As part of our mission to help address the increasing need for affordable housing in our community, the Boulder County Housing Authority (BCHA) is completing construction on its newest community, Tungsten Village, in Nederland.
This new building, owned, managed, and maintained by BCHA, is located at 333 State Highway 72, a few blocks north of downtown Nederland, at an elevation of 8,228 feet, in a 24,888 square foot two-to-three-story building. It includes 26 homes with sizes ranging from one to three bedrooms. The site plan for the community was designed to offer a balance between providing room for families to maintain privacy and encouraging community interaction and collaboration. The property features an outdoor seating area and easy connections to the regional trail system and the downtown Nederland area.
Tungsten Village will serve a mixed general population, with rents affordable to households earning at or below 60% of the Area Median Income (AMI – see the chart on “Eligibility” page). Several homes are designated for households earning at or below 40% and 50% AMI, and six homes offer a rental subsidy for the lowest-income tenants, allowing residents to pay no more than approximately 30% of the household’s adjusted gross income toward rent.
The building is anticipated to be completed by the end of summer 2020. Likely in early-mid spring, applications will be accessed online through a link from the “Application” page of this portal. At that time, BCHA is also planning to set up application assistance centers at some locations across Boulder County for applicants without a computer or mobile device or who want assistance with applying. The assistance centers will be located in Nederland and another mountain community, Boulder, and Longmont. When we know the exact locations of these assistance centers, we will list them on this client portal.
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.
The community honors the mountain town’s character through a property that is similar to other existing buildings in height, scale, exterior materials, and decorative features. Nederland’s mining history influenced the design of the building, which includes simple parapets and gabled slope roofs. The Tungsten Village logo denotes the periodic chart symbol for the mineral Tungsten in a “W” constructed of mountains and a pickaxe, with a nod to the high elevation blue sky and teal-colored Barker Reservoir.