Julieth Kennedy was planning to leave Eagle when her apartment complex was listed for sale, opening the door for a new owner to more than triple the rents. But a unique partnership with state and local governments and a Denver developer renovated the 120-unit Eagle Villas and kept rents well below market rates. (Betsy Welch, Special to The Colorado Sun) Renters In This Western Colorado Town Were Almost Displaced. Here's How A Public-Private Partnership Kept Them Home. When affordable housing restrictions at Eagle Villas expired, and the complex was put on the market, 120 families were at risk of losing their homes EAGLE — WHEN JULIETH KENNEDY talks about what makes living at Eagle Villas special, her face lights up. “The kids,” she says. “This is a kids’ property. They run this place.” She points to the playground behind the apartment complex’s leasing office, where the bright orange spiral of a slide glistens in the sun. It’s a place her five children, ages 3 to 12, know well. “My kids love being here,” she says. “When it’s warm they bike to school. The bus drops them off out front. They have friends nonstop. They would always say, ‘We don’t wanna go over there!’” “Over there,” in Kennedy’s case, meant Aurora, where she frantically searched for housing in 2023 as the affordability restrictions on Eagle Villas approached expiration and the 120unit complex in Eagle was listed for sale on the open market. Then Ulysses Development Group, a Denver-based affordable-housing developer, stepped in. UDG acquired Eagle Villas in 2024 and, working with the Eagle County Housing and Development Authority and the state, put together a financing package to preserve the property as income-restricted housing and renovate all 120 apartments. The deal highlights a lesser-known challenge of affordable housing: units and complexes that were designated affordable decades ago do not necessarily stay that way forever. As affordability restrictions expire, communities face a difficult choice: let the properties go to the open market, potentially displacing the residents, or find new money to acquire the homes and keep rents low. While cheaper than building new affordable housing, preserving affordability also comes at a price. But Tori Franks, Eagle County’s resiliency director, said the cost of losing those homes can be much higher. “The cost of losing low-income units, especially in our highcost community, is so much more than replacing the units, which is immense,” she said. “There are real community costs to the loss of affordable housing, which include displacement, job loss and employers needing to recruit new employees, children missing school due to relocation and social infrastructure loss.” Kennedy would have suffered many of those losses. She had begun calling around for apartments in Aurora because she knew there was nothing she could afford in Eagle. But having to move would mean more than losing her home. Kennedy’s mother and her children’s paternal grandparents and aunts live nearby and help with childcare. Her kids attend school up the Story by Betsy Welch for The Colorado Sun hill behind the complex. “It would have been depressing for them and definitely hard on them too if we’d had to move,” she said. 10 NEWS
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