{"id":22170,"date":"2025-05-19T15:00:12","date_gmt":"2025-05-19T21:00:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/polis-to-shut-off-grants-to-cities-counties-that-dont-comply-with-state-housing-policies\/"},"modified":"2025-05-19T21:00:12","modified_gmt":"2025-05-19T21:00:12","slug":"polis-to-shut-off-grants-to-cities-counties-that-dont-comply-with-state-housing-policies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/polis-to-shut-off-grants-to-cities-counties-that-dont-comply-with-state-housing-policies\/","title":{"rendered":"Polis to shut off grants to cities, counties that don\u2019t comply with state housing policies"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Construction
Construction workers in the Aurora Highlands housing development in Adams County northeast of Denver International Airport on July 13, 2023. (Hart Van Denburg\/CPR News file)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Gov. Jared Polis signed an executive order last week to require cities and counties in Colorado to show that they\u2019re enacting recently passed state housing laws in order to be eligible for more than a $100 million in state grants in areas like transportation and energy.<\/p>\n

Polis has made housing affordability and increasing housing capacity top priorities for his administration and said the new order is a way to ensure local communities are following the law.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re tying in our evaluation process for grants to make sure that communities are participating in More Housing Now and are on a timeline to be able to successfully implement the work of the Legislature,\u201d said Polis in an interview with CPR News ahead of the announcement.<\/p>\n

Not all of the laws covered by the order have gone into effect yet and not all of them apply to every community in the state. For instance, the newly signed law to allow smaller apartment buildings in Colorado to be built with a single staircase, instead of the two, only applies to a dozen cities with more than 100,000 residents.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo be eligible for any of the set of funds that we\u2019re designating, they need to show that they\u2019re following state law in these housing-related areas,\u201d Polis said.<\/p>\n

Other policies the governor wants to see enforced include:<\/p>\n

Requiring local governments to investigate and report on their unmet housing needs regularly.Prohibiting residential occupancy limits.Allowing accessory dwelling units.Putting in place right-of-first refusal policies that would give local governments a better chance of purchasing affordable housing before it converts to market rate.Eliminating minimum parking requirements for new construction near transit hubs.Regional building codes for factory-built structures.Requiring denser housing development near transit. <\/div>\n

Some local governments have pushed back on what they view as a heavy handed state approach on housing that usurps local authority, with some governments saying they don\u2019t intend to comply with the laws that could lead to denser housing and less parking around transit.<\/p>\n

Polis said in the next month the Department of Local Affairs, the Colorado Energy Office, the Office of Economic Development and International Trade and the Department of Transportation will each have to determine the exact dollar amount and types of grants his executive order applies to. Polis said it\u2019s mostly structural and capital grants.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s not highway funds, but it\u2019s many other things: walkable community grants, transit hub grants,\u201d the governor explained.<\/p>\n

Polis said language requiring local governments to follow housing laws in these areas will be added to the grant guidelines starting Oct. 6. He noted the grants will also potentially reward local governments with policies that go further than the state\u2019s.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we\u2019re basically saying is, \u2018Hey, we have limited state dollars. They need to go to communities that are part of the housing solution, which is a statewide challenge,\u2019\u2019\u2019 Polis said. \u201cWe want communities to go above and beyond \u2026 but at least at a minimum, we want to make sure that they are allowing ADUs, allowing multifamily near transit.\u201d<\/p>\n

The governor said without the executive order, it would be up to individual Coloradans to sue their local governments to force them to comply with state housing laws.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a more direct way to make sure we are following the laws that were passed,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Some housing advocates applauded the governor\u2019s directive. Zach Neumann, who leads the Colorado Economic Defense Project, called the news \u201cawesome.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Patrick Noonan, program director at Brothers Redevelopment, said he thinks incentives work best to get compliance.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think a lot of cities are operating in good faith and trying to tackle these issues with the state,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

To read more stories from KUNC, visit www.kunc.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Governor using more than $100 million in funds as leverage to gain compliance<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22171,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[394,819,28,453],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-22170","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-colorado-legislature","tag-gov-jared-polis","tag-headlines","tag-housing-and-urban-planning"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22170","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22170"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22170\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22171"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22170"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22170"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22170"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=22170"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}