ALAMOSA — A little more than one year ago, a large group of elected officials, civic leaders, city staff, staff with the Community Housing Resource Development Center (CHRDC) and members of the public gathered together for a groundbreaking ceremony held on 43 acres of a large empty lot on Craft Drive. Eventually, the crowd was told, that huge stretch of dirt would be the location of 412 residential units, including apartments, townhomes, tri-plex and duplexes and single family homes as an option for first time homebuyers. The name of the development is Tierra Azul and will be completed in phases over about the next ten years..

The ceremony was a big milestone, and the architectural drawings on display that day were impressive. The project was clearly visionary. It was also enormously ambitious.

To just get to the stage of breaking ground, it had taken five years of almost weekly meetings between CHRDC and staff with the city’s Development Services Department plus applying and being awarded almost $6 million in grants just for the infrastructure for the first two phases.

“In 2021,” Arturo Alvarado, CHRDC executive director told the crowd that day, “with Lisa Lucero’s assistance, CHRDC acquired nearly 43 acres of county land from Leroy Martinez and the Martinez and Southway families,” whom he described as longtime partners. “And now, standing here, I see the future of Tierra Azul in your faces, in our team’s faces and all the collaboration that we have before us here.”

A year ago, it was a little hard to envision the proposed housing development when looking at 43 acres of dirt and chicos, but fast forward to 2026, and it’s a totally different story.

“This first phase involves building 137 residential units, and the infrastructure is all done,” Rachel James, director of Development Services for the city of Alamosa, told the Valley Courier. “That includes the water lines, sewer lines, sidewalks and streets. And we’re getting ready to pour the concrete foundations for the two 30-plexes and four eight-plexes.”

James has been in community planning for years and knows better than to be definitive about when different stages of a project will be completed. But, at this point, she says, Tierra Azul is right on schedule. The next construction will involve building single family homes, which she thinks might start this summer.

It comes as no surprise that the lack of affordable housing is a crisis across the country with initiatives being proposed at all levels while municipalities search for answers. Meanwhile, the impact of the problem has a ripple effect that extends into other areas.

Housing and Urban Development (HUD) released a report in late 2025 tying the lack of affordable housing to other huge city issues. It can impact the ability of a city or town to recruit new businesses as not only is there limited housing available for new employees but what houses are on the market are priced at levels millions of working Americans can’t afford.

The result is a stagnant tax base with increased revenue only coming from increased taxes, which in turn limits resources available for services offered by local government. A deceease in population becomes more likely. No one who has lived in Colorado for any length of time would have ever predicted a net loss of migration, but the population is expected to decrease in 2026 as people relocate to other places where housing is more attainable.

Finally, the lack of affordable housing amplifies the already unprecedented income inequity existing between the “rich and poor” in the United States. Homes typically appreciate in value over time. As a result, owning a home is the only way many lower and middle income families will ever be able to build their wealth. Making home ownership impossible assures that tens of millions of Americans will have no hope of improving their financial situation.

None of these issues are new. Identifying the problem is easy. Finding a solution is hard, which was noted by Colorado U.S. Senator Michael Bennet when he was recently on a tour of Tierra Azul.

Paraphrased, Bennet said that he has seen many communities with plans to address the shortage of housing but he “hasn’t seen many communities who have actually done it.”

James said that statement meant a lot to the staff who were present. But something else meant even more.

“We have worked on this project so hard for so long and…standing there and looking what’s already been done and knowing what’s next…” James, who is rarely at a loss of words, pauses for a minute. “You don’t get to experience that very often in this job.”

Tierra Azul won’t just change the physical landscape in Alamosa, it might change the landscape of people’s lives.