Arvada Press 011923

Our in-depth look at the housing crisis

Trickling

BY TAYLER SHAW AND LUKE ZARZECKI COLORADO COMMUNITY MEDIA

A home means everything to Shelley Gilson, a 50-year-old single mother of three girls who works as a guest service agent at an airline.  “It’s one word: priceless,” she

said.

e rising cost of housing in the Denver area has made it di cult for her to a ord a home. She spent years bounding around working for low pay, including to several a ordable housing communities across the state.

Eventually, more than a decade ago, she found a home at Orchard Crossing Apartments in Westminster. It is an a ordable housing community that includes Section 8 housing, the federal government program that provides vouchers to low-income families, the disabled and elderly.

Arvada City Council holds executive sessions on homelessness, Je erson Parkway

BY RYLEE DUNN RDUNN@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM

Editor’s note: Arvada’s City Council held a discussion on homelessness on Jan. 9. Coverage of that discussion, along with input from community leaders not included in the study session, will appear in the Jan. 26 edition of the Arvada Press.

While Arvada City Council was busy on Jan. 9, they did most of their work away from the dais.

In addition to their regular business meeting, council held a study session on homelessness with members from the Arvada Police Department and city team and engaged in two executive sessions, which are not open to the public.

One executive session focused on receiving legal advice related to questions arising from the homelessness study session. The other was held for the purpose of receiving instructions related to Broomfield’s withdrawal from the Jefferson Parkway project.

City Attorney Rachel Morris said that the Jefferson Parkway executive session would see council reviewing the proposed terms of a potential resolution between member entities. Jefferson County and the City of Arvada sued the City and County of Broomfield in June 2022, and Arvada Marc Williams said at the time he hoped the dispute could be settled before going to trial.

Council also unanimously resolved to have the Arvada Police Department join the Colorado Auto Theft Prevention Authority/ Metropolitan Auto Theft Task Force, also known at C-MATT.

“In 2016, a number of agencies in the metro area entered into an intergovernmental agreement to form the Colorado Auto Theft Prevention Authority/ Metropolitan Auto Theft Task Force, force or C-

Mangiami’s brings Detroit-style pizza to Olde Town

BY RYLEE DUNN RDUNN@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM

Mangiami’s, the latest addition to Olde Town Arvada’s dining scene, features a mission — Italian fusion featuring Detroit-style pizza — encapsulated by a simple name:“Eat me.”

True to form, the latest endeavor from Owners Olivia and Nicholas Allmond — the latter of whom serves as the restaurant’s head chef — serves up innovative yet comforting fare that invites diners to do exactly what the name suggests.

In addition to ve Detroit-style pizzas and a build-your-own pizza option, the eatery will o er homemade minestrone soup, a rustic pot roast with a demiglace mushroom reduction, homemade mashed potatoes and roasted heirloom carrots.

“We are going to be Italian fusion, as I guess you could say, with Detroit-style pizza,” Olivia said. “And Detroit-style pizza is going to be like a square deep dish, a crispy, buttery, airy crust. We’re both from Detroit. So, it’s kind of like our home, our home pizza that we grew up on. So yeah, I wanted to bring it into town.” e restaurant’s décor features

the Allmond’s art collection and poster collection — Nicholas points out a poster from a Phish show he and Olivia went to while she was pregnant — and includes references to 90’s pop culture — the napkins are stylized to resemble the Notorious B.I.G.’s trademark bandana. House spaghetti is appropriately titled “Mom’s spaghetti” in a nod to Eminem.

“Art is a big thing, and avor,” Nicholas said. “Culinary arts; we’re trying to get art in our music, art on our walls, art on your plate.”

e Allmonds previously owned and operated popular Olde Town vegan restaurant Urban Beets, which closed in 2021. While the pair are still vegetarians, Mangiami’s menu is not, and instead is 33% vegan, 33%

vegetarian and 33% carnivore.

Nicholas said that incorporating meet into the menu has been a “balancing act,” but that a collaborative kitchen sta — including two former Urban Beets Chefs; Alex Zikowitzy and Kevin Cooper — have helped switch up decades-old recipes.

“It’s been a balancing act of trying to gure out where we can sneak meat into our menu and do it in a way where we don’t have to sacrice too many animals,” Nicholas said. “And we can still appease all of our meat-eating friends. So that’s really where it started. We have so many recipes here in our database, but they’re going to be vegetarian or vegan. So now it really becomes, ‘How do we incorporate some dishes for our friends that we wouldn’t necessarily?’”

“I have a great team,” Nicholas continued. “And some of them are meat eaters, and they’re happy to kind of pitch in. Some of my favorite foods are meat foods. I am still tasting the foods. I am still writing the recipes with my chefs and critiquing them. Just because I’m not consuming them doesn’t mean I don’t have my eye all over them. And sharing excellence on our plate. I may not

like it, but we got to do it.”

While some of the o erings at Mangiami’s, like the all’ amatriciana — a braised pancetta red sauce — are newer additions to Nicholas’ recipe book, his marinara recipe has been in the works for over 20 years, since he was in college outside of Detroit. us, he says, the restaurant’s menu features a mix of nely re ned favorites and heavily workshopped new experiments.

Both Allmonds say they hope Mangiami’s appeals to a wider customer base than Urban Beets did but would also like the eatery to stand out in the Olde Town scene.

“I hope that we’re just di erent,” Nicholas said. “Completely di erent. I will not stab at anyone; I love a lot of places around here. But the goal wasn’t to make something that everyone else was accustomed to. We’re trying to be di erent here.

“We’re trying to incorporate, you know, Biggie Smalls bandanas, china, and ne food, you know, it’s a little oxymoronic,” Nicholas continued. “I don’t think it makes sense. And that is kind of the point, it almost makes no sense. And it doesn’t really t in here. And that’s part of the beauty of it.”

Mangiami’s homemade pesto Detroit-style pizza.

PHOTO BY RYLEE DUNN

The interior of Italian fusion restaurant Mangiami’s in Arvada. COURTESY OF OLIVIA ALLMOND

Italian fusion restaurant by Olivia and Nicholas Allmond hosts grand opening

FROM

MATT,” Gillis said. “CMATT’s goal is to enable participating agencies to more effectively investigate, apprehend and prosecute criminals involved in auto theft and auto theft-related crimes.”

C-MATT also includes the cities of Aurora, Englewood, Lakewood and Wheat Ridge; the City and County of Denver; The First and Second Judicial Districts of Colorado; Adams, Arapahoe and Jefferson Counties; and the State of Colorado.

Fannie Mae Requires Appraisers to Use a Measuring Standard Realtors Don’t Use

How we measure the gross living area of a home is important, but there is little consistency. Different websites may use different numbers for the same home, primarily because they tend to have only one field for square footage.

Below, I’ll write about Fannie Mae’s new rules for measuring homes, but it’s up to each real estate website operator which number it uses for square footage. For example, the web pages that we create for each of our listings has only one square footage field, so I choose to display finished square footage. Only the MLS (see box at right) has fields to distinguish between finished, unfinished, above-grade, basement and total square feet.

Zillow is an example of a website which features only the total square footage in each listing, even if half that area is unfinished basement space. It doesn’t show the breakdown of finished vs. unfinished space or basement vs. abovegrade space unless you click on a link titled “See more facts and features.”

Trulia, which is owned by Zillow, has a link “See all” which lists “finished area” if you scroll down far enough, but that’s all. I find this ironic, because both Trulia and Zillow provide a ton of information not found on the MLS, but they downplay or omit the most important detail of all — the breakdown of square footage.

Redfin, which gets the full feed from our MLS, also features only the total square feet and has no link that I could find which displays a breakdown. And, like both Trulia and Zillow, it prominently features “price per square foot,” but that figure is based on the total

Our

Prior Office

square feet, which is really misleading.

Golden Real Estate’s website, like those three, gets its active listings from the MLS, but our display is managed by the MLS, and all listings on our website use the finished square footage number, which is, I believe, the most useful number to use. But, once again, that’s the only square footage number that is displayed.

The MLS has its own consumer-facing website, which is www. REcolorado.com, where you can search for listings. On that site, the total square footage is featured, but scroll down and you see the following breakdown, which is as good as we agents see:

those numbers could be wrong.

Lenders, of course, want to know that the square footage is accurate and consistent, so recently Fannie Mae mandated that all appraisers follow the ANSI (American National Standards Institute) standard, which can result in appraisals which come up with different numbers than in the MLS listing on which the buyer relied.

The ANSI standards don’t allow for space with ceiling heights under 7’ to be

included in the gross living area, and the square footage of staircases can only be counted on the level from which the staircase descends. Also, if even part of a level is below grade, the entire level has to be counted as “basement,” which conflicts with MLS rules which say the lower level or a bi-level or tri-level home (which is at least partially below grade) can be counted as above-grade square footage. Listed comps in any appraisal, however, always include MLS numbers.

How Many Square Feet Is Your Home? That Depends...

There are three different square footage numbers for every MLS listing, and which of those figures is advertised on other websites can confuse buyers. So, here is a quick tutorial on square footage terminology..

Above-Grade square footage used to be called “Main” square footage or simply square footage without any modifier. As the new name suggests, it does not include basement square footage. But that begs the question, “what is a basement?”

ranch” home, the lower level is included in “above-grade” square footage for the same reason. (A “raised ranch” is defined as a home where you have to climb a flight of stairs to get to the “main” level. The “main” level is defined as the level with the kitchen.)

Finished square footage includes all the finished square feet, including in a basement. If the basement is unfinished (or there is no basement), this number will be the same as the “Above Grade” number.

On those other websites, you’d only see 3,166 square feet and $271/sq. ft. for the listing shown here.

The numbers provided above are entered by the listing agent. Our only obligation in providing them is to indicate the source, It could be from public records, or it could be from a prior appraisal. We could also measure it ourselves, but that is really unlikely. The only requirement is that we disclose the source. The safest choice is public records, but

on S. Golden Road Is For Sale

In a split-level home, the lower level, which is often below grade, is included as “above-grade” square footage, since there is frequently a basement below that level. In a “raised

Total square footage is what the name suggests, whether finished or unfinished. For a listing with a partially finished basement, all three square footage numbers will be different.

How to Avoid the Most Common Real Estate Mistakes

doesn’t have to share his commission, he (or she) should reduce their commission. That’s called a “variable commission.” Yet only 15% of listings on the MLS have a variable commission. Good for the agent, not so good for you!

The original office of Golden Real Estate and currently vacant, this unique 1,318square-foot office building at 17695 S. Golden Road (originally a restaurant) is powered by 20 kilowatts of solar panels, which more than meets the energy needs of the building in addition to charging up to three electric vehicles at three Level 2 charging stations. The monthly bill from Xcel Energy is $12.56. There is no natural gas service, because the building is heated and cooled by a state-of-the-art heat pump/ mini-split system powered by those solar panels. This is a true “net zero energy” building and was planned to be “The Net Zero Store,” but we decided to stick to real estate and sell the building. For a showing, call Jim Smith at 303-525-1851. You can take a narrated video tour and view interior and exterior photos at www.SouthGoldenBuilding.online

Mistake #1: Listing with a Friend or Relative It seems that we all know someone who is a real estate agent, and how do you not list your home with that friend or relative? The answer can be pretty simple. List with the right agent and have that agent pay a 25% referral fee to your friend or relative. They’ll earn a commission without doing any work, and you’ll get the better listing agent and possibly a higher price for your home.

Mistake #2: Not Having a Variable Commission When your listing agent

Mistake #3: Not Using the Same Agent to Buy/Sell When you’re buying a replacement home in the same market, choose the best agent for listing your home and have that agent reduce his or her commission in return for earning a commission on the purchase of your replacement home.

Jim Smith

Broker/Owner, 303-525-1851

Jim@GoldenRealEstate.com

$995,000

1214 Washington Ave., Golden 80401

Broker Associates:

JIM SWANSON, 303-929-2727

CHUCK BROWN, 303-885-7855

DAVID DLUGASCH, 303-908-4835

TY SCRABLE, 720-281-6783

GREG KRAFT, 720-353-1922

Arvada’s City Council (from left): John Marriott, Lisa Smith, David Jones, Marc Williams, Lauren Simpson, Randy Moorman, Bob Fifer.

PHOTO BY RYLEE DUNN

Je erson County o cials sworn in for new terms

Marinelli, Gonzalez begin first terms as Je co sheri , clerk & recorder

BY CORINNE WESTEMAN CWESTEMAN@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM

Sheri Regina “Reggie” Marinelli has no time to rest on her laurels, saying, “ ere’s work to be done.”

After winning the November election, Marinelli kicked o her rst term as sheri during the Jan. 10 Je erson County Swearing-In Ceremony.

Likewise, Clerk & Recorder Amanda Gonzalez and Surveyor Robert Hennessy started their rst terms Jan. 10, while four other county ocials began their second terms after being reelected in November.

e elected o cials remarked how important the occasion was, committing or recommitting themselves to improving the lives of Jeffco residents for the next four years.

Gonzalez thanked her family, friends and supporters for all their help during her rst-ever campaign. She said she ran for clerk & recorder to protect people’s right to vote and “make sure everyone’s voice is heard.”

Lesley Dahlkemper, who was reelected to a second term as District 3 county commissioner, was grateful for the voters’ trust in her. During her rst term, she and her col-

leagues were forced to charter unknown waters during the COVID-19 pandemic. She felt fortunate that Je co had such strong internal and external partners during that time, adding how collaboration in general is key to elected o cials’ work.

She and other elected o cials commended county sta members for their tireless e orts and innovation, with Dahlkemper saying they

make Je co what it is.

Treasurer Jerry DiTullio thanked his sta for weathering two years of budget cuts and COVID-19-related challenges. He also shared how his o ce is working with the state legislature to improve seniors and veterans’ lives.

“We’re working hard for the citizens of Je erson County,” he continued.

Coroner Annette Cannon also believed her sta ’s e orts usually go unseen and unheard because of the nature of their work. During her rst term, her sta had to handle the pandemic, the opioid epidemic, mass fatalities, sta ng shortages and budget cuts, and other harrowing circumstances. She praised their very critical work and dedication, adding how her sta members make all the di erence.

As they start new jobs or new terms, the elected o cials re ected on how much serving Je co means to them.

Marinelli shared how she hadn’t considered how important becoming Je co’s rst female sheri would be, until several people told her on Election Night how much it meant to them — how their daughters could become anything they wanted.

She said she doesn’t take this job lightly, especially given how di cult the past few years have been for those in law enforcement.

Assessor Scot Kersgaard, quoting other public gures, described elected o ce as “where poetry meets prose, where vision meets action.”

He described how, four years ago, on his rst day as assessor, someone asked if he planned to run for reelection. Only one day into his new job and with reelection four years out, the question took him aback.

Ultimately, he responded: “If I’m having fun.”

By Thornton Wilder } Directed by Geoffrey Kent

Sheri Regina “Reggie” Marinelli takes the oath of o ce during the Jan. 10 Je erson County Swearing-In Ceremony. Marinelli, who’s been with the Je co Sheri ’s Department for 36 years, was elected to her first term as sheri in November. She’s also the first woman to hold the o ce.

PHOTO BY CORINNE WESTEMAN

El Rancho reopens after getting its liquor license

BY DEB HURLEY BROBST DBROBST@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM

El Rancho restaurant has opened. e restaurant, which had a soft opening Jan. 11, got its liquor license from Je erson County on Jan. 13 and opened that day, according to Olivia Mo ett, a spokeswoman for Bonanno Concepts, which is operating the restaurant.

Denver restaurateurs Frank and Jacqueline Bonanno, who own seven restaurants in the Denver area, will operate the historic restaurant to be called El Rancho Colorado that closed abruptly last summer.

e dinner menu includes a bit of everything: comfort food, wild game, steaks, sandwiches, a touch of Mexican and things chef Frank Bonanno is having fun playing with, Mo ett explained. ere’s also a big salad bar.

It is open for dinner Wednesdays through Sundays, with live music on Friday and Saturday nights. Breakfast, brunch and lunch will be added, and the brewery should be operating soon.

“We will work our way to a sevenday schedule but with no real timeline,” Mo ett said. “We will have to see how sta ng goes.”

Mo ett promises that El Rancho looks much like patrons remember with a few updates such as reupholstered chairs and more art.

“We’re put tiny new touches on it,” she said. “We’re proud of how it’s come together.”

El Rancho is celebrating its 75th year, and it’s exciting to be part of the next era of history, Mo ett said, noting, “We want to do it right.”

History e El Rancho restaurant opened in a log cabin in 1947. In 1953, a banquet room and gift shop were added, plus it became designated as a post o ce. When Interstate 70 was being built in the mid-1960s, the owners convinced the Colorado highway department to name the exit “El Rancho.”

According to Golden History Park and Museum, El Rancho is said to have the most photographed view of the Continental Divide in America.

El Rancho has had several owners over the last few decades, and the owners who bought the property in 2015 abruptly closed the restaurant this past summer after a nasty battle over the restaurant’s management.

In November, Jack and Sherry Buchanan of Evergreen with Northstar Ventures and Travis McAfoos bought the El Rancho property for $2.7 million, and they signed a lease and operating agreement with Bonanno Concepts.

Northstar Ventures will not be involved in the restaurant’s operation. Instead, it will focus on working to develop the parcel across the street from El Rancho.

Meet Kane!

Kane (#270296) Kane is such a cutie. He has enjoyed socializing with other dogs and borrows comfort from their companionship. Having a canine counterpart will ease the stress this boy is feeling during his transition into his new home. Our volunteers tell us he walks confidently and at times energetically, enjoys showing off his pretty sits for treats. He is very attentive and will love an active household.

FoothillsAnimalShelter.org info@fas4pets.org

Cars filled the parking lot on Jan. 11 at El Rancho Colorado as the new operators, Bonanno Concepts, held a soft opening.

PHOTOS BY DEB HURLEY BROBST

Bartenders wait behind the bar to create beverages for guests.

District Attorney’s o ce tells of the past year and looks to the future

BY ANDREW FRAIELI AFRAIELI@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM

“I don’t think I ever planned on coming into o ce with a global pandemic happening,” said Colorado First Judicial District Attorney Alexis King. With it came challenges to how courtrooms operated, jails handled booking and a backlog of cases for the DA’s o ce.

But it also brought transparency to the o ce and new programs to keep people from ending up in court in the rst place. Moving into the new year, King told of cold cases being solved, backlogs dissipating and what she hopes to achieve in 2023 during a recent interview with Colorado Community Media.

What actually caused the backlog of cases during COVID-19 was not what most people thought, she said, but “because we could not put enough people in the same room for jury selection, especially in major cases.” While she said the DA’s o ce has gotten back on track in the last six months, it did bring some positive change.

Since jails in Je erson County are still su ering from COVID-19 outbreaks, people with charges have been, and are, attending court through video streaming rather than in person, forcing a break in what King described as traditionally rigid schedules and expectations in the courts. is has allowed people who may want to support those with charges in court to tune in rather

than have to visit court in person, she explained, as people may not be able to take a day o . It’s also allowed more exibility to DA o ce sta who may be sick or at home.

“At the end of the day I do think it has increased accessibility,” King said.

e DA’s o ce has also launched multiple preemptive programs this past year to keep people from entering court in the rst place.

Called the Pathways Diversion Program, it aims to resolve issues before cases are even led. One example she gives is uninsured or unlicensed drivers.

“One of the biggest things we battle is actually folks who don’t have insurance or don’t have their driver’s license,” she said. “In that courthouse, many, many people are coming through the doors because of those issues. And many, many, people are picking up warrants because of those issues, and they’re the kind of issues that snowball.”

e program o ers navigation to work with the DMV to get relicensed if they can, and to get insured, investing in those costs rather than a cycle of nes and fees, she said.

Internally, the DA’s o ce has also worked on transparency, launching a Data Transparency Dashboard.

King explained that she and her counterpart in Arapahoe county, George Brauchler, worked to create a public-facing database with basic information on the number of cases, un led cases, how people have pled

guilty, sentences and race and ethnicity data.

“We really wanted to have more data internally, and also more data externally,” King said. “We felt these were all things incredibly important for the community to be able to access.”

Eight other o ces are joining the database as well, she elaborated.

To King, the major internal advantage of the database is having all the data in one place and being able to analyze it. With that, she said a disparity analysis will be released to the public in February.

“It’s kind of an in-depth look at race and ethnicity at key decision points where DA’s hold a lot of in uence, and what happens,” she explained. “Sharing data, and leadership, all require vulnerability. It only has meaning if everyone can have an informed conversation around what’s actually happening.”

Looking toward the upcoming year, the o ce is working with the Equity Project — an organization that helps organizations advance equity e orts — to create “actionable steps” from the disparity analysis, King said.

“ at is internal, but it will a ect external work because we are in the people business,” she elaborated. “What we do is impact people outside this o ce.”

Starting July 1, due to Colorado’s Enhance Law Enforcement Integrity Act passed in 2020, all local law enforcement agencies and the Colorado state patrol must be issued body-worn cameras. Another major goal for 2023, according to King, is how to utilize the thousands of body-worn cameras that will be coming online.

“We want to be able to utilize all that data e ectively, and that is a massive amount of data,” she said. Part of that utilization is an analysis of the data to better the DA’s o ce.

“Every DA in this building wants to make sure they’re doing the right thing, and that’s very communityde ned,” King said. And this data could help nd that de nition, along with the disparity analysis to “de ne the right thing as far as justice goes.”

King also explained that having

FRAIELI

precise data helps when asking for funding, and it allows for precise conversations about issues a ecting Je erson County.

“I feel like we can have more informed conversations about what matters to Je co, as opposed to having conversations that are more maybe even Denver-centric,” she explained. “Where we can say look, this is what the issue is here in Je co, and these are numbers you can rely upon.”

King’s personal goals as DA for this year are still embedded in data, wanting to not just use body-camera footage and the o ce’s dashboard as a diagnostic tool, but for something more. What that is yet, she doesn’t know. She also wants to work on sta retention.

“It’s not the easiest to convince people that the DA right now is the place to be to make meaningful change, so we’re working on that,” King said. “One of my personal goals is making sure we have a retention plan and we’re really rewarding our sta that just do an incredible job every day.”

Colorado First Judicial District Attorney Alexis King, sitting in her o ce in Golden, told of the o ce’s achievements from the past year and what she hopes to accomplish in 2023.

PHOTO BY ANDREW

Dry January: giving up drinks for a month

People all over Colorado are spending the month of January sober; here’s why

BY OLIVIA JEWELL LOVE OLOVE@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM

Chances are if you’re on social media, you’ve heard of “Dry January,” the trend of giving up alcohol for the rst month of the year. According to some Colorado residents, the challenge isn’t new, but it is worth a try.

Kara Rowland, a 39-year-old Denver resident, is on her third year of the challenge. She has family at home in D.C. taking on the challenge with her, but as far as her local Colorado group goes, she’s doing it alone.

“Out here it really is a solo e ort,” Rowland said. “You can’t go a block here, especially in downtown Denver, without hitting a brewery.”

It’s not just the city that experiences the alcohol-heavy social culture. Steve Indrehus is the director of brewing operations at Tommyknocker Brewery in Idaho Springs. He said alcohol was a big part of older generations, like his.

Others continue to sound o on social media, explaining their reasons for going sober all year long, and saying the social landscape in society doesn’t exactly make it easy.

Indrehus thinks now however, he’s

starting to see a shift.

“ e younger generations aren’t leaning on alcohol as hard for social interaction,” he said.

“Dry January” is a phenomenon Indrehus has seen grow over the years, even beyond the month.

“ e non-alcoholic category is entering our culture and becoming a stable part of our culture,” he said.

Tommyknockers has ventured into the category, o ering a NA version of its most popular beer, the Blood Orange IPA.

Indrehus himself is participating in

“Dry January,” explaining that he can already see a di erence in his focus and sleep. He said he also likes the aspect of leaving his comfort zone.

“I like uncomfortable, challenging things,” he said.

Indrehus said there are some misconceptions about NA beer, mainly in that people expect it to be cheaper. He explained that it’s actually the opposite.

“Most people would think NA beer would be less expensive because it doesn’t have alcohol, but it’s actually more expensive,” he said.

Essentially, brewers like the team at Tommyknockers have to go through the process of making beer but then take the alcohol out, which takes more time, labor and money.

Rowland, a self-proclaimed craft beer enthusiast, has been exploring NA options during the month.

“I went to dinner with a friend last Saturday and the restaurant had some NA options,” she said. “ ere’s some, if I gave it to you, you would not know it’s a NA beer.”

Besides taking the month to get perspective of her drinking habits, Rowland said she’s also seen positive e ects on her body.

“I think having zero alcohol improves your sleep,” she said.

She also noticed a renewed glow in her complexion.

“Maybe it’s a placebo e ect, but I look in the mirror and I swear my skin looks a little better,” she said.

Dr. Manan Shah, ENT and Chief Medical O cer at Wyndly, said the improvements in sleep are just one real side e ect of “Dry January.” He explained that better sleep is one of the biggest bene ts he sees from giving up alcohol.

“Alcohol a ects your sleep, even if you only have one or two drinks, your sleep will markedly improve if you drop alcohol,” he said.

Shah added that dropping the drink can also help decrease your risk of cancer, improve sex drive, help weight loss and support a healthy immune system.

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Aclose friend once quipped that family is the reason we have friends. On the surface, the line comes across as a dig at family with its sometimes fractious relationships and challenging dynamics.

But there is another layer, a more positive one, that can be gleaned from the axiom. Friends ful ll a relational need that cannot be addressed within the family. For no matter how much someone says their mom, brother, or cousin is their best friend, their family history is intricately and indelibly woven into the fabric of their “friendship.” And as such, it will always play an unconscious role in the relationship.

Another maxim holds that we’re blessed or stuck with the family we were born into; friends, on the other hand, are matters of choice. But are they? Do we consciously and deliberately choose our friends, especially those we grow close to, or are friendships the result of inexplicable or ine able forces?

Have you ever said that so-and-so is like a brother or sister to me? If so, was that so-and-so already a member of your family — cousin, nephew

JERRY FABYANIC

VOICES

Friends and family

or niece — or were they outside of it? If you have a like-abrother or like-asister, what made them so? Can you zero in on, pinpoint or delineate the speci c events, interactions, et alia, that led up to that relationship developing in a deeply personal manner?

Or was it that you realized at some point that you and they shared a special bond that didn’t need to or couldn’t be explained? It just was.

As is my wont, I took my friend’s maxim and ipped it: Friends are the reason we have family. at thought prompted me to consider those who as an only child or orphan don’t have blood siblings. en there are those who have siblings but are not relationally close with them.

I have friends for whom those scenarios are true. Some consider their friends to be their family. We often call such relationships virtual family, but I wonder why we feel compelled to include the qualifying descrip-

tor virtual since it serves only to minimize their relationship(s) and relegate it/them to a second-place status. After all, they might consider their friends to be their true family. Which means there are families, and then there are families.

Plain and simple, friend and family relationships are complicated, which paradoxically makes them neither plain nor simple. In psychology, an applicable term is antinomy: a paradox in which opposing truths are equally true and valid. It’s a world that I love living in. It’s one of complexity and ambiguity, which I traverse with kindred “out-there” spirits in the pursuit of something we cannot exactly put our ngers on. ey’re my philosophical family not to be confused with my literal family or my non-virtual, mix-of-friends family. Yep, it’s complicated.

Since I’ve been blessed to be one of 13 siblings and have oodles of friendships made over the course of my lifetime, when I think of those I feel close to, I imagine them in two broad groupings. I picture each group as a colored sphere — sage green is my choice — with the shades of the color increasingly getting lighter as

I move from the center outward. At the center of my birth family circle, I place those I feel closest to, and at the perimeter, those not so much. At the core of my friends circle is my non-virtual virtual family, and on the outer reaches are those I call transactional or super cial friends, the ones who get in contact only when they need or want something.

So yes, the family-friend matrix is complicated. But it is that complicatedness that makes friendships ful lling and vital for healthy aging. Unlike a complication which can disrupt unity and smooth functioning, relationship complicatedness suggests intricacy, complexity.

Consider creating your own matrix. While doing so, identify traits, attributes and other aspects that were and remain integral. A vital one for me is trust because trust is like glass and reputation in Ben Franklin’s aphorism: once broken, never well mended. You will, of course, identify your own.

Jerry Fabyanic is the author of “Sisyphus Wins” and “Food for ought: Essays on Mind and Spirit.” He lives in Georgetown.

For this year, a resolution for our kids’ future

As we all are taking down the tree, putting away the menorah and otherwise wrapping up from the holidays, we turn our attention to the new year. We think about what we’d like it to look like and things we would like to accomplish before next year at this same time. While some make resolutions, others aren’t as formal in their goal setting. New Year’s resolutions are often about selfimprovement like exercising more, or about increasing happiness with a new job or a new home. For parents, it often involves the whole family and is often designed toward our ultimate goal for our kids – that they grow up happy and healthy. It’s what every parent wants when it comes to their kids.

ere are many ways we do that every day. It involves things like teaching them to eat well and look both ways before crossing the street. What if we think a bit further into the future and look at the state of the planet they will be inheriting from us? If you are concerned about the climate crisis and the future we are leaving our children and grandchildren, and recent polls show that most people are, then here are some

LINDA

SARA KUNTZLER

resolutions that can help you do your part.

These are things everyone can do this coming year to ensure our kids grow up in a healthy environment:

Carpool: there are likely other families close by that have kids at the same school. Carpooling saves on ll-ups for the car and as a bonus it saves time too. Exploring other ways to get to school like biking or walking is great exercise. It also lets kids get some of the wiggles out so they can settle in and focus in class better.

Ditch the disposable school lunch packaging: ere are so many great options these days like beeswax wraps and reusable silicone bags.

Hand-me-down and consignment clothes: they save resources and money. It’s something to think about for adults as well. Fast fashion has people treating their wardrobe as if it’s disposable, which uses a tremendous amount of resources.

Gifts: the same applies to all the stu we buy including gifts. ink about low impact gifts for your kids and the gifts you need for all those birthday parties. Experiences are a fun way to give a memorable day without the plastic stu that most moms will say they have enough of.  Meatless Monday: Eating meat has a huge impact on our planet. e greenhouse gas emissions of the meat industry are about equal to that of the entire transportation sector — all the emissions from driving and ying. Lower your impact by removing meat from your diet one day a week. If you’ve already successfully done that, bump up to two or three days a week.  Get involved: Join an organization that helps you understand how to best use your limited time to make an impact on the decisions that are being made that will a ect the air your child breathes, their health and their future. at is our number one goal at Mountain Mamas. We monitor the decisions that our elected o cials are making so that you don’t have to. When there’s an important decision that will impact our kids’ future, we let you know. We also let you know

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Columnists

how to make your opinion heard and above all make it easy for you.

Research your family’s carbon footprint to get personalized advice on ways to reduce it: Several organizations o er carbon calculators.

Can one person solve these problems on their own? Not likely, but if everyone does their part, we get a lot closer. And importantly, if we all join together to tell our elected o cials that we want them to address the climate crisis, then signi cant changes can be made. Use your new year’s resolution this year to make big changes for the future generations that are counting on us.

Join the discussion, get involved and take action.

Sara Kuntzler lives in Arvada with her husband and two young children. She is the Colorado Program Manager for Mountain Mamas, a nonpro t organization working towards a clean, livable planet for future generations. You can learn more about Mountain Mamas and get involved at www.mtnmamas. org or on Facebook/Instagram @ CoMtnMamas.

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Columnist opinions are not necessarily those of the Press. We welcome letters to the editor. Please include your full name, address and the best number to reach you by telephone.

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Columnist

Take a visit to ‘The Great American Trailer Park’

Musicals have taken place in all kinds of magical and far- ung locations and still managed to capture elemental human truths. But as “ e Great American Trailer Park Musical,” Miners Alley Playhouse’s latest production, hilariously demonstrates, you can access those same truths in places a little closer to home.

“What’s so special about the show is it gives such a great snapshot of humanity in all of its perfectly imperfect mess,” said Piper Arpan, the production’s director and choreographer. “ e characters are very open and unapologetic about who they are and what they’ve experienced. is allows you to see the power of real, authentic human connection.”

“ e Great American Trailer Park Musical,” featuring music and lyrics by David Nehls and book by Betsy Kelso, is playing at Miners Alley, 1224 Washington Ave. in Golden, from Friday, Jan. 27 through Sunday, March 5. Performances are 7:30 p.m. ursday through Saturday and 2 p.m. on Sunday.

Nehls and Kelso began writing the show in 1997 and eventually premiered it o -Broadway in 2005. In the ensuing years productions have been done all over the country, but Nehls was still delighted when Len Matheo, Miners Alley’s artistic/executive director, pitched the idea of doing the show.

“I was the musical director here for ‘Once’ and ‘Hair,’ so I was thrilled,” Nehls, who is also providing musical direction for this production, said. “ e show is a little wild because of its naughty nature, but is so much fun when done right.”

LETTER TO THE EDITOR

Thank you, Link Strate anks to the Chief, Link Strate, for a job well done. I appreciate his candor about our city and the issues regarding Arvada and its past, present and future. It has been a rough two years on our police department.  I see daily the issues that continue to a ect our businesses, our safety and our wellbeing in certain areas of the city. It is not enough to just feed and provide clothing and blankets for the homelessness. Every day our police department and re depart-

ST. JOANOF ARC

COMING ATTRACTIONS

e story (which features some updates from its original form) is set in Armadillo Acres trailer park in Florida and focuses on Jeanie (Abby Apple Boes), an agoraphobic, reality television fan, her tollbooth collector husband Norbert (Rory Pierce) and Pippi (Norrell Moore), a stripper on the run. e collision of these three people makes for a stormy situation that is both laugh-out-loud funny and moving.

“We never want to seem like we’re making fun of people in trailer parks because we’re not,” Nehls said.

“We’re shining a light on people who don’t get a lot of visibility in the theater, especially because the situations are universal.”

e production has taken over Miners Alley in the best way possible, with the trailer park ambience spilling over into the lobby and the musical aspect greeting audiences before they’ve even found their seats.

“ e music is unbelievably good, especially with this cast,” Arpan said.

“ ere’s so much candor, humor and heart in the music and the vocal prowess we have is unbelievable.”

We could all use a little escape and for a great time that takes you away from your troubles, you’d be hard pressed to nd a better evening out.

“I hope audiences come away with a sense of joy,” Nehls said. “ e show will let people forget what’s going on outside the door and let them just laugh and have an emotional experi-

ment deal with drug overdoses, breaking and entering, petty theft and issues too gross to print in a newspaper.

I hope the Arvada City Council and the Arvada Chamber of Commerce can be successful in resolving the issues impacting our city caused by drug addiction that prevents people from jobs, homes and successful living so that the emergency responders can stop being nursemaids to addicts and get the crime rate down.

Lorraine Anderson, Arvada

ence.”

For information and tickets, visit https://minersalley.com/.

Celebrate jazz royalty with the CJRO

One of my favorite things about jazz music is the way musicians constantly nd powerful and intriguing ways to pay homage to the music of the past. e Colorado Jazz Repertory Orchestra’s (CJRO) is doing just that with a pair of performances entitled From Counts to Dukes e performances will be at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday, Jan. 21 at the Arvada Center, 6901 Wadsworth Blvd., and at 7:30 p.m. on Sunday, Jan. 22 at the Lone Tree Arts Center, 10075 Commons St. Both performances will feature vocalist Marion Power and the full orchestra, all under the leadership of artistic director, Drew Zaremba.

To purchase tickets, go to https:// www.coloradojazz.org/concerts.

The March family comes to Lakewood Cultural Center e story Louisa May Alcott told in “Little Women” is one that never seems to age and now Performance Now eatre Company is bringing

the Broadway musical version of the March sisters to the Lakewood Cultural Center, 470 S. Allison Parkway.

Directed by Victoria Holloway, “Little Women” will run at the center through Sunday, Jan. 19.

Get tickets at www.performancenow.org.

Clarke’s Concert of the Week — YG at the Fillmore Auditorium

Compton’s YG just loves rapping. And who can blame him — if you were as good at it as he is, you’d love it, too. His 2014 debut studio album, “My Krazy Life,” is one of the best rap records of the 2010s and in the ensuing years he’s released a string of excellent albums and song-stealing guest verses.

YG is bringing his Red Cup Tour to Denver’s Fillmore Auditorium, 1510 Clarkson St., at 7 p.m. on Friday, Jan. 20. e show should be a perfect repudiation to the dreary winter doldrums we nd ourselves currently in, so get tickets at www.livenation.com.

Clarke Reader’s column on culture appears on a weekly basis. He can be reached at Clarke.Reader@hotmail. com.

OBITUARIES

JARIGESE

Frances L. Jarigese 1924-2023

Frances L. Jarigese passed away peacefully with her rosary in her hand on January 4th. Fran was preceded in death by her loving husband Frederick. Fran is survived by her daughter Heidi Root (Michael), her son Kevin Jarigese (Kim); grandchildren Leah, Colin, Dana and Shelley. Funeral Mass, Monday January 23rd, 11:00 am at Spirit of Christ Catholic Community, 7400 W. 80th Street, Arvada.

KEMP

October 2, 1945 - January 7, 2023

It is with heavy hearts that we announce the passing of Terry L. Kemp on January 7, 2023 at the age of 77.

Terry was born in Atchison, Kansas on October 2, 1945, where he spent his childhood and early years. At 17 years old he graduated and his mother signed o for him to join the Navy. He served 2 tours in Vietnam. Upon returning he was a reman, a furniture salesman, and a liquor store owner before nally taking a chance and buying a bowling alley in Arvada, CO, in January of 1980. He worked for 25 years and built a thriving business before retiring and selling Western Bowl and Longhorn Lounge in 2006.

Besides having a brilliant business mind, Terry had a gift of a green thumb and enjoyed helping his daughter on their farm and traveling the world.

ALMQUIST

Jean

He was known for his kind heart, quick wit, and love for his family, especially his three daughters and three grandsons.

Terry will be deeply missed by all who had the pleasure of knowing him. Our thoughts and prayers go out to his family during this di cult time.

May he rest in peace.

Terry is survived by daughters Tamara Guida (Michael Guida), Kate Kemp (Taylor Simmons) and Jacqueline Kemp (Nick Schott); former spouse Sheila Kemp and grandsons Dante, Vincent and Dominic Guida; as well as niece Jamie Lewman and nephew Steve Liggett.

A celebration of life will be held on ursday, January 19th, 2023, at 5:00 PM, at TJ’s Sports Bar 7893 W Jewell Ave. Lakewood, Colorado.

June 22, 1932 - January 9, 2023 Proclaiming Christ from the Mountains to the Plains www.StJoanArvada.org

12735 W 58th Ave · 80002 · 303-420-1232

Daily Masses: 8:30am, Mon-Sat Confessions: 8am Tue-Fri; 7:30am & 4:00pm Sat

Saturday Vigil Mass: 5:00pm

Sunday Masses: 7:30, 9:00, 11:30am, 5:30pm

Jean Carolyn Almquist of Arvada, Colorado, wife of Carl,

of Sue Runge,

and Catherine Heeley, died January 9 at the age of 90. Celebration of Life 1-21-23 Arvada United Methodist Church at 10:30am. For the full obituary, please go

to https://obituaries.neptunesociety. com/obituaries/arvada-co/jeanalmquist-11103942 . In lieu of owers, please send donations to the Alpine Chorale https://alpinechoraleco.org or the Alzheimer’s Association https://www.alz.org/co/donate

Terry L. Kemp

mother

Karen Kuhns

Carolyn (Weisensee) Almquist

Clarke Reader

The Long Way Home Examining the impacts of the housing crisis

People across the metro area are struggling to a ord a place to live. Minimum wage earners might spend upwards of 60% of their paychecks on rent. Many millennials, now entering their 40s, have accumulated less wealth than prior generations and are struggling to nd a rst home they can a ord. At the same time, those who might sell, baby boomers, are prone to hold onto their homes, unable to downsize in the supercharged market. ese and other factors, including homelessness, a history of racial disparities where 71% of white Coloradans own homes but only 42% of Black Coloradans do, and a slow down in building that began more than a decade ago during the Great Recession, add up to constitute what some experts call a crisis in housing a ordability and availability.

Over the last six months, two dozen journalists, editors and sta at Colorado Community Media worked to answer questions on why this is happening, how

TRICKLING UP

FROM PAGE 1

From work to school to neighborhood events, the program has created a way for Gilson’s family to be a part of a community. With housing and communities come resources, though not all are created equal.

Gilson explained that in her prior communities — predominantly lower socioeconomic status and people of color — it resulted in a lack of resources, such as academic and mental health.

at’s why she moved to Westminster, where she has lived for 12 years.

“I wanted my kids to have a stable education and stable housing,” she said.

It’s not just low-income residents who struggle to a ord housing. Across the metro area and along the Front Range, rising in ation and mortgage rates, a long-term building slowdown and increasingly crowded cities and towns have combined to create what some observers and experts say is a housing crisis.

More and more people throughout the metro area are nding the cost of renting or buying a home eating up signi cant portions of their budgets.

“ at’s the No. 1 reason that people move, is they can’t keep up with their rent (and) utilities payments,” said Heidi Aggeler, managing director and co-founder of Root Policy Research, a Denver-based community planning and housing

we got here and what the solutions are. e work to nd the answers carried our journalists along the Front Range to talk to mayors, housing authorities, experts and, most importantly, lower- and middle-class families experiencing the crisis rst hand.

Our reporters and editors also held focus groups, talking directly to prospective homebuyers, like the single mom worried that another rent increase could land her in her car and the real estate agent who understood the problems but worried about a lack of solutions.

Over the next four weeks, Colorado Community Media provides an in-depth look at how the current crisis impacts our communities. In Week 1, e Long Way Home breaks down how we got here. On Week 4, we look at how local, state and federal governments are investing millions of dollars into a range of possible solutions — from helping the homeless to a ordable housing programs.

research rm.   ere’s a term for it: “cost-burdened,” which describes households paying more than 30% of their income on housing. A little more than 700,000 households in Colorado are cost-burdened, most of which are renters, according to a November 2021 report from Root Policy Research.

“We’ve never done a very good job of housing extremely low-income people and families and helping to move them out of poverty,” Aggeler said. “We’ve never had enough resources to adequately address that.”

People who make $25,000 or less a year have long faced a housing crisis on some level, Aggeler said. But now, the number of people who make more money and are feeling the pinch of high housing costs is growing.

It has become increasingly common for middle-income households with incomes of roughly $35,000$75,000 to experience cost burden, according to Root Policy Research.

As long as Colorado continues to be an attractive place for people to move to, invest in and retire, Aggeler thinks housing challenges will continue.

ere are also too few options for would-be buyers. Many nd the cost of single-family homes beyond their reach but have few options a step below that, such as condos.

“If you believe that Colorado will be a place that employers will continue to want to move to, then I think … the outlook may not be good

Contributors to theproject include:

unless we accelerate production and density and fund housing at the level that is needed,” Aggeler said.

The cost of housing

Practically every community in the metro area is facing its own housing a ordability and availability issues. South of Denver, in Lone Tree, Mayor Jackie Millet said there is a “housing crisis.”

“I think it varies in severity throughout our state, but I do think it is a problem that is a ecting all of Colorado,” she said. “ ere’s so much supply pressure on our market right now that we have, then, created this crisis.”

Not everyone is describing it as a crisis, but those who use that word point to the numbers across the metro area, as the costs of singlefamily homes and townhomes have skyrocketed.

Northwest of Denver, in Arvada, the median sale price of a singlefamily home was $667,000 as of late 2022, according to the Colorado Association of Realtors. at’s up by 71% from 2017, when the price was around $390,000.

e story is similar in Brighton, northeast of Denver, where the median sale price increased by approximately $225,000 over that period.

Littleton, south of Denver, saw an increase of approximately $300,000 in the price of single-family homes from 2017 to 2022.

Lone Tree saw an increase of $473,750.

“What we have seen is our housing

prices doubling and our wages have not been keeping up,” Millet said.

From 2000 to 2019, median rents rose at a faster rate than median renter household incomes did “in every Colorado county and city with 50,000+ residents,” according to Root Policy Research.

Many residents want a home of their own, Millet said.

“ at was our ultimate goal, and that is also the way most of us accumulated wealth,” she said.

When the cost of buying or renting is too high, however, people cannot establish these roots, she added.

Supply versus demand

One of the main causes of the rise in cost-burdened households and lack of a ordable housing is that production has failed to keep up with demand.

ere was a 40% decrease in the number of homes built between 2010 and 2020 in Colorado, according to the 2022 “A ordable Housing Transformational Task Force Report.”

Susan Daggett, executive director of the Rocky Mountain Land Use Institute, said the crash of 2007 a ected housing supply. People left the construction industry and many companies went bankrupt.

“ e housing market bottomed out, people left the construction industry, a lot of people went bankrupt,” she said.

At the same time that housing

development slowed, Colorado’s population grew.

“In the meantime, the population has grown tremendously and the supply just hasn’t been able to catch up with that demand,” Daggett said.

In 2010, Colorado had a population of 5,029,196, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. By 2022, the population was estimated at 5,839,926 — a roughly 16% increase.

As of June 2021, Colorado’s for-sale housing inventory was 13% of what is needed for a functioning sales market, according to Root Policy Research’s report. A functioning sales market means there are enough units so that people can move easily, such as being able to upsize or downsize, Aggeler said.

To return the housing market to a functioning level, Colorado would need an average of 44,250 units built each year until 2030, according to the report, published in November 2021. is would be 1.6 times the state’s current production levels.

Ted Leighty — the CEO of the Colorado Association of Home Builders, an a liate organization of the National Association of Home Builders — said, overall, depending on who is talking, Colorado is somewhere between 175,000 to 200,000 units short of demand.

“ at’s really challenging to come back from, especially, you know, the pace by which we were able to produce new housing in Colorado,” Leighty said.

He hates to use the word “crisis” when discussing housing in Colorado, describing it instead as a major challenge.

Leighty explained the challenge comes down to the ve L’s — lumber and other building materials, labor, land, loans and access to capital, and local government. All have played roles in slowing down housing construction, especially since the Great Recession, leading to higher demand and decreased a ordability.

“ ese are always our main cost drivers for residential construction,” Leighty said. “All ve of those right now, and have been, unfortunately, for the last several years, been huge challenges for us.”

He said high lumber costs and some supply chain issues have improved marginally recently, but they still pose problems for developers.

Also, there is a labor shortage.

“We’ve seen a little bit of uptick in (the) labor participation rate for construction, but not nearly enough,” Leighty said. “We’ve got an aging skilled labor demographic, and we haven’t done a great job replacing that labor with younger, skilled laborers.”

In addition to training the laborers of the next generation, Leighty said a “sound immigration policy” could help bring more workers to projects.

“ ere’s a pretty big de cit, and we need to do all we can, policy standpoint and otherwise, to increase labor,” Leighty said.

During the pandemic, there was a perception the housing market was hot, Leighty said.

“It was the most challenging hot market ever on record — to source materials, to source labor, to get projects through the pipeline was

immeasurable in how di cult it was,” Leighty said.

The market cools

But there are signs the hot market is cooling.

Lending issues have recently risen to the top of many homebuyers’ concerns. Leighty cites concerns for in ation, economic uncertainty and rising interest mortgage rates.

Imagine a $500,000 home that roughly a year ago a person could buy at a 3% rate, Leighty said. eir monthly payment might be around $2,600.

By July 2022, as rates rose to roughly 5%, the payment for the same house would rise to $3,500. at’s an increase of more than 34%.

“So, how do you get back down to that $2,600, you know, something that’s more achievable for the average home buyer?” Leighty asked rhetorically.

In December, rates on a 30-year xed mortgage were more than 6.5%, according to Bankrate.

Higher mortgage rates caused a spike in cancellation rates for homesale contracts last summer, reaching above 40% — causing further disruptions, Leighty said.

“By the time the home was ready, or maybe even wasn’t ready yet, they knew what their debt-to-income ratio was going to be and that it had increased immensely, and they could no longer a ord it, so they canceled,” he said.

By comparison, the cancellation rate was 13% in July 2021 and 18% in 2019.

Due to these high cancellation rates, it is likely there will be fewer homes on the market in the next few quarters, Leighty said, further exacerbating housing issues.

Yet Matthew Leprino, a spokesper-

son for the Colorado Association of Realtors, explained there’s an upshot for some potential homebuyers. ere are more homes available now than in years past as the market reacts to the changing economy.

“ e story that I’ve been telling a lot of clients lately is, ‘Yeah, you can pay a higher interest rate now than you were a year ago, but you’re paying $100,000 less for the house,’” he said.

ere are more properties available now than any time since October of 2019, he said.

“It’s a better time to buy now than in the last three years,” Leprino said.

A balanced market’s months’ supply of inventory stands at about four months. For the metro area, October 2022 was the rst time that number hit two months or above since October 2019.

e metro Denver area hasn’t reached a balanced market for housing since at least 2014, when the Colorado Association of Realtors started tracking that data — and Leprino suspects it’s been much longer than that.

“Number one, houses are a lot more expensive than they used to be,” Leprino said. “Number two, there’s not enough of them.”

The role of local governments and zoning

Local governments have played a huge role in the lack of housing supply and lack of a ordability in Colorado, Leighty said.

He notes they play a role through their regulations, land use zoning and entitlement process and their fees.

Zoning can be a signi cant factor in the housing issues people see today, Aggeler of Root Policy Research said. It refers to when a city or county divides its land into di erent sections and designates an intended use for

each, such as industrial or residential development.

“Really, the problem, it’s very simple: ere’s a scarcity of housing for people of all income levels,” said Pat Cronenberger, vice chairperson for South Metro Housing Options, the City of Littleton’s public housing authority. “Colorado is a popular place. People want to be here, and we have restrictive zoning laws that really don’t make it easy to build housing.”

“And that’s all contributed to high rents and big, skyrocketing home prices,” she said.

One of the more controversial zoning issues across the metro area is how dense a city can build.

“People are very afraid of adding units, very afraid of density — and I think probably overly so,” Aggeler said. “We should be zoning artfully, in a way that preserves what we love about communities but also provides opportunity for other people to live there.”

Leighty said some local elected o cials have expressed concerns that if they approve denser housing units, they could be recalled “because there’s so many people that believe we have — we’re growing too fast.”

“But the numbers belie all of that,” he said. “Our net migration is still positive.”

Net migration refers to the di erence between the number of immigrants and the number of emigrants throughout the year.

“ at’s how you’re going to attack this issue, right, is allowing greater density — taking down the land costs a little bit by being able to do more with less as far as more construction on less land,” Leighty said. “Zoning plays a huge role in our ability to bring new product on the market.”

The perfect storm: Many factors led to today’s housing crisis

BY DEB HURLEY BROBST DBROBST@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM

Kim Howard of Evergreen has been in her 2,600-square-foot home for 40 years. Now alone, the 70-year-old is looking to downsize and move closer to Denver, but she can’t nd a smaller home with the same or lower mortgage payments.

She feels guilty staying because she knows the house is a perfect size for a young family, but she’s staying because she can’t a ord to move. Rising interest rates in the last year aren’t helping, since that increases monthly payments on any home she could buy.

“I’m going to wait it out … because it has to make economic sense,” Howard said. “I can’t a ord to move, and that puts a damper on those who want to move in. We need more a ordable housing for retired and rst-time buyers instead of large, expensive homes that we can’t a ord.

“I feel kind of guilty. (Young families) are desperately looking to start their lives, and we senior citizens can’t a ord to move. Unless someone provides for those rst-time home buyers and for seniors who want to downsize, it’s not going to happen.”

Howard’s story is typical of the issues faced by many in the metro area when it comes to housing. While it seems like the crisis came on suddenly, it cannot be attributed to one moment or incident. Instead, think of it like the spokes on a bicycle wheel, with the center being the current housing situation.

Each spoke contributes to rising costs and shrinking availability, starting with the Great Recession that began in 2007, the loss of builders and labor, the dichotomy of home ownership between baby boomers and millennials, and more recently the pandemic, the consequences of the Marshall Fire and the popularity of short-term rentals.

Couple all that with population increasing in metro Denver, and it’s a recipe for disaster for many: higher home prices, increasing number of unhoused, lack of places to both buy or rent, frustrated home buyers and more.

A perfect storm has combined to create what many experts say constitutes a housing crisis throughout the Denver area and into the foothills — from Brighton to Empire and everywhere in between. It’s been brewing since the Great Recession more than a decade ago that created a harsh economic downturn, pushing skilled workers who built homes out of their careers.

It’s been exacerbated by a rising younger population and part-time residents who converted residences in some of the state’s most attractive settings into vacation homes, the skyrocketing costs of homes and increases in interest rates.

“ ere’s no incentive in the traditional market structure that we have around housing to build for those who are struggling economically,” said Phyllis Resnick, executive director and lead economist for the Colorado

Futures Center, an independent, nonpartisan, academic nonpro t. “We think (the housing market) is feeling unhealthy for folks because housing that is a ordable to lower-middle to low-income households is still very di cult to nd and isn’t probably being built at the rate it’s needed.”

Great Recession

e metro area’s housing challenges start with the Great Recession that began in late 2007, part of a national trend where the housing market crashed. Before the recession, rising home prices, loose lending practices and low interest rates were the norm. When the economy soured, many homeowners could not keep up with their payments, prompting a rash of foreclosures.

According to real estate data company RealtyTrac, 6.3 million homes went through foreclosure in the United States from January 2006 to April 2016, more than double the norm of around 250,000 foreclosures per year. According to the Colorado Department of Local A airs, from 2006 to 2016, Colorado saw 299,775 foreclosures.

With foreclosures came a glut of available homes that ooded the market, according to real estate agent Gaye Ribble with e Ribble Group, a real estate rm that o ers homebuying services across the metro area. In the Denver metro area at the peak of the recession, 45,000 homes were on the market, Ribble said, when a balanced market is roughly 10,000 to 12,000 homes.

“As a result, builders were reluctant to get back in and buy land, buy materials, pay wages and build — all the capital expenses they incur before selling a single home,” said Tupper Briggs with Madison & Co. Properties, a real estate agent for more than four decades. “ ey did not add to the supply of housing for years.”

In other words, Ribble said, “builders stopped building homes because of the glut, and some builders went out of business because of the lack of

work.”

Loss of tradespeople

e Colorado Futures Center bears out what Ribble noticed. A 2018 study by Resnick and Jennifer Newcomer, research director, examined the factors contributing to the growing cost of housing in Colorado. Much of it could be traced to the Great Recession. e decrease in units built after the recession was linked, in part, to limited amounts of developable land, rising material costs and little incentive to build entry-level housing, according to the study. A bigger issue turned out to be the closure of several local construction companies and the related issue of a shortage of labor in specialty trades.

“Labor was short, it was a mixed story on materials, and there were some regulatory barriers, but I think we came away thinking that part of the biggest problem was we lost a lot of people in the development and building ecosystem,” Resnick said.

According to a 2014 report published by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, “Housing: Before, During and After the Great Recession,” construction industries experienced signi cant job losses during the recession.

From 2003 to 2013, for example, the residential construction industry experienced a 26.8% decrease in employment, which the report said was “precipitated by the recent recession.”

e report also showed from 2003 to 2013, the number of businesses in the residential construction industry decreased by 10.8%.

Lone Tree Mayor Jackie Millet said she thinks the recession absolutely impacted the growth of housing.

“ e bottom fell out of the market, the tradespeople — we lost people in the trades, we didn’t have people coming into the trades, and we lost that time,” Millet said. “And it’s, you know, cyclical, so we have been playing catch-up ever since then.”

Ted Leighty, the CEO of the Colorado Association of Home Builders,

said the Great Recession made a lot of people more cautious, including banks, lenders and builders.

ere were fewer land developers coming out of the recession, he said, so more builders have had to become their own land developers.

“ eir access to capital and their cost of capital has increased greatly since the recession,” Leighty said.

Ribble added: “Not only every year are we lagging (in home construction), but we were never able to make up for six years with no new construction. During that time, population continued to increase.”

Population growth, interest rates

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the seven-county metro area has seen a substantial rise in population in roughly the past decade. Douglas, Arapahoe and Adams County each grew by more than 80,000 people, with Je erson County gaining more than 45,000 people.

When the Federal Reserve lowered interest rates to move the United States out of the Great Recession, many more people who wanted to buy a home could. Rates remained low as the economy rebounded. at increased demand across the housing market. As demand rose, prices across the metro area began to skyrocket, creating a crunch. Fewer homes were available and many people were simply priced out of the market.

Real estate agents interviewed by Colorado Community Media agree that the Federal Reserve should have increased the ultra-low interest rates to keep the market more balanced.

Baby boomers, millennials and shortterm rentals

Adding to the housing challenges is stagnation. Baby boomers, those nearing retirement age and older, aren’t leaving their homes. Meanwhile millennials, some now new to Colorado and in their 40s, are looking to get into their rst home and sometimes even a second home such as a short-term rental that can be used for both vacation and added income..

Boomers, many of whom are empty nesters, aren’t downsizing for many reasons. While some simply don’t want to move, others want to downsize but can’t nd a good deal on a home in the community they want.

According to Jackie White, a real estate agent in the Conifer and Evergreen area for nine years, if a baby boomer sells a home for $1.5 million, that person isn’t going to nd a home about half the size for $750,000.

“ at doesn’t feel good to them,” White said. “Add to that, because of low inventory of homes, kids can’t a ord to buy homes in the communities they grew up in, so there are fewer multigenerational families in one community. Kids can’t easily check in on their parents.”

Many millennials can’t a ord homes that are for sale. at eventually will change as baby boomers are forced to sell as they age, White said.

The housing market in metro Denver continues to recover after issues stemming to the Great Recession that started in late 2007.

PHOTO BY DEB HURLEY BROBST

Low Rate of Pay: How minimum wages are failing to keep pace with housing costs

BY ANDREW FRAIELI AFRAIELI@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM

In recent years, minimum wages have slowly increased, with Denver reaching $17.29 an hour, and the suburbs surrounding the city being lower, based on the state of Colorado’s minimum of $13.65 an hour.

While workers have welcomed the increases, apartment rental prices have outpaced those gains for workers, with almost 60% of a minimum wage worker’s paycheck expected to go to a landlord.

at’s the highest proportion in a decade, and a calculation that doesn’t include other expenses, such as utilities.

“We’ve seen over the years that the minimum wage actually erodes over time, and periodically has to be readjusted,” said economist Markus Schneider.

Schneider, chair of the Economics Department at the University of Denver, said these cost-of-living adjustments to the minimum wage do help workers — both Denver and the state make adjustments to their minimum wages — but despite increases, the adjustments don’t completely stave o the consequences of rising in ation and skyrocketing housing costs on low-income workers.

Even after a decade, workers are still forced to dedicate too much of their salaries to housing, and it’s only worsened.

A “living wage” is what is needed to keep up with the costs of living, the “very ne line between thenancial independence of the working poor and the need to seek out public assistance or su er consistent and severe housing and food insecurity,” according to MIT’s Living Wage calculator. MIT describes it “as a minimum subsistence wage.”

For the metro area, that living wage is $19.62, well above the state minimum wage and even Denver’s. e cost-of-living adjustment that both minimum wage rates are tied to is called the Consumer Price Index — a “positive step in the right direction,” according to Schneider.

“At the same time, the minimum wage is below a living wage,” Schneider said. “It’s, at best, going to keep it in proportion.”

at means the disparities won’t grow as badly as they could, but will still not keep up with a living wage.

In 2010, the state minimum wage was $7.24 an hour. Rent for a studio in the metro area was $638, according to U.S. Housing and Urban Development fair market rent data.

at came out to half of a worker’s wages, which the National Low Income Housing Coalition — a nonpro t that aims to end the a ordable housing crisis through policy and data research — deems una ordable, as is anything upwards of 30% of wages spent on rent and utilities. e coalition considers paying upwards of 30% as placing workers at risk for homelessness.

By 2023, the situation had only grown worse for minimum-wage

workers. While their wages rose to $13.65 an hour, metro-area studio apartment rents hit $1,390, meaning workers have to pay almost 60% of their wages to keep a roof over their head.

Part of the gap between the index increases and rent is inequality, Schneider said.

CPI is calculated by looking at how much change there is in the average price of household items, food, energy, rent, electronics and more, weighted by how big that category is in the household budget.

is calculation is for the entire metro area, though. With di erent parts having di erent wages and costs of rent, the CPI can become skewed for some.

“ e CPI for Colorado is going to be very responsive to what’s happening in Denver just because that’s the big population center,” Schneider said. “We know that Denver has actually had a hotter housing market, and housing is a big component of what that living wage means.”

However, higher minimum wages do not cause rents to increase, in his view.

“ ere’s really not much evidence for it — in the ranges that we’re talking about raising minimum wages,” he said. “If we raised it by a factor of two, or even of ve, then yes, that’s probably a big thing. But we’re talking about just getting closer to a living wage — I’m very skeptical that it’s a big e ect.”

“Certainly not a big impact on the price aspect, because even when people get up to that living wage, it’s really only going to impact relatively cheap housing, and relatively bottom end of the rent market — you’ll see some of those rents go up a little bit. But the average rent in Denver isn’t going to budge much.”

is leads to CPI not adjusting enough for the lowest wage earners in the metro area, and not keeping up with their rising rents. As Schneider said, the adjustments are better than nothing, but still do not set minimum-wage workers to earn a

living wage — a goal that, since more than a decade ago, has only become further away.

“When people make more money, particularly at the bottom end, when we’re talking about pushing poverty line or at least well below the living wage, they’re likely to move to a nicer neighborhood or closer to a nicer school, which means the rents in the places that they were living won’t be a ected that much,” Schneider said.

According to MIT, a “livable wage” for Colorado is about $19.16 an hour, and the Denver-Aurora-Lakewood metro area “livable wage” is even higher at $19.62 per hour. Current minimum wage in the state is far less at $13.65 an hour, with Denver’s being $17.29 per hour. Both the state and Denver may be increasing minimum wage year over year to follow in ation or cost of living, but they may never actually reach a “livable wage” when they are already so far behind.

Colorado state’s minimum wage, and Denver’s own minimum wage, rise incrementally based on the Consumer Price Index (CPI). is is functionally a measurement of the cost of living, measured by the U.S Bureau of Labor Statistics. It includes food, housing costs, transport, medical care and recreation among others, all broken down to smaller parts like gas, and electric bills. MIT’s “living wage” considers many of the same categories, but is stricter.

“ e living wage is the minimum income standard that, if met, draws a very ne line between the nancial independence of the working poor and the need to seek out public assistance or su er consistent and severe housing and food insecurity,” according to MIT’s Living Wage calculator. “In light of this fact, the living wage is perhaps better de ned as a minimum subsistence wage for persons living in the United States.” eir calculator uses Fair Market Rents (FMRs) — which “represents the cost to rent a moderately-priced dwelling unit in the local housing

market” — along with local utility prices, to determine housing costs.

According to e National Low Income Housing Coalition (NLIHC), a nonpro t that aims to end the a ordable housing crisis through policy and data research, anything upwards of “the generally accepted standard of spending no more than 30% of gross income on rent and utilities,” is considered una ordable housing, though. is brings needed wages, according to NLIHC, even higher than MIT’s livable wage that already lies on the razor’s edge of nancial independence and public assistance.

Other major costs in MIT’s calculation are food and transportation, which take up another $9,160 per year — $4,153 and $5,007 respectively. Housing, food and transport together take up 75% of their salary — which leaves some room for the $4,814 cost for “clothing, personal care items, and housekeeping supplies,” and $2,768 for medical care, but none for the $7,929 in annual taxes.

MIT speci es that the calculation “accounts only for the basic needs of a family. It does not account for what many consider the basic necessities enjoyed by many Americans,” such as dining out and other forms of entertainment, but it also “... does not provide a nancial means for planning for the future through savings and investment or for the purchase of capital assets.”

And this is all for single adults without children. A single adult with one child brings the livable wage from $20.61 an hour to $39.96.

NLIHC’s “Out of Reach” reports use “housing wage” as the wage a full-time worker must make to afford FMRs without spending over 30% on rent. For a studio apartment in Denver with an FMR in 2022 of $1,236 per month, the “housing wage” would be $23.77 an hour before taxes — 1.5times what a minimum-wage worker currently makes. is is even higher than MIT’s $20.61 an hour “livable wage” for a studio apartment and even includes utilities, as MIT’s wage is only enough to be on the brink of nancial ruin.

Based on NLIHC’s metric, no housing in Denver is actually “affordable” to a minimum-wage worker. It may never reach this point either.

Denver’s 2020 minimum-wage ordinance began with increasing minimum wage to $12.85 per hour in January 2020, then $14.77 in January 2021, then $15.87 in January 2022, and $17.29 this year.

From now onward, it’s tied to CPI. According to the ordinance, “the Denver minimum wage rate shall increase by an amount corresponding to the prior year’s increase, if any, in the Consumer Price Index …” But this wage is already below the “living wage” determined by MIT, so staying on par with the CPI will only ever keep the minimum wage stable, not increase its value.

With voter approval, the state will embark on an e ort to have more a ordable housing statewide. SHUTTERSTOCK IMAGE

Late 3-pointer lifts Ralston Valley girls over rival A-West

BY DENNIS PLEUSS JEFFCO PUBLIC SCHOOLS

ARVADA — Ralston Valley senior Finley Timon delivered in the clutch on rivalry night at the Mustang Range.

Timon drilled a 3-pointer with 13 seconds to play, giving the Mustangs a 36-35 home victory over crosstown rival Arvada West on Jan. 13.

“To be honest, no thoughts in my head,” Timon said with a laugh about her game-winning shot. “It was just release and whatever happens, happens.”

What happened next was a turnover by the Wildcats with 8 seconds. Ralston Valley took possession and ran out the nal seconds in the Class 6A Je co League opener for both teams.

“We run our o ense and we run it through until we get a good quality shot,” Ralston Valley coach Amy Bahl said. “ at last minute I teetered on taking a timeout, but I didn’t. I think they trusted the play, running it out and a shot was going to get open and develop.”

It wasn’t a stellar shooting night for Ralston Valley — No. 8 in the latest CHSAANow.com 6A girls rankings — by any means. e Mustangs (9-3, 1-0) were just 13-for-49 shooting from the eld.

“I do feel like we are better shooters than what we’ve been shooting,” Bahl said. “ e one thing we can always control is our defense. at is

going to be our MO I guess, just try to grind it out on the defensive end.”

Ralston Valley held A-West (11-2, 0-1) to single-digit points in every quarter except the second quarter.

A-West senior Ellie Pugliese poured in 8 points in the second quarter to help the Wildcats erase an early 13-4 lead by Ralston Valley.

A-West came in on a 7-game winning streak, but where held to a

season-low 35 points.

“ is is a big game to start o conference,” Bahl said. “(A-West) is a good solid team. It was a great win for us and a good boost going into conference for sure.”

Timon gave Ralston Valley a much-needed o ensive boost in the second half. After going scoreless in the rst half the senior hit a trio of 3-pointers after halftime. She actu-

ally made the nal two baskets for the Mustangs.

A-West sophomore Saylor Swanson drained a 3-pointer with 2:20 left in the game to give the Wildcats a 33-30 lead. Timon answered 20 seconds later with a 3-pointer to tie things up 33-33.

Swanson made a pair of free throws with 1:11 left to give the AWest a 35-33 lead, but Timon’s nal 3-pointer sent the Mustang fans into a frenzy in the packed gym.

“We play a lot of games like that where it is close and intense,” Timon said.

Ralston Valley junior Sophia Sabus contributed 10 points and senior Ciana Wilder had a nice game with 8 points. Pugliese had a team-high 10 points for the Wildcats. Senior Brooks Meeks added 8 points in the loss.

A-West might not have got the victory, but the Wildcats know they can for sure compete with Ralston Valley this year. e Mustangs have dominated the rivalry on the girls basketball court over the past 20 years.

“It will be a bigger gym and de ntely more purple,” Timon said of the second go-around versus A-West in the Wildcats’ gym on Feb. 4. “It will be louder noise from their crowd. We’ll see how it goes.”

Dennis Pleuss is the sports information director for Je co Public Schools. For more Je co coverage, go to CHSAANow.com.

Pomona wins 2023 Arvada West wrestling invite

BY DENNIS PLEUSS JEFFCO PUBLIC SCHOOLS

ARVADA — Pomona’s domination on the wrestling mats doesn’t seem to have an end in sight.

The Panthers have captured four straight Class 5A team state titles and six team championships over the past seven years. Saturday at the 2023 Arvada West Wrestling Invite was another example of what the present and future holds for Pomona.

With only half of the Panthers starting line-up — due to match limits with Pomona’s out-of-state tournaments and the upcoming Top of the Rockies 2-day tournament this week — Pomona racked up 201 team points to cruise to the team title. Thompson Valley finished a distance second with 165.5 points.

“I’m happy with how some of the younger guys preformed,” Pomona coach Sam Federico said. “A lot of our guys have six or seven losses, but they are loses to some of the best wrestlers in the country.”

Pomona senior Jose Rosales (215 pounds), along with three freshman — Kalob Ybarra (144 pounds), Emmitt Munson (157 pounds) and Maddux Najera (175 pounds) — captured four indi-

vidual

Invite.

“They are tough,” Rosales said of the freshman class. “There are a lot of hard workers and they are good at wrestling. They go out there and get after it. I think we are

ready to go and get another state title.”

Ybarra won his title in a rivalry match against A-West sophomore Auston Eudaly. Ybarra was ranked No. 4 and Eudaly No. 3 in the 144-pound individual On the Mat

rankings coming into the match, but Ybarra took the 6-2 decision.  Munson and Najera were both impressive in their title bouts. Munson took a 15-0 technical fall over Grandview sophomore Charlie Herting to win the 157-pound title. Najera had a second-period pin against Montrose senior Micah Simpson in the 175-pound title bout.

“I do feel like this team at every weight if we wrestle really good we could place at every single weight,” Federico said. “We’ve never done that. A lot of them are freshmen and when we go downtown (Ball Arena) you never know what is going to happen.”

Rosales finished off Saturday night with a 10-1 major decision over Montrose senior Raul Rascon. After a first-round bye, Rosales had a pair of pins to reach the finals.

Rosales had been Pomona’s heavyweight since his freshman year, but will wrestle at 215 in his final season.

“I’ve pushed him up three years in a row. I’m not going to do it again,” Federico said of Rosales at 215 this year. “In the past he was the bigger of the guys. He was gra-

Ralston Valley senior Ciana Wilder (10) goes up for a shot in the lane during the first half Jan. 13 against Arvada West. The Mustangs took a 36-35 home victory in the Class 6A Je co League opener.

PHOTO BY DENNIS PLEUSS/JEFFCO PUBLIC SCHOOLS

titles for the Panthers at the A-West

Members of Pomona’s wrestling team pose with the 1st-place trophy from the 2023 Arvada West Wrestling Invitational on Saturday, Jan. 14, at Arvada West High School. The Panthers racked up 201 team points to take the team title. PHOTO BY DENNIS PLEUSS/JEFFCO PUBLIC SCHOOLS

cious enough to do it. He did it for the team. He knew we were better with him there.”

Currently, Rosales is No. 1 in the 5A 215-pound ranking by On the Mat.

“I’m pretty happy being at 215. I felt really small at heavyweight,” said Rosales, who placed third at heavyweight last year and 5th as a sophomore. “I was weighing in at 220 last year and I wrestled guys who were at 285.”

Rosales not only has his sights set on a sixth straight team title, but his first individual championship.

“It would mean the most,” Rosales said of him hopefully capturing his first individual title. “I’ve been working hard for three years. I feel like this is the year I can go out there and finally take it.”

Lincoln Gregerson is also looking for his first wrestling title, but he also would become Ralston Valley’s first state wrestling champion in the school’s history. The junior is currently ranked No. 2 at 126 pounds in 5A.

“I try not to think about it too much,” Gregerson said of having

the chance to make history.

Gregerson reached the 113-pound title match last year at Ball Arena, but lost 13-7 to Prairie View’s Ane’e Vigil.

“All summer I kind of forgot about it. I tried to get over it,” Gregerson said of the state title bout lost. “Now getting close to the same time of year, it is definitely extra motivation to get to the top.”

Gregerson cruised to the 126-pound title at the A-West Invite. He had a pin, a major decision and a pair of technical falls on his way to improving to a 21-2 record on the season.

“It’s our first big tournament back from Winter Break,” Gregerson said. “I just wanted to get some work in. Next week is the big week.”

Gregerson is headed to the Top of the Rockies Tournament on Friday and Saturday at Centaurus High School. Pomona will also be heading to the Top of the Rockies this week.

“Next weekend will be a good tell,” Federico said of the Top of the Rockies coming up. “I think everyone will have their full teams.”

Dennis Pleuss is the sports information director for Jeffco Public Schools. For more Jeffco coverage, go to CHSAANow.com.

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A lot of communities in Colorado are mostly single-family homes, resulting in lower density and forcing developments to sprawl out.

With the dominance of single-family homes, many communities in Colorado face a “missing middle,” meaning there are not a lot of diverse housing options such as townhomes, cottage courts, accessory dwelling units and duplexes.

Part of the reason for that is because of a policy change, Leighty said.

“We made it really, really easy to sue for what they call ‘construction defects’ on multifamily for-sale condominiums,” he said.

Multifamily for-sale condominiums went from roughly 20% of the market to about 2% of the market when going into the recession, Leighty said. By 2017, it rose to about 12% of the market, but then the pandemic hit.

“If you kept that 20% pace of condominiums, you wouldn’t be in the same situation you are now. You wouldn’t necessarily be in market equilibrium,

CRISIS

FROM

As Ribble noted: “In 18 years, this issue will resolve itself because baby boomers won’t be in their homes any longer.”

But at that point, some millennials will be in their 60s. For that generation,

right? But you wouldn’t be … 200,000 units shy either,” Leighty said.

Condominiums are a really important product, he said, as they provide places for young professionals and families to achieve homeownership and for empty nesters to downsize.

“ at product has been absolutely missed in this marketplace and it has

the dream of home ownership is still alive for many, Briggs said.

“ e millennial demographic is larger and more powerful than the baby boomers,” Briggs said. “ ey are the bulge in the snake, and we baby boomers are sitting on our homes, getting old and not moving.”

Short-term rental ownership is becoming more popular, especially among millennials.

certainly contributed to our inability to keep up with demand,” Leighty said.

Lone Tree Mayor Jackie Millet said in 2004, she served on the city’s planning commission and approximately 20% of the new buildings were condos.

“To my recollection, in Lone Tree,

“Close to 50% of buyers (in Clear Creek County) ask if it can be a shortterm rental,” said Josh Spinner, longtime Clear Creek County real estate agent.

More recent issues

e COVID-19 pandemic brought a new trend. Many people were able to work from home and some decided to move out of urban areas to more sce-

we haven’t seen one in probably 15 years. And the ones that are being built in the metro region are either — they’re very, very expensive,” she said. “ at was our supply of entrylevel housing, and it is no longer being produced.”

Millet thinks the constructiondefects law played a signi cant role in the supply of the entry-level housing market. She also knows of residents who wish to remain in the community and want to downsize, but cannot nd any a ordable options.

Typically, Millet believes the markets should resolve the issues themselves.

“But in my opinion, the markets have been corrupted by a number of things,” Millet said. “And so I do feel at this point, we must do something other than just complain about it, because we’ve seen it increase as a priority issue for our residents and our businesses.”

“If we just keep complaining about it, which is what we’ve been doing, without taking any kind of action to increase the supply of housing that people can a ord, the problem is just going to get worse.”

nic, less populated towns, real estate agents said.

“Whoever would have thought home prices would have gone up during COVID?” Spinner asked rhetorically. “Who could have predicted that? In addition to arti cially low interest rates, we had a lot of arti cial stimulus money. It de es logic that prices

A vast view of homes from Blu s Regional Park and Trail in Lone Tree on Oct. 21, 2022.

PHOTO BY TAYLER SHAW

CRISIS

FROM PAGE 22

“ e disruption of COVID and the almost complete lack of (market) churn really distorted supply with respect to what was available for sale,” Resnick said. “We believe, and we’re still working through all of this, that was a somewhat signi cant contributor in the run-up in prices.”

Briggs said the transition to people working remotely wasn’t an easy one.

“ e seeds of remote work were there before COVID,” he said. “People started looking at their living arrangements and decided they wanted an o ce in their homes. ey discovered if they work remotely, they could work where they wanted. ey decided to get out of the city and into the suburbs or bedroom communities.

“ ey no longer were commute-oriented in making (home-buying) decisions. Instead, they were quality-of-life focused because they were able to do that. at created a surge in people moving from one place to another.”

e COVID-19 pandemic didn’t help, Millet in Lone Tree said, as well as the subsequent supply-chain issues. “ e demand has continued to increase that whole time, and supply has been falling further and further behind,” Millet said. “When you don’t have enough supply, price goes up — and that’s the space that we’re sitting in.”  en toward the end of the pandem-

ic, the Marshall Fire in Boulder County took place, burning 1,100 homes.

at added to the situation — many families looking for temporary or permanent housing, further depleting the number of homes on the market.

Building homes

City and county planners say they are seeing more builders wanting to build residential developments recently, but they are facing several issues.

“ ere’s a housing shortage because we can’t get homes built fast enough,” said Chris O’Keefe, Je erson County planning director. “In Je erson County, we have a lot of land but not a lot of land that is shovel ready.”

He noted that it doesn’t help when members of the community don’t want new high-density residential development near them.

“Recently we’ve seen some areas where … developers have wanted to rezone for higher density,” O’Keefe said. “ e community sometimes is not supportive of higher density.”

In Clear Creek County, little developable land is available, and most of the building permits are for singlefamily homes.

“Over the last 20 years, buildingpermit applications that we are seeing for single-family homes indicate that homes are getting larger and more expensive,” said Fred Rollenhagen, community development director for Clear Creek County. “We are not seeing as many smaller or middle-class type homes like what we saw 20 years ago.”

Lakewood, for example, also doesn’t have large parcels available for

residential development except in the Rooney Valley along C-470, where a residential development is under construction with plans for 1,200 homes when complete.

“As a rst-tier suburb of Denver, our vacant land is minimal,” said Paul Rice, manager of planning and development assistance for the City of Lakewood. “Other than the Rooney Valley, there are not a lot of development opportunities that are easy.

“A developer has to work to make a project successful. Lakewood is not an easy place to develop. Most everything is redevelopment. Developing land is a matter of aggregating property to create property that can be redeveloped.”

What’s to come

A 2022 analysis from Newcomer and Resnick on housing a ordability in Colorado found that the share of housing a ordable to people making the median Colorado income dropped 25% between 2015 and 2020. e same research found that statewide housing prices would need to fall by 32% to return to the a ordability levels the state saw in 2015.

“Market correction alone will not restore relative a ordability without considerable market pain,” the 2022 analysis concluded.

Newcomer said it wouldn’t be easy for the housing market to become more balanced.

“We do need to nd ways to build, essentially, a parallel market that’s incentivized di erently,” Newcomer said. “ e normal constructs of housing development in the full market don’t incentivize doing anything differently. We have, especially with this

disruption because of the pandemic and supply chain issues, these elevated costs from material goods to labor and so on. It’s going to be really hard for those to come back down in the overall market environment now.”

When projecting what housing production may look like in 2023, Leighty said a lot of it depends on mortgage rates.

“Will we see a recession? What will we see that necessarily starts to bring down the federal funds rate and then, you know, brings down the mortgage rates?” Leighty asked, highlighting the uncertainty of the future.

e Colorado and U.S. economies are projected to avoid a recession in 2023, but the “path for continued expansion is narrow” and “a wide array of unforeseen shocks could push the economy into a downturn,” according to the Colorado Legislative Council Sta ’s December 2022 Economic and Revenue Forecast.

Leighty thinks 2023 may start slowly for home builders.

“Builders, they’ll move cautiously on land acquisition until there’s probably more clarity, especially in (interest) rates,” he said.

Real estate agent Briggs thinks the relationship between home buyers and sellers is changing.

A public hearing will be held before the Arvada Planning Commission scheduled for February 7th, 2023 at 6:15 p.m., Arvada City Hall, 8101 Ralston Rd., Arvada, when and where you may speak on the matter to consider a Conditional Use and Major Modification for MARSHALL POINTE, a 4.36 – acre parcel of land approximately located at the southeast corner of Marshall St and W 52nd Ave. Members of the public may attend. To submit written public comment to be considered by the Commission, email comments to cedboardsandcommission@arvada.org by 5 p.m. on 2/6/2023. Additional information can be obtained from https://www.arvadapermits.org/etrakit3/search/ project.aspx?activityno=DA2022-0070.

PUBLIC NOTICE

consider a

to

First Publication: January 19, 2023

Last Publication: January 19, 2023

new fueling station and convenience store with a detached fuel pump

be held before the Arvada Board of Adjustment scheduled for February 7th, 2023 at 6:15 p.m., Arvada City Hall, 8101 Ralston Rd., Arvada, when and where you may speak on the matter to consider Kum & Go #2299, To construct a new fueling station and convenience store with a detached fuel pump canopy that does not adhere to the 35 percent frontage zone requirement of Table 2-1-4-3A; to construct a new fueling station and convenience store with a detached fuel pump canopy where two parking stalls do not adhere to the required 20-foot parking setback of Table 2-1-4-3A; and to construct a new fueling station and convenience store with a detached fuel pump canopy where the trash receptacle is not located within an interior side

A public hearing

Publisher: Jeffco Transcript

PUBLIC NOTICE

PUBLIC NOTICE

A public hearing will be held before the Arvada Planning Commission scheduled for February 7th, 2023 at 6:15 p.m., Arvada City Hall, 8101 Ralston Rd., Arvada, when and where you may speak on the matter to consider Kum & Go #2299, To construct a new fueling station and convenience store with a detached fuel pump canopy where the building does not adhere to the building orientation and configuration requirement of LDC 5-1-2-6(B)(1); To construct a new fueling station and convenience store with a detached fuel pump canopy where the fueling canopy

CITY