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April 05, 2023 11:44 PM UTC
25 Comments
Local governments are starting to oppose Polis' overreach on land use rules — which would overrule HOA covenants
https://www.dailycamera.com/2023/04/05/broomfield-city-council-votes-to-oppose-land-use-bill/
Want to begin by explaining to the folks how an introduced Senate Bill is "Polis' overreach"???
Then maybe explain why HOAs should be given such sovereign consideration???
It's not just about HOAs. In fact, it's not even primarily about HOAs. In many peoples' opinion, it is "Polis overreach" because Polis was pushing the bill – he found some legislative sponsors to carry it. This is just a not-very-Colorado version of a national fad that will do nothing to promote affordability, do nothing to promote transit, do nothing to reduce CO2 emissions, and instead is a giveaway to developers and land speculators who are eyeballing large swaths of single-family neighborhoods in Colorado (and nationwide) for scrape-and-build luxury multifamily housing.
It is overreach because it overrides a 100-year-plus tradition of Colorado home-rule. And, as shown by the Denver Park Hill vote and by the successful referendum petition in Fort Collins against exactly this same kind of issue locally, the voters don't like it.
The Colorado Democratic Party follows this fad at its peril. This issue alone could cost it its legislative majority. "Safe" reps who did not previously need state party support will either get a credible primary opponent, or will need state party support to stay in office. Meanwhile, Democratic legislators in marginal districts will see people stay home, leading to Republican wins.
Politics is supposed to be the "art of this possible." This bill goes beyond "the possible" and into fantasyland. It needs to be killed at the first possible opportunity.
Throw the pizza at the wall and see whether the mozzarella sticks.
Possibly you haven't driven I-25 from Colorado Springs to Wellington in the past five years. Or maybe you haven't counted the cranes between downtown Denver and the stockyards.
There is a housing shortage at every price level, and population pressure and low employment continue to drive it up. Either housing density increases with apartments, townhomes and mother-in-law, or else we get more sprawl.
The ONLY way to provide housing (at all price levels) is to provide more housing.
The "supply and demand" argument regarding housing costs in Colorado is too simplistic. Our economic policies and national/global economic trends have driven large numbers of well-above-median-earners to Colorado. This trend will continue as long as Colorado is a desirable place to move.
I guess there is some merit to the argument. Once Colorado is built out so it is all as crappy as Denver, it will no longer be an attractive place to move. And then we can have an affordable hell-hole (I exaggerate for effect) like Detroit or Cleveland, but state-wide.
If we want workforce housing, we should intentionally build workforce housing. If we want fewer people with suitcases full of cash bidding on housing, then we should stop trying to attract high-wage earners via economic incentives. And we should put some reasonable restrictions on private equity / investment speculation.
I'd be in favor of prohibiting *new* parcels being zoned as single-family. But rezoning all existing single-family zones as multifamily is overreach and will lead to electoral disaster.
Now you say that "supply and demand" has over-reached, and then you go all Dick Lamb on us.
Colorado is a bit larger than the UK, with 10% as many people. Over-population isn't the problem; we have far too much sprawl and poorly housing & towns that don't match the needs of the population growth.
Build lots more nice condos of all price ranges along the light-rail lines. Add Mother-in-law apartments in the alleys like they do in Vancouver, BC. People who want yards for gardening and 3/4 ton pickup trucks can still buy out where "big shopping malls rise like mountains beyond mountains" (H/T Arcade Fire).
And yet, this is not what this bill does.Very few people I know are opposed to ADUs ("mother-in-law apartments") with appropriate guardrails with respect to height/setbacks/etc. And sure, cities could be encouraged to zone transit corridors with higher density.
But this bill rezones *every single-family zone in the Tier 1 cities* for higher density.
Also, Dick Lamm was right.
comment deleted
You should shill for the HOAs
You omitted one very viable alternative. People can move away to some place where there are available houses at prices they can afford.
There is nothing sacrosanct about living in Denver. If you have children and cannot afford to (or do not wish to) put them in private schools, you have to deal with the problems associated with public schools (more shooting occur in public schools than in private schools).
You have to deal with the issues of crime (cue the Ride of Valkyries because I mentioned the "C" word).
For all this, you get to pay $2,000 per month for a studio apartment.
Move to Grand Junction and turn that county a lighter shade of red.
I absolutely agree. The Midwest is full of beautiful old houses at a fraction of the cost of Denver or other high-tech, high-desireable locations.
Detroit & Chicago are great cities, although their Winters can be a brutal. Kansas, Missouri, Ohio; pick your (red) state!
“Possibly you haven’t driven I-25 from Colorado Springs to Wellington in the past five years…..”
Sounds like you haven’t made the drive yourself. If you had, you might have noticed all the miles of open space in Douglas County north of County Line Road.
Some of you progressives like to complain about “conservative Douglas County.” Yet, last November, 87% of the DougCo electorate voted to extend the county open space sales tax.
Ditto
Plus the state hasn’t even implemented Prop 123, which will provide ~300M in funding for affordable housing, mostly incentives and grants to build new multifamily housing. The Polis bill focuses heavily on infill, which will be slow and have marginal effect. The layers of state dept involvement mean nothing will happen fast. Its folly
I have to side with the NIMBYs on this one. There are neighborhoods in Denver that are beautiful because of their current nature, especially in the more historic parts of town. I would not want to see those scraped off for multi-family monstrosities.
I'm all for more housing, especially affordable housing, but just be strategic where it goes and preserve history.
The scrape offs are already happening. Cherry Creek 20 years ago, NW Denver the past 10 years. Forget Boulder, that was 30 years ago.
The economics underlying those $1.5million townhouses is inexorable: Scraping the victorian cottage is a mere expense on top of land that's worth $200K and a townhouse worth $1.5M.
As I said, the ONLY way to add more housing is to add more housing. If you are against that, then you are in favor of 3% rental occupancy leading to higher and higher costs. Well, unless you repeal supply and demand.
If you are against higher density then you are in favor of sprawl. Sorry, give me another option in-between that.
$200K! Don’t be silly. Scrapers in Berkeley (6200 sqft lot) go for $900K.
https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/3943-N-Vrain-St-Denver-CO-80212/13295306_zpid/
which as of this morning looks like
Duplex coming soon.
Damn. I'm old and behind the times!
It is pretty impossible to fight against that kind of economic pressure.
I actually agree with Dano that old neighborhoods are a treasure, and all the scrape-offs are a shame. On the other hand falling-down or poorly-constructed houses deserve to be scraped.
And I agree with JohnInDenver that there should be a balance.
Most of the light-rail lines in Denver went through a lot of empty land or light industrial… It seems to me that the economics of development there should be very favorable to relatively high-density apartments.
In the typical towns across the Front Range, the historical middle-class zoning has favored 1/4 acre lots, which has driven the crazy sprawl. Doubling up the density on many of those lots, and 3-4 story apartments in transit corridors is useful.
As I said, all for the building, just protect the historic areas.
There are plenty areas (like maybe 70% of the City and County) where multi-family buildings would be perfectly acceptable. Just stay out of the other 30%.
I have no problem in in-fill. Just do it in a reasonable, way that doesn't destroy what makes Denver special.
Colorado Municipal League really dislikes this bill. That's the polite way of saying it, but I'd like to hear their thoughts after a couple shots of whiskey. For those who want to learn why, there's a pretty good webpage about their reasoning at https://www.cml.org/home/advocacy-legal/sb23-213-land-use
Current situations are excessively limiting, meaning some anachronisms like "number of unrelated people living in a dwelling" and "no separate building for occupancy" are barred.
New proposal stripping cities and counties of ability to zone for single homes at all seem like overreach, too.
Maybe, just maybe, there could be some constructive conversation to find compromises?
Five-alarm warning for the Republican Party. Politico wakes up and smells the coffee.
The NYT wrote their customary "democrats-in-disarray" after the Nov 2022 elections: "At Campaigns end, Democrats See Limits of Focus on Abortion….deflating Democrats' hopes that the issue…"
…
But the GOP's solution isn't to moderate their monolithic pro-birth position but to double down on it and kill the messenger.
A liberal just won the Wisconsin Supreme Court race. Republicans are already talking about impeaching her. (msn.com)
The alternate suspect defense.
Donald Trump Jr admits it was actually him who signed hush money check (msn.com)
What, if not filial duty, is paying off the porn star your dad was boning while your stepmom had just given birth to your baby half-brother?
Less a defense than a conspiracy admission?
"I'll take 'Her name was RICO' for $130,000, Ken."
Anyone who doesn't want to tune in to the Land Use bill hearing can just follow journalist Andy Kenney on Twitter for what seems so far to be a pretty good account: https://twitter.com/AndyKnny/status/1644013807524802561
They're already talking about maybe 15-20 amendments. Hate to be flippant, but it looks to me like they'll be trying to fix a binding re-write of state land use that could really affect lots of people and cities on the fly, in the face of lots of opposition. Session ends in a month, 235 folks signed up to testify today for its first committee hearing and it still has to get through the Senate and House.
I know there are gigantic problems with housing in Colorado, especially in desirable areas. But to me, I see far too often in politics a notion that a single bill or ballot measure is the only possible way to address these problems. Guess we'll see how this bill is amended, though.