Some proposed housing solutions already happening in Sheridan

SHERIDAN — When it comes to housing, Sheridan is already doing some things right.

The city and county have adopted a joint planning agreement that governs land use in a 60 square mile area surrounding the town, Stephen Whitlow, a consultant with Abt Global — a firm working with the Wyoming Community Development Authority on a Statewide Strategic Housing Action Plan — said at a forum in Cheyenne on Oct. 21.

The joint planning agreement between Sheridan County and the city is focused on preserving agricultural and rural areas, while also developing standards for annexing county land and developing it with a mix of housing types.

That kind of partnership could serve as a model in other parts of the state, Whitlow said, and state leaders could provide resources to local governments and about such partnerships to promote growth in a responsible way.

“Sheridan is a place where this has happened … and the idea is to offer other places in the state (assistance) to facilitate that process,” Whitlow said.

Training workforce will also be crucial to meeting housing demand in the coming years, Kimberly Burnett — also with Abt Associates — said at the forum. This too is already happening in Sheridan, where the Wyoming Innovation Partnership is working to address a worker shortage in the housing industry by helping to fund curriculum development and equipment purchases at Sheridan College in its construction technology program.

“We think (what’s happening at Sheridan College) is a really promising approach that has a pretty good return on investment, in terms of the benefit to the state’s workforce,” Burnett said.

The Sheridan examples were two on a long list of possible ideas to address a statewide housing shortage experts anticipate will only worsen over the next decade.

Three types of solutions: resources, regulations and capacity

Solutions to addressing Wyoming’s housing shortage fall into three major categories, Burnett said. Those are expanding resources available for housing infrastructure; reducing or eliminating regulatory barriers to new housing developments; and building capacity among public and private actors.

The first category of solutions encompasses the most challenging work.

It could mean legislatively creating a flexible housing development fund to support local needs, from funding for land acquisition, infrastructure or construction and increasing development and property management capacity.

It could also mean conducting a statewide infrastructure expansion feasibility assessment for water and sewer capacity, which could support responsible housing and job growth. It could also mean state-sponsored incentives for local governments to revise zoning codes, allowing for manufactured homes, duplexes, triplexes and homes on smaller lot sizes.

“These are some of the kind of long-term strategies that we might not be ready to take on now, but are worth thinking about down the road,” Burnett said.

Over and over while gathering information for the strategic plan, Burnett said she heard it simply does not pencil out for developers to build workforce or affordable housing in Wyoming.

“One of the most common responses received was that high development costs and limited state and local funding for development are top barriers to meeting housing needs,” Burnett said.

As a state, Wyoming spends less on housing and community development than any other state.

In 2021, Wyoming spent $35 per person compared with the national average of $196. The 49th state on the list, Wisconsin, spent $67 per capita on housing and community development.

An investment in a flexible housing development fund would raise that dollar amount — but also must be funded by someone. Federal resources available are most often for low income housing only, and very little federal funding is available for workforce housing or for people with middle incomes.

“States are basically on their own for workforce housing development, so that’s why we think a flexible development fund specifically targeted to workforce housing is a really critical piece,” Burnett said. “Some of the solutions do take an investment. For forever, building affordable housing has needed a boost. It has never penciled out. It has never been financially feasible to build housing for people with very low incomes. But the reality of construction costs today is that builders can’t even build workforce housing in many places without a public subsidy."

Burnett also suggested the state provide incentives for local governments that revise zoning codes allowing for manufactured homes, duplexes, triplexes and homes on smaller lot sizes to create mobility in Wyoming’s housing market.

“These are … easier for people to get into the housing market, and people can move up as they want to, and older adults who want to downsize can downsize,” she said. “Right now, the housing market in Wyoming is in a little bit of gridlock, because people can’t trade up or down.”

And while local control matters in Wyoming, Whitlow said the state could offer its expertise, guiding small communities in planning and helping to diagnose and mitigate barriers like limited staff, working together to plan growth.

The second group of solutions proposed in the draft plan relate to regulatory barriers, including continued work at the state's Regulatory Reduction Task Force. That could also include reforming the current protest petition procedure so that a small group of neighbors to a proposed development can't derail an entire project, Burnett said, as well as streamlined deadlines for the residential permit process.

The plan will also include direction on how to remove barriers to new housing production and provide technical assistance and incentives for localities to remove barriers to affordable housing types.

A third set of strategies include building capacity among public and private actors, including creation of a central housing information and technical assistance website to collate information about programs across agencies for localities, residents and housing providers.

This could provide models of comprehensive plans and long-range planning documents, which may improve consistency across planning documents statewide.

“If you are a small staff … something (like) updating a zoning ordinance, updating your building codes, those things can be quite complex,” Whitlow said. “The idea here is letting local governments determine where they want to go, determine their priorities and where they want to grow … but having the state provide help to get there.”