John Scarffe, Nederland. The Tungsten Village ribbon cutting for affordable housing in Nederland will take place on September 23, 2020, from noon to 1 p.m. The Boulder County Housing Authority is excited to take community members on an insider’s tour of Nederland’s newest development of permanently affordable homes and introduce the community that made it possible. 

Event speakers and videos will highlight some of the unique features that make Tungsten Village special.  Join the virtual live event at bit.ly/TungstenVillage.

Norrie Boyd, Housing Division Director with Boulder County Housing and Human Services, updated the Nederland Board of Trustees on June 4 regarding construction of the affordable housing project, called Tungsten Village, to be located on Third Street by Calvary Chapel in Nederland. She said the exterior is pretty much complete, and now they are working on the interior.

Due to COVID-19, construction has spread out to include working on the weekends, so they have fewer people on the site along with taking lunch at different times, and the contractor has started hiring a firm to take temperatures of the crew. Tungsten Village is just the right size to continue working as long as it’s safe. 

Between May and July, they worked on enrolling applicants to live in the village. On May 7, the application was released, and tenants started moving in September.

The Village on Highway 72 near the Calvary Chapel includes 26 homes of one, two and three bedrooms, including handicap accessible units. According to Mackenzie Sehlk with Boulder County Housing Authority, they are excited to have residents moving in.

Tungsten Village is a new, high-quality and sustainable community that provides 26 homes affordable to residents with low and moderate income in Nederland. Tungsten Village was named by community members Naomi Harris and Tamara Whinston through BCHA’s “Name it, Ned” campaign in 2018, citing Nederland’s history of tungsten mining as their source of inspiration, paired with the saying “it takes a village” to describe the close-knit community. 

Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, BCHA worked closely with community partners and members of the Peak to Peak Human Services Alliance to help residents prepare for the Tungsten Village lease application requirements. BCHA successfully hosted a virtual assistance center to accept online rental applications for Tungsten Village on May 7. 

Staff conducted online assistance for applicants who needed help completing their application or those who did not have access to a computer or a smart phone. The application was made available via the Tungsten Village website at www.TungstenVillage.org and took approximately 15 minutes to complete. 

The virtual application acceptance and outreach efforts were a success, Sehlk said. A total of 290 applications were submitted. As applicants were able to apply for multiple waitlists (based on subsidy and bedroom size options), this represents a total of 169 unique households and unduplicated applications received on release day.  

BCHA property management staff began processing applications the first week of June. Applications were screened in the order in which they were received by date and time. The Nederland Library staff were incredibly welcoming and accommodating to BCHA property management staff and provided full use and access of a conference room to meet with applicants for socially-distanced face-to-face interactions for any support that was not able to be completed virtually. 

On August 17, BCHA began welcoming new residents to Tungsten Village.  As of August 31, 2020, 15 households are now living in the community. 

“We are happy to report that, of this number, eight are either from Nederland or have family there or work there. This represents 53 percent of the leases signed to date and includes both Affordable and Project-Based Voucher (PBV) homes,” Sehlk said. 

In fact, five of the six PBVs have been assigned to Nederland residents. BCHA development, property management, eligibility and compliance, and maintenance staff have worked tirelessly to ensure that they can safely offer 26 homes to the Nederland community despite the pandemic. 

The staff worked in close coordination with local community members and organizations to provide welcome packets to new residents leasing up, making them feel welcomed and at home. The Peak to Peak Housing and Human Services Alliance, along with the Town of Nederland, has provided critical support, input, outreach, collaboration, and coordination for the Tungsten Village project, Sehlk said.  

The community has much to celebrate: the successful virtual application acceptance process, timely completion of construction during incredible circumstances, lease-up of Tungsten Village apartments to so many Nederland folks, and the foundational addition of 26 permanently affordable homes in a mountain community where they are much-needed. 

Interested applicants are encouraged to sign up for the interest list to receive project updates at www.TungstenVillage.org.

(Originally published in the September 17, 2020, edition of The Mountain-Ear.)