City: Housing efforts could bear fruit in 2026
Before closing out the year, Laramie City Councilors revisited the state of the community’s affordable housing push. Public-private partnerships could add hundreds of homes starting in 2026.
In its last meeting before the holiday break, the Laramie City Council turned its attention to one of the city’s most persistent and pressing issues: the housing crisis.
While numerous studies and surveys outline a multi-faceted problem, city leaders have made significant strides in the last few years — if not halting the crisis, at least laying the groundwork for what they hope will be a fruitful 2026.
“Now is the time to have resolve,” said Interim City Manager Todd Feezer, who led a presentation Thursday on the various housing projects he and other affordable housing advocates are pursuing.
At the council’s request, Feezer also provided “talking points” for councilors — background, statistics and information about available opportunities the elected officials could provide to their constituents.
The overall message was that Laramie is on the “precipice” of change.
“We’re getting there,” Feezer said. “And that’s always going to be a climb. We’re always going to be on that. But I think we’ve got some things that are in the works that are finally going to start to make a difference.”
Councilor Will Bowling agreed.
“We’re in a position — Laramie is in a position, Albany County is in a position — to really start to lead on this issue,” he said. “I know that there will be stumbles, and there will be roadblocks, but the progress is reassuring.”
Laramie is short several thousand homes. It builds about 60 a year — a far cry from what experts say the city would need to meet demand by 2030.
As the situation has stagnated or worsened with each passing year, the lack of housing variety and choice has left poor families paying more than they can bear, blocked university graduates from settling in town, and prohibited both large companies and early career professionals from establishing themselves in Laramie.
In the most extreme cases, the shortage of shelter leaves some residents homeless.
“I’ll take any door in Laramie right now, I don’t care what door it is,” Feezer said, noting that everything from apartments to single-family homes are welcome. “I will take any door in Laramie, as long as it’s a door that provides some kind of housing for somebody in our community.”
The presentation singled out three budding public-private partnerships that could expand Laramie’s housing stock. By demonstrating what’s possible, housing advocates are hoping they will also quicken the pace of development in the years to come.
None of the projects named Thursday are set in stone:
North Fourth Street, aka LaBonte Square, could see the addition of 128 affordable homes in a mixed-use development if an application for low income housing tax credits is successful. That application is now with the Wyoming Community Development Authority, which could decide on the credits in January. “If they do make that, we believe that will be the impetus for that project to get underway and get under construction,” Feezer said. Failing that, an alternative for the zone might be workforce attainable housing (homes that are more expensive than low-income but still under the Laramie median). Later development phases in the same area of currently city-owned land could add more townhomes or even single-family units abutting LaBonte Park.
Old Slade, aka Project 34, could install 17 duplexes on the footprint now occupied by the abandoned Old Slade Elementary if Albany County School District No. 1 sells the property to the city. Such a choice would require the district to sell at the property’s appraisal price rather than for its significantly higher market value. But the idea is that buy-in or outright investment from the school district would be rewarded in another way: available housing for the teachers and other staff they have difficulty recruiting. Ivinson Memorial Hospital, WyoTech, and the city itself, who face similar challenges when it comes to hiring early-career professionals, would receive a similar benefit. “Each entity would get a certain percentage of the homes that would be deed-restricted,” Feezer said. “My vision is deed-restricted to be employees of those agencies, probably under a certain income threshold.” The new homes would also be deed-restricted on resale value, Feezer said, “because the last thing that we want to do is invest funds and get this done and then have it sold a year later at market rate.”
A planned development on the West Side could see the creation of 84 or more new housing units, half market rate, half in a senior apartment complex, if it’s able to secure tax increment financing through the Laramie Urban Renewal Agency. Tax increment financing is a complex tool governments use to encourage certain kinds of development. It typically involves a city covering infrastructure costs on the front end, amid development, with the additional future money it knows it will make in property taxes once a lot is developed. The city recently rezoned the relevant area from an industrial zone to a residential one. “That allows for all housing stocks to be built in that area,” Feezer said. “So it could be apartments, could be single-family, could be multi-family residential, could be a combination of each. Could even have some right-sized commercial spaces in there, whether it’s a small grocery store or coffee shop.”
Other outstanding or early-stage projects could infill hundreds of units across town if they proceed. One such project, Laramie Lofts, could see three 42-unit apartment complexes built not far from the new Maverick gas station and Interstate 80. Feezer said such a development could boost the commercial value of that southern stretch of the city. “The more people we get, the more commercial that turns on,” he said. “Businesses are interested in people that go by their front door, and any growth could lend itself to that future grocery store or something else that continues to create vibrancy and brings commercialism.”
Houses shelter no one until they’re built. But Feezer said the goal is to keep several irons in the fire — and to build and maintain momentum.
“If LaBonte Square comes on and we get 120 units, if the West Side project comes in and we get another 80 units — that’s 200 units,” Feezer said. “And I don’t want to downplay the importance of apartments in my design, because if we can get more college kids to live in an apartment, maybe we can free up some single-family homes that have been converted to apartments.”
The presentation also highlighted several opportunities available to developers:
The Wyoming Business Council’s Business Ready Community Grant and Loan Program, which will in the near future be opened up to support housing.
A $5 million pool the Laramie City Council set aside to support housing. (The $310,000 it would take to buy Old Slade at appraisal value would come from this pool.)
A $5 million pool supporting the state’s Unmet Housing Needs Grant.
The gravity of Laramie city leaders setting aside just as much as state leaders set aside was not lost on the presenter.
“If you look at those numbers, and you think about what this council provided, and then what the state provided to go statewide, it’s pretty amazing,” Feezer said. “What you guys did, what you guys approved, is … groundbreaking for this community and should reap benefits for this community for many years.”
Heading into 2026, these projects are likely to remain popular on council, where most members, progressive or conservative, agree affordable housing is a key issue. The slate of progressive councilors who dominated the 2024 election ran explicitly on a campaign of tackling the issue.
Councilor Melanie Vigil was one of them.
“We lose our young people so much here in Laramie and in the state of Wyoming,” she said Thursday. “To be able to say that we are a leader in trying to figure out a really hard problem, I think is really special.”