{"id":36650,"date":"2022-12-22T16:31:50","date_gmt":"2022-12-22T23:31:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/coloradans-could-vote-on-a-70-million-attainable-housing-fee-in-2023\/"},"modified":"2022-12-22T23:31:50","modified_gmt":"2022-12-22T23:31:50","slug":"coloradans-could-vote-on-a-70-million-attainable-housing-fee-in-2023","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/coloradans-could-vote-on-a-70-million-attainable-housing-fee-in-2023\/","title":{"rendered":"Coloradans could vote on a $70 million \u2018attainable housing\u2019 fee in 2023"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Residential
Residential and commercial development occurs along Colfax Avenue in Aurora, near the UCHealth Anschutz Medical Campus on Nov. 3, 2022. Next November, Colorado voters may have their second chance in two years to increase the state\u2019s involvement in the housing market. An anonymous group is pushing a proposal to charge a \u201ctransfer fee\u201d on the sale of most real estate.<\/span>Hart Van Denburg\/CPR News<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Colorado\u2019s statewide elections aren\u2019t usually exciting in odd-numbered years, since there aren\u2019t any statehouse, Congressional or statewide elections and the constitution limits what kind of topics can appear on the ballot.<\/p>\n

But next November, Colorado voters may have their second chance in two years to increase the state\u2019s involvement in the housing market.<\/p>\n

An anonymous group is pushing a proposal, which is still in its early stages, to charge a \u201ctransfer fee\u201d on the sale of most real estate.<\/p>\n

Whenever a property is sold, the purchaser would have to pay a fee worth 0.1% of the sales price. The first $200,000 of the value, however, would be exempted from the fee. So for example, selling a $500,000 home would result in a $300 fee.<\/p>\n

The money \u2013 totaling an estimated $70 million per year \u2013 would be spent on increasing the supply of \u201cattainable housing,\u201d targeting people who generally make too much money for subsidized \u201caffordable\u201d housing but still struggle with high prices.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s still a long way to go before the measure can go before voters.<\/p>\n

Signature gathering could begin soon (or not)<\/div>\n

On Wednesday, the state\u2019s title board approved the language for the proposal. That means its backers may soon be able to start gathering signatures from voters. They would have need bout 124,000 valid signatures to qualify for the ballot.<\/p>\n

So far, the initiative\u2019s backers have not revealed themselves. Instead, they\u2019ve been represented by attorneys with the law firm Butler Snow, who declined to identify their client or detail further plans.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are not prepared to answer those questions at this time,\u201d wrote attorney Dalton Kelley in an email. \u201cOnce things change, we will be in touch\u201d<\/p>\n

The ballot measure also could be challenged in court, which would delay signature gathering.<\/p>\n

Scott Wasserman, president of the progressive Bell Policy Center, said the title board\u2019s approval sent a signal. Progressive groups like Wasserman\u2019s have considered running similar proposals in the past.<\/p>\n

If the current initiative is allowed to proceed, it could point to real estate fees as another avenue for state funding. And those fees can also be created by the legislature, not just by voters.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe title board isn\u2019t just a vehicle for getting something on the ballot, it\u2019s also a vehicle for exploring legislative ideas,\u201d said Wasserman, who said that he\u2019s not involved with the current proposal.<\/p>\n

Who would it serve?<\/div>\n

As it\u2019s currently proposed, the fee would begin in 2024.<\/p>\n

The new funding would serve people making between 80% and 120% of an area\u2019s median income. For example, in Arapahoe County, a household of four people with an income between $89,400 and $134,100 would be eligible to benefit.<\/p>\n

If approved, the money would mostly go to the state\u2019s Division of Housing in the Department of Local Affairs.<\/p>\n

It could be spent on building, maintaining or rehabbing \u201cattainable housing\u201d for rent or sale. It also could be used to provide grants and loans to individuals, nonprofits and governments for housing. Local governments also would be allowed to keep about 5% of the money to cover the costs of collecting the fee.<\/p>\n

Voters just approved a housing measure<\/div>\n

Getting a ballot title approved does not mean that anyone will actually gather signatures or start a campaign. Running a statewide campaign can cost millions of dollars, and parties will sometimes test the waters by getting ballot language approved, but ultimately back away.<\/p>\n

Voters recently approved Colorado\u2019s first statewide housing measure, Prop. 123<\/a>, which says the state must spend about $300 million of existing tax revenues on affordable housing. That measure didn\u2019t raise taxes, but did reduce the amount Coloradans will receive from TABOR refunds and could cut into the money available for other state priorities. It passed with 52% approval.<\/p>\n

Mike Johnston, a key backer of that earlier measure, didn\u2019t immediately respond to a request for comment on Thursday.<\/p>\n

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

measure would be funded by a new fee on real estate sales.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":36651,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[120,394,453],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-36650","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-colorado","tag-colorado-legislature","tag-housing-and-urban-planning"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36650","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=36650"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36650\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36651"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36650"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36650"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36650"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=36650"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}