In July, voters in Lakewood approved a one percent per annum cap on residential unit construction. Now, a proposed ballot measure aiming to require counties along the Front Range to follow suit is one step closer to appearing on Colorado’s 2020 ballot.
Initiative 22 proposes a change to the Colorado Revised Statutes which would require
This post was authored by Alexandra Haggarty. Alex is a summer clerk at Otten Johnson, and a rising 3L at the University of Colorado Law School.
This post is an update on three earlier posts about a citizen initiative to limit residential growth in Lakewood, Colorado.
With a near 53 percent majority, voters in the City of Lakewood approved Ballot Question 200, capping growth of residential unit construction by one percent annually and requiring city council approval of projects with forty or more units. The city joins Boulder and neighboring Golden in responding to Colorado’s population growth by capping development.
Proponents of the initiative argue that it will preserve Lakewood’s culture and environment. Specifically, the initiative was pitched as a way to preserve open space, protect single-family development, ensure that infrastructure and services are not overburdened, and curb alleged problems of unmanaged growth, such as crime and urban decay.
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Last month I wrote about how Boulder was weighing an ordinance that would raise the city’s affordable housing linkage fee on new commercial development from $12 per square foot–a fee just 16 months old and the second highest in the country–to $25, $30, or $35 per square foot. Last week, by a 6-3 vote, city
Tuesday evening the Boulder City Council unanimously approved the $9.5 million purchase of the 615-acre parcel located at 4536 N. 95th St. (pictured below) to add to the city’s 45,000-acre open space network. The parcel is the fourth most expensive open-space parcel purchased by the city, will be one of the largest, and will become
Virtually all of Boulder County’s local governments have their own, individual plans to reverse the diminishing supply of affordable housing in their respective communities. But these local governments are now weighing a new approach: collaborating and coordinating with one another in a way that, if successful, would supply more affordable housing to the county than the total that will be provided if each of them continues acting independently.
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