Opinion: Polis’ land-use bill – build everything, everywhere, all at once!

The issue of housing availability apparently infects people’s brains and makes them crazy. At least that’s what the initial reports on Gov. Polis’s land-use bill made me think. That many Democrats in the Legislature are supporting it just showed me that power corrupts, and absolute power makes you completely looney.

So, I actually reviewed the bill’s 105 pages. Here’s some of what the bill proposes, as best as I could discern:

All “Tier 1” cities, including Denver, Colorado Springs, Aurora, Fort Collins, Lakewood, Greeley, Boulder, Grand Junction, Pueblo and Arvada, would have to allow the construction of duplexes, triplexes and multiplexes up to six units, as well as accessory dwelling units and modular homes, on all lots in all residential neighborhoods, including HOAs, with only five-foot side/rear setbacks. So, having areas of varying density is gone. Everything is seriously overbuilt!

The obvious result of this is that every time a house or lot comes up for sale, deep-pocketed developers will pay huge sums, build the maximum number of units that can possibly fit, and then sell it to a rental company to charge whatever the market will bear. Your nice neighborhood will vanish!

The bill contains only the most minimal affordability requirements, way weaker than even Boulder’s requirement that 25% of new housing projects be permanently affordable. Apparently, such requirements are unacceptable, since they restrict profits from development.

All this together guarantees that prices of existing houses will go through the roof since the few that haven’t been scraped will be at a premium. So, if you’re a business looking to hire someone with multiple kids, or you’re a middle-class family looking for a modest house, you better go to another state!

Cities would not be allowed to require off-street parking for any of these denser housing developments. Rather, the amount of parking per unit would be left to developers — in other words, zero. Why waste part of your lot on parking when you can use it for development? So, streets would be jammed with cars. And in the areas around transit corridors, density is even higher and parking requirements are prohibited.

There’s lots more to it, including many pages of biased propaganda that totally ignore cumulative impacts, and descriptions of the dictatorial but ill-defined role assigned to the Department of Local Affairs. And, no surprise, Boulder’s “progressive” Mayor Aaron Brockett spoke at the legislation’s news conference.

One of the arguments for the bill is that some communities are erecting barriers to housing development, forcing sprawl on their neighbors. But the bill contains no requirement that communities limit jobs to match their housing, just that they build more. Therefore, a similar dynamic that these politicians are complaining about will persist after the bill goes into place as before, but with a lot more growth.

There is no requirement that new business development pay jobs-housing linkage fees to fund affordable housing for their workers that otherwise could not afford to live there. Boulder’s is now up to $30 per square foot for office space, a fraction of the real cost of $129 per square foot calculated years ago, probably around $150 now. But at least it’s something. However, Polis apparently didn’t deem such a requirement as worth the paper. So, business development can proceed without contributing to affordable housing, making things even worse.

The sick joke of the bill is that these cities would have to complete a vaguely defined housing needs assessment every five years and a “long term” plan to address concerns like GHG emissions, air pollution and limited water supply (but no actual efficiency requirements for anything.) This ensures that there will be a huge land rush, as developers try to beat the planning process’s first due date at the end of 2026. And if/when the “long term” plans finally happen, these problems will be so bad that there would be no hope of ever fixing them.

Colorado’s population could expand by millions. But the bill has no requirement for development impact fees to fund the new roads, transit, schools, libraries, etc. that will be needed. So, every form of congestion and overcrowding will be many times worse, including on parks, open spaces, and in the mountains. And taxes will need to skyrocket.

Finally, the Colorado River supplies significant water to cities on the Front Range and elsewhere. When these supplies are cut, as seems likely, then who knows what these extra millions will drink or flush with? Polis needs to pull this bill and reconnect to reality.

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