A growth-control ballot measure that would severely curtail the construction of new homes and apartments along the Front Range likely won’t go before voters, after its chief cheerleader conceded he’s abandoning the effort for now.
Daniel Hayes, whose Initiative 66 would limit residential building permits in Adams, Arapahoe, Boulder, Broomfield, Denver, Douglas, El Paso, Jefferson, Larimer and Weld counties to 1 percent of current housing stock for the next two years, told The Denver Post he “never started” the signature gathering process.
“Was told I was too late to get it on. Maybe next year,” he wrote late last week in a brief email response to several questions about the initiative’s future.
He didn’t say whether he was planning to formally withdraw the measure, which had triggered strident opposition from the real estate and homebuilding industry after it was first announced in February.
Lynn Bartels, a spokeswoman for the Colorado Secretary of State’s Office, said Initiative 66 “is still on our official list of potential proposals for the Nov. 6 election, but that doesn’t mean it will wind up on the ballot.”
“In some cases, backers never turn in signatures or fall short if they do,” she said Friday.
The initiative needs more than 98,000 signatures by Aug. 6 to make the November ballot.
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Hayes, a Golden resident who has worked on slow-growth measures before, told The Post earlier this year that the cities with the most measured growth have the highest-paying jobs.
“You can’t say that rapid growth has kept housing prices down,” he said in a February interview. “There is no affordable housing now.”
Hayes was facing strong opposition in his quest to find success at the ballot box. Just recently, opposition committee Coloradans for Responsible Reform issued a news release saying a poll it commissioned revealed only 36 percent support for Initiative 66.
“There are growing pains associated with Colorado’s red-hot economy, but voters don’t see in Initiative 66 any legitimate answers to their concerns over traffic, schools and housing availability,” said Ted Leighty, the committee’s chair and CEO of the Colorado Association of Home Builders.
A housing study from Shift Research Labs released in January estimated that metro Denver faces a shortfall this year of about 32,000 homes and apartments due to inadequate amount of construction.
That shortage is driving up homes prices and apartment rents above income gains, fueling inflation and straining finances. Households with income under $50,000 a year are collectively spending $2 billion more a year than if supply and demand had stayed in balance, the study estimated.
Initiative 66 bears similarities to a growth control measure in Lakewood that was being proposed for last year’s ballot until it ran into legal challenges. A hearing before a Jefferson County judge on that stalled initiative is scheduled for June 27.
