Roaring Fork
Community Development Corporation

 

History

The Roaring Fork Community Development Corporation is a joint creation of  Healthy Mountain Communities, a 13 year old regional nonprofit organization and The Manaus Fund, a donor advised fund of The Aspen Community Foundation, which fosters social entrepreneurship. 

What is a CDC? A Community Development Corporation (CDC) is a 501©3 non-profit, community-based organization designed to create or provide the infrastructure, services, and amenities often over looked by private businesses, corporations, and local governments.  CDCs began to gain support as an important community development tool in the late 1960s.  Today, there are over 4,000 CDCs operating in the U.S.

In the same way that traditional businesses seek venture capital to start or expand, CDCs seek grants and investors interested in moving the market toward more social purposes (affordable housing, job training, commercial development, health clinics) while still generating a return on the initial investment.   CDC’s help re-circulate capital to build community wealth and address social issues.  They are run by a local board of directors and have a mission of community improvement that often emphasizes democracy, social justice and equity, and quality of life. 

What does a CDC do?  Community Development Corporations work as brokers, catalysts, and facilitators between public and private interests and investments.  Where nonprofit organizations normally seek annual grants to accomplish their socially oriented mission, CDCs operate more like a business.   By creating products and services the market values and people will purchase, CDCs use market mechanisms to achieve their social mission – a double bottom line.  This approach combines the generosity, caring, and determined optimism of the non-profit sector with the financial sense and innovation of the for-profit sector. 

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Mission

The Roaring Fork Community Development Corporation’s mission is to improve the health and welfare of people and communities in the Roaring Fork and Colorado River Valleys. 

As a 501©3 tax-exempt charitable nonprofit organization, the Roaring Fork Community Development Corporation achieves its mission by working as a broker, catalyst, facilitator, and developer to create community-based / civic focused projects that ensure low and middle income individuals and families can live in the communities of the region, increase opportunities for locally owned businesses, and encourage the efficient use of energy, land, and community resources.

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Vision

Affordable Spaces
In the Roaring Fork and Colorado River Valley the economy operates has priced many middle income and lower income households out of the housing and commercial markets. Consequently, workers commute great distances to reach their places of employment. The lack of affordable commercial rentals limits locally owned small business expansion as well as new start-ups. Roaring Fork CDC works with nonprofit, public, and private entities to create affordable spaces to ensure both the diversity of people and businesses in a community.

Placemaking
Cultures and climates differ all over the world," notes architect Jan Gehl, "but people are the same. They will gather in public if you give them a good place to do it." In a democratic society, such gathering places aren’t just niceties, they are practical necessities that give citizens places to "rub shoulders" together and exercise their community and democratic skills. Roaring Fork CDC works to ensure private and public projects are "places for people" by incorporating people centered design and raising additional funding as necessary.

Community Ventures
Individuals invest in their future through IRAs, 401ks, and REITs while communities invest in their future prosperity by reinvesting in their children and public infrastructure (schools, parks, housing, health care).

Roaring Fork CDC works to combine these investment tools and strategies to catalyze community-based investment and broker private / public partnerships to develop projects that not only build community wealth but address community and social goals as well.

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Board

 Don Ensign

Colin Laird

Michael McVoy

Doug Pratte

George Stranahan

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Projects

>> Carbondale Community Nonprofit Center <<

Learn more . . .


Image by Yoshimura, CES Feasibility Study

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>> Transit Oriented Development <<

Learn more . . .

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In the news

July 12 - July 19, 2007

Nonprofits center plans moving ahead

By Gina Guarascio

Carbondale trustees voted on Tuesday to enter into an agreement with the Sustainability Center of the Rockies and the newly formed Roaring Fork Community Development Corp. to help manage the old Carbondale Elementary School building as a nonprofits center and small business incubator.

The two nonprofits will act on behalf of the town to work through details of what SCoR’s Gavin Brooke calls “an incredible community asset.”

The town authorized $22,500 for SCoR and the CDC to perform pre-development services. Those services include things like creating a rate structure for the tenants of the building, meeting with potential tenants and making a recommendation whether the spaces will be for sale or lease, researching financing and fundraising options as well as an estimate of total costs to bring the building up to code and make desired aesthetic and efficiency improvements.

The town also approved $31,100 for local architect Jeff Dickinson, whose firm Energy and Sustainable Design was chosen to perform architectural services on CES in June.

And up to $10,000 was allocated to enable local consultants Joani Matranga and Bob Schultz to continue the services they have provided for the town until the project can be fully turned over to the SCoR/CDC team.

The money for the services comes from the town’s general fund, where $100,000 was budgeted in 2007 for work at CES.

Meanwhile, the Carbondale Planning and Zoning Commission is reviewing a rezoning request for the entire 14.2-acre school site, which includes the old CES building as well as the land surrounding the former Carbondale Middle School building. The CMS building itself will become home to Bridges High School and other school district programs.

The rezoning and subdivision of the property need to take place before the town can take ownership of the approximately 2.9 acres that includes the old CES building. The town is in the process of trading the Roaring Fork School District for the town-owned land near the new Roaring Fork High School, in exchange for CES, which it plans to turn into the Carbondale Community Nonprofit Center.

P&Z starts the land use process with a public hearing on Thursday, July 12. The proposed rezoning will change the site from School Facilities, Recreation and Open Space, to School, Community Facility, Residential, Recreation and Open Space. The new zoning will create several different zone districts for medium- and possibly high-density housing on the site.

“It’s designed for affordable housing,” said Carbondale Town Manager Tom Baker of the residential component of the site. “The middle school and the playing field will remain open space, there are small parcels created along Sopris Avenue and Third Street. There’s the CES parcel and a parcel to the south as well.”

Baker said there will be seven smaller residential parcels created with medium density near the existing neighborhoods and higher density internal to the site. There will be a total of 11 different parcels on the property, according to the school district’s application.

“It might be going to the trustees at the end of July or early August (for approval),” Baker said. “There could be 50 to 80 affordable units, but it’s really conceptual at this point. We need to make sure the roads and intersections can handle the impacts; that’s going to drive the density.”

The school district will retain ownership of the remaining land and could possibly partner with agencies like the Roaring Fork Transportation Authority, the town or the Carbondale and Rural Fire protection District to build employee housing.

Most of the housing would be offered to school staff, as teachers who leave the district often cite the cost of living in the area.

 

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Resources

Local Initiative Support Corporation (LISC)

Community-Wealth.org:
Wealth-Building Strategies for America's Communities

 

 

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Roaring Fork Community Development Corporation

PO Box 1582, Carbondale, CO 81623 |  970.309.2053

 

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