If the past several months have taught us anything, it’s how truly complex the idea of affordable housing really is.

After hearing virtually every candidate in this past November’s municipal election list it as being among, if not atop, the list of the most important issues facing Greeley, much space has been dedicated – both here, as well as in the news pages of the Greeley Tribune – to defining affordable housing, the reasons for its lack of prevalence in Greeley and what can be done to alleviate its shortage.

Through the course of that effort, we’ve learned a lot. We’ve learned there are two definitions for the term – Affordable Housing and affordable housing – and one of them, Affordable Housing, has two definitions of its own.

We’ve learned the reason for the many definitions stem from the different perspectives through which affordable housing can be viewed: developers, buyers and regulators, just to name a few.

Most recently, we’ve learned the reason for Greeley’s struggles with affordable housing – very high demand for very little supply – as well as the options our public officials have for dealing with the issue. Essentially, city officials can move toward purchasing city-owned, low-cost housing the city would rent to residents, and they can consider offering incentives to developers to build more.

Fortunately, it seems all parties involved – both among city officials, as well as the members of this board – agree the first option is a non-starter. We don’t like that sort of public-private partnership, and we can’t think of any place with similar demographics to Greeley where that type of arrangement has been successful.

That option, it seems to us, just kicks the can down the road to a whole new set of problems officials would be faced with. Incentives for developers, on the other hand, offer more intriguing options.

Fees can be diminished or waived, tax credits can be granted and other developer-friendly financial efforts can be made in order to incentivize developers, who otherwise would have no reason to create lower-priced housing when market demand is driving prices up, to build affordable housing in Greeley.

It should be noted, as city manager Roy Otto cautioned, these incentives aren’t free. If developers aren’t paying certain fees, that impact could be felt elsewhere and result in the need for new revenue streams.

As such, we’re not advocating our city officials run hog wild when considering how to use incentives. But we do think they are the most valuable tools those officials have when trying to deal with this vital issue, and we urge our leaders to find a balanced approach with which to utilize them.

Additionally, when considering how to use these incentives, we would strongly encourage city officials to consider the role infill can play in affordable housing in Greeley. Continuing to expand into Weld County’s farmland has cultural impacts, as well as additional developmental costs associated with infrastructure.

Instead, we hope officials look for ways to upgrade substandard options where people currently have to live because of a lack of other options. That way, we can avoid the additional costs and impacts while improving what we already have here in Greeley.

In a larger sense, though – and something else we’ve learned on this journey through affordable housing – attacking the affordable housing issue in Greeley at the development level seems, to us, to be treating a symptom rather than the root cause. More affordable houses would be great, don’t misunderstand us, but unless Greeley residents are making more money, affordable housing will continue to be an albatross around our neck.

That’s the other area in which we feel city officials can help when it comes to affordable housing. Though the city’s current economic development effort has brought some great new businesses to the city, it hasn’t resulted in new industries and the higher wages they bring.

And that, in our opinion, is what it will take in order for us to truly avoid affordable housing issues moving forward. We need more opportunities for folks to make a wage that keeps up with an ever-inflating cost of living.

So as city officials weigh using incentives to attract developers for low-cost housing projects, we encourage them to do the same for potential new businesses and industries to hopefully bring opportunities for higher wages to Greeley.

For now, though, we’re happy to have an idea of what tools our city officials have to help combat the often-discussed affordable housing situation in Greeley.

Next, we respectfully request they use those tools and take action.