{"id":33513,"date":"2023-06-08T10:37:30","date_gmt":"2023-06-08T16:37:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/colorado-cities-may-have-to-eliminate-growth-caps-under-new-state-law\/"},"modified":"2023-06-08T16:37:30","modified_gmt":"2023-06-08T16:37:30","slug":"colorado-cities-may-have-to-eliminate-growth-caps-under-new-state-law","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/colorado-cities-may-have-to-eliminate-growth-caps-under-new-state-law\/","title":{"rendered":"Colorado cities may have to eliminate \u2018growth caps\u2019 under new state law"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Spring
Spring Creek Village under construction along Florida Road (County Road 240) northeast of Durango. (Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald file)<\/span>du1-i-syn<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Gov. Jared Polis signed a law this week that will ban cities from having \u201cgrowth caps\u201d that limit the rate of residential development, such as the one in Golden, the community of about 20,000 people west of Denver.<\/p>\n

\u201cColorado is facing a housing crisis, and we must all work together to create more housing opportunities for every Colorado budget, not limit them,\u201d Polis said in a written statement before signing the bill.<\/p>\n

Golden has kept a tight grip on housing construction since 1995, when voters approved a growth cap. The law, which was aimed at slowing the growth of suburban sprawl, allows the city\u2019s number of residential units to grow by only 1% per year.<\/p>\n

The result is that Golden is set to make allowances for just 88 new homes this year, a policy that restricts not just suburban sprawl but also denser development.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s exactly the kind of ordinance that state lawmakers targeted this year. The new state law, HB23-1255<\/a>, says cities may not enforce laws that \u201cexplicitly limit\u201d population growth or the number of residential units that can be approved.<\/p>\n

Affected cities, potentially also including Boulder and Lakewood, will have until early August to comply with the new law.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve been monitoring the legislation, but city council has not discussed anything beyond just watching the legislation. They haven\u2019t said whether they\u2019ll take any action,\u201d said Carly Lorentz, deputy city manager for Golden.<\/p>\n

Supporters argued that growth caps allow cities to unfairly duck their obligation to build housing. They say building more and denser housing will help to alleviate the shortage and allow for improvements like better transit service.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor me, it\u2019s about ensuring affordability via growth and density, and for my (Republican) colleague, it\u2019s about ensuring government doesn\u2019t interfere with private property rights,\u201d said Democratic Sen. Julie Gonzales, a sponsor, during an earlier debate.<\/p>\n

The bill\u2019s sponsors also included Rep. William Lindstedt of Broomfield and Rep. Ruby Dickson of Centennial. All were Democrats \u2013 but it picked up bipartisan votes in the Capitol. Republicans like Sen. Rod Pelton said that, in this case, property rights trump local control.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the end of the day, if I own land, I should be able to do with it what I want. I should be able to develop it if I want,\u201d Pelton said during a debate.<\/p>\n

The change is raising alarm for some local officials who fear they\u2019ll lose control of growth.<\/p>\n

In Lakewood, a growth law limits certain residential development, though it contains exemptions for \u201cblighted\u201d areas and affordable housing. Elected leaders and staff members are still looking at the effects of the bill, said spokesperson Stacie Oulton. City councilors will discuss their options at a meeting in July, she said.<\/p>\n

Councilwoman Anita Springsteen said that dense redevelopment tore apart her home neighborhood in northwest Denver, resulting in gentrification and displacement. She said that experience motivated her to support Lakewood\u2019s \u201cstrategic growth initiative,\u201d passed by voters in 2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cDo we have to completely give up our standard of life and our enjoyment of nature and what we all have in our mind as a good place to live?\u201d she asked in an earlier interview.<\/p>\n

The new law still allows cities to pass \u201ctemporary\u201d anti-growth laws in certain cases.<\/p>\n

That includes when there\u2019s been a disaster emergency; when the city is amending its land-use plans and laws; and when it\u2019s necessary because of infrastructure and water concerns. Those temporary exemptions can only be in effect for up to two years out of a five-year period.<\/p>\n

Boulder also has a growth cap, but city staff members said it is now obsolete.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe cap was originally intended to manage new single-family residential development that put pressure on the open space boundary,\u201d wrote Kristofer Johnson, the city\u2019s comprehensive planning manager, in an email to CPR News. \u201cMost residential development activity in Boulder these days is higher density \u2026 which is exempt from the growth cap.\u201d<\/p>\n

A city spokesman, Carl Castillo, said the city council will probably abolish the growth limit at some point, but it\u2019s not an \u201curgent need\u201d because it no longer has any effect.<\/p>\n

Indeed, it\u2019s hard to say how much of a practical effect the new state ban will have. Even if a city does not have an explicit cap on growth, it still can slow development with zoning rules that limit the size and density of housing. An effort to override those local zoning rules failed in the Legislature.<\/p>\n

To read more stories from Colorado Public Radio, visit www.cpr.org<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Gov. Jared Polis signed legislation: \u2018We must all work together to create more housing\u2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":33514,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[394,14,15,28,453],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-33513","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-colorado-legislature","tag-colorado-state-house-of-representatives","tag-colorado-state-senate","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\/33513","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=33513"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33513\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33514"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33513"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33513"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33513"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=33513"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}