Affordable housing complex opens in Charlo
Megan Strickland
Megan Strickland/Valley Journal Balloons are released at the grand opening of the Big Sky apartments in Charlo.
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CHARLO – A patch of land in the heart of Charlo that was the site of a crumbling building is now home to a modern state-of-the art development that will provide low to moderate-income housing for families.
The Big Sky Apartments, owned by private non-profit Lake County Community Housing, opened last week near the corner of Main and First streets, with a representative from the Department of Housing and Urban Development and county commissioner Ann Brower present to see the ribbon cutting.
The four-unit building was designed by architect Jay Kirby, who took a few extra thousand dollars to make the property very efficient, with “super insulation” consisting of 22 inches of fiberglass in the ceiling.
“It really makes for a super-tight, super-insulated building,” Kirby said. “We’ve also got things like an HVAC heating system that is a heat pump that is more efficient than a standard system. We’ve also got heat recovery ventilator which brings used air that you normally throw away out of the house to preheat the air you bring into the house. With the really tight application that we have, you need to be able to bring that air into the house because otherwise the air becomes stale … It’s just a whole bunch of technologies that add up to something that’s a lot more efficient.”
The efficiencies are not mainstream, but the house was made to visually fit in Charlo, Kirby said.
“It doesn’t seem different from what a usual house is,” Kirby said. “People have trouble accepting things that are real different. I live in a 23-sided house myself, but I try to keep my architecture in the mainstream.”
The complex has three two-bedroom, 1.5 bath apartments, and one three-bedroom, two-bath apartment. One of the units is completely compliant with the American Disabilities Act.
The complex was built after Lake County Community Housing received a grant to obtain a rundown property that had been purposed and repurposed over the decades.
“It was a building that was built back in the early 1900s,” said Jodie Paxton, executive director for Lake County Community Housing. “It was a gymnasium. It was someone’s personal home. It changed hands and was added on to. It ended up being an eight unit apartment complex. It was just really really rundown.”
The non-profit then received a $601,000 grant from the Department of Housing and Urban Development to build the complex. The unit’s completion was the company’s 120th property in the county.
Paxton knows how difficult it can be to find housing in the Charlo area.
“My sister moved here a few months ago and she wanted to be in the Charlo area and she has had a horrible time trying to find somewhere to live,” Paxton said. She hopes the Big Sky apartments will make finding a place to call home a bit easier.
“Our biggest goal was to give the residents of Charlo a choice,” she said.
One of the units has already been rented. For more information about renting a space, call (406) 676-5900.
