An update on: "72,000 more housing units in Lafayette?"
Here's the latest
On March 19, 2024, I wrote Are You Kidding Me? 72,000 more housing units in Lafayette? House Bill 24-1313. What you should know.
I followed it up on March 25th with Questions about HB 24-1313? No wonder.
Since then I’ve been waiting for a public update to the council from the city staff. Seeing no such update, last November I emailed our Long Range Planning Manager Philip Kleisler to ask about it. He gave me some information about what’s going on and I have been planning to write about it since then. But because it’s quite a shocking topic I didn’t want to bring it up right before the start of the holiday season. Talking about the possible addition of massive numbers of housing while you were eating pumpkin pie and then candy canes seemed like cruel and unusual punishment. So I held off. Then along came the Kensington Lafayette Marketplace project and my focus turned there.
But how long can I wait? Let’s get back to this house bill. I’ll give a rundown for new readers and remind the rest of us what the first draft meant to Lafayette. Our city staff analyzed the bill in detail and in March 2024 presented to the council the effect it would have on Lafayette. Since then I have received additional information I want to share with you. The gist of the bill was to increase housing around transit areas.
MARCH 2024 STAFF ANALYSIS
Let’s look at this first and then where it stands now.
ACCORDING TO THE BILL LAFAYETTE IS A TRANSIT-ORIENTED COMMUNITY
The bill’s definition:
Lafayette is a member of the Denver Regional Council of Governments (DRCOG), a Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO).
Our population is 30,670.
Transit areas were defined as 1/4 mile from transit stations and transit corridors.
THE BILL REQUIRES
Zoning changes in the identified transit areas to allow 40 dwelling units per acre.
Some density numbers I was given in 2019 for comparison
Willoughby Corner was planned at 401 units (It’s 400 now). The site is 24.10 acres 401/24.10 = 16.64 dwelling units per acre (du/ac).
Coal Creek Village is 6.1 du/ac
South Pointe multi-family is 14.5 du/ac, single family is 2.7 du/ac
The Copperstone apartments near Exempla are 16 du/ac
Also required
The establishment of a Housing Opportunity Goal (HOG)
THE TRANSIT AREAS
The bill defined transit areas this way:
The 15-minute frequency for a bus route didn’t mean all day. There could be a route with a bus every two hours except during rush hour when there are two buses that are 15 minutes apart.
The Colorado Department of Transportation tells us that “Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) is a high quality, bus-based transit system designed to be more reliable, convenient, and faster than traditional bus service.”
STAFF ANALYSIS
Staff studied the bill and created this map identifying areas within 1/4 mile of a transit corridor or station.
OTHER REQUIREMENTS
The city must create strategies to address affordability and issues related to the displacement of residents.
Detailed and time-consuming reports must be filed with the state every three years in perpetuity.
STAFF POINTS FROM 2024
THIS WOULD ADD 72,000 ADDITIONAL DWELLING UNITS
12,718 was the number of housing units we had in March 2024
Staff did the math and determined this zoning would allow for an additional 72,000 housing units in Lafayette. 72,000! Add in areas that are eligible for annexation to Lafayette and it’s another 55,000.
THE PUNISHMENT
The bill said if we don’t submit to these requirements we won’t get any more highway funding and some legal action could be taken.
The argument in the bill went something like this: look we’ve spent a lot of money on transit but people aren’t using it enough so you have to build more housing near these transit areas to get us more riders. It used numbers from Minneapolis, Portland, and Seattle to show their ridership was higher. Here’s a quote from the bill. “Allowing higher density residential development near transit is important for increasing transit ridership and improving the cost effectiveness of transit services”
CITY STAFF WORKED ON GETTING CHANGES TO THE BILL
Before the bill passed, staff in our planning department worked with the state and some changes were made. (I expect other communities did too, but I only know about ours) The highway dollars punishment was removed and changes to the transit corridors language were made before the bill passed. This made a difference.
OK, WHERE WE ARE NOW? DOWN TO 36,000, HALF OF THE ORIGINAL NUMBER
Here’s the response I received from our Long Range Planning Manager Philip Kleisler when I asked for an update on November 7, 2024.
Hello Karen, and thanks for reaching out. I'm meeting with the state tomorrow afternoon to discuss some technical details of that law. I'll follow up with you afterwards to share where we’re at and what to expect next.
NOVEMBER 8, 2024
Hello Karen,
Thanks again for reaching out. The state recently published the Transit-Oriented Communities maps here, which identify a “transit corridor” primarily along S. Boulder Road.
We’re currently engaging with the state to develop a model for calculating our Housing Opportunity Goal (“HOG”). This involves analyzing properties within the transit corridor to determine exemptions from the law’s requirements. Non-exempt land must be zoned to allow, on average, 40 dwelling units per acre. Additionally, we can transfer some of the housing requirements from S. Boulder Road to other areas within “optional transit areas” (see below); that could reduce the intensity along portions of S. Boulder Road. Given the complexity of the law, we anticipate that significant staff time and community engagement will be required for implementation.
We expect to finalize our local HOG calculation in the first quarter of next year, once the state releases guidance in February. Once complete, we'll update council and the community. Fortunately, we anticipate the HOG requirement to be roughly half of what was originally anticipated.
We're also starting to address other state laws that take effect next summer (e.g., accessory dwelling units, parking minimums). I'm happy to discuss those in more detail if you're interested.
Key Dates:
· Sept. 30, 2024: State issues transit areas map
· Feb. 28, 2025: HOG state guidance issued
· June 30, 2025: Preliminary TOC assessment report due. State issues displacement guidance and affordability strategies menu.
· Dec. 31, 2026: HOG report due, including evidence of compliance. Also due: insufficient water supply report, affordability strategies, displacement strategies.
· Dec. 31, 2027: Deadline to implement bill (otherwise deemed “non-certified”)
DECEMBER 20, 2024
I contacted staff with some questions about the Kensington Lafayette Marketplace project and received this update from Planner Kleisler.
“State Laws: Also, just to follow up on a previous exchange, we're aiming to have some compiled information about the implementation of the state planning laws in March (the state is releasing guidance documents in late February). We’ll likely create a Lafayette Listens page to relay that information and be a hub for online engagement for some of the bills. We're planning to present that information to council at its work session on March 25. I'll also let you know when that page goes live.”
JANUARY 13, 2025
Hi Karen,
I’m reaching out to let you know that the legislative update scheduled for the March 25 council workshop was moved to the March 4 council meeting. We'll be talking about different bills and what to expect this year. Let me know if you have any questions before then. Have a great week!
Phil
He also shared this:
“The state transit bill is taking quite a bit of work. I’m looking at each property in the area to determine if they can be considered “exempt”, as defined by the bill, and thus lower that number. At this point we’re aiming to reduce your number by half, though some of that is dependent on the state approving our analysis. The bill also allows the City to make a case for that number to be lowered or the requirements be deferred due to our water supply, so we will be exploring that avenue too.
Feel free to reach out if you need more information.
Phil”
SO THERE YOU HAVE IT
We are looking at state-required zoning changes to allow for an additional 36,000 dwelling units. Staff is spending “quite a bit of work” going property by property within the identified transit areas to see if they can be considered exempt and reduce that number. Yikes. Let’s hope they find many. They will also be looking at it through a water supply lens. Shout out to Phil for being so responsive and sending me information to share with you all.
Stay tuned for more updates. I also want to dive back into the water reports because I’ve been thinking about how they relate to developments. I have a bit of math to look at that will hopefully back up my thinking.
Want to offer more support? Awesome!
I have been talking, writing, screaming, and freaking out about this legislation since way before it passed, and I have been shocked and outraged at the amount of apathy about it and even support for it. Something that would nearly triple the size of our city population, hike our taxes, deplete our resources and services, and decimate the quality of life for our current residents, and there were mostly crickets as the governor and the state legislature rammed this bill through without any insight into it’s disturbing consequences. The absolute audacity of lawmakers to choose to completely over run small communities and decide to turn them into monstrosities as some kind of solution, to what? Low transit use? Lack of affordable housing? This “plan” is well beyond anything our small city could possibly even attain, much less tolerate. I’m wondering what the consequences would be to just completely ignoring the whole bill and going about our merry way, especially in comparison to the devastating and irreversible consequences of giving in to this dictatorial and inane legislation. I say we tell them to go F themselves and let the chips fall where they may!!
Lafayette should coordinate with other cities that are impacted negatively by this absurd legislation and sue the state. This is asinine, dictatorial, usurption of excellent local planning that Lafayette has accomplished!