Arvada Press 020923

Our in-depth look at the housing crisis

Gov. Polis stresses more housing is key to Colorado’s economic health

BY ELLIS ARNOLD EARNOLD@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM

If lawmakers don’t act to make housing more a ordable now, “we will soon face a spiraling point of no return.”

at’s what Gov. Jared Polis said in January, during his annual State of the State Address. He noted myriad problems linked to rising housing costs.

People, he said, “are being forced out of their neighborhoods with no hope of ever living close to where they work.”

“ at means more tra c, lost

Arvada Chamber of Commerce to participate in National Civics Bee pilot Program will bring national social

BY RYLEE DUNN RDUNN@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM

e Arvada Chamber of Commerce announced on Feb. 1 that it would be hosting the regional portion of the National Civics Bee for Je erson County this spring, the rst time the humanities competition has been held in Colorado.

e competition is open to any middle schooler (6th to 8th grade) in Je erson County, including students from public, private and charter schools. e competition features two portions; an essay contest that will yield 20 nalists to compete in a live quiz competition. e top three nishers of the regional quiz competition will compete a statewide championship round.

e National Civics Bee is run by the United States Chamber of Commerce Foundation. is year’s Colorado pilot program will be evaluated in order to plan future iterations of the competition in the Centennial State.

time and money spent on long commutes, more air pollution, and greater economic and workforce challenges,” Polis said. Polis added that rising housing prices are “putting the dream of homeownership out of range for more and more Coloradans.”

e governor’s assessment squares with the ndings of Colorado Community Media in our four-week series exploring what many experts say is a housing crisis — one that a ects practically everyone in the Denver area.

Lower-income workers are seeing larger chunks of their paychecks

go to landlords. Young families can’t nd starter homes they can a ord. Retirees don’t see any attractive options for moving and downsizing, meaning their homes stay o the market, helping keep prices high.

“Just look west,” Polis said in his address. “In California, decades of poor planning has led to interruptions of drinking water and electricity for entire towns and cities, average home prices over $1 million in major cities and 16lane freeways” with “bumper-to-

SEE STRESSES, P14

e Buena Vista, Craig, Denver Metro and Greater Pueblo Chambers of Commerce will all be hosting regional civic bee competitions similar to what the Arvada Chamber will organize for Je co. New Mexico, Iowa, Kentucky, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Texas and Washington all host Civics Bees.

e deadline for submissions for the essay portion of the contest — the guidelines of which are posted on the Arvada Chamber’s website — is Feb. 23.

e regional winner will receive $500, while the state winner will receive $1,000. Arvada Chamber of Commerce President Kami Welch

studies competition to Colorado for first time

A Chocolate A air brings thousands to Olde Town

Great weather and a good cause made for a nice Arvada Saturday

BY RYLEE DUNN RDUNN@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM

ousands of people converged in Olde Town on Feb. 4 to celebrate A Chocolate A air, an annual fundraiser that bene ts the Ralston House. Over 3,000 tickets were sold during this year’s event, marking a return to the event’s pre-pandemic norm.

Great weather and scores of local businesses participating — including new kids on the block Outside the Box, among others — made for an excellent day, event organizer Karen Miller said.

“It is heartwarming to have this many people come after these COVID years that are still embracing this event and supporting Ralston House,” Miller said.

Ralston House’s Special Events Associate Jennifer Kemps said A Chocolate A air kicks o the nonpro t’s fundraising season and is a great opportunity for volunteers and sta to connect with the local community.

Enstrom’s Candies set up a table in La Dolce Vita Co ee Shop.

Employees of So Radish hand out samples at A Chocolate A air

Ralston House volunteers convene in the Olde Town Flour Mill to judge chocolate baking recopies

A lamp post heart in Olde Town Square.

said that all 20 regional participants in Je erson County will also get a digital device and gift bag to keep.

Welch said that her goal for the competition is to have students meaningfully learn about how their communities function.

“(Students) are going to identify a problem facing their community and explain how they’d solve it in their essay,” Welch said. “Really thinking about what ways you’d approach that issue, resources, members of the community helping.”

e competition will be judged by local elected o cials and retired teachers, according to Welch. One of the judges, Je erson County Commissioner Tracy Kraft- arp, said educating young people on civics is even more vital in today’s political

discourse.

“I think this is really important,” Kraft- arp said. “In today’s world, we’re having a conversation about democracy and what democracy means. is can be a way for students to explore and discover what

ally at that age of curiosity, open to exploring new ideas,” Kraft-Tharp said. “They’re not worried about what it says on social media; they’re not concerned with what’s cool or not cool. Young people also need to be able to hone (writing) skills — if you’re a good writer, you can go a long way.”

Welch said she hoped the program would help shape the next generation of local leaders.

“As a Chamber, we’re really invested in local policy, elected officials and how they engage with businesses and the community,” Welch said. “We hope to develop a pipeline of leaders who care about civic engagement and community.

democracy is.”

Kraft- arp also said that hosting the competition with middle schoolers is ideal because they tend to be more academically curious than their older or younger peers.

“Middle school students are re-

“In today’s world, civility can be challenging,” Welch continued. “The more we can understand who the players are and how they work, the more effective we can be as a region at solving critical issues.” ADVERTISEMENT

Understanding Indoor Air Quality and How It’s Handled in Super-Insulated Homes

As we all work to make our homes more airtight, we also have to be conscious of our families’ need for fresh air — oxygen above all! If our homes were completely airtight, we would not only risk suffocation, we would also be more susceptible to the toxic gases and fumes being emitted by our paint, our carpeting, our gas appliances, and more.

The outgassing from our carpet and other building materials are known as “volatile organic compounds” or VOCs.

An appliance which you’ll be hearing more about in homes like your own as our buildings become better insulated and therefore more airtight is displayed schematically in the third column.

It’s called an Energy Recovery Ventilator (ERV) or a Heat Recovery Ventilator (HRV). Below that schematic is a picture of an ERV installed in a home.

Before I explain this appliance’s operation, let me tell you what it replaces: the exhaust fans in your bathrooms and above your kitchen stove. Those exhaust fans simply pump air out of you house, which causes fresh air to be sucked into your house via the gaps around your doors and windows and multiple other gaps you are not aware of.

That air which enters your home is not preconditioned in any way. It is whatever the temperature is outdoors, and in midwinter it could make your furnace work harder heating the cold air which naturally enters your home, whether or not

How to Recognize Scam Emails and Phone Calls

Senior citizens in particular are targets for scammers. It’s easy to be taken in by a scam email or phone call, so here are some tips on how to recognize them. I’m not an expert on this topic, but I’m speaking from my own experience. I have never been a victim of a scam because I’m careful. I’m sharing with you the care I take to avoid scammers.

If you do end up speaking with or exchanging emails with a scammer, remember this above all else: If it sounds too good to be true, it’s a scam. If they ask for any personally identifying information, it’s a scam. If they ask for money, it’s a scam. Better yet, though, it’s important to recognize the emails so you don’t open them and scammers’ phone numbers so you don’t answer them. If they pretend to be from your bank, etc., hang up and call your bank or whoever.

Scam emails: The main danger with emails occurs when you open an attachment or click on a link that contains a virus. Never click on a link or attachment you are not expecting. For attachments, look at the file name. If the suffix is “.htm” or “.html” it’s a website, not an attachment, and it will capture your information and suck you in. Word files (“.doc” or “.docx”) can also contain hidden links in them that capture your information or plant a virus on your computer. An Acrobat file (“.PDF”) might be safe, but I wouldn’t open one I’m not expecting from a trusted person. If the PDF asks you to enter something instead of opening immediately, you know it’s a scam or virus, so don’t do it!

Look at the email address of the sender, but more importantly, float your cursor over the address to see what the sender’s real email address is, because it could be different. That’s a red flag. Look at the suffix on the email address. If it’s not

“.com” or “.net” or “.org” or “.edu” or “.gov” it might be for a foreign country –another red flag. If it says the attachment is a voicemail, or an invoice, or “payment advice,” that attachment is probably a website and it’s a scam. If you have opened an email and the whole message is one link because wherever you float the cursor you see the finger pointer instead of the arrow pointer, that’s a red flag. Close the email and delete it! If there are links in an email, float your cursor over the link without clicking on it, and see if it’s the same. For example, the link might look legitimate, such a “microsoft.com,” but when you float over it you see some other address, probably ending in a country code (“.uk” or “.ru” etc.) that’s a red flag. Close and delete the message! If you do visit a website, float over any link within that website for the same reason.

Phone calls and text messages: It’s best to let unknown numbers go into voicemail, then check your voicemail. Usually a scammer won’t leave a voicemail, so don’t think you missed anything important. Look at the phone number. Never answer an “unknown” number or a number from another country or a number from “United States” instead of a specific city. If you answer the phone and the person uses your legal first name instead of your nickname, and if they ask how you are today instead of just saying hello, they’re either a solicitor or a scammer. You don’t need to be polite. No need to say good-bye, just hang up.

On text messages, use the same advice as above. Don’t click on a link. You can ignore text messages. If it’s a real person, they’ll call you if you don’t respond. Above any text message will be an icon for the sender. Touch it and the word “Info” to learn more about who it is.

those exhaust fans are operating.

Thus, the primary job of the ERV or HRV is to use the heat from the air being exhausted from your home to preheat the air that is entering your home without having those two sources of air mix with each other. This is done through what is referred to as a heat exchanger. In the above

concerned about indoor air quality, this is the device you’ll want to look into purchasing for your home.

Whereas the ERV and HRV may operate on an as-needed basis, the CERV is intended to run 24/7, constantly monitoring the level of CO2 and VOCs in your indoor air as it is drawn through the unit. If the levels of these or other pollutants are high, the unit’s fan will run faster. A recent update of the unit has the addition of a viruskilling UV light.

Also, a CERV contains a heat pump, so it can actually perform the function of a furnace, preheating the air which is drawn from outdoors or recirculated through the house, not merely transferring the room temperature heat from the exhausted air to the incoming air.

diagram, the heat exchanger is in the middle of the device. The unit runs at low speed, taking the stale air from your bathrooms and kitchen (typically), through a metallic heat exchanger which then adds that heat to the air which is passing through the adjoining passageway from the outdoors into your living spaces. That fresh air replenishes the oxygen in your home.

What I have described above is the function of the HRV, which only handles the transfer of heat from one air source to the other. The ERV also performs the transfer of humidity. Thus, if the cold air outside your house is very dry (typical of Denver’s climate), the ERV will transfer some of the moisture from the indoor air to the incoming air.

Neither the ERV nor the HRV measure or react to the presence of toxic gases in your home. That’s the added value of a third device, the CERV or Conditioning Energy Recovery Ventilator. If you’re

I have written in the past about the Geos Community in Arvada. None of the homes in that community use natural gas. Instead, the townhomes are heated and cooled by a combination of a heat pump/mini-split system and a CERV which provides additional heating or cooling. The detached homes at Geos also have CERVs to complement the ground source heat pumps which provide the primary year-round heating and cooling of the homes.

2022’s Top Producer Is Named

Congratulations to David Dlugasch, our top-producing Broker Associate for 2022! During last year he sold $5,625,700 worth of listings and represented buyers in the purchase of $5,278,900 worth of listings. Since joining Golden Real Estate in October 2014, David has closed 47 listings and assisted buyers in closing on another 39 listings. He moved to Arvada from Crested Butte, where he owned his own brokerage, choosing to affiliate with Golden Real Estate because he was regular online reader of this very column (Denver Post version). Thanks, David, for being one of our hardest working and most consistently productive broker associates.

Learn more about CERVs at www. BuildingEquinox.com. The local vendor is AE Building Systems, 720-287-4290 Jim

Both images sourced from homes.winnepegfreepress.com

National Civics Bee logo.

COURTESY ARVADA CHAMBER OF COMMERCE

Nominations open for Badass Women of Arvada

Annual program honors local women in business, nonprofits, community

BY RYLEE DUNN RDUNN@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM

Nominations for the Arvada Chamber of Commerce’s 3rd Annual Badass Women of Arvada celebration have opened, with the chamber calling for people to nominate local women in business, nonpro ts and community work for recognition until March 17.  Nominations can be made on the Chamber’s website.

roughout the month of March, the Chamber will honor featured women on social media and host networking events. e timing of the celebration coincides with Women’s History Month.

A panel of past winners, Arvada Chamber sta and Arvada Chamber board members will convene to decide which of the nominees are featured.

e program aims to highlight and provide resources to combat workforce inequality for women in the community. According to the Chamber, Colorado also has the highest percentage of women-owned businesses in the U.S. at 10.39% — although 49% of the state’s population is comprised of women, according to the most recent U.S. census.

Chamber of Commerce President Kami Welch said the Chamber is excited to honor women in the community again, after starting Badass Women of Arvada in 2021.

“At the Arvada Chamber, we are fortunate to work with so many incredible women in business, non-profit, and government roles that contribute to advancing the Arvada community,” Welch said.

“Once again, we’re thrilled to support and celebrate their accomplishments and help pave the way for future leaders that will help make Arvada a great place to work, live and play.”

Welch added that a leadership luncheon will be held this summer to bring the honorees together.

TURN TO THE COLORADO SUN FOR NEWS ACROSS THE STATE

The Colorado Sun is a journalistowned, award-winning news outlet that strives to cover all of Colorado so that our state — our community — can better understand itself.

In this way, The Sun contributes to a more vibrant, informed and whole Colorado.

The Sun, launched in 2018, is committed to fact-based, in-depth and non-partisan journalism. It covers

everything from politics and culture to the outdoor industry and education.

Now, The Colorado Sun co-owns this and other Colorado Community Media newspapers as a partner in the Colorado News Conservancy. The Sun is CCM’s partner for statewide news. For Colorado Sun stories, opinions and more, and to support The Sun’s misssion as a member or subscriber, visit coloradosun.com.

2023 Badass Women of Arvada logo. COURTESY ARVADA CHAMBER OF COMMERCE

Je co Public Schools release data to be used for secondary school closures

BY ANDREW FRAIELI AFRAIELI@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM

The Jefferson County Board of Education voted in November to close 16 elementary schools based generally on enrollment data and proximity to other schools — data that could be found on the FCB Dashboard.

On Jan. 31, the District released similar data for secondary schools that will be used to decide possible closures in Phase II of Regional Opportunities for Thriving Schools.

The District stated that criteria for secondary school closures — possibly including K-8s — have not been decided yet, but said in the past that it will differ from the criteria for elementary school closures.

Data in the dashboard now includes building utilization and enrollment trends as well as financials, staffing information and more for all middle schools and high schools.

Capacity: the number of students that can be served in a school building

According to the dashboard, all high schools were above 45% capacity except for Arvada at 40%. The next lowest capacities were Pomona and Wheat Ridge at 57%. For middle schools, more were closer to that bar with Moore at 46%, North Arvada at 47% and Deer Creek at 49%. Most others were above 70%, with a few at 60% and up.

Utilization : capacity for students versus how many are actually enrolled

For multi-level schools, like K-8s, all utilization percentages (capacity for students versus how many are actually enrolled) were above 60% except for Coal Creek Canyon K-8 at 49% and Jefferson Junior/Senior High School at 55%.

School choice: Ability for students and families to choose which school best works for them

In terms of school choice, more high schools were choiced out of than in, though some only by a hair. The same went for middle schools, but by a much higher margin.

Looking ahead

Again, the District has not decided upon criteria yet for Phase II. For elementary school closures, the District looked at schools with fewer than 220 students or less than 45% utilization and if there was another school less than 3.5 miles away. But, this was considering factors that don’t apply to high schools and middle schools.

ere are many more elementary schools than high schools and middle schools, and capacities for middle schools easily approach and exceed 1,000 students, with high schools easily approaching and exceeding 2,000.

In a statement released with the updated data, the District said the Board of Education announced a special study session on Feb. 24 to discuss the dashboard data and the timeline for Phase II.

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The Je co Board of Education on Nov. 10, the night of the Board’s final vote on elementary school consolidations. The Board unanimously voted in favor.

PHOTO BY ANDREW FRAIELI

Former Clear Creek Deputy looks to get charges dropped

Kyle Gould’s defense filed a motion to dismiss his indictments in connection with the death of Christian Glass

BY OLIVIA JEWELL LOVE OLOVE@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM

Former Clear Creek County Sheri ’s deputies Kyle Gould and Andrew Buen appeared in court for the second time on Jan. 30, with Gould’s defense looking to dismiss his charges and the people’s representation looking for a joinder of the defendants.

Kyle Gould and Andrew Buen were indicted in November for multiple counts of criminally negligent homicide and reckless endangerment in relation to their roles in the death of Christian Glass, a 22-yearold Boulder man shot in Silver Plume in June 2022.

Gould’s defense led a motion on Jan. 26, 2023 for the court to dismiss indictments against him for lack of probable cause and insu cient indictment.

“Mr. Gould should not have been charged and he should not have been indicted,” said one of Gould’s attorneys at the hearing on Jan. 30.

In the courtroom, Gould’s de-

fense likened the case going to a grand jury to a sporting event being played with no opponent, due to the fact that going to a grand jury doesn’t allow the opportunity for a defense.

Glass’s parents, present at the hearing, felt di erently. ey welcomed the due diligence of the justice system.

“You have to trust in the people, and the people are disgusted,” said Sally Glass outside the courthouse.

Simon and Sally Glass told how hard it was to sit and listen to the defense, in Simon’s words, “ducking responsibility.”

“It’s incredibly hard to sit there and hear them basically try to get o ,” Sally said.

But, the defense presented its motion, despite opening with condolences to the Glass family.

“Truly, we do not believe there is probable cause that Mr. Gould committed any crime,” Gould’s defense said.

Gould’s defense said that he was home the night of Glass’s death and that he gave the best advice he could at the time from where he was.

e People of the State of Colorado led a motion on Jan. 24 for joinder to join the defendants.

e People’s cited CRCrP Rule 8(2)(b), Joinder of Defendants:

“Two or more defendants may be charged in the same indictment, information, or felony complaint if they are alleged to have participated

in the same act or series of acts arising from the same criminal episode. Such defendants may be charged in one or more counts together or separately and all of the defendants need not be charged in each count.”

e next hearing for Buen and Gould will be held at the Clear Creek County Courthouse at 11 a.m. on April 17. Similar motions to Gould’s defense are expected to be

led by Buen’s defense in the coming weeks.

As they left the courthouse, Simon and Sally were surrounded with family and friends clad in pink, Christian’s favorite color. Friends helped the two out of the building, tears brimming.

“To be that physically close to the man that murdered our son, it’s just really hard,” Sally said.

Colorado DMV releases list of rejected personalized plates

BY ANDREW FRAIELI AFRAIELI@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM

SHIKAKA, VOTE and BULL are among some of the less “o ensive” personalized license plates that were rejected by the Colorado DMV last year.

“We love the creativity and personal pride Coloradoans take in picking their personalized plate,” DMV Senior Director Electra Bustle said in a statement. “While most personalized plates are approved, there are a small percentage that do not meet DMV standards and are rejected.”

Some of this percentage were warnings like “BACKTFU,” others profanity-laced skater sayings like “FIDLAR.” Multiple were political statements and others were highly sexual.

e rejections themselves are partly done automatically through the DMV’s internal systems, according to the statement. It compares the request to an “o ensive and omit list” built over time using American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators recommendations, “known o ensive words and terms, as well as comparing what other states do not

allow.”

According to DMV and Tax Communications Manager Derek Kuhn, the other part of the rejection process is through an internal committee.

A panel of three DMV sta members rotate reviewing plates agged as o ensive in what Kuhn described as a “blind, independent review.”

“Each committee member does their own research and votes blindly on the plates that they receive referrals for,” he said, with a two-thirds majority required to approve or deny a plate. The staffers look at similar resources as the automatic system, but also Urban Dictionary and Google Translate. There is an appeal process, but Kuhn said it is rarely used. It involves going to the Colorado Department of Revenue’s Hearings Division for them to make a determination. This past year though, only one person appealed, and Kuhn said the DMV worked to reconfigure the plate before the hearing.

“In the end, the customer was happy and no hearing was held,” he said.

Sally Glass, center, mother of 22-year-old Christian Glass who was shot by police after calling 911 for help, is flanked by his sisters Katie, left, and Anna, right as they attend a candlelight vigil on Sept. 20 in Idaho Springs.

PHOTO BY DEBORAH GRIGSBY

Silver Plume purchases 200 acres to preserve history

McCloskey likened the land purchase to a 200-acre museum, due to all the historical signi cance the area holds.

e area is also home to a bighorn sheep herd, which the land purchase will protect by designating the area as open space.

BY OLIVIA JEWELL LOVE OLOVE@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM

e town of Silver Plume recently purchased 200 acres of Brown Gulch and Republican Mountain in an e ort to protect cultural resources, preserve open space and protect the history of the town.

On Jan. 30, town o cials closed on the historic land purchase after raising $600,000 in just shy of a year. e town of around 200 people saw donations from businesses, foundations and individuals from the community.

e land the town purchased has a history for Silver Plume that won’t soon be forgotten. e purchased area includes 95 mining claims and what was once the Mendota Mine, which saw its heyday in the late 1800s.

Doug Watrous, founder of Jack Pine Mining, was a xture in the Silver Plume community for years, known for his passion for mining.  Fabyan Watrous, Doug’s wife,

managed Jack Pine mining until her death in 2017. She served as a Clear Creek County Commissioner for many years and was also an important facet in the community, according to Fabyan Watrous’s daughter, Debbie Rutzebeck, who sold the town the land.

Doug acquired multiple mining claims from his father in Clear Creek County, but Mendota Mine in Silver Plume was always his “pride and joy,” Rutzebeck said.

“ e family believes he would be

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happy to see its heritage preserved,” Rutzebeck said.

e swath of land the town has purchased holds signi cance for the residents, both in its history and future.

“Silver mining is what built the town of Silver Plume,” said Silver Plume Mayor Sam McCloskey.

McCloskey has a personal connection to the area as well.

“It’s near and dear to me because I had several of my ancestors who worked these mines,” he said.

Cynthia Neely was the project manager helping to facilitate the land purchase. She explained the area is part of the GeorgetownSilver Plume National Landmark District, which has the purpose of preserving the history of silver mining in the area.

“For 30 years, one of the goals of the historic agencies in the district has been to secure the mountainsides in the districts,” Neely said.

Not only does this 200-acre land purchase include the iconic Mendota Mine, but the sites of an estimated 20 mines that saw active operation in the 19th century, according to Neely.

Neely hoped that beyond the preservation of the cultural remnants of the mines and the protection of nature, the area could become a space for people to learn about the rich history of Silver Plume.

“We want to share a story,” she said.

Now, the town waits for the completion of the conservation easement of the area, which will likely take a few more months due to weather.

The Silver Plume Board of Trustees closed on the property on Jan. 30, 2023.

PHOTO BY OLIVIA JEWELL LOVE

The small town of Silver Plume raised $600,000 in less than a year to purchase an area of land with a rich history

Weather and gas prices causing higher utility bills

BY JOSHUA PERRY AND MARK JAFFE THE COLORADO SUN

The spiking energy bills affecting many Coloradans are caused by colder weather and higher gas prices — factors over which neither regulators nor utilities have control, the Colorado Public Utility Commission reported Wednesday.

Xcel Energy utility bills were on average 52%, or $87, higher in December than they were a year earlier, although some consumers saw their bills double, PUC Chief Economist Erin O’Neill told commissioners in a briefing.

Commissioner John Gavan said he was struck by the magnitude of the costs and the financial pressure they are exerting on Coloradans.

“I can’t remember seeing this level of pain in the consumer community since the 1970s and the gas crisis, which I’m old enough to remember,” he said. “So I take this very seriously.”

The rising utility bills follow the approval by the commission of six electricity and gas rate hikes, several allowing for increases due to rising natural gas prices, that have spurred a near-record number of low-income consumers to seek financial aid to pay their bills.

The state-run Low-income Energy Assistance Plan has received nearly 90,000 requests for bill relief, as of Tuesday, compared with 80,000 for the same period last winter, and has issued $25 million in payments. Energy Outreach Colorado, a nonprofit that helps people with their bills, received 44,000 calls to its HEAT helpline in January.

“This is an unprecedented number,” said Denise Stepto, a spokeswoman for the nonprofit. “Is it sustainable from month to month? There is a lot of pressure to do something.”

The average temperature in December was about 10 degrees colder than it was in December 2021, O’Neill said, and that means more energy was being consumed to keep homes warm. Additionally, commodity prices for natural gas have increased substantially — 40% higher than last year — which is a cost that utility companies pass directly to consumers. Smart

meters, recent investments in solar and wind energy, and time-ofuse rates for electricity customers are not significantly impacting bill hikes, O’Neill said.

“We share the commission’s concerns and appreciate their efforts to provide greater insight into the causes of higher costs,” Xcel Energy said in a statement. The company said it is adding more low-cost renewable energy and securing competitively priced fuel contracts.

Natural gas continues to be the most reliable and affordable source to heat its customers’ homes each winter, Xcel also said. The company is the largest utility provider in Colorado with 1.5 million electric customers and 1.6 million gas customers.

The price of natural gas for delivery in February has dropped 26% between December and January, to 56 cents a therm, so February bills may be lower, Commissioner Megan Gilman said. But even if the bill crisis is resolved in the short term, there’s a systemic problem. The market for natural gas is unregulated, Gilman said, and fuel price spikes and severe weather events will continue to make prices and rates volatile.

“What we thought were the

extremes before February 2021 are not the extremes anymore,” she said.

Addressing the overarching problem is not simple. Price hikes could be spread over time — Xcel Energy is doing this over 30 months with $500 million in gas charges from 2021’s Winter Storm Uri. But that could lead to future price spikes “pancaking” on top of each other, Gilman said. The commission needs to think in the long term, she said.

While the base rates only accounted for 16% of the December increase, both Gilman and Commission Chairman Eric Blank said that the commission should focus on those rates — which they must approve. Blank said the doubling of gas base rates since 2011 didn’t significantly impact consumers when gas prices were low.

“Now the combination of higher commodity prices and the doubling of base rates really puts us in a different world and creates much more affordability pressure,” Blank said.

More attention should be paid to what investments utilities make before the companies come to the commission to add them to the rates customers pay.

Another concern that commissioners expressed is Xcel Energy’s lack of incentive. Blank said there ought to be an alignment of interests between the company and its

customers.

“When customers lose, utilities should share some of the pain,” he said.

Gilman said that the mechanism that just passes the cost of natural gas, high or low, on to consumers is also a problem.

“Since it’s a direct pass-through, they do not have an incentive to get you more expensive gas,” Gilman said. “They also don’t have an obvious economic incentive to get the cheapest gas they can. So we need to ensure that they have some skin in the game.”

While 60% of the bill increase was driven by factors the commission can’t control — gas rates and weather — PUC can still have an impact, according to Cindy Schonhaut, director of the Colorado Office of the Utility Consumer Advocate.

“What they can focus on,” she said, “is the 40% of bills beyond the fuel charges,” such as base rates, fixed-use charges and addons for specific projects, like pipeline safety.

This story is from The Colorado Sun, a journalist-owned news outlet based in Denver and covering the state. For more, and to support The Colorado Sun, visit coloradosun.com. The Colorado Sun is a partner in the Colorado News Conservancy, owner of Colorado Community Media.

Thick snowfall o County Road 166 in northwestern Elbert County.

PHOTO BY CHANCY J. GATLIN-ANDERSON

‘This is an unprecedented number. Is it sustainable from month to month? There is a lot of pressure to do something.’

Denise Stepto, spokeswoman for the nonprofit

State park visitation dropped o in 2022

BY PAOLO ZIALCITA COLORADO PUBLIC RADIO

Hiking was slightly less popular at Colorado’s state parks in 2022.

During the pandemic, visitors ocked to Colorado’s state parks, shattering visitation records by millions. With about 19.5 million visitors in 2020, Colorado Parks and Wildlife recorded a nearly 31 percent increase in annual visitors compared to the previous year.

Although stay-at-home orders expired in 2021, even more people visited the state’s 42 parks that year — a new record of about 19.9 million visitors.

But last year, enthusiasm for the outdoors waned ever so slightly. About 18.2 million visitors entered Colorado’s state parks in 2022, a nearly 9 percent decrease from the previous year.

Joey Livingston, a statewide public information o cer for CPW, said the decrease isn’t a cause for concern for the agency. ey believe the number of visitors is settling to a new baseline.

“What we’re seeing in 2022 is more of a return to what normal levels would be pre-pandemic,” Livingston said. “We have our new Keep Colorado Wild Pass that just started in January, and so we’re also hoping that more people are gonna have cheaper access to be able to go to the state parks. e hope is to keep those visitation numbers high.”

Visitation statistics are approxi-

mations made by CPW. Livingston said they track park pass sales and the number of vehicles that enter the park, which means they might underestimate the number of people inside each car. However, CPW has used the same measuring system for years, so the numbers are re ective of the overall pattern.

Lake Pueblo was Colorado’s most popular state park in 2022, repeating a consistent trend established over the years. However, the number of visitors at the lake dropped by over a million last year, from 4.6 million to 3.5 million. Other popular state parks, like Cherry Creek State Park in Aurora and Golden Gate Canyon State Park northwest of Golden, also

saw decreases in visitor numbers compared to 2021.

Stagecoach State Park in Routt County saw nearly a 65,000 increase in visitors last year. e newly opened Fishers Peak State Park in Trinidad, which is still under development, saw nearly 6,000 visitors after only welcoming 224 in 2021. e massive increase in visitors since 2019 has prompted changes to how some state parks operate. Visits to Eldorado Canyon State Park have nearly doubled since 2016.

“We did implement a timed reservation system at Eldorado Canyon State Park to try to help,” Livingston said. “It’s not really about visitation. Sometimes it’s more about parking,

A Rate Worth Getting Excited About!

and we only have a limited number of parking spots at a lot of our parks. So some of these parks can handle more people but they can’t always necessarily handle as many vehicles parking in the park.”

Livingston said parks could continue to introduce changes to entry systems as the agency learns more about how increased visitation is impacting state parks.

This story is from CPR News, a nonprofit news source. Used by permission. For more, and to support Colorado Public Radio, visit cpr. org.

Roxborough State Park’s distinctive geological formations are visited by thousands of people every year, as one of the closest state parks to the Denver metro area.

PHOTO BY CORINNE WESTEMAN

Study eyes weed legalization

Research claims little harm

BY JOHN INGOLD THE COLORADO SUN

Last year, a study came out showing that marijuana legalization in Colorado likely increased cannabis use among adults in the state.

Because of the novel methods the researchers used to examine the question, the study was perhaps the best answer to date on one of legalization’s biggest impacts. But it also left an even bigger question unanswered: Is it bad that more adults are consuming marijuana or doing so more frequently?

Now, in a follow-up study by the same team, using the same methods, the researchers have come to an answer: It doesn’t appear to be.

“At least from the psychological point of view,” said Stephanie Zellers, one of the researchers, “we really didn’t find that the policies (on cannabis legalization) have a lot of negative influence, which I think is important.”

Zellers recently graduated with a Ph.D. in psychology from the University of Minnesota, but she began her doctoral work at the University of Colorado before transferring when her thesis adviser changed jobs. She had originally been interested in neuroscience research, but the necessity of using live lab animals for the work was off-putting to her. And, in the Colorado-to-Minnesota connection, she found a trove of data that could be used in never-beforetried ways.

The power of twins

The data are from longitudinal studies of twins in Colorado or Minnesota. Researchers in both states followed the twins over long periods of time, collecting information about their behaviors, including their cannabis use. The survey information, then, creates an ideal scenario for study: It is thorough, it has built-in controls for variables like educational background or socioeconomic status,

and it also accounts better than most for genetic differences.

On top of that, because Colorado has legalized marijuana and Minnesota hasn’t (at least so far) — and because some twins born in Minnesota moved to Colorado as adults and vice versa — the data provide an ideal opportunity to study the way in which a policy change made in Colorado a decade ago has influenced people’s behavior ever since.

“That twin component really allows us to rule out a lot of possible alternatives — maybe there were just cultural differences, family differences, things like that,” Zellers said.

Zellers spoke with The Sun via videoconference from Finland, where she is pursuing postdoctoral research. (And, yes, she is missing sunshine this time of year.)

Homing in on the big question

The original study, published last fall, simply asked whether twins living in legal-marijuana states use marijuana more than twins living in illegal states. And the answer is yes — about 20% more, according to the research.

That answer was interesting, but Zellers said it wasn’t really what the research team wanted to know.

“Really what people care about is: Is legalization harmful,” she said.

To answer that question, the team came up with 23 measures of what they call “psychological dysfunction.” This includes things like substance-use disorders but also financial woes, mental health distress, community disengagement and relationship issues. The team looked at data on more than 4,000 people — 40% of whom live in a legal-marijuana state.

Zellers said what the researchers found was unexpected: They basically found nothing.

“Obviously the cannabis use increases, but we didn’t see an increase in cannabis-use disorder, which is a little surprising,” she said. “We didn’t really see changes in how much people were drinking or using tobacco. No large personality or workplace or IQ differences or anything like that.”

People in legal states did not report using illegal drugs at higher rates. Researchers also didn’t find a link between marijuana legalization and psychotic behavior.

They did find one difference, though. People living in a state where recreational marijuana use is illegal reported higher rates of alcohol-use disorder and more specifically one symptom of the condition: They were more likely to report using alcohol in situations that were dangerous or harmful,

such as driving drunk.

Flagging limitations

To Zellers and other researchers, the study provides valuable information for the ongoing debate over whether cannabis legalization is a good idea. But it’s not the final

“Our study suggests that we should not be overly concerned about everyday adult use in a legalized environment, but no drug is risk-free,” CU psychology and neuroscience professor John Hewitt, one of the study’s co-authors, said in a statement.

“It would be a mistake to dismiss the risks from higher doses of a drug that is relatively safe in small

This highlights one of the study’s big limitations. Zellers said most of the people included in the twins data are relatively light cannabis users. The sample size for heavy users is small.

That means the study can’t tell whether legalization negatively affects heavy cannabis users. It also can’t determine whether legalization is disproportionately harmful for people who may be predisposed to substance-use problems.

“Our sample is an adult community sample broadly characterized by low levels of substance use and psychosocial dysfunction,” the researchers write in their study, which was published this month in the journal Psychological Medicine. “This limits our ability to generalize relationships between legalization, outcomes and risk factors for the individuals at greatest risk.”

For that reason, it is unlikely to settle the debate over whether cannabis is a “gateway drug.” While using marijuana at some point in your life is not indicative that you will go on to use heavier drugs, previous research has found that many people who develop serious drug-use disorders started using drugs by consuming alcohol or cannabis.

Zellers said she and her colleagues are hoping to publish another study based on their data — but this one will be less concerned about the impacts of marijuana legalization as a policy. Instead, it will try to look at how much cannabis people have used over their lifetimes and then score that against the same measures of psychological dysfunction “to see if, not the policy, but the actual substance itself has an effect,” Zellers said.

“We know how people on average live in each state, but that doesn’t tell us about individual people,” she said.

This story is from The Colorado Sun, a journalist-owned news outlet based in Denver and covering the state. For more, and to support The Colorado Sun, visit coloradosun. com. The Colorado Sun is a partner in the Colorado News Conservancy, owner of Colorado Community Media.

Studies look into how marijuana legalization impacts other drug uses. SHUTTERSTOCK IMAGE

Thu 2/16

Girls Only: The Secret Comedy of Women @ 2pm Galleria Theatre, 1245 Champa St, Denver

Sun 2/19

Mon 2/20

Denver Love Bites: A Valentine’s Haunted House @ 7pm / $27.99$69.99 13th Floor Haunted House Denver, 3400 East 52nd Avenue, Denver. help@13th�oorhauntedhouse.com

Sat 2/18

Pretend Friend @ 5:30pm New Terrain Brewing Company, 16401 Table Mountain Pkwy, Golden

Jacob Larson Band Funk & Soul: Eddie 9V w/ Jacob Larson Band @ 7pm Lost Lake Lounge, 3602 E Colfax Ave, Denver

Eddie 9V @ 8pm Lost Lake Lounge, 3602 E Colfax Ave, Denver

Koven at LVL @ 10pm Temple Nightclub Denver, 1136 Broadway, Denver

Fri 2/17

The Alligators @ 8pm Cervantes' Master‐piece Ballroom & Other Side, 2637 Wel‐ton St, Denver

"Cyrano

@ 2:30pm / $21 Wheat Ridge Theatre Company, 5445 W 38th Ave, Wheat Ridge

The Cody Sisters: Midwinter Bluegrass Festival 2023 @ 4:30pm Ramada Plaza by Wyndham Northglenn/ Denver North, 10 E 120th Ave, Northglenn

Kristine Leschper @ 7pm Hi-Dive, 7 S Broad‐way, Denver

DJ Rockstar Aaron: Forbidden Bingo Monday at Swanky's @ 7pm

Swanky's Vittles and Libations, 1938 Blake St, Denver

Samia w/ Tommy Lefroy @ 8pm Gothic Theatre, 3263 South Broadway, En‐glewood

Tue 2/21

Teamarrr @ 7pm Marquis Theater, 2009 Larimer St, Denver

Hahns w/ Veronica May and the Magnetics and Hanna Doreen @ 7pm Enigma Bazaar, 4923 W 38th Ave, Denver

Mick Flannery @ 7pm Swallow Hill, 71 E Yale Ave, Denver

Arlie @ 8pm Larimer Lounge, 2721 Larimer St, Denver

GeminiiDragon

Heatin' uP The Slopes Tour @ 7pm So Many Roads Brewery, 918 W 1st Ave, Denver TREY LEWIS @ 8pm / $15

Grizzly Rose, 5450 North Valley Highway, Denver

The Mssng with special guest Seth Beamer Opening @ 9pm Roxy Broadway, 554 S Broadway, Denver

Khuu @ 9pm El Tejano, 1949 Mar‐ket St, Denver

Sam Lamar: BASS OPS @ 9pm Club Vinyl, 1082 N Broadway, Denver AgoN @ 9pm El Tejano, 1949 Market St, Denver

Kodo @ 11:59pm

Robert and Judi Newman Center for The‐atre Education, 1101 13th St, Denver

Stone Disciple @ 8pm Globe Hall, 4483 Lo‐gan St, Denver

The Sewing Club: Larimer Lounge @ 8pm Larimer Lounge, 2721 Larimer St, Denver

Wed 2/22

CW & Twenty Hands High @ 6pm Buffalo Rose, 1119 Washington Ave, Golden Unsane @ 8pm HQ, 60 S Broadway, Denver Carter Lybrand @ 9pm Grizzly Rose, 5450 N Valley Hwy, Denver

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de Bergerac"

Defending TABOR on its 30th anniversary

For me, the key hallmark of TABOR is that any tax increases in Colorado must be enacted with the consent of Colorado voters. It is one thing when the people’s representatives pass a tax increase in a legislative body but it is another and far nobler function of our republic that voters have a chance to either approve or reject tax increases as a collective body. When the people are empowered to make those decisions directly it only can make our state stronger.

It is a misguided assertion by op-

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

The Rocky Mountains need wolves Wolves need Colorado’s Rocky Mountains, and the Rockies need wolves. at’s the essential premise and promise of Proposition 114 – restoring a natural balance that has been lost since the 75 years of their extirpation from Colorado.

Wolves have profoundly positive ecosystem impacts. At the top of the food web, they have a positive e ect on prey species, and, in combination with other keystone species such as American beavers, can protect plant life, restore wetlands, promote biodiversity, bolster aquatic habitat and even increase water quantity in the ecosystems where they roam. Wolf predation bene ts elk

Happy New Year! As you know, property taxes fund critical services from Special Districts such as our Jefferson County school district, fire departments, public works, water, sewer, city services, public safety, etc.

For every dollar of property tax collected, 24 cents goes to Jefferson County government for services and projects. The

A publication

of

Call first: 27972 Meadow Dr., #320 Evergreen, CO 80439, 303-566-4100

Mailing Address: 750 W. Hampden Ave., Suite 225 Englewood, CO 80110

Phone: 303-566-4100

Web: ArvadaPress.com

To subscribe call 303-566-4100

JOE WEBB Columnist

he Colorado Taxpayers Bill of Rights (TABOR) recently celebrated the 30th anniversary of its enactment. Over the past 30 years, TABOR has saved Colorado taxpayers approximately 8.15 billion dollars. ere was a party held on Jan. 14 in Lakewood to commemorate this occasion.ponents of TABOR that TABOR proponents just wish to limit the growth of government and to nix needed and essential government spending. Untrue. TABOR proponents like myself just wish the voters to have more of a say in how government appropriates their money. Voters have voted breaks upon TABOR in the past and they may just do so again.

What TABOR does is provide constraints on the revenue side of the Colorado state budget and local budgets around the state. It seems to me that the Colorado state budget ought to be examined as to how it is pro-

herds. By selectively removing the weak and diseased, wolves slow and potentially stop the spread of disease, such as chronic wasting disease. And 27 years of evidence from the Northern Rockies informs that wolves have not harmed the livestock industry –with about 1,900 wolves alongside 2,000,000 cattle, about 148 cattle are lost to wolves annually and producers are compensated for losses – just as they would be in Colorado.

Colorado Parks and Wildlife Commissioners will soon be deciding on a wolf management plan. Commissioners should insist that the plan enable both a sustainable wolf population and a population with wide

other 76 cents funds the services and projects of JeffCo Special Districts.

The Jefferson County Treasurer’s Office uses a third-party vendor to collect property taxes online. The third-party vendor charges a vendor or “convenience” fee for their services. The fee goes directly to the vendor, not the Jefferson County government. I have been able to negotiate a lower fee for credit card payments online. The

SEE TAXES, P13

LINDA SHAPLEY Publisher lshapley@coloradocommunitymedia.com

MICHAEL DE YOANNA Editor-in-Chief michael@coloradocommunitymedia.com

KRISTEN FIORE West Metro Editor kfiore@coloradocommunitymedia.com

RYLEE DUNN Community Editor rdunn@coloradocommunitymedia.com

duced. at is the aim of probably the next 10 columns I propose to write for Colorado Community Media.

It will be a di cult undertaking. If I am successful at conveying the information that I research and interview others about, what will happen is that I will convey merely a rudimentary understanding of how the Colorado state budget is formulated, processed and voted upon. I was told by one former member of the Joint Budget Committee that it takes years to really understand the budget. If that is the case then what I share may be inadequate.

But I am willing to try this and distill the knowledge that I accumulate by researching and digging by writing it in this column. If I do this, the problem is that I may fail in conveying something with only so many words allocated per column. Correct

geographic distribution. Best available science informs that a self-sustaining wolf population in Colorado requires a minimum of 750 wolves. e “Colorado Wolf Restoration Plan”, put forward by conservation and wildlife groups, identi es 13 zones, located on public lands on the west slope, for wolves to be reintroduced and re-establish themselves.

Nearly 12 million acres of prime wolf habitat are present on Colorado’s west slope. Most of these lands need wolves. Wolves enhance biodiversity. As climate change continues to impact Colorado and biodiversity is lost, wolves should be encouraged to do their part in healing native ecosystems and increasing

me please knowing that I may have made an error in judgment, not intent.

Knowing the what and how of the appropriations process from formulation to request and nally a vote by the legislature is important. It is also important to examine the components of the budget both revenue and expenditures. We need to look at what exactly the revenue and expenditure side of the budget is composed. All of these parts create the budget for which TABOR is but one factor. TABOR deserves a defense on this its’ 30th birthday. But the best defense for anything is always rooted in an understanding of the primary issue for TABOR which is the Colorado state budget.

Joe Webb is the former chairman of the Je co Republican party.

resilience across Colorado’s West Slope.

CPW Commissioners can realize the vision of Proposition 114 by working with agency sta to align the plan with current best science, as directed by Proposition 114. Such a plan would ensure a minimum population of 750 wolves that are well distributed across Colorado.

Colorado can be di erent from our neighbors to the north and the south. We can have a restorative relationship with the natural world. We can demonstrate our humanity by creating a gray wolf restoration plan that recognizes the intrinsic value and need for wolves in Colorado.

Rainer Gerbatsch, Arvada

MINDY NELON Marketing Consultant mnelon@coloradocommunitymedia.com

AUDREY BROOKS Business Manager abrooks@coloradocommunitymedia.com

ERIN FRANKS Production Manager efranks@coloradocommunitymedia.com

Columnists & Guest Commentaries

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.

Email letters to kfiore@coloradocommunitymedia.com

Deadline Wed. for the following week’s paper. To opt in or out of delivery please email us at circulation@ coloradocommunitymedia.com

Third-party vendor fees for property taxes

A story ‘Hotter Than Egypt’ at the DCPA

No matter where people find themselves, marriage is a complicated bond. There are always going to be challenges — nobody is immune.

The all-important marriage vows are put to the test in “Hotter Than Egypt,” in which Middle East American Distinguished Playwright Award winner Yussef El Guindi follows an American couple as they explore a foreign culture.

The play runs at the Denver Center for the Performing Arts’ Kilstrom Theatre , Speer Boulevard and Arapahoe Street, through Sunday, March 12. Most performances are at 7 p.m., but there are some 1:30 p.m. matinee shows on Sundays.

The show follows Jean (Kate MacCluggage) and Paul (Gareth Saxe), a middle-aged, Midwestern couple who are in Cairo to celebrate their 26 th wedding anniversary. There they meet a young Egyptian couple who serve as tour guides and witnesses to the airing out of long-held grievances.

Chris Coleman, artistic director and director of the play, answered some questions about the show, what audiences can expect and more:

Interview edited for brevity and clarity.

Tell me about the genesis of the show?

Yussef and I worked on an earlier show of his called “Threesome,” which we mounted in Portland, Seattle and eventually New York. So, we got to know each other well. He shared “Hotter Than Egypt” with me the summer prior to the 2020 Colorado New Play Summit and I found it taut and mature and thought our audiences would respond well to it.

What drew you to the show?

I loved the collision of cultures, and how that changes both relationships in the play. I was particularly struck by Jean’s journey: this American tourist who has lived her life for others, who feels pretty repressed and shut down,

TAXES

credit card fee has been 2.5% of the property tax due, and now is 2.35% of property tax due.

Third-party online payment fees for property taxes (2023): Credit Card – 2.35% of property tax due (was 2.5%)

Debit Card – $3.95 per property tax payment

E-Checks – No Charge

For more information about third-party vendor fees, please contact the Treasurer’s Office at 303-271-8330.

COMING ATTRACTIONS

finding that her soul is awakened in this new culture. It’s quite a beautiful explora-

Tell me about the draw of tackling relatively new shows like

exhibition that ties together work created by artists and this year Christina Linden “conducted studio visits with resident artists to develop the curatorial vision for Gravitropic.” Find all the details for the show at www.redlineart.org/gravitropic-resident-artist-exhibition.

Clarke’s Concert of the Week — Luv is 4Ever Tour at Mission Ballroom

*As a result of the passage of SB21-293 (in 2021), and due to the failure of Proposition 120, changes to the property tax as-

Clarke Reader

When you work on a new play, you’re in on the ground floor. You get to see idea move from first spark, to messy middle, to editing, to full bloom. It’s quite wonderful to be in conversation with a writer, to try and uncover the truth of their vision, and to be their first “audience.”

Tell me about bringing in elements of life in the Middle East to the show?

Lisa Orzolek, our set designer, has been inspired by Egyptian architecture, so you’ll definitely get a wonderful visual sense of the world in the setting. David Molina, our composer, was likewise inspired by contemporary Egyptian composers who are mixing traditional sounds, with much more cutting-edge sounds. The instrumentation is deeply influenced by the play’s geography.

What do you hope audiences who see “Hotter Than Egypt” come away with?

A bit of themselves. A taste of newfound freedom. A sense of life from a different vantage point. Get information and tickets at www.denvercenter.org/ticketsevents/hotter-than-egypt/.

RedLine explores Gavitropics with resident artists

One of RedLine Contemporary Art Center’s biggest events has just launched - Gravitropic: RedLine’s Annual Resident Artist Exhibition . The show runs through Wednesday, March 1 at the center, 2350 Arapahoe St. in Denver.

According to provided information, each year RedLine invites a visiting curator to develop an

sessment rates will take effect for tax year 2022 payable 2023. The passage of SB22-238 (in 2022) changed the assessment rates for tax years 2023, 2024 and 2025.

As you can see in the chart (attached), property tax rates decrease depending on the property type and fiscal year. Generally speaking, most residential property tax bills will be less in JeffCo (approx. $25-$100 less) when they are mailed in January/2023 by the Treasurer’s Office.

*Please note that some properties may not see a decrease in the property tax bill because of the circumstances of that specific property.

Jerry DiTullio, JeffCo Treasurer/ Public Trustee

303-271-8337 (Office) www.jeffco.us/Treasurer

Learn about the birds and the bees at DMNS

There certainly is an art to romance, but as the Denver Museum of Nature and Science is reminding people, there’s a science to it as well. Attendees can learn all about this at the museum’s Seductive Science event, held at 7 p.m. on Thursday, Feb. 16.

The 21-and-older event held at the museum, 2001 Colorado Blvd. in Denver, encourages guests to wear their best outfits to an evening that includes lessons on which animals mate for life, how attraction works in the animal kingdom, games and activities and more.

Register at www.dmns.org/visit/ events-and-activities/.

As we stare down the barrel of another Valentine’s Day, it’s difficult to think of a more aptly named tour than JID and Smino’s co-headlining tour, Luv is 4Ever Both artists released albums that ranked amongst the best of 2022, hip-hop or otherwise. JID’s “The Forever Story,” offered listeners something both familiar and challenging, blending rap traditionalism with a modernist’s eye. Smino’s “Luv 4 Rent,” is a genrebender that artfully incorporates elements of R&B and electronic into its sonic landscape. The Luv is 4Ever Tour will be stopping by Denver’s Mission Ballroom , 4242 Wynkoop St., at 8 p.m. on Friday, Feb. 10. It’s difficult to imagine a better opportunity to see two of hip-hop’s most exciting voices. Get tickets at www.axs.com.

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

GRASSESCHI

Barbara Ann (McCarthy) Grasseschi

December 4, 1939 - January 20, 2023

Barbara Grasseschi , age 83, of Arvada, passed away peacefully on January 20, 2023 at Collier Hospice Center in Wheat Ridge. Memorial Mass will be at 11:00 a.m. on

Wednesday, February 15, 2023 at Spirit of Christ Catholic Church Chapel in Arvada. Father David Rykwalder of Grand Island, Nebraska will be celebrant.

The Long Way Home

State leaders, communities search for solutions

BY MICHAEL DE YOANNA MICHAEL@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM

For a month, our reporters and editors brought you stories of your neighbors, your wouldbe neighbors and even people who struggle to survive under bridges. We are all a ected by the rising costs of housing across the Denver area.

e problem is clear: Prices for homes and rents have skyrocketed in recent years. And though the trend shows signs of leveling out, prices are nothing like they were just a few years ago. Jumps in values of hundreds of thousands of dollars were common in the past ve years. For instance, in Brighton, northeast of Denver, and in Littleton, to the south, home values rose $225,000-$300,000, respectively, between 2017 and 2022. Renters are also giving more of their paychecks to their landlords.

Experts at Denver-based Root Policy Research, which studies housing issues, say 700,000 Colorado families are “cost burdened.” e term describes households that devote 30% or more of their income to rent or mortgages. Alarmingly, even families earning as much as $75,000 can be considered burdened.

is week, we look at potential solutions, starting with some

STRESSES

bumper tra c.”

e governor then pivoted to what he sees as solutions. Since 2019, he said, billions of dollars have been invested in housing. For instance, American Rescue Plan Act funds have gone toward projects around the state, he said. And Colorado voters in November passed Proposition 123, which is expected to bring hundreds of millions more dollars to a ordable housing e orts in the years ahead.

“But we can’t just buy our way out of this,” Polis added.

Public o cials, he said, need to break down rules that stand in the way of building more housing.

at idea resonates with ex-

espoused by Jared Polis, the Democratic governor who last month surprised us with his intense focus on housing during his annual State of the State Address. Colorado “will soon face a spiraling point of no return” if housing remains on the course that it is now, Polis said.

Senior Reporter Ellis Arnold rushed to the Capitol for Polis’ news conference after the speech, getting a few o -thecu answers. Billions of dollars have already been spent in recent years to make housing more a ordable, the governor says. He highlighted federal American Rescue Plan Act funds, the stimulus that came during the COVID-19 pandemic. Also, Colorado voters in November decided to earmark hundreds of millions of dollars a year through Proposition 123, which backs local housing affordability e orts.

Yet, for all the tax dollars involved, the governor says, “We can’t just buy our way out of this.” Local rules, like zoning, need to be addressed too, he said.

Experts have told our reporters the same. Reporter McKenna Harford looks at how changes to zoning, among other strategies, can make housing more a ordable. Meanwhile, reporter Luke Zarzecki looks at how the development of our

perts like Christy Rogers, who teaches housing policy at the University of Colorado Boulder.

“Where are our starter homes?” Rogers said. “Where’s our ability to provide housing for a bunch of di erent income levels?”

Many communities need more variety. Some need more density, housing units built closer together, she said.

Housing advocates often point to “the middle,” homes that are neither large, singlefamily units nor big apartment complexes. e middle consists of smaller single-family units and condos that get people their rst foothold in homeownership, a home that they can build equity in and, as their family grows, sell and reinvest the pro ts to upgrade to a bigger one.

e governor appears to be

cities contributes to healthharming pollution and how ideas like better-planned transit can improve our air and reduce climate change. Reporters Belen Ward and Steve Smith look at tiny homes and how di cult it can be to nd a home, even with some help.

In the end, there is no one solution and, frankly, the problem looks like it will continue, and potentially worsen, in the months ahead. Yet we acknowledge e orts to reverse the trend, including collaborations between federal, state and local o cials on myriad projects in our communities. We also hope that they are successful and that Colorado does not turn into what Polis decries — his portrayal of California as a poorly-planned nightmare, where residents face shortages in drinking water, commute on clogged highways and pay $1 million for a typical home.

In the months ahead, we plan to follow up with o cials and hold them accountable for their promises to improve the situation. We will ask for speci cs and then seek out local leaders and residents for their reactions. We also plan forums where our readers and local leaders can join us to speak about the work that needs to be done. In the meantime, we welcome your letters with ideas.

headed in a direction where that kind of market is more possible. He said he wants to “legalize more housing choices for every Coloradan” while “protecting the character” of the state.

Yet it is an idea marked mostly by the sweeping language of the governor’s speech — at least for now.

Colorado Community Media asked the governor for more details since his address. In one statement, the governor said only that “across our state we need more housing for purchase and for rent at a lower price, and I look forward to working on all ways we can help make this happen.”

In another sign, the governor touted Lakewood’s “forwardlooking vision” after he visited

Contributors to the project include:

The state Capitol in Denver in January.

PHOTO BY ELLIS ARNOLD

Cities where six-figure salaries can’t buy homes

BY MCKENNA HARFORD MHARFORD@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM

Aldjia Oudachene’s Littleton home is “a wish come true.”

e house is close to the school bus stop, near work and even has a guest room where Oudachene’s father stays when he visits.

“We have good neighbors who have children the same age, so they play together and I’m so happy here,” Oudachene said.

Originally from Tizi Ouzou, Algeria, Oudachene, her husband and two children moved to Littleton in October 2020. In Algeria, Oudachene’s family lived in a house they could a ord on her and her husband’s incomes as French teachers. When they moved to Littleton, Oudachene said it was a challenge.

“When we came here, we started our life from nothing,” she said. “Here, to teach French, I have to learn English rst.”

To make ends meet, Oudachene and her husband took full-time positions with Walmart, but, even then, the high cost of housing put homeownership outside of their budget. Instead, they rented a two-bedroom apartment.

“With the apartment, life was stressful for us,” she said. “ ere wasn’t a lot of space and no place for (the children) to play.”

Oudachene’s family needed more space and privacy. So they kept looking for a house. Oudachene said her family friend told her about Habitat for Humanity. e national nonpro t vision is a “world where everyone has a decent place to live.” And a ordability is a major part of the organization’s vision.

e application process took about a year, but Oudachene said there was no way her family would have a house without Habitat for Humanity Metro Denver’s help. In the end, the organization provided an opportunity for the family to invest in a home within their budget.

“We would have had to wait to have the budget without Habitat,” she said. “It was so fast. Now, I’m happy to pay the mortgage because it goes into our home.”

From 2017 to 2022, the average home price in Littleton has gone up $300,000, but the city is not alone. Over the same period, Brighton saw home prices increase $225,000, Arvada saw a $275,000 increase and Lone Tree homes are up more than $470,000 on average.

As nding a ordable housing becomes harder for a growing number of Colorado families, municipalities and nonpro ts are looking to expand existing solutions like inclusionary zoning, community land trusts and deed restrictions.

Communities that have implemented one or more of these approaches report increasing their a ordable housing stock, though o cials emphasized that the complexity of Colorado’s housing situation means there is no silver bullet.

However, across the board, a key element to getting support for the expansion of a ordable housing programs is changing the mindset of who

bene ts from them.

Supply, but for whom?

Another impact of rising housing costs throughout the metro area, many communities are reaching a critical point where a majority of workers can’t a ord to live where they’re employed.

Corey Reitz, the executive director for South Metro Housing Options, an a ordable housing provider that serves Littleton and Arapahoe County, said housing prices are now unaffordable even for people who take home a solid paycheck. at includes earners topping $82,000, the median household income in Adams, Arapahoe, Douglas and Je erson counties, according to data from the Colorado Housing and Finance Authority.

“In the past there was an a ordability issue around those lower (area median incomes), but we’re to a point right now where a ordability impacts so many people across a larger spectrum,” Reitz said.

Across the state, the share of housing a ordable to Coloradans has dropped signi cantly. In 2021, just 51% of the state’s housing stock was a ordable for median income earners. at’s down from 76% in 2015, according to research from the Colorado Futures Center, a nonpartisan research group out of Colorado State University.

Phyllis Resnick and Jennifer Newcomer, the authors of the study, said they believe the continuous rise in pricing, even as the housing supply grows, indicates a mismatch in the kind of housing needed and the kind of housing being built.

“ ere’s supply, but supply for who? At what monetary level?” Newcomer asked.

It looks like this: subdivisions of four- and ve-bedroom homes, handfuls of luxury apartments and few, if any, condos and starter homes.

“ e thing that we’re trying to gure out how to illuminate most speci cally is this nuanced distinction

between total rooftops and this notion of supply with respect to availability,” Newcomer said.

Resnick said the current market doesn’t incentivize the construction of lower-cost housing. Per her 2021 analysis, housing values in Colorado would need to drop by roughly onethird to return to the 2015 levels of a ordability – something unlikely to happen, experts have told Colorado Community Media throughout our four-week housing series.

e ones feeling the crunch the most are those who earn the least money, though many of those struggling to a ord housing have aboveaverage salaries.

“I suspect when we nish our research, we’re going to nd that housing that is a ordable to people who are closer to the economic margins is sort of not feasible in the sense of being pro table for the folks who need to be out there building that housing,” Resnick said.

A Golden gap

Without the market providing entry-level housing or starter homes, nonpro ts and local governments have stepped in to try to ll the gap by subsidizing building and buying costs.

An extreme example is the city of Golden, where 95% of its workforce lives outside city limits.

Just this month, the city applied for a grant to support a $65 million partnership with Habitat for Humanity to construct 120 for-sale condos and townhomes for residents making 80% of the area median income for households. at’s roughly $65,000 for an individual and around $93,000 for a family of four.

Golden recently completed a housing needs assessment in October, which found that both housing prices and rent increased exponentially in less than a decade. e cost of the average house in the city doubled between 2015 and 2022. For the rst half of 2022, the average single-family

home sold for $1 million, up from $533,000 in 2015.

is means even relatively highincome earners in Golden are considered by the city to be burdened by housing costs.

“ e majority of the housing that we’re projected to need in the next 10 years will need to serve households at or above 120% area median income,” Golden Housing Coordinator Janet Maccubbin said. “So you’re looking at households that would make well into six gures and yet there’s not housing that exists for them in Golden.”

Maccubbin said the newly formed A ordable Housing Committee is expected to meet in February and will begin to shape the city’s response and goals for addressing housing needs.

Land and options

Habitat for Humanity Metro Denver’s approach to providing a ordable housing is to tackle two of the most expensive elements of housing — land and labor.

CEO Heather La erty said the organization, which works in Adams, Arapahoe, Denver, Douglas and Jefferson counties, relies on partnerships with developers, as well as volunteers and program recipients to provide the labor.

To create a ordable housing that stays a ordable into the future, the organization utilizes Colorado Community Land Trust and deed restrictions. Under the land trust model, land is owned by a community trust or nonpro t, so homeowners only pay for the cost of the home. e trust currently has 215 properties, including townhomes and single-family homes, which serve households at or below 80% median income.

“It used to be that if we could just create an a ordable product, it would be something that would be a ordable in the future, just naturally, and that’s not the case today,” La erty said. “What (the community land trust) does is, then in law in perpetuity, it only allows those homes to be sold to homebuyers in a similar income category. So it provides a ordability initially, but it also ensures 20 years from now it is sold with an income restriction.”

In addition to the trust, Habitat for Humanity Metro Denver also uses deed restrictions to ensure homeowners meet income requirements.

La erty said the models are successful because they provide lower-cost housing, while allowing homeowners to still build equity and eventually move into market-rate housing.

“What we nd is that a homebuyer is able to get into homeownership at a price point that works for them and they then are able to build equity,” she said “It’s really a steppingstone for people who are trying to get into homeownership and bene t from the equity homeownership allows households to build. But it also means that it’s not the kind of thing that happens for one family only.”

One of Colorado’s largest land trusts, Elevation Community Land

Aldjia Oudachene and her husband, Idir Ouarab, pose with their children, Yacine and Anais, at their home in Littleton. Originally from Algeria, Oudachene applied to Habitat for Humanity Metro Denver for a home in Littleton, where average home prices have gone up $300,000 between 2017 and 2022.

COURTESY OF ALDJIA OUDACHENE

Metro Growth: The Hidden Cost of Urban Sprawl

BY LUKE ZARZECKI LZARZECKI@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM

Drive along the interstate into Colorado from its eastern side and the rolling plains slowly transform into vast hills of lights.

Shelley Cook, a former director with the Regional Transportation District and a former Arvada councilor, moved to the city in 1983. Back then, those lights weren’t as bright.

“(I moved) back when Olde Town was that sleepy little place and property values were cheap,” she said.

Over the decades, Denver and the cities and towns that surround it have grown together, absorbing wide open spaces in all directions. Every decade for almost a century, the region’s growth rate has outpaced the national average, according to the Metro Denver Economic Development Corporation, and prices did too.

“People aren’t able to live right in Olde Town, property values are expensive,” Cook said.

In the last 10 years, the region grew fast, and the Regional Transportation District is keeping track. RTD expects the population to keep rising, from 3.36 million people in 2020 to 4.41 million by 2050.

at means more roads, more water pipes, more single-family homes and ultimately more greenhouse gas emissions. In the past 30 years, Colorado has warmed substantially, and estimates project a rise by 2.5-5 degrees Fahrenheit by 2050.

“I’m very concerned too, have been for years,” Cook said. “But for the world, for the people who follow us and the people who live in other places and people in developing countries who are the hardest hit in many cases, I’m very, very concerned.”

Zoom in from the mounting pressures of a world issue and see Colorado’s local municipalities — and residents — at the forefront of a solution. Climate anxiety may be alleviated with solutions that aim to reduce emissions.

Housing is part of the equation. Increasing density, building developments near transit lines and planning for other vehicles, like e-bikes, can all be solutions to the climate crisis.

ough, they may come with other issues too.

Higher density results in less lawn use, accessible transit increases ridershi[ and electric cars emit less pollution. However, people are less inclined to live in dense areas, funding for transit remains low and electric cars may outsource pollution elsewhere.

Part of the problem is traced to housing and the way Americans live, according to one study from the University of California Berkeley.

Households in the United States alone directly or indirectly bear responsibility for about 20% of the world’s emissions of greenhouse gases, and those households represent only 4.3% of the total global population.

Local leaders have identi ed the scope of the problem, solutions and, in some cases, new problems created by attempts at solutions.

Pouring sand on a map

Christopher Jones, director of the

CoolClimate Network at the University of California, analyzed the relationship between density and carbon emissions per household.

To measure the carbon footprints, Jones and his team looked at six key variables to estimate consumption: household income, household/family size, size of their homes, home ownership, education level and vehicle ownership.

Overall, Jones said they didn’t nd any correlation between overall density and emissions. Looking at zip codes everywhere, there are very rural areas with very low emissions, very rural areas with high emissions, cities with low emissions and so forth.

However, there exists a strong correlation between dense cities and emissions.

“It’s only when you get into the very, very high density areas that you have low emissions,” he said.

Looking at New York City, those living in Manhattan or Brooklyn have low carbon footprints, but that doesn’t necessarily mean lower emissions overall. Large cities are associated with extensive suburbs.

“It’s like pouring sand on a map. You can pour more sand in the middle and the pile just gets bigger and bigger. What you really need to do is pour the sand in a cup on the map and have it go up without going out, and we haven’t seen that in the United States,” he said.

ey don’t know if density is causing sprawl: they just know that’s what happened historically.

“Large populous cities actually have higher carbon footprints overall, even while the people who live in the urban core, their carbon footprints are much lower. So what you really need to do is prevent sprawl,” he said.

Sprawl by design

e Denver area isn’t zoned for density. Instead, it encourages the kind of growth Jones nds problematic.

Jones sees building density as a short-term solution to reducing carbon emissions from housing. Technology and decarbonizing the economy in the long term will be much more e cient. at serves those who don’t want to change their lifestyle, as well as those who can’t a ord to live in dense areas, since density sometimes

leads to pricing owners out of the area.

In Colorado, vehicle fuel and electricity are the two highest contributors to one’s carbon footprint, according to the CoolClimate Network data.

“If you can get truly renewable electricity to power your vehicle and your home, that’s certainly the quickest thing you can do,” he said.

ough, that may take years to come.

Carrie Makarewicz, an associate professor of urban and regional planning at the University of Colorado Denver, said roughly 80% of land in the metro area is zoned for residential single-family homes.

“Of the percentage of land in the region (included in the Denver Regional Council of Governments, or DRCOG) that is zoned only for residential, whether the zoning is for low, medium or high density residential (but excluding agricultural land that allows residential), the very low density zoning is 83.9% of land. Our de nition of low density is almost exclusively single family detached,” Makarewicz wrote in an email.

Just 4.4% of the built housing units is for two-to-nine unit housing.

A lot of communities in Colorado are mostly single-family homes, resulting in less density and forcing developments to sprawl out. Within Denver metro communities, that means space is limited.

According to Root Policy Research, between 2000 and 2019, Adams County increased single-family attached homes by 34%, Arapahoe County by 26%, Douglas County by 76% and Jefferson County by 11%.

Progress to diversify housing stock has picked up in some areas, such as in Douglas County. e county increased duplexes by 174%, developments with three to four units by 179%, developments with ve to 49 units by 220%, and developments with 50 or more units by 471%.

However, numbers for denser residential developments are much lower than single-family homes. In 2000 in Douglas County, there were 54,428 single-family attached homes, 103 duplexes, 738 of three to four units, 4,453 of ve to 49 unitsand 773 of 50 or more units.

With most of the land zoned for single-family homes, the process for

developers to build anything else is more arduous for them. It means they’ll most likely face hurdles, including public hearings and approval processes involving elected o cials.

Local purview

Zoning rules, infrastructure and transit between communities all impact climate change and a ordability. So does hyperlocal opposition to projects. at’s because housing plays a major role in how people live, and it’s decided by local electeds.

“Land use decisions are the purview of local governments exclusively,” said Jacob Riger, the long range transportation planning manager for Denver Regional Council of Governments.

It puts power within municipal government, since housing policy is local: cities set codes, they vote on plans for development and they decide how they want their land to look. at accounts for the housing stock today.

Infrastructure within cities can address climate change. Dense, walkable neighborhoods with public transit have the potential to lower carbon emissions and there are plans for such neighborhoods popping up along the Front Range — along with ghts over them.

Bill Rigler, principal at Boulderbased Greenlight Strategy, has seen it all.

“NIMBY tactics are literally the same in every community across the Front Range,” Rigler said. “I will never not be astounded by what a group of 10 or 15 angry individuals with the working knowledge of Nextdoor and Facebook can do to scuttle or dramatically alter the proposals for housing.”

NIMBY stands for Not In My Back Yard, but given the adamant opposition of groups to some projects, Rigler said a new attitude has appeared: “NOPE,” standing for Nothing On Planet Earth.

“ ere is rarely — if ever — a time I can think of where opponents to these projects have relied 100% on the truth. ey have a very uid relationship with facts,” Rigler said.

Rigler’s group works with developers to help get mixed-used and a ordable housing projects approved and only accepts developments if they reach a certain standard regarding sustainability.

He noted each one he works on goes above city building requirements, like water usage, by a factor of two or three. Even so, approval isn’t guaranteed and extra e orts by the developer increase costs.

Some of those NIMBY arguments cite defense of the environment, Rigler said. e groups cite dense developments as taking up land that would otherwise be used as open space, or that the new housing would attract more tra c, causing more pollution. New research may counter those stances.

What about water?

When Makarewicz thinks about density and water use, she thinks of leakage from pipes.

“ ere’s a lot of leakage in our water

A map of average U.S. household carbon footprint by zip code of a zoomed-in portion of Colorado. The blue zip codes have lower carbon footprints (mostly in Denver, Boulder and mountain counties) while red have higher carbon footprints. The map is a screenshot from the CoolClimate Network. https://coolclimate.org/ maps COURTESY OF COOLCLIMATE NETWORK

The battle over tiny homes began with a bill

BY BELEN WARD BWARD@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM

For some Coloradans, the American dream is a spacious home. It might have four bedrooms, several bathrooms, high ceilings, a two-car garage and a yard with a vegetable garden. For others, the dream looks di erent — and the house, smaller. Much smaller.

A “tiny home” is a fraction of the dream, often a single room with a loft. And it can be had at a fraction of the price of a traditional home.

Tiny homes are a reality after Gov. Jared Polis signed House Bill 1242 last year. e law recognizes tiny homes as a new option amid skyrocketing home values. Prices have risen so fast in recent years that many Coloradans are simply priced out of the market.

e Polis administration, in an announcement, said the law is meant to “preserve and protect housing a ordability and expand access to a ordable housing.”

While tiny home builders have applauded the bill, it wasn’t always that way. Builder Byron Fears said the legislation in its current form almost did not come together.

“ ey didn’t have the realistic side of what a tiny home is about and what it takes to build a tiny home,” Fears said.

Fears is the owner of SimBlissity

Tiny Homes in Longmont. He is also on the executive committee of the nonpro t Tiny Home Industry Association, which launched in Colorado under the leadership of former Gov. John Hickenlooper and has expanded across the country.

But Fears said the original draft of the bill had the potential to put tiny home builders out of business.

He turned to state Rep. Cathy Kipp, D-Larimer County, one of the bill’s sponsors.

“We did a Zoom call the next day and then another Zoom call the following day with more people involved,” Fears said.

Boon to the industry

Eventually, changes to the bill came and the industry got on board.

e industry looks at tiny homes as a boon to the state’s tight housing market. And they’re supported by a movement: tiny-house advocates who emphasize the environmental and personal bene ts of living in smaller spaces.

e dwellings can be as large as 400 square feet but many are much smaller. Some cost around $50,000, with prices ranging up to $200,000, depending on size and amenities — a ordable, especially when compared to median Colorado home prices that are well above $500,000.

Like regular homes, they must pass a code inspection to hook up to water, sewage and utilities. e new law also addresses manufactured homes, also known as mobile homes, simplifying contract and disclosure requirements and establishing a raft of standards from escrow to inspections meant to protect homeowners.

Fears said legislators and others worked closely with builders, too.

e new law relies on the 2018 International Residential Code model, building codes written by builders around the world and adopted by individual counties, cities and towns.

e IRC’s Appendix Q speci cally addresses tiny homes and spells out the size and shape of the buildings, stairway standards, lofts and doors.

From industry to county

It all may sound dull, but those residential codes are the bread and butter of the business because they standardize tiny homes, giving builders, local communities and buyers an idea of what they can expect.

But writing the codes for national industry standards is one thing, getting counties to change zoning laws is another. e new state law simply makes it possible for county o cials to adopt tiny home rules of their own, Fears said.

“It still going to take a lot of work to get the di erent counties to adopt the Appendix Q IRC, which is what most of the building requirements will be based around,” he said.  Fears’ group met with o cials in Adams County and said they were not interested. Adams County ofcials provided no comment when contacted by Colorado Community Media.

But Fears said other counties are amenable to the idea.

“Some counties are already starting to talk with us,” Fears said.

Weld County began allowing tiny homes even before the state law passed. Tom Parko, director of the Department of Planning Services, said the county created its own policy a couple of years ago allowing people to buy a parcel of land to park a tiny home.

“We wanted to make sure the tiny home was hooked up to either a well or a public water system for potable water and then also a septic system,” Parko said. “We still do require a permanent foundation. So, the tiny home cannot be on wheels. at would be considered more of an RV and a temporary situation.”

Requirements like that can be a sticking point for some buyers. Some tiny homeowners want to have semi-

permanent foundations that keep the homes secure but allow them to be moved. e state is working on clari cation about the foundations, Fears said.

“It is one of our most signi cant sticking points and that clari cation will become guidelines counties can adopt or not adopt,” Fears said.

Weld County has more to explore, Parko said. e current rules treat a potential tiny home community like a mobile home park.

“It would allow somebody to buy 40 acres, and then allow 20 tiny homes to park on one parcel very similar to what you might nd in a mobile home park,” Parko said.

Parko said it gets a little more complicated when considering utilities. Weld County is not a water and sewer provider in unincorporated areas and in communities like Fort Lupton.

Special districts and utilities need to provide those services.

“Also sewerage and septic also have to be addressed,” Parko said. “It’s those types of things we’re kind of batting around a little bit to accommodate more of a tiny home community. But we certainly allow tiny homes in Weld County, if it’s just one per parcel.”

With tiny home living an option, Parko recommended contacting the local planning and zoning depart-

ments in the county where you are interested in living before making a purchase to ensure they’re allowed.

But for residents and buyers of tiny homes, all the regulatory wrangling is worth it. Sandy Brooks is one of those people. She was 75 years old when she purchased her tiny home in 2019.

“I’m older than most, and tiny homes are wonderful for older people,” she said. “I would rather buy a tiny home and live in it for many years than pay a lot for independent living. I feel like I’m living independently now.”

Brooks describes her tiny home as akin to a small apartment. It has a bedroom, closet, living room, and ofce space. It even has a kitchen with a dishwasher and a bathroom with a washer and dryer.

“It has all the amenities, Brooks said. “I love it, don’t regret it, and am grateful. I love my location. I live in Durango on the side of a mountain. It’s beautiful.”

Brooks said her place is perched alongside 24 other tiny homes.

“An engineer, therapists, and retired people live here, and our community helps each other,” Brooks said. “We all communicate and respect each other, and it is a wonderful place to live.”

The living room of the Valhalla tiny home with stairs leading up to the bedroom with storage space within the staircase.

Sandy Brooks’ kitchen with dishwasher. COURTESY OF SIMBLISSITY

The tiny home owned by Sandy Brooks with her dog Zoey. PHOTO BY SANDY BROOKS

Woman goes from being homeless to an apartment

BY STEVE SMITH SSMITH@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM

Lisa Hojeboom has a new place to call home.

It’s a one-bedroom apartment near Chat eld Dam complete with a walkout basement, a washing machine and a neighbor’s water feature “that sounds like a babbling brook.”

It’s quite a change. Hojeboom spent a year and a half living in places other than apartments. She lived in her car. She lived in a shelter. She lived at the Northglenn Recreation Center, where she slept on the oor of the gym and could get a 30-minute shower for $4.50.

“ e rst thing I did when I moved in was soak in a hot tub,” she said. “It was so nice.”

She was among many forced out of living arrangements because of the high cost of housing.

“I never pictured myself in that situation,” she said. “I did what I had to do.”

Hojeboom lived with her brother, but soon had to move.

“New owners bought the place, and they were going to raise the rent,” she said. “When my brother found out, he bailed. I had no job. I had just broken my elbow and was out of work

STRESSES

an apartment complex that includes some below-market-rate units and sits next to an RTD rail line.

Big spending

Another hint at what the governor wants came in response to questions after his State of the State Address. Polis said that he doesn’t want the state to get mired in ageold local debates over what the ideal mix is between a ordable and market-rate housing.

“ ere is no state AMI gure that works for Summit County, for Denver (and) for Boulder,” Polis said, in a reference to area median income, a measure often used to determine who is eligible for housing assistance.

However the mix of new homes might look, Colorado is wading deeper into spending to boost the supply of less costly housing.

Just days before the governor’s speech, the state announced a new program expected to help create up to 5,000 “high-quality, lowcost” housing units over the next ve years. e Innovative Housing Incentive Program directs funding to Colorado-based housing manufacturers in an e ort to boost the supply of houses that aren’t built traditionally. at includes modular homes, or factory-made houses, that are assembled at the location where the homeowner will move in.

Polis touted a company from the mountain town of Buena Vista, say-

Fighting the Odds

for six months. I was getting hired for full-time work and getting part-time hours.”

On top of that, Hojeboom said, she su ered from post-traumatic stress disorder and was on medication, making it di cult to work, not to mention driving to work.

But she did. She did it while struggling with numerous other health issues — from a blockage in her small intestine to insomnia. rough multiple visits to the hospital and bouts of extreme pain, she held onto various jobs.

After losing her home she went looking for a new place to live. But the $1,400 per month rents she could nd were out of her price range.

“ ere’s nothing to live on,” she said, a reference to how little money she would have left after paying rent.

“It’s ridiculous. I wasn’t the only one in this situation.”

She felt she had no other option.

“I couldn’t a ord living anywhere except my car,” she said. “I saw no end. I couldn’t a ord rent.”

Hojeboom found herself living on the streets.

“ ere was one industrial street in ornton, LeRoy Drive,” she said.

“One of the parks had a ush toilet. I was never harassed. But when I got to Northglenn, the police told me I couldn’t stay on the streets overnight. I stayed employed through this.”

She even worked in airport security. Hojeboom also had a job as a con-

struction site agger, one that paid employees by the day. While she was recuperating from illness, she carried a cardboard sign to solicit money.

“I was fortunate,” she said. “It was Christmas and people were generous. I made $200. I froze my ass o , but I did what I had to do.”

Eventually, Hojeboom got into the City of Northglenn’s temporary winter housing program, which ran from December 2021 and ended in August.

e partnership between Adams County, the city and the Denver Rescue Mission opened a temporary, 25-bed program inside the former Northglenn Recreation Center.

Northglenn’s program has since ended, but more programs are coming. Voters in November approved a ballot measure earmarking tax revenue for a ordable housing, and Gov. Jared Polis made the issue a point of emphasis in his ongoing agenda. ose who took advantage of the program met with case managers once a month.

“I slept on the gym oor on a mat for the last six months,” she told Colorado Community Media last year. “We were given breakfast, a sack lunch, a shower and a warm place to stay.”

Finding a permanent place wasn’t easy.

“I responded to ve ads,” she said. “Only one was legitimate. e rest were scams. I thought, ‘I’m not going to give you information if that’s the way you roll.’”

e one legitimate ad turned into her new home near Chat eld Dam. It’s the rst time she’s had roommates. e city of Northglenn paid her deposit and gave her $200 more than what was necessary to secure the unit.

It’s quite a turnaround. She’d owned her own home at one point.

“I am not a loser,” Hojeboom said. “I’ve had success in my life. My career just took some bad twists. Breaking my elbow? at sucks. Not collecting disability? at sucks.”

“Being homeless sucks. I went to a food pantry, but I had no refrigeration,” she added. “I had a cooler, but I couldn’t keep food. My eating habits were not ideal.”

“It’s been a trip.”

She landed a job as a medical transport driver for a rm associated with the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center.

“My personality is perseverance, but I’m worried for people who don’t have it together,” she said. “What do landlords expect? ey are pricing everyone out of the market. Interest rates are going up, which will make it harder to nd homes.”

She drives a Jeep Wagoneer for her job.

“I never wanted to wave a cardboard sign,” Hojeboom added. “I’m resilient. I’m a diehard. I smile through the face of adversity. People like my spirit. I was an inspiration to a lot of people.”

other e orts. As Proposition 123 ramps up, eventually about $300 million a year will be spent around the state on such e orts.

Polis’ o ce also highlighted how millions of dollars in federal economic recovery funds were spent amid the response to the coronavirus pandemic. In the last year, the state invested roughly $830 million into housing, including roughly $400 million based on funds from the federal American Rescue Plan Act in programs passed by state lawmakers, including:

• A ordable-housing spending detailed in House Bill 22-1304, which provides grants to local governments and nonpro ts toward investments in a ordable housing and housing-related matters.

• A loan program under Senate Bill 22-159 to make investments in a ordable housing.

• e loan and grant program under Senate Bill 22-160 to provide assistance and nancing to mobile home owners seeking to organize and purchase their mobile home

ing it “can build a home in roughly 18 working days, compared to close to a year for traditionally built homes.”

Alone, 5,000 new homes over several years won’t make a huge dent, but the state is also armed with other new initiatives.

Proposition 123 requires state ofcials to set money aside for more

a ordable housing and related programs. e money could go toward grants and loans to local governments and nonpro ts to acquire land for a ordable housing developments.

Funds could also go to help develop multifamily rentals, including apartments, and programs that help rst-time homebuyers, among

• e expansion of the “middle income access program” of the Colorado Housing and Finance Authority under Senate Bill 22-146. e authority, a state entity, invests in a ordable housing.

• e “Infrastructure and Strong Communities” program, also under House Bill 22-1304, to provide grants to enable local governments to invest in infrastructure projects that support a ordable housing. ose investments build upon an

Gov. Jared Polis takes questions from reporters at a news conference Jan. 17 after his annual State of the State speech. PHOTO BY ELLIS ARNOLD

additional $460 million in emergency rental assistance, $180 million in homeowner assistance and $7 million in vouchers that Colorado also invested using federal funds, the governor’s office told CCM.

Polis portrayed housing as integral to the fabric of Colorado, placing it in the larger context of climate, economic and water policy.

“Building smart, efficient housing statewide, especially in urban communities and job centers, won’t just reduce costs, it will save energy, conserve our water, and protect the lands and wildlife that are so important to our Colorado way of life,” Polis said.

Beyond spending, zoning is an important tool that officials — from the governor to city leaders — are looking at tweaking in hopes of alleviating the rising cost of housing and its effects on communities.

State role in the mix

It’s a conversation that is older than many Coloradans. Making the case for new policies today, Polis harked back to changes from five decades ago.

“The last time Colorado made major land-use changes was in 1974 — before I, and most of you, were born,” Polis said. “We were a different state then.”

The governor’s office didn’t specify to CCM more about those

changes, but at least two pieces of legislation arose that year that affected how local governments regulate how land is used.

Polis seemed to tease at the possibility of state intervention in how local communities govern housing.

“Since issues like transportation, water, energy, and more inherently cross jurisdictional boundaries, it becomes a statewide problem that truly impacts all of us,” Polis said.

He spoke of the need for more flexible zoning to allow more housing and “streamlined regulations that cut through red tape.” He touched on expedited approval processes for projects like modular housing, sustainable development and more building in transit-oriented communities.

The governor and his office also didn’t specify what changes to zoning policy he would support or oppose. Polis has not said that he wants the state to require zoning changes in cities. Instead, the governor spoke about the state leaning in on an existing policy.

“We want to lean in to allowing local governments to use tools like inclusionary zoning to help create the right mix for their community, and I think that local input in design is very important,” Polis said in a Jan. 17 news conference, following his address.

So-called “inclusionary” housing policies typically ask property developers to set aside a percentage of units in new developments for affordable housing, although developers are given different options to fulfill those requirements, The Colorado Sun has reported.

The landscape of local governments’ power to affect housing affordability in Colorado saw a big change recently. In 2021, Polis signed state House Bill 21-1117, allowing cities to impose affordable housing requirements on new or redeveloped projects, so long as developers or property owners have alternatives.

For example, they could trade those for affordable units built elsewhere, pay a fee into an affordable housing fund, or any number of other options, the Sun reported.

It’s unclear whether Polis would support anything further than the existing allowance for cities to use inclusionary zoning.

As of late January, the governor was focused on gathering input to work with state lawmakers and develop a proposal on land-use policy. As of press deadline, no bill had been introduced.

‘Can’t expect to lose money’

Polis noted the wide gap that has opened between housing prices and people’s income over the last several decades, putting homeownership out of reach for many families.

More government spending on housing is part of the solution to affordability, experts told CCM, including Yonah Freemark, senior research associate at the nonprofit Urban Institute, based in Washington, D.C.

“Assuming that we can rely entirely on the private market to address the affordable housing need is, I think, unrealistic and unlikely to address the needs of the people who have the lowest incomes,”

Freemark said.

Ron Throupe, associate professor of real estate at the Daniels College of Business at the University of Denver, said “it’s inevitable” that government must provide the needed funding to bolster the supply side of the housing market.

“We do things (on) the supply side, but it’s not enough,” Throupe said. “And you can’t expect a developer to build something and lose money.”

Spending from higher levels of government could benefit in particular the suburbs, which are struggling with housing affordability but have less political appetite to tackle the problem themselves, Freemark said.

“Ultimately, the most exclusionary places, which are often suburbs, have no incentive to invest in affordable housing” because “they don’t see affordable housing as (needed) by their residents,” Freemark said.

That said, creating housing affordability for key workers like teachers, police and firefighters is an important part of the puzzle for communities, Throupe said.

“You lose your teachers, and then you lose the quality of your schools, and it hurts the area. Same with police and fire,” Throupe said.

In the larger business community, housing plays a crucial role too, Polis said.

“Coloradans have to be able to afford to live in our communities where they can earn a good living, and companies need to be able to

SEE STRESSES, P23

Trust, which serves Denver, Boulder, Aurora, Longmont and Fort Collins, has created 700 a ordable homes and served around 2,000 residents in its rst ve years of operating.

Rodney Milton, a board member for the Elevation Community Land Trust and executive director of the Urban Land Institute, said another bene t to having shared land is it helps to prevent displacement and keeps communities intact.

“ e problem with reaping full equity is you can leave and the next person who buys the house could a ord to buy it at a higher price and you lose the a ordability,” Milton said. “( e land trust) locks in a ordability, but it also locks in community dynamics.”

Habitat’s plan to purchase more land in its ve-county service area is evidence that the organization believes in the land trust model for successfully housing more people, La erty said.

“We don’t anticipate land getting any less expensive, even if the market cools,” she said. “We have an urgency and a problem today that we’re trying to meet, as well as a long-term problem that we anticipate, so we’re trying to solve for both today and tomorrow.”

La erty said one of the biggest challenges to expanding programs to serve more lower-income households and add moderate-income households is money. Last year, her organization

GROWTH

FROM PAGE 18

pipes,” she said. “Each time you create those joints and individual pipes and stretch them farther out into undeveloped parts of the county, you’re losing water.”

She also thinks of lawns. Lower density areas usually require more square feet of lawns. With more units, less water is going towards Kentucky bluegrass.

Less density doesn’t always mean less water usage, either. She said it really comes down to per-person usage and how many water-based appliances are in the home.

at’s where more e cient technology plays a role. In Westminster, water consumption declined in the past two decades despite an increase in population and commercial use. In fact, Westminster added 15,000 residents to the community and 150 new commercial business accounts.

Senior Water Resources Analyst Drew Beckwith said technology a ects a large portion of that decline, like newer high-e ciency toilets that use less water than older ones.

e question of how much technology can continue to improve remains,

received a $13.5 million donation from philanthropist MacKenzie Scott, an Amazon stakeholder, which allowed the organization to buy more property.

Even still, La erty said that Habitat likely only meets “a fraction of a percentage” of existing demand.

“We have a need in the metro area for tens of thousands of a ordable houses,” La erty said. “ at’s why we need bigger, bolder action.”

Inclusionary zoning

Another tactic some municipalities are taking is to use a relatively new tool in Colorado, inclusionary zoning ordinances. State lawmakers in 2019 approved a law to allow cities and towns to require developments to include a certain number of a ordable housing units or pay fees.

So far, only six communities have implemented inclusionary zoning: Broom eld, Boulder, Longmont, Superior, Denver and, most recently, Littleton.

Littleton’s inclusionary housing ordinance, which went into place in November, requires all new residential developments in the city with ve or more units to make at least 5% of those units a ordable to people at or below 80% area median income for households, which is $62,000 for an individual or $89,000 for a family of four.

If developers do not include a ordable units, the inclusionary housing ordinance will levy hundreds of thousands in fees against them to be paid to the city that can then be used on other a ordable housing-related projects.

With upcoming development in the city, more than 2,500 proposed housing units will now be subject to the ordinance, presenting the potential for at least 125 a ordable units.

Littleton District 3 Councilmember Steve Barr said at the Nov. 1 council meeting that he is “not under any impression that the ordinance is going to solve housing a ordability in Littleton or south metro Denver,” but that it provides a critical tool for addressing the crisis.

Developers and others at the meeting voiced concerns about the ordinance making development too costly or di cult and warned it could result in a decrease in the overall available housing. Morgan Cullen, director of government a airs for the Home Builders Association of Metro Denver, told the Littleton council that the ordinance could burden developers to the point where projects wouldn’t be pro table, resulting in no new developments.

“ e additional a ordable units required by this ordinance will not be built if developers and builders decide that Littleton is not a suitable place to invest in the future,” Cullen said.

However, Broom eld Housing Programs Manager Sharon Tessier said in an email that its inclusionary housing ordinance has resulted in 580 a ordable rental units and 43 a ordable for-sale homes in two years.

She said when the ordinance was initially in place, a majority of developers chose to pay the fee instead of building a ordable units.

“It allowed us to provide seed money

to our new independent housing authority, the Broom eld Housing Alliance, and other critical a ordable housing projects,” she said. “However, we recognized that we needed to make some adjustments to our original approach — both based on the initial data from the program, as well as through comments from developers, other stakeholders, and the community — that create better and more balanced opportunities for developers to provide on-site units while still providing the option to pay the cash-in-lieu fee.”

e original ordinance required forsale single-family home developments with more than 25 units to restrict onetenth of the units to 80% of area median income or pay a fee-in-lieu. e new ordinance, updated late last year, requires for-sale single family home developments with more than 25 units to restrict 12% of the homes to 100% area median income. It also increases the fee-in-lieu based on market rate adjustments.

Tessier said the reason the inclusionary housing ordinance was implemented in 2020 was to provide the chance for more people to live where they work.

“ e idea was to expand housing a ordability and to target those households that typically fall in the middle of the housing needs spectrum, meaning it would bene t those who are low middle to middle income earners,” she said. “In other words, it assists essential workers like the people who teach our children, who ght res and keep our city safe.”

Nina Joss, Rob Tann and Corrine Westeman contributed to this story.

though Sarah Borgers, interim department director of Westminster’s public works and utilities department, thinks there’s much more room to grow.

“Industry-wide, I think the sense is we are not close to there yet. ere’s still a long way to go before we hit that plateau,” she said. “We don’t know

what the bottom is, but we aren’t there yet.”

SEE GROWTH, P23

A train running along the G-Line departs the Arvada Olde Town station.

PHOTO BY LUKE ZARZECKI

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Juvenile violent crime is rising

Researchers look for answers

BY JENNIFER BROWN THE COLORADO SUN

Violent crimes that land kids and teens in Colorado’s youth corrections system are on the rise, accounting for 41% of admissions in 2022.

From homicides, to sexual assaults, to robberies at gunpoint, the violent crimes committed by young people have risen sharply during the past five years, a climb that has sociologists studying the consequences of a virtually connected but physically isolated society and the long-term effects of the coronavirus pandemic.

The percentage of young people sent to a Division of Youth Services facility for a violent crime was 35% in 2021, climbing to 41% in 2022, according to the agency’s recently released annual report.

That includes 54 young people held in detention for felony homicide, 47 for attempted homicide and 40 for sexual assault last year.

“All across the state, the level of violence that we’re seeing among young people is increasing,” said Anders Jacobson, youth services director. “That’s been a stark reality for us.”

The youth corrections system, which includes 15 state-operated, locked facilities, holds young people ages 10 to 21 either in detention — before their cases go to court — and after they are “committed” by a judge. Of the 176 children and teens who were committed to serve out a sentence last year, 71 were for violent crimes, including six murders and nine attempted murders.

The result is that the population in the state’s youth corrections system has grown increasingly more violent and more likely than in prior years to have committed a crime against a person, rather than property. This year, 43% of young people committed to the system were sent for violent crimes, compared with 31% three years ago.

The division in the past several years has moved toward pods, or living spaces, with fewer kids, and has improved its youth-to-staff ratio so young people have more attention, Jacobson said. It’s also ramped up behavioral health services, including for young people who are held in detention before their sentence has been determined.

“We’re pretty well versed in dealing with these types of young peo-

ple, but there are certainly times when there’s a lot of emotionally charged issues that can take place,” Jacobson said.

It’s reached the point that, occasionally, the murder victim of one of the young inmates is a loved one of another young person held in the facility, he said. “It could have been a brother. It could have been a sister. It could have been a friend,” he said. “We’re seeing a lot more of those situations.”

Still, violent incidents within youth facilities in the state have not spiked. “That’s something that we’re happy we’re seeing right now, but it’s a daily grind,” Jacobson said.

Nearly 80% of kids and teens committed to a Division of Youth Services center last year needed substance abuse treatment, according to the agency’s data. More than two-thirds of young people in the system need mental health treatment. The division’s behavioral health program, which includes two sessions of talk therapy per week for young people serving sentences, garnered national attention last year, winning a “program of the year” award from the National Commission on Correctional Health Care.

Since 2017, when the state leg-

for power outages

islature passed sweeping reforms and changed the name from Youth Corrections to Youth Services, the division has steadily reduced the use of physical restraint and solitary confinement. Repeat offenses also have dropped, with the one-year recidivism rate falling to 22% in 2020 compared with 41% in 2018.

The rise in youth detention for violent crimes comes as overall juvenile arrests are declining in Colorado.

Crime rates, including among juveniles, hit records in Colorado and nationwide in the 1980s, then began dropping. In Colorado, the all-time high for juvenile arrests was 70,710 in 1997. By comparison, there were 19,442 juvenile arrests in 2018, according to the Colorado Department of Public Safety.

One of the safest stretches on record, based on crime rates, was 2010-2014, said David Pyrooz, a sociology professor at the University of Colorado Boulder. In the last several years, however, violent crime among young people has been climbing, and it isn’t due to the decisions made by police or prosecutors, he said.

“There is something that is taking place,” he said. “There is little doubt about that.”

Why violent crime is rising is harder to determine, considering researchers are still trying to understand the 50% reduction in crime rates that occurred nationally in the 1990s, the “criminological miracle,” Pyrooz said.

Now, sociologists are looking at how teenage behaviors — including spending more time at home alone, yet connected via social

media and video games — might affect violent crime rates. In the past, violent crime was often linked to groups of young people hanging out unsupervised in parks or street corners, Pyrooz said.

Researchers are also just beginning to examine the pandemic’s effect on youth crime, which could have repercussions for years to come, he said. Kids who stopped going to after-school activities and sports during the isolation of the pandemic, perhaps as fourth or fifth graders, might not have returned to those sports, meaning they will miss out on those activities as middle and high school students, when they are more likely to get involved in criminal activity.

The keys to keeping kids out of trouble are community support systems, including within families, schools and churches, Pyrooz said. “Those are the things that really matter,” he said. “If those institutions are failing, so too are our kids.”

On average, there are about 290 children and teens serving sentences in youth corrections on any given day, 89% of them boys. The average length of stay is about 18 months.

Juvenile criminal case filings increased by 15% last year in Colorado.

This story is from The Colorado Sun, a journalist-owned news outlet based in Denver and covering the state. For more, and to support The Colorado Sun, visit coloradosun. com. The Colorado Sun is a partner in the Colorado News Conservancy, owner of Colorado Community Media.

Lookout Mountain Youth Services Center, a juvenile corrections facility for boys in Golden, is surrounded by a 16-foot fence with anti-climbing mesh. It is operated by the Colorado Department of Human Services.

MARVIN ANANI / SPECIAL TO THE COLORADO SUN

Pro-density ratings are low

e majority of Americans are increasingly opposed to the idea of living in dense areas. In fact, about 60% want “houses farther apart, but schools, stores and restaurants are several miles away.”

e number of Americans wanting homes “smaller and closer to each other, but schools, stores and restaurants are within walking distance” went from 47% in 2019 to 39% in 2021.

e Pew Research Center said the shift occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic with increased “telework, remote schooling and pandemic-related restrictions on indoor dining and other indoor activities.”

STRESSES

nd the workers they need to thrive,” he said in the speech.

‘We are not California’ e governor’s one-liner when speaking about housing — “We are not California. We are Colorado” — raises the question of where the state could be headed if it doesn’t change course.

Net migration, the di erence between the number of people coming into and the number of people leaving an area, has long been positive in Colorado. In 2015, net

Despite attitudes shifting against density, Riger said the region mostly will densify with many municipalities at build-out and reaching their outward boundaries as population increases.

“I think it’s going to be a mix of growing out and growing up,” he said.

With higher density comes transit options, because land use is a transportation strategy.

According to the Colorado Department of Public Health, transportation was the second largest greenhouse gas contributor for the state by sector, losing to electric power as the rst.

With mixed-use, well designed, higher density areas, residents are able to walk more, reduce their travel times and distances, and have the ability to support transit lines and bike lanes.

An example could be seen in Olde Town Arvada.

migration was about 69,000 people, according to the State Demography O ce. Although the number reached a recent pre-pandemic low in 2019 with about 34,000, newcomers are still owing in.

“ ere are (home) buyers moving in from out of state, and many of them come from higher-priced areas, so they don’t have sticker shocks,” roupe said, speaking to the sustained high demand and high prices in metro Denver.

Looking to the future, roupe doesn’t think the metro Denver housing market is on a similar trajectory that large metro areas such as New York City and San Francisco have experienced in terms of high housing prices.

Housing on transit lines

Since Cook moved into Arvada back in 1983, she’s seen the city transform into something di erent, crediting transit oriented development with bringing life into Arvada’s Olde Town.

Cook, along with several others, teamed up with Forward Arvada, a nonpro t looking to revitalize Olde Town in the 90s. ey tasked themselves with making an idea — to run a train line along decommissioned railroad tracks — into a reality to make sure Olde Town began to thrive.

Eventually, the G Line opened in 2019 and development began to spring up.

It didn’t happen without opposition, though. Residents voiced concerns over sacri cing the historical character of the town. In fact, the city

“New York is a coastal city and a nancial center — same with (several) California (cities), San Francisco. We’ll never be that. We’re our own animal,” roupe said.

“ e choice between those cities and Denver pricing-wise has been extreme; it’ll tighten up. It’ll never be their prices, but it’ll tighten up,” roupe added.

Freemark noted that geographically, Denver has less of a physical barrier to new construction than in places like San Francisco — and that New York City is largely surrounded by water.

Rogers, the teaching assistant professor in the program for environmental design at CU Boulder, described the metro Denver hous-

faced lawsuits from a group called All the People regarding approving development plans to add to the transit oriented development, or TOD.

e city prevailed and the new transit oriented development transformed Arvada, Cook said. It created a center that attracts citizens from around the area and which bene ts merchants, restaurants and others.

All of that can also be attributed to the mixed-use, higher density design model, where someone can live above a bakery or right next to a co ee shop.

With less emphasis put on cars, which Cook sees as a good thing, residents can live in a place where they can walk to various places. She said it contributes to more of a family feel.

See more on urban sprawl online at coloradocommunitymedia.com/ longwayhome/index.html.

ing market’s future in terms of uncertainty.

“I think that we are in a place we’ve never been before, so I can’t extrapolate the future from that,” Rogers said. “I feel like we’re in unknown waters.”

To see more of our housing series online please visit: ColoradoCommunityMedia.com

Ralston Valley girls hoops closes out win over Columbine

BY DENNIS PLEUSS JEFFCO PUBLIC SCHOOLS

ARVADA — A couple of steals that led to breakaway layups in the closing seconds of the rst quarter gave Ralston Valley’s girls basketball team the push it needed Feb. 1.

Ralston Valley took a 51-45 home victory over Columbine, but the Rebels looked to be able to at least take a rst-quarter lead. Steals by freshman Mia Alfaro and junior Sophia Sabus led to a 4-point swing to give the Mustangs a 11-9 lead heading into the second quarter.

“We talk about a lot how defense end leads to o ense end,” Sabus said. “In moments like that when it is getting a bit little closer playing hard on defense leads to good things.”

Sabus was her normal steady self scoring a game-high 16 points, including 6 points in the nal quarter as Ralston Valley (13-6, 4-3 in Class 6A Je co League) held o a late charge by Columbine (9-11, 4-3).

Ralston Valley got some nice balance scoring with 16 points o the bench.

“We had nine girls scored is what Coach said,” Sabus said. “ at helps a lot with pressure o me and the other guards.”

Senior Elyssa Cardella (11 points) hit a big 3-pointer for the Mustangs in the fourth quarter. Ralston Valley’s young freshmen also made an impact.

“ ose three freshmen came in and did a great job,” Ralston Valley coach Amy Bahl said.

Bahl was pleased with how Alfaro, along with fellow freshmen Karsyn Kline and Sammi Madden preformed when they subbed in during the rst quarter. Alfaro had the steal and layup in the rst quarter. Kline played solid defense in the post while scoring 4 points. Madden drained back-to-back 3-pointer midway

through the third quarter that helped the Mustangs extend their lead to double-digits.

“Everyone has to be able to step up at any moment. It can’t just be one person,” Bahl said. “If you become one-demential its becomes tough to score.”

Columbine was led by senior Dakota Archuleta (14 points) and junior Emily Allison (11 points). Freshman Kortney Brock also showed her

promising future with 13 points on the night, including a pair of 3-pointers in the second half that allowed the Rebels to cut the Mustangs’ lead to 4 points.

“Columbine is a good team,” Sabus said. “We just had to trust what we are doing. It ended up working out.”

e entire 6A Je co League is looking up to No. 1 ranked Valor Christian, however Arvada West did do the rest of the conference a favor Feb. 1.

e Wildcats (15-4, 4-3) handed Valor a 66-56 home loss.

e Eagles (16-2, 6-1) had its 37game Je co League winning streak snapped with the defeat. Valor winning streak in league play dated back to the 2017-18 season when the Eagles were in the 4A Je co League.

Despite the loss, Valor still had the inside track to the league title. e Eagles have a 2-game lead and holds the tiebreak over Ralston Valley having already defeated the Mustangs twice.

“We just want to nish out the league strong,” Sabus said.

A-West put a damper on that strong league nish for Ralston Valley. e Wildcats defeated the Mustangs 66-56 on Feb. 4 to nearly assure that Valor will win the league title.

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

Alameda wrestlers pin down 4A Je co League title

BY DENNIS PLEUSS JEFFCO PUBLIC SCHOOLS

GOLDEN — Alameda International’s boys wrestling team did something Feb. 3 that hadn’t happened in more than two decades.

e Pirates racked up 144 team points to win the Class 4A Je co League Tournament and bring home a conference wrestling title for the rst time since 2001. Bear Creek was runner-up with 114 and Evergreen took third with 108.5.

“ is means a lot. It really does,” Alameda coach Frank Trujillo said. “Where we were a few years ago to where we are now is a total change. We have a lot of kids who are proud to be out there. It’s a great feeling.”

Fittingly, Golden athletic director JC Summer — Alameda’s wrestling coach back in 2001 — handed the conference plaque to Trujillo after nearly ve hours of wrestling at Golden High School.

“ is is good. It’s been a long time since we’ve won,” Alameda junior Mushtaq Shokori said.

Shokori was one of three Pirates who claimed individual titles. e junior won at 157 pounds. Freshman Caleb Ballejos went 4-0 to win the 106-pound title. Sophomore Muswer Ali Shokori had ve pins in all of his 150-pound matches.

Alameda was able to racked up enough team points thanks to seven

other wrestlers placing either second or third in their weight class. e future is bright for Alameda with no seniors on this year’s team.

“We’ve been telling all our wrestlers that every win counts,” Trujillo said of the Pirates depth that helped win the league title. “Even if you

lose, it’s important to bounce back with a win in your next match to help out the team.”

Evergreen senior Gabe Zimmerer (165) helped the Cougars claim a tournament-high ve individual titles. Evergreen won at 126, 165, 175, 190 and 215. Zimmerer, a three-

time state quali er, dominated by pinning all ve his opponents at the league tournament.

“I like all the matches. It gives you a lot of experience,” Zimmerer said. “I just wanted to go out and sharpen my skills before regionals. It was a good day.”

Zimmerer — highest ranked 4A Je co League wrestler by On the Mat — is hoping to return to Ball Arena in a couple of weeks to make his fourth state tournament. He placed sixth as a sophomore at 160 pounds, but came up one win short at state last year to place on the podium.

“Hopefully this year is a lot di erent,” Zimmerer said of nishing his prep wrestling career on the high

Ralston Valley junior Sophia Sabus (2) is fouled by Columbine senior Araya Ogden (5) during the first half Feb. 1 at Ralston Valley High School. Sabus scored a game-high 16 points in the Mustangs’ 51-45 win.

PHOTO BY DENNIS PLEUSS/JEFFCO PUBLIC SCHOOLS

Alameda International’s boys wrestling team pose with the Class 4A Je co League championship plaque Feb. 3 at Golden High School. The Pirates won their first wrestling conference title since 2001.

PHOTOS BY DENNIS PLEUSS/JEFFCO PUBLIC SCHOOLS

Alameda’s Billy Nguyen, top, works on pinning Bear Creek’s Isaiah Beighey during a 175-pound match Feb. 3 at Golden High School.

Arvada’s Allen fights through more than opponents

BY STEVE SMITH SSMITH@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM

To watch Arvada High School’s Elisha Allen compete in girls wrestling, it would be hard to see that the road to a potential college wrestling future wasn’t evenly paved.

First things rst: Allen is the 11th-rated wrestler at 110 pounds, according to Tim Yount at On the Mat Magazine. e senior has drawn some interest from Hastings and York colleges, Mesa State University, Augsburg and Waldorf universities, places that are willing to pay her to come and wrestle.

Allen was the rst female wrestler at Arvada High to compile a winning record. She was one of the rst women to qualify for the state meet, and she is in the last class of women who had to wrestle against boys before the Colorado High School Activities Association sanctioned girls wrestling.

“My older brother got me interested in wrestling,” she said. “I have always looked up to him. I watched him wrestle and became inspired. I saw how fun and challenging this sport was.”

Pre-wrestling years

Allen was born premature, underweight and with a kidney issue. She had ve surgeries before her rst birthday. She also dealt with intestinal issues and faced four more surgeries between the ages of 10 and 12.

She joined the Bulldogs as a freshman. She also was interested in cheerleading and volleyball “and wanted to do it all.”

“I decided to split time between the three sports,” Allen said. “However, I quickly realized that I was a better wrestler than a cheerleader or volleyball player and felt myself leaning toward that wrestling room. I felt stronger there. Additionally, there weren’t any girls wrestling for

my school at the time.”

Her brother’s coach, Anthony Sandoval (Allen’s coach the past four years) encouraged her to be on the girls team and to bring her friends.

“Once I decided to give it my all, I was quickly discouraged,” she said. “I felt like I wasn’t improving, I wasn’t winning. So many times, I wanted to quit. Instead, I pushed myself. I had to remind myself that I am not a quitter. I was committed to the team and I wasn’t going to stop doing what I loved. I also wanted to make an impact for women in this sport. I was wrestling at a time when women weren’t yet sanctioned and so was on the boys’ junior varsity squad.”

She had some chances to compete on the varsity team. Allen earned her varsity letter wrestling against boys on the varsity team.

“I had to win two varsity matches and didn’t feel con dent that I could but wasn’t going to let my freshman year pass without it,” Allen said. “I knew I wanted to letter all four years. Once I got those wins though, things really changed for me. I did it and gained massive con dence.”

The next two years

In spite of COVID, Allen put together a winning record two years ago.

“ is was extremely tough as the pandemic crushed my sport,” she said. “Wrestling carries the most germs and we are a winter sport. Each year, we work hard to keep the cold and u away as it is. Practices were few and far between, and competition was very limited. We got through it, and I got more wins under my belt. In the o -season (summer before junior year), I was also wrestling with my club team, Elevated Wrestling, and quali ed for the national tournament in Fargo.”

During that tournament, she

SEE WRESTLING, P30

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note at state.

Wheat Ridge senior Dante Limon will also attempt to become a four-time state quali er. He placed sixth last season at 132 pounds. Limon easily cruised to the 132-pound title Friday with rst-round pins in all ve matches.

“I just wanted to get some good work in against some good competition,” Limon said. “I wanted to work on my moves and do good.”

Limon had one of the bigger fan following Friday night with a handful of family and friends cheering him on.

“It’s fun. I really love the sport,” said Limon, who has

WRESTLING

applied to West Point Military Academy and is waiting to hear back if he has been accepted. “It’s fun to show my fans what I’m able to do. I want to show how much I’ve been working and put that out on the mat.”

For the near future, Limon hopes to win a regional title next weekend to punch his ticket to the state tournament that runs from Feb. 16-18 at Ball Arena.

“I want to take rst, but I know that is going to be pretty di cult,” Limon admitted about the state tournament.

“I’ve got to put my mind to it these next couple of weeks and keep grinding.”

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

eye on me, communicating with my trainer and coaches about resting my knee. When I wanted to return, I wasn’t allowed.”

sustained three partially torn menisci.

“I was immediately immobilized. I was angry and frustrated. is came just as I felt myself getting better and stronger,” Allen said. “I was not cleared to be on the mat or even run for more than four months. I was in rehab and had a team of four doctors and therapists keeping a close

As a junior, she competed at camps, returned to the national tournament ... and was barely walking with a brace. CHSAA sanctioned girls wrestling last year, which meant Allen – and others – didn’t have to wrestle boys.

“My coach and athletic director struggled to get matches for our team; there were only four of us girls,” Allen said. “ ey had to

nd other schools that also had a girls’ team with matching weights. I nished the regular season having wrestled about 20 less matches than my competition. I kept my loss column in the single digits nishing at 19-8.” She nished third at the regional meet and advanced to state.

Last year of high school ere are six members of the girls wrestling team at Arvada. e pandemic restrictions are a piece of history, and Allen is healthy. She spent much of her summer at wres-

tling camps. She added a stint with the Mile High Wrestling Club; some days, she practiced with all three squads. As of the rst part of February, her record is 29-6.

She’d like to become a pediatrician.

“Wrestling has taught me that nothing is given to you,” Allen said. “It takes hard work and discipline, and I have had to earn my place here. It taught me to set real goals and take action to get them. Dedication is required and it’s up to me, alone.”

Evergreen senior Gabe Zimmerer, right, gets a leg up on Bear Creek’s Esayas Hernandez during a 165-pound match during the Class 4A Je co League Tournament on Feb. 3 at Golden High School. Zimmerer went 5-0 during the tournament to win an individual title. PHOTO BY DENNIS PLEUSS/JEFFCO PUBLIC SCHOOLS

Lawmakers attempt to tackle auto theft

Penalties could increase

BY JESSE PAUL THE COLORADO SUN

Colorado lawmakers introduced a bipartisan bill aimed at cracking down on the scourge of vehicle theft in the state by decoupling the cost of a stolen car from the criminal penalty a thief faces and by increasing penalties for repeat auto theft o enders.

Senate Bill 97 would make stealing any vehicle a Class 5 felony, which is generally punishable by one to three years in prison or a ne between $1,000 to $100,000, or both.

Right now, the penalty level for an auto thief depends on the value of the vehicle they steal. e lowest level o ense is a Class 1 misdemeanor, punishable by up to 364 days in jail, for stealing a car worth up to $2,000 if it’s a rst or second auto theft.

e highest level o ense is a Class 3 felony, punishable by up to 12 years in prison, for stealing a car valued at $100,000 or more.

Under the new measure, a person who steals a car could be charged with Class 4 felony based on aggravating circumstances, such as should a thief keep the vehicle for more than a day, use the vehicle during the commission of another crime or take steps to alter or disguise the vehicle. Class 4 felonies are punishable by up to six years in prison.

e legislation, brought at politi-

cians face pressure to deal with an increasing number of car thefts across the state, would also make a third or subsequent auto theft conviction a Class 3 felony, which are generally punishable by four to 12 years in prison and nes of $3,000 to $750,000 or both.

Tim Lane, with the Colorado District Attorneys’ Council, said the legislation creates a tiered auto theft penalty system that aims to send a message that no matter the value of a vehicle, stealing an automobile is a serious o ense. Lane said the legislation likely wouldn’t change the maximum penalty for a juvenile auto thief.

“ is is one thing to help with auto theft,” he said, “but it’s by no means the entire solution.”

Lane spoke at a news conference with Democratic and Republican state lawmakers. Also attending the event were Denver-area mayors and police chiefs, as well as local prosecutors and key members of Gov. Jared Polis’ administration.

“Imagine waking up one morning to nd your only way of getting to work, of getting your kids to school or day care is gone,” said Sen. Rachel Zenzinger, an Arvada Democrat and prime sponsor of the bill, at Monday’s news conference. “Picture heading to the parking lot after a long day of work to nd your way home has been taken. Imagine the terror of being held up at gunpoint and forced to leave your vehicle in a carjacking. Too many of our neighbors don’t need to imagine what this

feels like because they have lived it rsthand.”

e other lead sponsors of the bill are Republican Sen. Bob Gardner of Colorado Springs and Reps. Matt Soper, R-Delta, and Shannon Bird, D-Westminster.

Polis, in a written statement, endorsed the measure.

“To achieve our shared goal of making Colorado one of the top ten safest states in the next ve years, it is critical we address rising auto theft crimes in our state,” he said. “Coloradans are counting on us. A vehicle’s monetary value does not represent the value to the owner and the impacts a stolen vehicle has on a person or family’s daily life. Criminals should be held accountable for the crimes they commit and charged in a

consistent, just, and rational way.”

e new legislation also includes a “joy-ride” provision that would make it a Class 1 misdemeanor to use a vehicle without the owner’s permission as long as the car is returned within 24 hours without damage and only minor tra c offenses were committed. A second and subsequent conviction for the joy-ride o ense would be a Class 5 felony, however.

is story is from e Colorado Sun, a journalist-owned news outlet based in Denver and covering the state. For more, and to support e Colorado Sun, visit coloradosun.com. e Colorado Sun is a partner in the Colorado News Conservancy, owner of Colorado Community Media.

Legal Notice No. 415687

First Publication: February 9, 2023

Last Publication: February 9, 2023

Publisher: Jeffco Transcript

Metropolitan Districts

Public Notice

CALL FOR NOMINATIONS SPRING MESA METROPOLITAN DISTRICT TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN, and particularly, to the eligible electors of SPRING MESA METROPOLITAN DISTRICT ("District") of Jefferson County, Colorado.

NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN that the District will conduct a regular election on the 2nd day of May, 2023, between the hours of 7:00 a.m. and 7:00 p.m. At that time, (3) three directors will be elected for a 4-year term and (1) one director will be elected for a 2-year term.

In order to be a candidate for one of the director positions, a qualified individual must submit a Self-Nomination and Acceptance Form. Eligible electors of the District interested in serving on the Board of Directors may obtain a Self-Nomination and Acceptance form from the District’s Designated Election Official (DEO):

Robin A. Navant, DEO rnavant@spencerfane.com

Spencer Fane LLP

1700 Lincoln Street, Ste. 2000 Denver, CO 80203 Phone: 303-839-3714

The Self-Nomination and Acceptance Form must be returned to the Designated Election Official by close of business (5:00 p.m. MST) on Friday, February 24, 2023. The form should be emailed to rnavant@spencerfane.com. If the designated election official determines that a self-nomination and acceptance form is not sufficient, the eligible elector who submitted the form may amend the form at any time prior to the close of business on the day of the deadline.

Affidavit of Intent To Be A Write-In-Candidate forms must be submitted to the office of the Designated Election Official by the close of business on Monday, February 27, 2023.

NOTICE IS FURTHER GIVEN that an application for an absentee ballot may be filed with the Designated Election Official, at the contact information referenced above, no later than the close of business on Tuesday, April 25, 2023.

SPRING MESA METROPOLITAN DISTRICT

Robin A. Navant, Designated Election Official

Legal Notice No. 415649

First Publication: February 9, 2023

Last Publication: February 9, 2023

Publisher: Golden Transcript Jeffco Transcript and the Arvada Press Public Notice

A CALL FOR NOMINATIONS Sections 1-4-912; 1-13.5-303; 1-13.5-305; 1-13.5-501; 1-13.5-1002 and 32-1-902(2), C.R.S. TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN, and, particularly, to the electors of the VAUXMONT METROPOLITAN DISTRICT, of JEFFERSON County, Colorado.

NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN that an election will be held on the 2nd day of May, 2023, between the hours of 7:00 a. m. and 7:00 p. m. At that time, three (3) directors will be elected to serve four (4)-year terms. Eligible electors of the VAUXMONT METROPOLITAN DISTRICT interested in serving on the board of directors may obtain a Self-Nomination and Acceptance form from Sarah

E. E. Shepherd, the District Designated Election Official (DEO), at info@ccrider.us, or by calling 303-482-1002. The deadline to submit a Self-Nomination and

Acceptance is close of business on Friday, February 24, 2023 (not less than 67 days before the election). If the DEO determines that a SelfNomination and Acceptance form is not sufficient, the eligible elector who submitted the form may amend the form at any time prior to the close of business on the day of the deadline. Affidavit of Intent to be a write-in-candidate forms must be submitted to the office of the designated election official by the close of business on Monday, February 27, 2023 (the sixty-fourth day before the election).

NOTICE IS FURTHER GIVEN, that requests for an application for an absentee voter’s ballot may be made orally or in writing with the designated election official no later than the close of business on Tuesday, April 25, 2023, at the address and telephone number listed above between the hours of 9:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m.

VAUXMONT METROPOLITAN DISTRICT

By: /S/ SARAH E. E. SHEPHERD

Designated Election Official

Legal Notice No. 415676

First Publication: February 9, 2023

Last Publication: February 9, 2023

Publisher: Golden Transcript Jeffco Transcript and the Arvada Press

Public Notice

TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN, and, particularly, to the electors of the Apex Park and Recreation District of Jefferson County, Colorado (the “District”):

on the

day of May, 2023

between the hours of 7:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. At that time, two (2) directors will be elected to serve four-year (4) terms. Eligible electors of the District interested in serving on the Board of Directors may obtain a Self-Nomination and Acceptance form from the District’s Designated Election Official (DEO): Sarah Shepherd at info@ccrider.us, 303-482-1002 or with the District’s Deputy DEO: Brook-Lyn Greenwood, Apex Center, 13150 West 72nd Avenue, Arvada, CO 80005, 303.403.2518, Brook-LynG@apexprd.org.

The office of the DEO is open Monday through Friday from 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. The Deputy DEO’s office is open Monday through Friday 8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. The deadline to submit a Self-Nomination and Acceptance form is close of business on Friday, February 24, 2023 (67th day before the election). An Affidavit of Intent to be a Write-In Candidate form must be submitted to the office of the DEO by the close of business on Monday, February 27, 2023 (64th day before the election).

NOTICE IS FURTHER GIVEN that an application for an absentee ballot shall be filed with the Designated Election Official no later than the close of business on the Tuesday preceding the election, April 25, 2023.

By: /s/ Sarah Shepherd

Designated Election Official

Publish in: Golden Transcript and Arvada Press Publish once: Between January 22, 2023 and February 16, 2023

Legal Notice No. 415677

First Publication: February 9, 2023

Last Publication: February 9, 2023

Publisher: Golden Transcript and the Arvada Press ###

Cars parked along Littleton’s Main Street.

PHOTO BY NINA JOSS