A longtime Boulder rule that limits housing expansion in the city to no more than 1% annually could be emulated across almost the entire Front Range if a Colorado man has his way.
Golden resident Daniel Hayes is seeking a final green light from the state to circulate a petition for signatures in hopes of making the 2020 ballot. Should his initiative be certified and passed by voters across the state, it would restrict increases in the number of dwelling units to 1% of existing homes per year in 11 counties, and all cities and towns within them, including the rest of Boulder County, along with Broomfield, Denver, Adams, Arapahoe, Douglas, Elbert, El Paso, Jefferson, Larimer and Weld counties.
“This is a lifetime goal of mine,” Hayes, 72, said. He was set to circulate a petition for a similar rule in 2018 before withdrawing it. “I believe that this growth is ruining our state. I’m a big backer of wildlife. … They’re building too many apartment buildings. We have enough apartment buildings to last us 10 or 15 years.”
The possible new rule could cause prices to skyrocket in an already expensive regional real estate market, crippling efforts to rein in the area’s affordable housing shortage by boosting supply of both market-rate units, and homes with prices tied to the area median income, according to Drew Hamrick, senior vice president of government affairs for the Apartment Association of Metro Denver.
Since Boulder in 1976 instituted a 2% limit on dwelling unit increases in city limits, the idea has proliferated. The city revised it down to 1% in 1995, the same year Hayes said he pushed a growth limit of the same rate into effect in Golden. This summer, Lakewood voters approved an almost identical municipal law local officials are in the process of implementing.
But for the nearly six years from 2014 through this week, the rule has had a limited impact in Boulder. Hundreds of dwellings have been approved through exemptions for certain housing types, while new residences that count toward the annual growth cap never came close to approaching it, according to city data on the rule, which works by each year making available a certain number of “allocations,” or stamps of approval for new units to receive building permits and ensure compliance with the 1% limit.
Even when combining new homes exempt from the growth limit with those that count toward the 1% cap, the city approved units equaling just 67.8% of 3,529 allocations available over the six-year period. Development projects are seldom held up by the growth management rule, officials said.
Boulder tweaked its rule in 2000 to add exceptions so certain types of residential development would not count as part of the 1% limit, including permanently affordable housing, dwellings in mixed-use buildings, and homes built in areas rezoned from non-residential purposes, and market-rate units within developments that have 35% of units dedicated as affordable. Homes removed and replaced within three years by new development containing four or fewer units do not require new dwelling allocations that count toward the limit. Housing built by University of Colorado Boulder for students, staff and faculty, and accessory dwelling units also do not require new unit allocations.
Former Boulder City Councilmember Steve Pomerance, who has advocated slow-growth policies, believes the city should get rid of the growth management system in favor of an approach that uses zoning to allow growth at levels tolerable to neighborhoods.
“It is also ridiculously complicated, and should be abandoned, in my opinion,” Pomerance said. “It makes far more sense to do proper zoning that the affected neighbors can live with, and adequate development impact fees and public facilities requirements that address peoples’ concerns over traffic, crowding.”
Housing unit increases have eclipsed 1% far more often on the Front Range outside Boulder over the last eight years, based on U.S. Census Bureau estimates cited by the fiscal note attached to Hayes’ proposed ballot initiative. In the 11 counties the measure targets for growth caps, 1% housing unit increases were exceeded 39% of the time, while the proposed limit was exceeded 57% of the time in municipalities that would be impacted, the note states.
Hamrick, with the apartment association, pointed to other aspects of Boulder’s housing market, such as the open space system’s prevention of sprawl and the city’s building height limits, as contributors to growth of less than 1% and expensive local housing costs. The 1% rule across the rest of the Front Range would be a big obstacle to making the state’s housing portfolio more affordable, Hamrick said.
“If you want to cut housing supply, that means you’re increasing the price,” he said. “You can’t talk out of both sides of your mouth. You have to figure out which of those policies are important to you. … If you shift growth from one place to another, when these growth limitations just happen locally, you’re dictating that people have to live further away from the jobs they’re chasing. That has a traffic impact. Living space is less traffic-impacting than other uses that then take that space if you can’t build a housing unit. The simple fact remains that if you can’t have your house close to your job, you’re going to drive more miles and congest more roads in the process.”
Hayes’ proposal appears more strict than Boulder in terms of the residential construction exceptions it would grant to the 1% growth rule. The ballot initiative would allow for 0.15% additional expansion above 1% for affordable housing and senior housing, meaning the biggest legal growth rate for each individual town, city and county targeted would be 1.3% a year, if affordable and senior homes took up their full extra allotments.
The ballot initiative supporter believes the restrictions on booming housing growth in Boulder have been positive for the city, but acknowledged it has driven housing costs upward.
“I think it’s been good for the city,” Hayes said. “Why does Boulder have all those jobs? Because of the low housing growth due to land set aside for commercial and industrial. It’s increased the amount of jobs there, it’s set aside land for jobs, aside from the fact that houses cost more.”
Hamrick is skeptical. He argued that even when pricier, luxury housing is built along the Front Range that it helps housing affordability by preventing people who can afford the higher-end homes from out-competing lower income earners for more affordable units.
“We can’t just tell all these newcomers they have to live in tents,” Hamrick said.
