Opinion: We can’t build our way out of this ‘housing crisis’ without dramatically reducing quality of life

Colorado’s “housing crisis” is essentially unsolvable by simply building more market-rate housing, at least if we care about our quality of life here in Colorado.

According to a 2023 survey of 1,000 Americans, discussed in a recent Forbes story, Denver took first place as the most desired place to live. Seventeen percent of the respondents picked it first; that represents 58 million people nationwide. Even if only 1 in 5 had the means to move here, that’s 11.6 million people, nearly tripling Colorado’s population.

Do we want 2-3 times as many people in Colorado, with the attendant crowds, traffic jams, air pollution, water shortages, etc.? How about mandatory reservation systems requiring weeks-ahead planning just to visit mountain areas? Rocky Mountain National Park, Brainard Lake, Mt. Blue Sky, and Quandary Peak already require reservations. Great Sand Dunes may soon, as visitation has about doubled in the last 10 years. What about going skiing, but with even longer lift lines and bigger traffic jams?

Or do we want a less populated state? In July 2022, Rasmussen Reports surveyed over 1,000 “likely to vote” Coloradans to gauge their feelings on the matter. According to an article on this survey, “Overwhelmingly, the answers showed they want to limit population growth. In recent years 92% feel that the state has become more crowded. Ninty percent desire a future where far fewer people move to the state. Fifty-nine percent prefer a complete stop to population growth or even a decline in the population.”

Some data on Colorado’s alleged “housing crisis”: According to county-level data, the big price hits are limited to the high-demand Front Range cities, suburbs and mountain resort areas. The rest of the state remains relatively affordable. And census data gives Colorado the fifth highest percentage increase in the number of housing units between 2010 and 2020, with an increase of 10.9%; that’s 86.1% above the national average.

With such a strong housing market in Colorado’s high-demand areas, doubling or tripling the housing supply, as some legislators want to do, would make some difference in prices. But multiplying those populations by 2-3 times comes with huge impacts in everyday life and completely ignores those issues that local control addresses.

Colorado does, however, have a real “water crisis.” The arguments between the seven states working on sharing the Colorado River revolve around Article III(d) of the 1922 Colorado River Compact, which requires the Upper Basin states to deliver 7.5 million acre-feet per year on average to the Lower Basin states, plus multi-million acre-feet/year obligations to Mexico, Native American tribes, and pre-Compact water rights holders.

There just isn’t enough water for all that, plus serving many millions more people in the Front Range cities that depend on trans-mountain diversions of the Colorado River. Instituting a policy (stronger than the current Arizona one) that would require developers to use renewable water supplies and not deplete groundwater would lead to making some necessary choices about who faces cuts versus how much development could occur.

We also have a “transit crisis.” In 2017, the Census Bureau noted that only 6.7% of Denverites used transit. And public transit ridership in the Denver area has dropped to 62% of pre-pandemic levels. Even former Mayor Hancock’s 2030 goal would only have 16% of Denver commuters using transit. So densifying suburban areas near transit stops (as the legislature may mandate) won’t make much of a dent in the auto-use increase that will result from increased population.

Given all the above, here are some “quality over quantity” policies that work to create affordable housing while preserving the Colorado we love.

• Inclusionary zoning — This requires that a percentage of new development be permanently price or rent-controlled. The target would be to roughly maintain the economic distribution of the current population. For places like Boulder, that would be around 50%.

• Jobs-housing linkage fees — These require developments that add new jobs (like office space, industry, etc.) to subsidize housing so that workers who could not otherwise afford to are able to live relatively nearby. In Boulder, that fee would be something over $130/sq.ft. for office space. Many resort communities already require businesses to provide worker housing.

• Balanced zoning — This means that an area that is allowing job growth must also provide adequate land zoned for affordable worker housing. This prevents an area from passing off its housing demand problems to surrounding areas.

• Buy-down programs — Here the city or county provides people with down-payment assistance in exchange for permanently restricting price appreciation. So over time, more and more units become more and more affordable.

We should also stop gratuitously increasing housing demand. Our current approach guarantees job growth will overwhelm housing supply. The Office of Economic Development and International Trade (OEDIT) should end its promoting business expansion and giving tax breaks in already high-demand areas. (And data centers should only be allowed if quiet, powered by renewable energy, and recycle their cooling water.)

We need to get real about our limited water supply. The forecasts are that we will have less and less Colorado River water in the future. And, as temperatures rise, all our other watersheds will become drier. We need to face up to these limits on growth, especially on the Front Range, assuming we want to preserve our quality of life.

Regarding transportation, let’s finally acknowledge that mass transit will not magically cure our traffic congestion. RTD’s free rides in August barely made a dent. Both jobs and housing are too locationally diffuse. So, instead of adding more transit, with the attendant tax increases, we should take a different tack, and promote car and vanpooling, by significantly increasing parking fees and then using the money to pay people to carpool. This simply requires a computerized database to connect drivers and riders, and drive-by license plate scanners hooked to a credit card system to collect fees.

Finally, we should use development impact fees to avoid burdening existing citizens with increased taxes to pay for the road widening, parks, rec centers, libraries, etc., needed to meet growth’s demands. Developers already charge what the market will bear, so mandating inclusionary zoning will help prevent developers from passing these fees on to some new buyers and renters.

These steps would be a start to providing more affordable housing while still attempting to preserve our quality of life. They won’t make Colorado affordable to everyone, but at least it will still be a place where people haven’t overwhelmed the natural environment.

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