Denver preps for passage of bill letting it mandate income-restricted housing
Courtesy of Guerilla Capturing)
Denver city leaders are already taking steps to prepare for the expected passage of state legislation that would allow Colorado municipalities to require developers to build income-restricted housing.
Two members of the City Council, along with the city’s Department of Community Planning and Development, have convened a task force to discuss the approach Denver should take if House Bill 1117 becomes law. So far, it’s passed the House and awaits Senate deliberation.
The bill would allow cities and towns in Colorado to require that newly constructed buildings include a certain percentage of units set aside for those making under the area median income, a designation commonly referred to as affordable housing.
If the proposal makes it out of the Colorado Legislature and is signed into law by Governor Jared Polis, it would reverse a prohibition on inclusionary zoning and allow governments to require developers to contribute to the affordable-housing rental stock something that has been banned for over two decades.
In 2000, in what s known as the Telluride Decision, the Colorado Supreme Court ruled that municipalities were not only legally prohibited from instituting traditional rent-control policies, but could not require developers to build affordable rental units.
Since then, some Colorado municipalities have developed workarounds or instituted development impact fees that go toward affordable housing. Denver has such a fee in place, but it s one of the lowest in the nation.
Local-control advocates have wanted to repeal the prohibition on what s known as inclusionary zoning ever since a 2000 Colorado Supreme Court decision regarding a Telluride rent-control issue wound up affecting the entire state.
The lead-up to that decision began in 1981, when Boulder residents pushed an initiative seeking to institute rent control on existing buildings. In response, the Colorado Legislature passed a bill that local governments cannot institute any ordinance that controls rent, explains Megan Dollar, legislative advocacy manager at the Colorado Municipal League, a major proponent of HB-1117. As a result, she says, from 1981 to 2000, local governments acted in the same way they would have without the rent-control statute, in that when talking about new developments, they d ask for set-asides in the development of affordable-housing units.