LAKEWOOD — Voters in Colorado’s fifth-largest city on Tuesday approved a cap on residential construction that will be among the strictest in the metro area.
Almost 53 percent of the tally, or 18,771 votes, was in favor versus 47 percent, or 16,913 votes, against, according to results released by the Jefferson County clerk’s office at 10:30 p.m. Only 587 overseas and military ballots had yet to be counted in Tuesday’s special election.
Question 200 limits the construction of new homes and apartments each year to no more than 1 percent of the existing housing stock in the city and would require City Council approval of large development proposals. Cathy Kentner, who led the fight for 200, was pleased the measure passed nearly two years after she first started pushing for it.
“I hope this encourages other people in other communities and other people in Lakewood to press their issues with elected bodies and if their voices are not heeded, to exercise their right to direct democracy,” she said.
Lakewood Mayor Adam Paul, who opposed Question 200, said now it’s time to figure out how to implement the initiative in terms of land-use decisions the city needs to make. But he worried about potential unintended consequences of the new law, which takes effect immediately.
“I worry about affordability and the projects that were started or were about to be started,” he said.
The measure has been in the works for nearly two years, having faced multiple court challenges to the way petition signatures for the initiative were gathered and to the very constitutionality of the measure. It comes at a time when development has been on a tear in the Denver metro area for the better part of a decade, leading to escalating home values — though prices have cooled off in the last year — and challenges to finding affordable housing.
Backers of the measure say the cap is needed to slow down the construction of higher-end multifamily projects in Lakewood. One of the primary stipulations of Question 200 is that City Council must give explicit approval to any project that has at least 40 units. Opponents argue that restricting new construction will only exacerbate affordability in available housing in the city of 155,000.
Based on Lakewood’s current housing stock of about 67,000 residential units, Question 200 would permit fewer than 700 new homes to be built per year.
And that’s just fine with Ken Swanson, a 32-year resident of Lakewood who says all the recent construction in his neighborhood has him “living next to hell right now.” He was one of several people interviewed by The Denver Post dropping off their ballots at Lakewood City Hall late Tuesday who voted yes on 200.
He said there are 87 townhomes and a 200-unit apartment building going up right around his single-family house at Holland Street and 13th Avenue, near one of the stops on the W-Line light rail line.
“Big high-rises with high density,” Swanson said. “Every little spot is being developed and the city can’t keep up with it. I just want them to slow down.”
Tracey Blustein, who calls a townhouse in Belmar home, is worried about losing green spaces in Lakewood. She also doesn’t want to see people priced out of the city. She voted yes to limiting growth.
“I’m concerned about overdevelopment — I’ve seen what’s happened in Denver and it’s pushed people out,” she said.
After the initiative was placed on the ballot by the Lakewood City Council in April following months of legal battling in court over the measure’s validity, money began to pour in — mostly to defeat it. The National Association of Realtors topped the list of donors with $200,000 going into issue committee Lakewood United’s coffers. The Colorado Association of Realtors and the Associated General Contractors of Colorado put in $25,000 each to defeat Question 200.
As of the last campaign finance filing deadline June 25, opponents of Question 200 held a nearly 25-to-1 fundraising advantage over supporters of the measure — $451,000 versus approximately $18,000.
Lakewood is not the first city to float a limit on new home construction in the metro area. Golden has had its own annual threshold on new homes for more than two decades — a policy that Question 200 proponents used as a model for their efforts.
The Front Range’s population has exploded in recent years — growth rates in metro-area counties from 2010 to 2018 have ranged from 10.7 percent in Boulder County to 20.1 percent in Douglas County. The rate in Jefferson County, where Lakewood is located, was 8.5 percent during that period.
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Earlier this year, a bill was introduced at the legislature that would have allowed local governments to implement rent control for the first time in decades, as rental rates have steadily climbed over the past decade. The bill, which would have repealed a 1981 law that prevents cities and counties from controlling rent on private houses and housing units, died at the end of April.
A ballot measure for a more widespread housing cap effort — which would impose a 1 percent cap on new homes throughout metro Denver for 2021 and 2022 — is moving its way through the Colorado Secretary of State’s elections division. A title board review hearing for Initiative 109, Limits on Local Housing Growth, is scheduled for Wednesday.
If approved, signature gathering could begin to get Initiative 109 on to the November ballot.
An effort to get a similar measure on to the ballot last year failed when the signature-gathering effort sputtered before it ever started.
