A Colorado town defies the guv’s agenda
It was encouraging to see a Colorado municipality back off plans to push denser housing on its residents, as reported by The Gazette last week. The Littleton City Council wisely relented to public outcry.
The council’s decision to shelve plans for multifamily housing in some single-family neighborhoods in the historic, south-metro Denver community was a welcome development — particularly because of its broader implications.
For one thing, it reaffirmed the fundamental duty of local governments to be responsive to their citizens above all else. It’s what Thomas Jefferson meant about the government closest to the people serving the people best.
Littleton, Colorado – Littleton City Council shocked homeowners over the Holidays with plans that threaten the future of the single family detached home designation in its zoning regulations. The single-family home zoning could soon be replaced with new zoning aimed to significantly increase neighborhood density with duplexes, triplexes and fourplexes across the city.
“If this is approved, it will totally and forever change our city into something no one will recognize in a few years,” said Laura Gabriel, former Chair of Littleton Historic Preservation Board.
Displacement Concerns Surround Residential Infill Project
Does it matter what the new infill looks like? How big or tall it is, whether it has yards of grass, concrete, or no yards at all? That all the trees are cut down to squeeze in the biggest box?
Many Portlanders would say “yes, it matters!”
My View: Infill project will not benefit ordinary folks
Portland city planners want to redevelop Portland’s single-family home neighborhoods by rezoning them for multifamily quadplex construction. They call this citywide rezoning plan the Residential Infill Project. The City Council will vote on the RIP later this year.
Missing Middle’s Biggest Mistakes
Daniel Parolek inspired a new movement for housing choice in 2010 when he coined the term “Missing Middle Housing,” a transformative concept that highlights a time-proven and beloved way to provide more housing and more housing choices in sustainable, walkable places.
Parolek says: only one of every five cities and states are implementing missing middle correctly.
New MIT study suggests the Yimby narrative on housing is wrong
The Yimby narrative – that higher density in US cities will bring down housing prices – doesn’t work in real life, a dramatic new study from an MIT doctoral student suggests.
In fact, the study, released today, shows that – at least in Chicago, where author Yonah Freemark complied the data – upzoning for greater density leads to increased housing costs.
Demolitions, speculation—and maybe not that much new housing anyway
I heard a remarkable amount of actual honesty about the city’s housing crisis at the Land Use and Transportation Committee hearing today.
I don’t know that the end result will be a sane policy, but at least most of the supes and the city planners were direct about what a series of new rezoning proposals would mean, on the ground and in practice.
City Commissioner Chloe Eudaly Says She Won’t Vote for An Upcoming Multiple-Unit Building Policy Without Added Tenant Protections
City Commissioner Chloe Eudaly says she won’t vote for a controversial zoning change next month without countermeasures to protect renters from eviction by developers seeking to build new units.
The policy the Portland City Council is considering is called the residential infill project. It would allow up to four units to be built on single-family lots.