Denver Affordable Housing Program Moves Forward

"The Denver Planning Board voted 8-0 on Wednesday to forward the 'Expanding Housing Affordability' policy to the City Council and recommend that the council adopt it," but as Joe Rubino reports, the plan remains hotly debated. 

The plan has faced criticism for reducing parking requirements for new developments in "transit-rich areas," prompting the city to narrow down eligibility to projects within a quarter mile of a transit stop. "All projects that meet the affordable housing requirements remain eligible for smaller reductions in the number of parking spaces they have to provide on-site, but the full exemption is now much more limited."

Other opponents worry that the proposal, which only applies to buildings with 10 or more units, doesn't go far enough to address affordability issues in parts of the city not zoned for larger multifamily buildings. "Instead, it will concentrate the affordable units in neighborhoods already under intense development pressure unless the city changes its zoning code to open up more neighborhoods for higher-density housing," critics say.

Two members of the advisory committee that helped develop the plan, Ean Tafoya of the Colorado Latino Forum and Nola Miguel of the Globeville, Elyria-Swansea Coalition Organizing for Health and Housing Justice, oppose it on the grounds that the policy's "affordability requirements don’t go deep enough to be attainable to people living in neighborhoods vulnerable to economic displacement like Globeville and Elyria-Swansea, and that there isn’t a strong mechanism to compel developers to build multi-bedroom units that could house families."