As Colorado elected officials continue to debate how to slow the rise in housing costs, local leaders and employers across the state are working on focused initiatives in this area that could offer blueprints for progress if they are scaled and funded correctly.
Public- and private-sector officials gathered Thursday at the Colorado Chamber of Commerce to discuss ideas of how to boost the state’s stock of homes as the issue of housing affordability becomes a greater barrier to worker recruitment and retention. Their proposals looked at everything from increased public-private partnerships — between governments and employers as well as between governments and builders — to alignment and streamlining of myriad building regulations.
In each case, the solution proposed by attendees is in place somewhere, from local governments fast-tracking affordable-housing permits to a local chamber of commerce educating employers on how to combat NIMBYism. But leaders said that the most effective programs must be done on a larger scale to eat into the 106,000-home shortage the state faces, and there must be a willingness to commit resources to ideas from disaster mitigation to construction of employer housing.
“We’ve heard over the past three years in surveys that housing affordability and housing attainability is a top-three issue for employers in this state,” Colorado Chamber President/CEO Loren Furman said. “They want to bring employees here, and those employees need to be able to live here.”
High housing costs
Crews build a multifamily property in downtown Denver.
The year-to-date median sales price for Colorado homes hit $587,000 in September, according to the Colorado Association of Realtors — a price reflecting a combination of low inventory, high demand, builders’ regulatory burdens and rising costs of goods and labor. Gov. Jared Polis in 2024 passed a land-use reform package meant to stimulate more inventory through increased zoning density, decreased parking minimums for multifamily housing and reduced restrictions on building accessory dwelling units like granny flats.
While that package of laws, which is the target of an ongoing lawsuit as municipalities argue that it violates local-control restrictions, could move the needle and stimulate some new housing, much more is needed, industry and business leaders said. And some of what could be helpful is already underway, particularly in the form of regulatory streamlining.
El Paso County, for example, operates a combined building department that ensures all home constructors are subject to the same rules whether they are building in Colorado Springs or Fountain or in unincorporated areas. This collaboration gives builders a single point of contact for their licensing and permitting needs and their fee payments, noted Roger Lovell of the Pikes Peak Regional Building Department.
Other permitting reform efforts
Denver, which has long been the target of complaints for the glacial pace of its permitting, has launched a pilot program to fast-track permitting for affordable housing, seeking to give developers needed clearances within as few as 90 days. It also launched a permitting office in April to enhance coordination between the six city agencies involved in permitting — everything from planning to fire inspections — and is pushing this as a business booster.
Jill Jennings Golich, director of the Denver permitting office, speaks at Thursday’s roundtable.
“To me, permitting is economic development,” said Jill Jennings Golich, director of the new permitting office. “We have to support our community with a clean, transparent and economical process.”
Several builders said they are involved to a new level in public-private partnerships with local governments to build affordable housing. Oakwood Homes, for example, is putting up 24 homes in Leadville through an agreement with the local school district and hospital, and it’s working with organizations like Elevation Community Land Trust that get government funding to ensure a portion of their projects are deed-restricted for lower-income residents.
“This is a very different way for us to do business,” acknowledged Amy Schwartz, Oakwood vice president of social responsibility and community partnerships. “In order to meet the goal (of building 5,000 homes per year by 2035), we’re going to have to develop a lot of partnerships and do this differently than we have before.”
New partnerships take center stage
Oakwood Homes executive Amy Schwartz speaks at Thursday’s roundtable.
It’s not just homebuilders that are entering into such partnerships, however. Climax Molybdenum, which operates two mines near Leadville, has created or is in the process of creating 148 housing units for its workers via the multiyear rental of properties and even the construction of an apartment complex. Officials launched the effort after mountain-community housing shortages fed a 70% workforce turnover four years ago, said Peter Hunter, a senior engineer with the company.
Even with local governments freeing up capital and loosening regulations, Polis’ office continues to believe that without land-use reforms, that money won’t make as big a difference. That’s one reason why it pushed through a bill this year to streamline modular housing regulations statewide — after finding variations of more than 300 different codes that could require builders of such housing to have to adapt construction for an imposing number of local governments.
Industry leaders said that increased use of modular housing, which can be produced very quickly in factories and moved to sites, could be one of the keys to speeding up production of housing and bringing down costs through increased competition. Developer Adam Berger noted that he went from groundbreaking to certificate of occupancy in just four months on a trio of duplexes his company built near Stanley Marketplace in Aurora — and got no pushback because the homes were designed as intricately as site-built homes.
“Modular is an important tool, among many, that if you can do it right can save time and money,” Berger said, adding that it also can make needed infill development easier.
Housing developer Adam Berger speaks at Thursday’s roundtable.
Business getting into zoning debates
In addition to land-use codes, builders must overcome an increasingly organized and powerful group of state residents who are concerned about overbuilding despite the existing housing shortage, sometimes called the “Not In My Back Yard” crowd. Littleton voters, for example, passed an initiative in Tuesday’s election that will make it difficult for the city to change zoning to accommodate denser development without significant approval from the general population.
Kami Welch, president/CEO of the Greater Arvada Chamber of Commerce, has created a program of housing advocacy that helps employers who are struggling to find potential residences for their workers to be able to make their case for new building. By hearing from business leaders, both residents and government leaders can get a sense for how important a community proposal may be for economic development and consider that aspect when debating a zoning change or a permit.
“This big shift has seen our business community playing a more active role in this process,” Welch said.
Housing efforts must address insurance
Attendees participate in Thursday’s housing roundtable at the Colorado Chamber of Commerce.
Colorado Association of Home Builders CEO Ted Leighty voiced support for many of the initiatives but also noted that any strategy intended to close a 106,000-home need gap will need to involve increased construction of market-priced housing as well.
Finally, to truly make homes more affordable, the state must address the rising cost of insurance, which is accelerating as property insurers have posted an average annual loss of 22% over the past 10 years because of rising claims as well. To address that, the state must go beyond its initial efforts to promote mitigation efforts to make homes more wildfire- and hail-proof and must offer homeowners and home builders financial aid to make these upfront changes in order to reduce long-term costs, they said.
Legislators are scheduled to gavel in for the 2026 session on Jan. 14, and affordable housing once again is expected to be one of the top items for both parties’ agendas. With land-use reform underway, it will be notable to see which levers state officials, working with the private sector, seek to pull next.