Authored by Heidi Williams, President & CEO, Civic Results and Executive Director, Metro Mayors Caucus
Across Colorado, and really, across the country, local leaders are hearing the same thing: We need more housing and housing is too expensive!
The harder question is: How do we actually need to build it?
Much of the housing conversation has focused on zoning. And zoning matters. Communities should look at whether their codes allow the types of homes people need, including duplexes, triplexes, quadplexes, townhomes and other “missing middle” options.
In the Denver metro region, we’ve learned that changing zoning does not automatically produce housing.
A property can be zoned perfectly and still sit empty if financing doesn’t work, infrastructure is too expensive, construction costs are too high, the approval process is unpredictable or the community opposes the project.
That realization inspired me to create the Future Housing Coalition, bringing together people from across the housing world to focus on the question: What does it take to actually get homes built?
Get Everyone at the Same Table
Housing is a system, but we often try to solve it one piece at a time.
Cities talk about zoning and permitting. Developers talk about costs and feasibility. Lenders talk about financing and risk. Residents worry about neighborhood impacts. State leaders talk about housing supply. The list goes on.
Everyone is talking about housing. They just aren’t always talking to each other.
The Future Housing Coalition brings together elected officials, planners, builders, developers, housing experts and finance partners around a simple idea: No single sector created the housing challenge, and no single sector can solve it.
Together, we are developing a practical toolkit focused on four areas: communications, the public sector, the private sector and financing options. Each piece matters, but they work best when they work together.
Give Communities Tools, Not Just Mandates
Local leaders do not need another report telling them they have a housing problem. They need practical tools they can use and adapt to their communities.
Our public sector toolkit developed model codes options, not mandates, for communities interested in expanding starter-homes and middle housing. In partnership with the Common Sense Institute (CSI), we started with single-family starter homes and have expanded to duplexes, triplexes, fourplexes and smaller cottage court style developments.
But zoning and model codes are only part of the equation.
We are also developing tools to help planners and smaller developers work better together. We try to address various questions including: How can cities create more flexibility and predictability? Where can expectations be clearer? How can developers better understand what a community needs before investing time and money in a project? What are the political rules of engagement with staff and elected officials?
And then there is financing. A proposed project can meet every planning/housing goal and still never break ground if there isn’t enough funding. Lenders and finance experts need to be part of the conversation from the beginning.
Community Engagement Matters
Anyone who has served in local government knows this story: Residents support affordable or attainable housing, until a project is proposed near their neighborhood.
Those concerns shouldn’t simply be dismissed. People want to know what new housing will look like, who will live there and what it will mean for traffic, property values and their neighborhood. That means engagement needs to happen before the public hearing.
We need to help residents see what these homes actually look like, understand who they serve and address common concerns with reliable and understandable data. Replacing assumptions about crime, property values and traffic with facts can help communities build support for housing for teachers, first responders, young families, older adults who want to downsize and the next generation who want to stay in the communities they call home.
Housing becomes much more personal when we stop talking only about units and density and start talking about people.
One Size Does Not Fit All
The Denver metro region includes large cities, mature suburbs, rapidly growing communities and smaller municipalities. We recognize that what works in one place may not work in another, and that’s okay.
The Future Housing Coalition is not trying to prescribe one housing policy for every city. We want to give local leaders a menu of tools and ideas they can use to build solutions that work for their communities.
We also want communities to learn from each other. If one city finds a better way to approve housing, work with builders, engage residents or structure financing, why reinvent the wheel?
No community operates in isolation.
Housing markets don’t stop at city boundaries, and neither do our residents. People cross those boundaries every day to work, go to school, shop and visit family. When one community struggles with housing, the economic impacts ripple throughout the region.
From Policy to Homes
There is no single policy that will solve the housing crisis. But that may also be where the opportunity lies.
Local governments don’t have to solve every piece themselves. We can bring the right people together, remove unnecessary barriers, improve predictability, communicate better with residents and share what is working with one another.
So maybe the question isn’t just:
“What housing do we allow?”
Maybe the better question is:
“What will it take to actually get that housing built?”
That is the question behind the Future Housing Coalition — and one we hope more communities across the country will start asking together.
We’re also taking this work beyond the toolkit. Over the next six months, we’ll host a six-session housing series in partnership with the Denver Regional Council of Governments (DRCOG), Colorado Housing and Finance Authority (CHFA) and Common Sense Institute. The series will bring local leaders and housing partners together to dig deeper into the challenges, explore practical solutions and share what’s working across our region. Most importantly, we’ll focus on how we move from good housing policy to actually getting homes built. We’re excited to keep the conversation going and move housing forward in meaningful, collaborative ways across Colorado.
Learn More
Get more information about the Future Housing Coalition and its upcoming housing series.
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