One Salida Issue Committee

The Importance of
Salida Crossings

Imagine a mixed-use commercial/residential
development that is affordable to a range of income
levels and relies only on the free market, while
preserving Salida’s historic downtown character

Salida Crossings offers all these possibilities…

● Absorbing growth without impacting our downtown and neighborhoods by placing a project
on the Highway 50 corridor with homes close enough for walking or biking to minimize traffic.
● Housing made more affordable by increasing height and density.
● Impacting surroundings less by careful design and placement of structures.

Join our elected officials and local business leaders to support
this project at the September 25th special election.

These are the Realities we face…

● Home prices are high and places to live that local people can afford are scarce. People wanting to play, invest, and live in our beautiful town—and many second homes—are driving prices up.
● Employers are struggling to find the workers they need to keep their doors open.
● We lack adequate apartments, government subsidized housing for lower income earners, and free market developers willing to build homes to sell at below market prices.

Salida Crossings is not the answer to all our housing issues, but it is one
piece of the larger puzzle. It provides 122 units, 30 of them deed-restricted to
below 80% Area Median Income (AMI), and another 70 below 100% AMI.

Let Facts Guide your Vote…

● What is the Area Median Income (AMI) of Chaffee County? — $47,125*.
● Who earns 61-89% AMI, or, $28,276-$37,700? — 15% of Salida’s workforce including: health care
and service industry workers, mechanics, technicians, educators, librarians.*
● Who earns 90%-100% of AMI, or, $37,700 – $47,125? — 14% of Salida’s workforce including: Community and social services workers; sales & marketing employees; healthcare practitioners and technicians.*
● What does “affordable” mean? — Affordable is spending 30% or less of household
income on housing costs, including utilities, taxes and insurance.
● Does the negotiated height increase set a precedent for more taller buildings? — No, future
proposals must pass their own impact review for each unique project.
● Does this project include rentals? — All units are for sale. Buyers can rent non-deed restricted units,
and 30% who have reserved such units will rent to local residents with no short-term rentals allowed.
● Who enforces the Deed Restrictions? — The Chaffee Housing Trust or a possible future Housing Authority will qualify buyers, insure owner-occupancy and oversee the restrictions going forward.
● Did this project follow the required process? — Yes. Salida’s procedures for a planned development
were followed, including hearings and an impact study. Without a planned development, no such hearings or studies would have been required.

(*Source: US Census; 2012-2016 American Community Survey)

IMAGINE no longer.
Make Salida Crossings a REALITY.

VOTE YES on Ballot Question #1
in the September 25 special election.


Salida Crossings is not an apartment building, but a condominium planned development complex that provides market priced units as well as units priced so that they are affordable to the first time home buyer.  Former Mayor LiVecchi says we should have apartments instead of, not in addition to, affordable homes to own.  We would have had these affordable apartments if he had not, as mayor, led a bogus TABOR challenge that derailed the Lowry-Belmont project proposed for our Salida’s Vandaveer Ranch, sending $1.2 million in government subsidies to BV instead.  That left a free-market project like Salida Crossings as the only immediately available alternative to address Salida’s housing shortage.  What is LiVecchi up to?  Why does he always raise phony questions to blow up every project that would help solve our housing problems?  Who benefits from this?  The Council and the Planning and Zoning Commission have spent a lot of time and effort studying this project and holding open sessions to take in public input.  LiVecchi has delayed this project by filing a referendum.  With this the voters are now being asked by LiVecchi to second-guess the leaders that Salida voters elected to replace him.  Are each of the voters now going to have to do the same amount of homework as our officials did?  That’s unreasonable to expect.  When in doubt, the opponents say, veto what the officials we elected were elected to do rather than trust and support them.

Special interest groups are notorious for manipulating voters to vote against their own interests.  Growth is a constant and inevitable force that threatens the character of our town.  Salida Crossings will check the damage this growth can cause to the community by absorbing it along the Hwy 50 corridor, which has a totally different character than our historic downtown.  Defeating the Salida Crossings project will do the opposite of what many naysayers say they want to achieve.  Developers will be able to build only what the underlying zoning allows as a matter of right, without the impact review required for a planned development like Salida Crossings.  A hotel will likely rise on the property, 35 feet high and close to the property lines, providing the ultimate in short term rentals.  Without available housing that is affordable, working people in need of housing will be forced to live out of town, increasing costs to local businesses and increasing the cost of living in Salida to beyond what many of the long-time residents and many of the naysayers themselves can afford.  This will open the community to the only kind of residential development that the underlying zoning permits, suburban-like single family housing sprawl of high-end retirement homes, with the older homes in Ward 3 being torn down and replaced with large homes on multiple lots, and with the historic homes in Ward 2 rising in price and being remodeled beyond recognition as the second home market drives prices up.  We need affordable homes for working people to purchase, which Salida Crossings provides, as well as affordable apartments like those that would have been provided by the Lowry-Belmont proposal that the misdirected leadership of former mayor LiVecchi and former councilman Hal Brown drove from Vandaveer.  LiVeechi’s continued opposition to affordable housing options will create an environment where no developer will consider Salida as a city worth their time and effort only worsening the housing crisis.

Last November the voters overwhelmingly turned out and voted to replace the old leadership with a new Council to lead Salida forward, with our housing shortage leading all polls as the problem most needing solutions.  There is a connection between the opposition to the Salida Crossings Issue and the problems the voters thought they were solving last November.  A YES vote on Ballot Question #1 is a step forward.  A negative vote or no vote at all would just invite those problems back.

What would YOU like to see at Salida Crossings?