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Tag: Affordable housing

HB25-1169 would strip local control, override zoning to force housing on church and school property
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Approved, Rocky Mountain Voice, State, Top Stories

HB25-1169 would strip local control, override zoning to force housing on church and school property

By Tori Ganahl | Rocky Mountain Voice A bill making its way through the Colorado legislature—HB 25-1169, the “Faith and Education Land Use” bill—is under growing scrutiny from local officials, school communities, and everyday Coloradans who see it as a sweeping override of local zoning authority. The legislation, supported by Democratic lawmakers and Governor Jared Polis’s administration, mandates that cities and counties allow residential development on land owned by churches, K-12 school districts, and public colleges–regardless of existing zoning restrictions or community input. Framed as a solution to the state’s housing crisis, critics argue the bill does nothing to guarantee affordability, and instead hands over local land-use control to the state under the guise of housing ...
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$3.2M Denver 17th Street tower deal aims to create 750 downtown apartments
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Approved, kdvr.com, Local

$3.2M Denver 17th Street tower deal aims to create 750 downtown apartments

By Maddie Rhodes | Fox31 DENVER (KDVR) — A block in downtown Denver is converting from offices into apartment spaces after a real estate company bought two towers on 17th Street. The Luzzatto Company, a national real estate firm, purchased 621 and 633 17th St. at the start of April for $3.2 million, hoping to revitalize downtown with the over 973,000 square feet of space in the heart of Denver. Right now, it’s a handful of offices and a grassy area just outside the 16th Street Mall, but company owner Asher Luzzatto said it’s going through a complete renovation that will cost between $150 and $200 million. Within three years, Luzzatto said the company is planning 700 to 750 multi-family affordable apartment units. The company plans to include public and private spaces with a day...
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Here’s how much more expensive Denver has become since 2020
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Approved, Local, Westword

Here’s how much more expensive Denver has become since 2020

By Catie Cheshire | Westword Residents across Denver’s neighborhoods are worried about the cost of living in the Mile High City, particularly related to the rising price of homes and rent. A recent study from travel-and-finance website Upgraded Points shows that they aren't imagining things: It's more expensive to live in Denver now than it was four years ago. According to the study, assorted items in Denver cost 21.5 percent more than they did in 2020, with housing costs driving a large part of the increase. Housing is 25.2 percent higher than it was in 2020, while groceries cost 17.9 percent more than they did four years ago. During the same time period, wages grew by just 16.9 percent — so Denver’s pocketbooks aren’t keeping up with what it costs to live ...
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Colorado housing ‘crisis’ grows, advocates push for more money
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Approved, State, The Center Square

Colorado housing ‘crisis’ grows, advocates push for more money

By Elyse Apel | The Center Square Housing costs make Colorado one of the nation's most expensive states. This is according to a recent report from the National Low Income Housing Coalition, which listed Colorado as the sixth least affordable state in the country. The report focused on low-income housing and affordable homes, finding that 79% of extremely low-income renters in Colorado have a “severe cost burden” when it comes to finding housing. Extremely low-income renter households are defined as those with incomes at or below the poverty level or 30% of their area median income, whichever is greater. In Denver, that is approximately $27,400 per year. “While Coloradans of nearly all income levels are experiencing difficulties with access to affordable housing, the cir...
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HB25-1211: A developer giveaway disguised as water conservation?
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Approved, Rocky Mountain Voice, State, Top Stories

HB25-1211: A developer giveaway disguised as water conservation?

By Jen Schumann | Contributing Writer, Rocky Mountain Voice Framed as a water conservation bill, HB25-1211 passed the Colorado House on March 17, with unanimous Republican opposition and four Democrats voting against it. Despite its stated goal of ensuring fairness in water tap fees, critics argue the bill primarily benefits developers over homeowners, forcing local water districts to subsidize high-density developments while shifting costs to existing ratepayers.​ Democrat Reps. Rebecca Stewart and Sheila Lieder, sponsors of the bill, argue it is necessary to prevent water districts from using tap fees to discourage development.  “The bill makes sure that special districts aren’t using the levying of tap fees in order to influence land use, discourage more water-efficient...
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Does Denver’s ‘affordable’ housing goal align with today’s market needs? Experts weigh in
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Approved, denvergazette.com, Local

Does Denver’s ‘affordable’ housing goal align with today’s market needs? Experts weigh in

By Noah Festenstein | Denver Gazette As Denver pushes for more "affordable" housing, experts wonder if the city's approach is sustainable and question whether it aligns with today's market needs. Denver Mayor Mike Johnston's goal for 2025 to "preserve" or help in the development of more than 3,000 such units. Denver worked with developers last year to build 1,695 new units, preserve 649 existing ones and create 678 others through rental subsidies “to ensure affordability,” according to Department of Housing Stability (HOST) spokesperson Julia Marvin. “The challenge this year,” Marvin said, “lies in being creative with the funding we have. It’s important that we get creative in our solutions, both for funding and for execution.” READ FULL ARTICLE AT THE DENVER GAZETTE...
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Apartment construction in Colorado Springs slowed to lowest in a decade in 2024
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Approved, gazette.com, Local

Apartment construction in Colorado Springs slowed to lowest in a decade in 2024

By WAYNE HEILMAN  | The Gazette The red-hot pace of Colorado Springs-area apartment construction turned ice cold last year. From 2019 to 2023, multifamily developers pulled permits to build just over 14,000 apartments in the Springs and surrounding El Paso County — one of the hottest stretches of local apartment construction in recent memory that averaged a little more than 2,800 units a year, according to recent and historical Pikes Peak Regional Building Department figures. Developers, however, did an about-face in 2024 and took out permits to build just 838 apartments — a nearly two-thirds drop when compared with the previous year and the fewest since 2015. READ THE FULL STORY AT THE GAZETTE
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In rural school districts, creative solutions to house teachers being created
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Approved, Rocky Mountain Voice, State

In rural school districts, creative solutions to house teachers being created

By Lindy Browning | Contributor, Rocky Mountain Voice From Deer Creek School District on the far Eastern Plains to Rangely on the western border of Utah, from Telluride and Aspen to Vail and Steamboat Springs, school districts all over rural Colorado are struggling with a need for affordable and available housing for teachers. In an effort to begin finding solutions for what school districts foresee as a long-term problem, Colorado Rural Schools Alliance (CRSA) hosted their first Rural Housing Forum in Beaver Creek on Thursday, Oct. 24. CRSA represents 146 of 178 school districts in Colorado. The remaining 32 are located in urban areas.  Chris Holbert, formerly a Colorado senator and Minority Leader, and current consultant for CRSA, doesn’t think that one-size solutions fit all sc...
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Takeaways from AP’s report on affordable housing disappearing across the U.S.
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Approved, kdvr.com, National

Takeaways from AP’s report on affordable housing disappearing across the U.S.

By JESSE BEDAYN and ARUSHI GUPTA  | Fox 31 via the AP While Americans continue to struggle under unrelentingly high rents, as many as 223,000 affordable housing units across the U.S. could disappear in the next five years alone. It leaves low-income tenants facing protracted eviction battles, scrambling to pay a two-fold rent increase or more, or shunted back into a housing market where costs can easily eat half a paycheck. Those affordable housing units were built with the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit, or LIHTC, a federal program launched in 1987 that provides tax credits to developers in exchange for keeping rents low. It has pumped out 3.6 million units nationwide, and its expansion is now central to Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris’ housing plan to build 3 m...
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