AURORA | A shakeup of the governing board of Aurora’s Housing Authority may be coming, as city lawmakers on Monday expressed early support for introducing term limits and other requirements for membership.
Aurora City Council member Dustin Zvonek sponsored the proposal to flesh out the rules of the housing authority board, arguing that, as one of the most powerful citizen groups appointed by the council, it should be regulated in a manner similar to the city’s Planning and Zoning Commission.
“We have lots of different boards and commissions that we place citizens and residents to serve on, but there’s a handful of them that really have some significant decision-making responsibility,” Zvonek said during the council’s May 20 study session.
Zvonek’s proposal moved forward from the study session without opposition despite generating pushback from housing authority officials, one of whom, executive director Craig Maraschky, contacted the council to falsely claim that the state had withdrawn its support for three of the agency’s affordable housing projects as a result.
While Mayor Mike Coffman said Zvonek felt the board had become a “rubber stamp” for Maraschky, the conflict was not mentioned explicitly on Monday.
The Aurora Housing Authority owns and manages apartments and townhomes in Aurora, most of which are reserved for households earning less than 60% of the area median income — $54,780 for a single person and $62,640 for a household of two in Arapahoe County.
The agency also administers federal Section 8 housing vouchers and develops affordable housing using federal, state and local grants.
While officially independent from the City of Aurora, the housing authority’s governing board is wholly appointed by the mayor. However, the city’s municipal code is silent on what qualifications the board must have, beyond requiring that all seven members be registered to vote in Aurora. The code also specifies that no more than one board member can be a city official and that the other members are to serve five-year terms with no term limits.
Under Zvonek’s proposal, the makeup of the board would include one member with a background in the affordable housing business, one with a background in finance, one with a background in development, another who has lived in affordable housing or experienced homelessness and three members with general backgrounds.
Candidates for the board would be expected to submit an application that would be considered and voted on by the council as a whole. Terms would be shortened from five years to three years, and members would be allowed to serve no more than two consecutive terms, with the term starting Jan. 1, 2025, being the first to be counted for the purpose of term limits.
Zvonek said the three members whose five-year terms end Dec. 31 can apply to serve another three years, but those who decide not to apply or are rejected by the council would lose their seats at the end of the year.
The four members whose terms would have expired at the end of 2026 will instead serve four-year terms ending in 2025, with the option to apply for a three-year term beginning Jan. 1, 2026.
The possibility that the current board could be replaced sooner than expected prompted Maraschky to warn the council about the risks of making the agency or its leadership structure appear unstable to investors.
In a May 10 email that Coffman and Councilmember Alison Coombs shared with the Sentinel, Maraschky claimed the draft proposal had already spooked the Colorado Housing and Finance Authority, which he said had “terminated” its involvement with the redevelopment of Residences at Willow Park as well as the pending Gateway Park and Sanctuary on Potomac developments.
“Investors and lenders with a financial stake in affordable housing developments cannot risk their funds by working with organizations that do not have a proven leadership structure,” Maraschky wrote.
“It is unfortunate that AHA was not consulted in any manner on the draft ordinance. The consequences have been and will continue to be severe to the development of affordable housing in the City of Aurora.”
The Colorado Housing and Finance Authority has awarded about $1.5 million in tax credits and construction-to-permanent financing worth about $23.9 million for the Willow Park redevelopment as well as nearly $1.5 million in grant funding to buy land for Gateway Park.
Aurora’s Housing Authority has also applied for a tax credit for the proposed Sanctuary on Potomac affordable housing development, which would be located on Aurora Mental Health and Recovery’s new Crisis and Acute Care Campus.
When asked about Maraschky’s statements, a spokesman for the Colorado Housing and Finance Authority, Matt Lynn, said the agency has not halted its involvement with any of the three projects.
Coffman told the Sentinel that he made a similar inquiry himself after receiving the email from Maraschky, and that the state authority’s executive director, Cris White, said Maraschky had admitted to intentionally misrepresenting the status of the project.
“This has to (be) one of the most bizarre things that has happened to me in all my years in American government,” Coffman wrote in an email. “Without question, in my view, this rises to a level where Craig needs to resign.”
Maraschky declined to comment when reached by the Sentinel, and Lynn did not respond to questions about White’s alleged interactions with Maraschky and the mayor. Barb Cleland, a former City Council member and current member of the housing authority board, also declined to comment on Zvonek’s proposal and Maraschky’s response.
Coombs proposed an amendment to Zvonek’s proposal adding an ex officio member to the board who would either be the mayor or his or her appointee, which Coombs said would “improve the relationship and the communication between council and the board, because it seems that some of this issue has arisen due to just not really having strong mechanisms for communication.”
Zvonek accepted the amendment as well as another from Coombs clarifying the timeline for the transitioning of terms, saying he assumed “the majority of the people would reapply, and that there probably won’t be disruption.”
“I’m open to some suggestions on how to roll this out in a way that doesn’t create too much disruption, but I would like to begin the process this year of having it phase in over time,” Zvonek said.
The outcome of the May 20 study session means Zvonek’s proposal will be heard next at a regular meeting, where the council would cast its first vote on whether it should become law.
How long has Maraschky been director of Aurora Housing – 15 years? He’s had an outstanding record of getting big developments done and served the City of Aurora admirably, providing homes for its most vulnerable citizens. I want to see the source on this so called “lie.” I don’t believe it for one minute. Coffman seems like he’s on another one of his exhausting tirades.
Things like this dust-up at a council may be a good start at a full-blown investigation into the scheming workings of both the city run AHA and the state run (CHAFA). Some time back, there was a APD officer that publicly commented on standard background criminal investigations of where APD will check into the living arrangements of who they are looking at. Who they rent from, do they own their house, and its financing paperwork, etc. He further commented that the numbers of approximately 20,000 people in Aurora were in some style of Government and pointed directly to (CHAFA) associated properties that were likely ineligible because of non-US-citizenship approved funding. Try and file a CORA for specific loan documents with (CHAFA), the loan holder for a public financed house an illegal has bought. You are wasting your time. Then we have AHA – the taxpayer, and other lenders who own 950 Aurora homes, CORA this operation to produce the addresses of publicly owned property and the homes in Aurora they manage, and your request will be summarily turned down. Their reason they say they will not release records it is to protect the confidentiality to their clients. In short, this is how they avoid transparency to the public. AHA and CHAFA are both due for an audit from the Feds for public maleficence. Aurora city council members you want to get serious to clean things up or not? Well, here it is contact APD and request this background of illegal home ownership, cause AHA-CHAFA won’t be helpful.