Why Colorado’s push for more high-density housing near transit irks cities — even some that allow it
Colorado cities are prepared for a authorized battle if essential to cease a state push to overtake native housing density guidelines and permit extra tightly packed improvement alongside prepare and bus routes.
Whereas many native governments help the objective of concentrating individuals in flats round transit hubs so that they drive much less, mayors have objected to what they see as state leaders intruding on native energy. It’s the identical native management drawback that led to the defeat of the same state push final 12 months within the Colorado legislature.
Lawmakers revived the transit-focused housing density invoice final month and are transferring it by means of the state Home.
“If the state tries to pressure this problem, the courts will concur with us, as they’ve earlier than,” Colorado Municipal League government director Kevin Bommer mentioned, referring to authorized precedents that buttress municipal “dwelling rule” authority over land use.
Figuring out the place builders can construct, and the way densely, “isn’t a state energy,” Bommer mentioned. “That could be a matter of native concern.”
This 12 months’s laws, carried by lawmakers within the Democratic majority with backing from Gov. Jared Polis, would require greater than two dozen Entrance Vary cities to plan for and meet objectives for elevated high-density improvement in designated zones close to transit strains or face penalties. The proponents contend concentrated housing is important to deal with a number of challenges, together with housing affordability, air air pollution that causes local weather change and visitors congestion.
Their invoice would require cities and counties to designate areas as “transit-oriented communities” the place native governments should improve high-density improvement alongside bus and rail routes. It might apply to Denver and lots of of its neighbors. It embraces the city planning idea of clustering higher-density housing and retailers inside a half mile of bus and prepare stops.
“What’s driving us is that we’re targeted on affordability, sustainability, and livability,” Polis mentioned in a current interview. Cities that change zoning and improve high-density housing may benefit from state and federal infrastructure investments in transit-friendly improvement.
“It’s one thing that Colorado has been lagging in. We all know that we have to up our recreation to supply extra handy, low-cost choices to get the place you wish to go — after which extra choices to stay inside half a mile of these transit hubs,” Polis mentioned.
“Choices for individuals, not mandates”
He forged the state-led efforts to spice up denser housing as creating “choices for individuals, not mandates,” including that “it additionally helps us shield open area if we develop on this approach.”
However state lawmakers first should take away native zoning impediments, he mentioned.
“It’s worthwhile to. One of many causes that transit isn’t as profitable but in Colorado as will probably be is as a result of we don’t but have that interjurisdictional improvement overlay,” Polis mentioned.
That difficult phrase, Bommer mentioned, “is code for state-mandated land-use planning — which is unconstitutional.”
The Housing in Transit-Oriented Communities laws that lawmakers launched on Feb. 20 because the 56-page Home Invoice 1313 would set up the “State Land Use Standards for Strategic Progress Act” in Colorado legislation. It might direct 30 or so Entrance Vary municipalities with populations over 4,000 and a minimum of 75 acres of transit-related space to create maps for high-density housing.
Native governments must set “housing alternative objectives” to determine what number of housing items may very well be constructed of their transit-oriented areas, utilizing a components primarily based on a mean density of round 40 items per acre. They might submit progress stories to the Colorado Division of Native Affairs on the housing development to fulfill objectives.
State officers might penalize cities that don’t comply by withholding cash from the state’s Freeway Customers Tax Fund, which cities obtain for sustaining roads and different infrastructure, and search court docket orders to implement high-density zoning. They’d additionally supply cash for reinforcing housing density from a $35 million state fund.
The invoice would require the allocation of state inexpensive housing tax credit to certified developments inside transit-oriented communities.
Home lawmakers are debating the invoice. These on the Home Transportation, Housing and Native Authorities Committee authorized it on a 7-3 vote and the following listening to is about for Monday within the Finance Committee.
Final 12 months, lawmakers bundled related land-use reforms into laws that additionally included measures to ban cities from blocking the constructing of accent dwelling items, resembling flats above indifferent garages, and to get rid of necessities that housing builders present parking. These measures this 12 months are damaged into separate payments.
Mayors pledge to protect their native management
Mayors say they’re bought on the governor’s housing objectives and higher transit however wish to make land use choices on their very own — and never be coerced below a menace of dropping federal funds.
“Aurora is okay with the coverage. The issue is the precept of sacrificing dwelling rule,” Aurora Mayor Mike Coffman mentioned in an interview, warning of “a foul path” for native authorities.
“You must be jealous of the powers you will have, even when there’s a coverage you agree with,” Coffman mentioned.
“I wish to promote transit-oriented improvement to create walkable communities” — with Regional Transportation District buses working each quarter-hour, he mentioned. “I’m going to oppose something that violates dwelling rule.”
Colorado Springs Mayor Yemi Mobolade, who not too long ago urged lawmakers to cross development defects legislation reform to spur new improvement, mentioned their land-use overhaul “ignores years of labor” his metropolis has finished to extend housing.
It additionally overrides “public debate to create an area plan that enables for larger density and extra housing sorts whereas caring concerning the character of established neighborhoods.” And the state laws fails to consider “sensible realities,” resembling needed new funding “for infrastructure, public security, transit, parks, water and utility wants,” Mobolade mentioned.
Colorado choices “about the way to deal with development” are greatest made by locals, he mentioned. “The density dialog is totally different for each metropolis.”
![Lone Tree Mayor Jackie Millet stands in front of newly built development next to Lincoln Station, an RTD rail station, in Lone Tree on March 18, 2024. (Photo by Helen H. Richardson/The Denver Post)](https://i0.wp.com/www.denverpost.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/TDP-L-LONE-TREE-002.jpg?fit=620%2C9999px&ssl=1)
Lone Tree Mayor Jackie Millet pointed to booming dense improvement round RTD gentle rail stops in her metropolis, for which the town invested $27 million and right-of-way land. “However we are also preserving the extra conventional elements of our neighborhood for individuals who need that conventional garden. … Among the people who’ve chosen to stay right here for a very long time don’t like all of the density they’re seeing.”
State leaders’ objectives make sense however “we’re already doing it,” Millet mentioned. “The market will drive greater density. In the event you swap the zoning on land, it’s going to mechanically improve the worth of the land.”
Legislators additionally ought to acknowledge that withholding cash from the Freeway Customers Tax Fund as a penalty targets a vital present income supply that cities depend on to keep up roads, security, and stormwater drainage, Millet mentioned. Lowering these funds “places communities in very difficult circumstances,” she mentioned.
“Use a carrot, not a stick,” she mentioned. Any menace to take away federal funds “could be very regarding to native jurisdictions.”
Denver leaders even have boosted density in elements of the town, permitting builders to put in hundreds of flats.
However Mayor Mike Johnston sees “parts of the insurance policies being mentioned by the legislature which can be inconsistent or in battle with Denver’s native codes,” mayoral spokeswoman Jordan Fuja mentioned, however she didn’t specify these parts.
“We all know that housing availability is a precedence throughout the state and Denver helps the efforts of different cities to speculate,” she mentioned. Johnston “remains to be evaluating the present proposed laws and its potential impacts.”
Residents usually oppose density
Entrance Vary residents in Lakewood, Englewood, Denver, Fort Collins and Aurora have opposed high-density improvement lately, amongst many examples — particularly the place blocks of high-rise flats would encroach on single-family neighborhoods.
In Fort Collins, almost 10,000 residents supported the Protect Fort Collins marketing campaign that defeated metropolis leaders’ efforts — twice within the span of a couple of 12 months — to alter zoning to permit higher-density housing.
Volunteer organizers at grocery tales simply collected signatures to repeal metropolis overhauls. They’ve rallied residents round sick results of inhabitants development, resembling elevated visitors, scarce parking, security dangers for kids on bicycles and the lack of privateness when flats are constructed subsequent to single-family houses.
Fort Collins Mayor Jeni Arndt, a supporter of the zoning reforms, watched these defeats. She not too long ago drove by means of Windsor, 17 miles southeast of Fort Collins, and noticed Fort Collins police vehicles parked there at evening and heard about Fort Collins faculty lecturers who stay there and commute. Fort Collins’ inhabitants development now’s flat, she mentioned, “as a result of it has change into so unaffordable,” with a mean dwelling value round $550,000.
“Residing nearer collectively in a extra transit-friendly approach additionally would match into our local weather objectives and our water financial savings objectives,” Arndt mentioned.
However the mayor declined to take a place on the state-led push.
That’s not true of Protect Fort Collins, which is lobbying on the state stage towards three housing measures, director Ross Cunniff mentioned.
He warned towards “importing Denver into Fort Collins.”
![Ross Cunniff, chair of Preserve Fort Collins, talks about neighborhood zoning and developments in a residential neighborhood in Fort Collins on March 19, 2024. (Photo by AAron Ontiveroz/The Denver Post)](https://i0.wp.com/www.denverpost.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/TDP-L-FORT-COLLINSAO1_7858xxx.jpg?fit=620%2C9999px&ssl=1)
Whereas denser housing “sounds noble,” constructing new flats concentrated inside a half-mile radius round transit stations in Fort Collins would destroy present low-density neighborhoods, mentioned Cunniff, a former metropolis councilman. Inexpensive housing is important and Protect Fort Collins helps that, he mentioned.
“But when density equaled affordability, then San Francisco and New York Metropolis can be probably the most inexpensive cities in the USA,” he mentioned. “Density doesn’t equal affordability. And extra development isn’t going to unravel the issues that development induced.”
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