8 The Independent
February 10, 2022
ASPEN GROVE FROM PAGE 1
pushed back, circulating a petition that garnered more than 4,200 signatures, 3,729 of which were found to be valid by the city clerk’s office . “I canvassed for the citizens’ petition and talked to a lot of people,” said Lynn Christensen, who lives in Littleton’s northeast District 3, during a public comment portion of the Feb. 1 council meeting. “I can count on one hand the number of people who would not sign the petition.” With the signatures exceeding the required threshold of 3,588, council members were forced during the meeting to either rescind the rezoning or punt it to an election, ultimately landing on the latter. “This issue should go to the citizens,” said District 2 Councilmember Jerry Valdes, who in January told Colorado Community Media he had signed the petition. “I think the citizens can make informed decisions after they study the facts.”
HOUSING FROM PAGE 7
can be loaned out again, making this a permanent pot of funding. This money could be used to fill gaps in the finance plans for affordable projects that already have other backing too. It also could support Gov. Jared Polis’ plans for incorporating green energy in affordable housing. • $150 million in grants for nonprofits and local governments for affordable housing. This could include gap financing, maintenance, rental assistance, and more. • $35 million to support land banks, resident-owned mobile home communities and more. • $40 million for an “innovative housing incentive program” that will support the prefabricated housing industry, from mobile home construction to 3D printing and other technologies that can speed up construction while lowering the cost. • $25 million for a “middle income access program” that will support housing development for people mak-
Valdes was one of four councilmembers at the time who voted to approve the plans. The petition’s success highlights the contention many residents feel over high-density housing, which they said would worsen traffic congestion and possibly affect neighbouring open spaces. Gerrity’s proposal included a reduction in the shopping center’s commercial space, from roughly 268,000 square feet to a minimum of 125,000, to accommodate for up to 2,000 new residential units. It would have also increased some building heights to a maximum of 85 feet, something residents also rebuked. The rezoning proposal came as Aspen Grove continued to weather years of declining sales tax revenue that was exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Adding new housing was seen as a bid by the developers and some councilmembers as a way to bolster the area’s economic activity. But several residents said a reduction in commercial space would do the opposite. “Citizens said no to 2,000 units
and a 50% decrease in commercial space,” Christensen said. Pam Chadbourne, who lives in northwest Littleton’s District 1, said the reduction in commercial space should be a “non-starter for this council.” “We should value and nourish a vibrant commercial environment in the city, not sacrifice commercial to residential,” she said. Chadbourne also said if the city were to rezone an area for residential, it should include a mandatory amount of below-market-rate affordable housing, which Gerrity’s proposal currently does not. Though most councilmembers voiced an openness to letting city residents ultimately decide the mall’s fate, some implied that there may be misinformation about the concept, though they did not specify what they meant. “There’s some stuff out there that maybe isn’t as factual as it should be,” Valdes said. District 4 Councilmember Kelly Milliman, whose southwest district is home to Aspen Grove, said Gerrity should be given an opportunity to
make another case for the rezoning before an election is held. “I know that there were some mistruths or misleading information to some folks that signed this petition,” she said. Newer councilmembers who were not part of the November vote to approve the plans said they supported letting the citizens decide. “People want to hear what the citizens want to think, and I think it’s our job to put that forward,” said Stephen Barr, councilmember for southeast Littleton’s District 3. Councilmembers signaled that they supported holding an election on Nov. 8 in an effort to coordinate with the county during the 2022 midterms. This would cost the city around $20,000 to $26,000, according to City Clerk Colleen Norton. If the city chooses to host its own special election at a different time, it could cost as much as $65,000, Norton said. “Forty thousand dollars as a difference, I have more ideas for where to spend that money,” said Mayor Pro Tem Gretchen Rydin, councilmember at-large. “To be fiscally responsible is important here to consider.”
ing up to 120 percent of an area’s median income. This “missing middle” group is generally excluded from the main federal program that supports affordable housing. The task force endorsed two other strategies focused specifically on homelessness, though it endorsed them as good ideas. Those proposals support the construction of more permanent supportive housing and the conversion of motels and hotels into transitional or long-term housing for people recovering from homelessness, incarceration and more. They could receive federal funding under recommendations from other groups focused on behavioral health and economic recovery, Roberts said. The housing group chose to focus money instead on quickly producing more housing overall, Zenzinger said. Democrats praised the plan as a consensus bipartisan effort; there were four Republican lawmakers on the task force, along with six Democrats, plus government agency leaders and a subpanel of housing experts. But no Republican lawmakers spoke at the press conference on Monday.
“Our members were invited and told they wouldn’t be able to speak. We’re not interested in photo ops for their campaigns while they put our bills in the kill committee,” said Sage Naumann, spokesman for the Senate Republicans, in a text message. Democrats said they didn’t invite Republican speakers because they wanted to keep the press conference short by limiting speaking roles to the housing and behavioral health groups’ chairs and vice chairs, who are Democrats. While it’s set to be a record investment in housing, this funding also comes as construction costs are running high amid a hot economy. The task force warned that its recommendations couldn’t reverse the housing crunch, which has been driven in part by a sharp drop in housing construction in the 2010s, economic inequity and the ongoing influx of new residents from even more expensive regions of the country. “We know that the recommendations in this report will not solve Colorado’s affordable housing crisis completely but we believe they will be a transformational step forward,”
the report states. Separately, the behavioral health plan also would divide its funding among several priorities, including: • $110 million for children, youth and family services. • $65 million for adult inpatient and residential care. • $65 million to steer people away from being arrested or jailed with early intervention and other strategies. • $80 million to expand the workforce for the state’s behavioral health system. • $44 million to improve the coordination of care in the behavioral health system, among other priorities. • $35 million to integrate primary care with behavioral health care. • $35 million in grants to local governments and other organizations to address gaps in care. • $5 million to renovate the Southern Ute behavioral health facility.
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This story is from CPR News, a nonprofit news source. Used by permission. For more, and to support Colorado Public Radio, visit cpr.org.
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