Colorado’s Housing Crisis: Not Enough Homes Fuels Third-Highest Rent in America

By Marissa Ventrelli | The Denver Gazette

Colorado had the third highest rent and fifth highest home prices in 2023, according to a first-of-its-kind analysis from a zoning group.

Compiled by a group called National Zoning Atlas, the analysis examined zoning codes in all 334 of Colorado’s jurisdictions to assess how zoning affects housing affordability in the state.

Of those 334 jurisdictions, 275 have zoning codes — but not all are openly available to the public, the analysis said.

“Affordable” housing has been a top priority of Gov. Jared Polis since he was first elected in 2019, a goal shared by policymakers, though they often sharpy differ how to achieve that aim.

Some push for greater density as a solution to many of the state’s urban problems.

In Denver, that reasoning is encompassed in the “15-minute city” idea, envisioning a community where employers, shops, schools, medical care, and recreation all lie within a 15-minute walk, bike or bus ride from where residents live.

Opponents are widely skeptical about “density” as a cure-all, and about rapid transit as a means to enable that. Several earlier cited a kind of circular logic embedded in the idea, along the lines of “we need more residents to serve buses,” and then “we need more buses to serve residents.” They also question the idea that a future expansion of public transportation will allow the concept to succeed. Critics also argue that not all residents want to live in “dense” urban cores.

The governor lauded several bills passed during the 2024 legislative session that tackle the issue but added there is “more work ahead to stop government from preventing housing that meets our needs.”

“This study solidifies that we value data and our approach to housing is what works and that unnecessary zoning restrictions make it difficult for people to build housing that is needed and wanted by Coloradans,” he said.

The zoning group collected data between April 2024 and April 2025. Here are some of the key findings:

Some 92% of residential land in Colorado allows single-family housing “as of right,” meaning a development project can be approved without the property owner having to go through a public hearing or special permits. By contrast, just 3% of the state’s residential land allows for housing with more than four units “as of right,” according to the study.

Nearly 60% of residential land in the state is solely zoned for single-family housing, as opposed to multi-family or mixed-use.

A 2024 bill passed by the General Assembly prohibits local governments from imposing limits on the number of family members who can live together in a single household, unless there are serious health and safety risks.

Polis said the policy cuts red tape and “gets the government out of the business of telling people who they can live with.”

Critics said the law coopts local control, arguing counties and cities know their communities better than the state.

Colorado has the highest minimum lot size of the 10 states analyzed. Over 90% of land zoned for single-family homes in the state require a lot size of at least one acre, and over 86% require over two acres.

These requirements make housing scarcer and create sprawl or low-density expansion to suburbs or rural areas, the study said.

According to the organization Colorado Sprawl, between 1982 and 2017, the state lost over 1,200 square miles of open space. Over 85% of that loss was due to a significant increase in population.

Property owners are required to build a specific amount of parking for each unit on 85% of the state’s residential land, the National Zoning Atlas study said, adding when large portions of a parcel are used for parking, it means less space for housing, which can drive up costs.

In 2024, the state legislature passed House Bill 1304, which prohibits local governments in the state’s largest cities from enacting or enforcing minimum parking requirements on land zoned for multi-family housing.

“There’s no such thing as free parking,” said former Rep. Stephanie Vigil, D-Colorado Springs, who sponsored the bill. “It is being paid for somehow, and the way that we have paid for that more than anything is to pave paradise and put up a parking lot.”

According to the zoning group, accessory dwelling units, also known as mother-in-law suites or accessory apartments, are extremely difficult to build in Colorado because over half of the state’s land zoned for single-family housing prohibits them from being constructed by right.

An additional 37% of the state’s jurisdictions ban ADUs entirely. It remains to be see if these numbers will change following the passage of a 2024 law requiring local governments to allow for the construction of ADUs on single-family home properties, which officially went into effect on June 30 of this year.

READ THE FULL ARTICLE AT THE DENVER GAZETTE