Tieni cautioned that the city is in the early stages of fully understanding the issue.

“We definitely are still learning in this process. So unlike Joseph (Shahidi), where he pushed out the data, had a lot of numbers,” Tieni said. “I think we’re still in this climb of this issue, and really, actually understanding how it’s affecting our community, which we know it is, but also how we can best use this piece of the regulatory environment to maybe promote housing and be more positive.”

Financial barriers

City Planning Manager Philipp Gabathuler described his team as a group of lenders, realtors and developers studying financial incentives and obstacles in the housing market.

Using the Problem-Driven Iterative Adaptation model, the group focused on connecting public and private sector perspectives and identifying gaps. Gabathuler highlighted major barriers: high interest rates, limited appetite for riskier housing projects, difficulty securing construction loans for multi-family developments, and rising public utility costs.

“We’ve done an infill development overlay map that is finishing up right now, where we’ve identified vacant parcels and, on a rough scale, how much public improvements will be required,” Gabathuler said. “If you develop a vacant lot in town and it does not have a current street section that is paved or sidewalks, identifying how much of that is required to make a lot developable is essential.

“This information that we took from this discussion is being shared, and we’ve also heard, as Derek spoke to, about the perception and realities of the approval process and what it takes to start a project from the beginning and how long that process requires to develop.”

Regulatory improvements, he said, aim to streamline approvals and clarify infrastructure and grant requirements. 

The group has also consulted state agencies, including the Office of the Consumer Advocate and Wyoming Energy Authority, on utility regulations and protections for residents.

Gabathuler highlighted recent regulatory changes under city-based text amendment TA-25-04 aimed at facilitating housing development. 

The updates allow more residential uses by right in zoning districts; remove parking requirements for accessory dwelling units; provide flexibility for on-street and bike parking; streamline driveway and lot line processes; revise oversizing policies so the city shares more paving costs; and expand definitions to include live/work spaces and commercial dwellings.

Project actions

Assistant City Manager Todd Feezer provided an update on the Albany County Housing Land Trust, a locally-driven initiative in collaboration with the Laramie Chamber Business Alliance.

Feezer said the trust was created to address housing affordability, support economic growth, retain University of Wyoming graduates and provide entry-level housing. With Laramie averaging about 60 homes built annually, the trust aims to increase housing production to 400 units per year by 2030.

“The land trust, although that’s our name, we expect to be able to work in all different avenues,” Feezer said. “A land trust is basically where you don’t own the land under your home. You own the structure, you own the building, but you don’t own that land. It is a way for you to build equity because it does your own value, but you don’t come with a long-term cost or the high cost of land acquisition. You are responsible for the maintenance and upkeep of the land. You can do improvements, but it’s a way to diminish some of the costs of getting into housing without having to diminish the home that you’re getting into.”

The trust structure allows homeowners to build equity while minimizing land acquisition costs and gives developers a third-party vehicle to transfer land from public-sector ownership, reducing debt and financing burdens.

Funding and staffing are underway, with $500,000 in seed funding being sought over two to three years. The trust plans to hire an executive director reporting to the LCBA director, aiming to grow into a standalone nonprofit within three to five years.

The teams and the coalition as a whole will continue analyzing survey data, addressing financial and regulatory barriers, and advancing initiatives like the Albany County Housing Land Trust and urban renewal, with updates shared as projects progress.

This story was published on Sept. 13, 2025.