Charlie Huntington, center, and Ylva Kroke, right, serve themselves dinner to join roommate Nate Nickrent, left, at the Chrysalis Cooperative on April 18, 2023 in Boulder, Colorado. The Chrysalis Cooperative housing co-op has a dozen housemates that share the old house near the Pearl Street Mall. Chrysalis Cooperative is one of four Boulder Housing coalition coops.
Though more than two dozens Colorado cities have some form of occupancy limits, Rutinel said that only a few actively enforce them. That includes college towns such as Fort Collins, where the maximum isBoulder spokeswoman Cate Stanek said the city hadn’t taken a position on the bill and she declined to comment on its potential impacts.
The overall goal of the land-use reforms is to allow for more development, particularly near transit areas, and for more housing options amid a combined affordability and availability crisis. The state is short tens of thousands of housing units, andStill, local governments — together with Republicans and some Democrats — have opposed the bill and its fellow land-use reform efforts as state government overreach.
Sen. Joann Ginal, a Fort Collins Democrat who opposed the bill, read letters from constituents opposing changes to occupancy limits. She and other critics argued that allowing for more people in one home or unit would negatively effect the character of neighborhoods that homeowners desired because of their low density.
The bill was initially only a few pages, but Rutinel and Mabrey added in a legislative declaration — essentially an argument for why the bill should be adopted. The Senate later stripped that language. That means that the House must now vote to accept that change or negotiate it further before sending it to Polis. Mabrey said Thursday he was still deciding how to proceed.