Building a foundation for understanding housing costs and opportunities to reduce them in NoCO.
What: Build a robust data set and modeling tool to calculate the cost of new-build housing units in NOCO.
Why: To provide a shared understanding of housing cost drivers and the ability to quantify the effect of potential changes. What drives costs the most? Where do costs differ by city? Which changes meaningfully affect affordability, and which do not?
Who: Led by Erik Mikysa and sponsored by Brooke Cunningham of the NoCo Foundation, with substantial input and guidance from Cost workgroup meembers and other stakeholders.
When: In 2026, the model will be reviewed and developed in NoCo Foundation Regional Housing Initiative "Cost Group" workshops and in FC BS+B meetings as part of the Affordability Series.
Where: Nine Northern Colorado communities — Fort Collins, Loveland, Wellington, Timnath, Windsor, Johnstown, Greeley, Estes Park, and Berthoud — plus several benchmark cities nationwide for comparison.
How: We plan to incorporate input from all stakeholders willing to engage and to help them benefit from the model. We plant to engage with developers, architects, builders, trades, lenders, water districts, municipalities, nonprofits, and more,
The cost model described above has been built into an interactive web application called the Affordability Framework. It lets you explore the full cost structure of building a home in Northern Colorado and see where the opportunities for cost reduction lie.
The framework includes: