Suburban Denver city, the latest flashpoint in Colorado’s housing affordability saga, feels squeezed by density pressures

It took Spencer Hanks practically a decade to purchase a home in Littleton.

About midway via his search, he stated, he thought he had landed a spot close to downtown. On the final minute, an out-of-state purchaser got here in with fistfuls of money and dropped $50,000 above his provide. His dream residence — so tantalizingly inside attain — now belonged to another person.

“I nearly moved out of Littleton,” stated the Greeley native, who went again to renting within the metropolis.

Hanks, 32, and his spouse did lastly purchase a home in Littleton a yr in the past, touchdown a mortgage — albeit one which’s “positively a stretch” — to cowl the $600,000 price ticket of the modest 1,700-square-foot residence close to Sterne Park. However he is aware of of so many different younger households in his technology who really feel “fatalistic” about breaking into the metro Denver housing market.

Colorado’s housing problem is clearly not a Littleton-only downside. However in latest months, town of 45,000 has grow to be a reluctant microcosm of the bigger battle enjoying out, wherein a scarcity of 70,000 homes, residences and condos in metro Denver has saved residence costs excessive.

The state of affairs has prompted state lawmakers in recent times to move laws aimed toward boosting density in cities throughout the state. That, in flip, has led some municipalities to withstand such efforts as an infringement of their native management over land-use choices. Stress has additionally come from under, as in Englewood — the place an try to encourage extra density within the metropolis abutting Denver prompted recall elections in 2023.

In Littleton, issues got here to a boil in January. Metropolis leaders, after going through important resistance, tabled a proposed zoning ordinance dubbed the Neighborhood Housing Alternatives initiative. It might have permitted denser varieties of housing all through town, like duplexes, triplexes and hooked up townhomes.

Many owners noticed the measure as an assault on the character of their suburban haven, which is basically made up of tidy single-family houses tucked into leafy neighborhoods.

However the constructing of extra indifferent houses probably gained’t lead Colorado out of its housing woes, advocates of larger density argue. In metro Denver, the median gross sales value of a house final month was $599,000 — simply 3.9% under the April 2022 value peak.

“They really feel they’re by no means going to personal,” Hanks stated of pals struggling to afford a spot of their very own.

Shortly after the showdown at metropolis corridor, a newly constituted citizen advocacy group that preaches warning on densification sprung up, known as Rooted in Littleton (previously often known as Save Outdated Littleton). The group commissioned a survey from Magellan Methods, a polling type that final month requested practically 1,200 residents questions on Littleton’s residential portfolio.

The survey, the outcomes of which have been launched in late March, discovered a robust lean towards supporting much less housing density in Littleton. One notable consequence from the survey was a robust desire (amongst greater than 3 in 4 respondents) for a direct voter voice in any future main zoning choices within the metropolis, moderately than leaving it as much as the Metropolis Council.

That sentiment alone instructed Joe Whitney, an almost 30-year resident of town who helped begin Rooted in Littleton, that his fellow denizens felt they weren’t being listened to sufficient.

“Blanket zoning and blanket density just isn’t the reply,” stated Whitney, 64. “It’s like setting a wildfire to do a managed burn.”

Resistance to state legal guidelines

Littleton isn’t simply seeing recalcitrance on modifications to its land-use code from its residents. Like the remainder of Colorado’s municipalities, it’s also negotiating directives on housing coverage coming down from the state — a few of which have triggered a forceful local-control protection intuition.

Littleton’s council not too long ago handed two resolutions staking out positions on housing payments transferring via the state legislature this session. It urged a “no” vote on Home Invoice 1169, the so-called YIGBY — or “Sure in God’s Yard” — invoice that may usually permit spiritual teams and academic establishments to construct housing on their properties, no matter how the land is zoned.

The Colorado Municipal League has known as the invoice an “unconstitutional” assault on cities’ and cities’ home-rule authority — and a measure that rejects “sound long-range group planning.”

Conversely, the Littleton council urged a sure vote by the legislature on a construction-defects reform invoice that lawmakers are pitching as a option to encourage extra condominium development in a state that has seen little of it in the previous couple of many years.

On April 24, town will host an open home to debate the way it ought to adjust to upcoming state mandates on housing and associated issues that handed within the 2024 session, affecting Entrance Vary communities. These embrace legal guidelines coping with permitting accent dwelling items — together with storage and yard items — in addition to parking necessities in neighborhoods close to transit stops and residential occupancy limits.

Remaining votes by the Littleton council on implementing these mandates are anticipated in June.

On the peak of the talk over town’s proposed zoning measure in January, Councilwoman Pam Grove — who’s co-hosting the upcoming open home — stated that in her half-dozen years in workplace, “by no means has a problem hit such a scorching button.”

“We’re getting strain from the state, and we have now residents in our metropolis that really feel strongly a technique or one other,” she stated. “We are able to solely achieve this a lot to repair this.”

A housing examine commissioned by Littleton in 2017 projected 15,000 extra individuals would transfer to town over the subsequent 20 years. That might translate into 6,500 extra housing items wanted within the metropolis by the 2040s.

Thus far, Littleton hasn’t joined the rising listing of cities which have pledged to push again on state housing legal guidelines they see as overreaching. Westminster, Arvada and Northglenn are three metro cities which have indicated they might not absolutely adjust to the legal guidelines, Colorado Public Radio reported in February.

The resistance goes past metro Denver. Colorado Springs officers stated not too long ago that they’d take a stand towards the accent dwelling unit mandate handed by state lawmakers final yr. Final month, the Lafayette Metropolis Council mulled taking authorized motion towards the state over Home Invoice 24-1313, a legislation that required cities to permit denser developments round transit stations.

The Colorado Municipal League has mounted challenges towards quite a few housing payments over the previous couple of years. Kevin Bommer, the group’s govt director, stated a few of his member cities haven’t all the time felt included within the means of crafting these legal guidelines.

“When you may have a bunch of individuals sitting within the room fascinated by what native communities ought to do — however if you don’t have suggestions or enter from native governments — the outcomes aren’t essentially issues native governments can dwell with,” he stated.

And cities, Bommer stated, don’t construct — “cities plan.”

“That’s what Littleton is doing. That’s what Arvada is doing, and Westminster,” he stated. “What they want is the state to be a accomplice, as a substitute of telling them what to do.”

What do Littleton’s residents assume?

On the similar time, Littleton’s metropolis officers are going through pushback from residents exercised about potential modifications to their neighborhoods. The Magellan survey, which was despatched to 1,197 registered voters by textual content March 6-11, confirmed a robust lean amongst respondents towards prohibiting — or tightly controlling — density within the metropolis.

The survey, carried out by a well-regarded Colorado polling agency, had a margin of error of plus or minus 2.79 proportion factors.

A majority of respondents felt that denser housing in Littleton wouldn’t decrease residence costs, wouldn’t alleviate site visitors congestion, wouldn’t scale back wildfire threat and wouldn’t scale back homelessness. When requested in the event that they supported or opposed insurance policies that may improve the housing density of some metropolis neighborhoods, 54% got here out in opposition, versus 44% in favor.

However there was a notable distinction between age teams. Amongst respondents 18 to 44, help for extra density outpaced the opposition, 53% to 45%. Within the 45 to 64 cohort, nonetheless, elevated density within the metropolis misplaced by a wider 61%-to-34% margin.

And renters, who are inclined to skew youthful, urged extra density in Littleton by an almost 2-to-1 margin, in response to the ballot.

Councilman Stephen Barr stated he’s not stunned by the numbers, particularly with regards to the age breakdown. Barr, 38, moved to Littleton in 2018 and rented earlier than shopping for a unit in a quadplex three years in the past — the very sort of “lacking center” housing that Littleton’s 2017 housing survey stated was wanted to soak up town’s projected inhabitants improve.

Having lived in a 400-square-foot accent dwelling unit over a indifferent storage in California earlier than transferring to Colorado, Barr was the one individual on the council in favor of adopting the Neighborhood Housing Alternatives initiative. He known as the measure a “fairly equitable step in beginning to deal with this query.”

“For those who’ve had financial safety for 30 or 40 years, then we’re coming from totally different locations,” stated Barr, who graduated school simply because the economic system was cratering in 2009 amid the Nice Recession. “As a renter, as somebody who has lived in an ADU, as somebody who lives in a quadplex — it’s onerous to listen to that the methods wherein I’ve lived are undesirable.”

Whitney, with the Rooted in Littleton group, conceded that the excessive barrier to entry for youthful individuals on the lookout for a starter residence within the metro space is one thing to concentrate to.

“It’s a sound declare,” he stated.

However with regards to making sometimes-drastic modifications to somebody’s neighborhood, most individuals see the most important funding they may ever make — their residence — as sacrosanct, he stated. It turns into “such an emotionally charged situation for individuals” — and one that’s a lot larger than one metropolis alone.

“It’s a nationwide downside we have now by way of affordability,” Whitney stated. “I don’t assume it’s Littleton’s job to unravel it for America or for Colorado.”

“It was a very good coverage,” mayor says

Littleton Mayor Kyle Schlachter has reservations about how the Magellan survey was carried out and the way the questions have been worded. He took the survey and decided that the outcomes ought to be “taken with a grain of salt.”

He feels there may be extra sympathy for town’s efforts than the survey outcomes revealed, he stated.

“I feel it was a very good coverage. It was a very good ordinance,” Schlachter stated of the Neighborhood Housing Alternatives initiative. “However there have been threats of lawsuits, threats of referenda and threats of recollects.”

Approving it, he stated, would have been “one step ahead and two steps backward” within the effort to make Littleton extra reasonably priced. Metropolis officers want look no additional than subsequent door to Englewood, the place two years in the past the same concentrate on density led to recall efforts and plenty of consternation locally.