Under current policy, if Superintendent Alex Marrero plans to recommend schools be closed, he must do so each August and the board has to vote on whether to approve his proposal by November of that same year.

But under a proposed amendment to that policy, the superintendent would need to wait at least three years before presenting another round of closures. However, Marrero could propose additional closures if faced with a significant change in enrollment or funding, or an emergency, according to the latest draft of the policy change.

If enacted, Marrero wouldn’t be able to seek additional school closures outside of those exceptions until the 2028-29 academic year, since DPS is closing schools this spring.

The school board voted the amendment into second reading without discussion during a meeting Monday, a needed step before members can finalize the change to their school closure policy.

The policy change comes five months after the seven-member board voted to close or restructure 10 schools at the end of the current academic year, a move that is aimed at preventing a potential financial crisis as DPS enrollment falls.

The school board is also considering a policy that, if approved, would direct Marrero to potentially change school boundaries in response to the city’s shifting demographic and housing trends.

Board members have historically been reluctant to close schools despite enrollment falling since 2019 as Denverites have fewer babies and high housing costs push families out of the city.

Public school enrollment is falling across Colorado, and other districts, including Jeffco Public Schools and the Douglas County School District, have either closed schools or are weighing such decisions.

DPS, the state’s largest district, saw enrollment jump in recent years because of the arrival of more than 4,700 immigrant students. But at 90,450 pupils, enrollment remains below the peak of 92,112 students five years ago.

The board rejected Marrero’s recommendation to close 10 elementary and middle schools in 2022 before eventually agreeing to shutter three schools in 2023.

But board members were resigned to the fact that they needed to close schools when the superintendent presented his most recent consolidation plans last year and voted unanimously to do so.

Under that plan, DPS will close five elementary schools: Castro, Columbian, Palmer, Schmitt and the International Academy of Denver at Harrington. The district will also close two secondary schools: West Middle School and the Denver School of Innovation and Sustainable Design.

DPS will additionally restructure three schools — DCIS Baker 6-12, Dora Moore ECE-8 School and Kunsmiller Creative Arts Academy — so that they serve fewer grades.

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Under Johnston’s first-ever executive order, which was unveiled Monday afternoon, the new Denver Permitting Office will begin reviewing permit applications in mid-May with a promise to process applications in 180 days. If the one-stop shop fails to meet that threshold, developers may be able to recoup up to $10,000 in application fees.

In an interview with The Denver Post ahead of the announcement near Union Station, Johnston said that when he was campaigning for his position in 2023, he often heard complaints about the city’s permitting system, which for years has faced backlogs and delays in review cycles.

“People around the city said, ‘We love Denver and more and more, we don’t build here — or try to avoid building here — because it’s so difficult, so complicated and so slow that it raises costs,’ ” he said.

The new office, he hopes, will make Denver “the best place to do business as opposed to one of the most challenging.”

Johnston announced the changes at the Urban Egg, a new location for the breakfast and lunch eatery at 1550 Wewatta St. Randy Price, the owner of the restaurant, said it recently went through the city’s express permitting pilot program for the 16th Street Mall corridor to build its new location.

“This has been an unbelievable experience for transforming the process of permitting and getting us moving quickly,” Price said. “As an owner and a business founder, all you want to do is get in, get open, hire new staff members, contribute to (the) community and start producing tax revenue for the city.”

Currently, site development plans for large-scale housing and commercial projects pass through seven city departments and can take more than two years to process, according to a city news release summarizing the changes.

The new process will streamline permits from the Department of Community Planning and Development, the Department of Transportation and Infrastructure, Denver Parks and Recreation, the Fire Department, the Department of Housing Stability, the Department of Excise and Licenses, and Department of Public Health and Environment.

Construction permits are required for new buildings, buildouts and remodeling.

Applicants will also have a “project champion” at the city who helps them navigate the process, the release says.

The office, which will have an in-person counter open from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. on weekdays, will be committed to answering any questions on permitting within two days.

If the city fails to meet its accountability standard of 180 days, developers can bring their application to a review board made up of department directors for all the relevant agencies. If that board can’t make a final decision on the permit within 30 days, the city will refund some or all of the applicant’s permitting fees, Johnston said.

“I have no desire to pay anybody back money. So that’s a good incentive for us to get it right,” Johnston said.

Morgan Cullen, the director of government affairs for the Home Builders Association of Metro Denver, said its task force has met with city officials and suggested improvements on permit reviews for several years.

In a statement, he said the association “is looking forward to reviewing the steps proposed … to streamline the review and permitting process. Improving permitting timelines is an important priority for HBA members that are actively building in Denver. The permitting process is a significant factor in the cost of building a home, and any improvements to that process will help our members better provide attainable housing in Denver.”

Johnston said this is the first time the city has ever committed to a specific timeframe for processing permits. The planning department long has had target review times depending on the type of permit or plan, but at times has missed the mark significantly amid backlogs.

The most recent figures on Denver Development Services’ public dashboard show permit approval times have averaged 256 days for major commercial projects, which include large multifamily residential buildings. Application approvals have averaged 355 days — nearly a year — for major residential projects, including new houses.

The mayor’s office worked with developers and builders, many of whom have been frustrated with slow approvals, to develop the new approach.

Jill Jennings Golich, the deputy executive director of Community Planning and Development, will serve as the director of the office and will have two staffers reporting to her.

“I look forward to building off our success in 2024 to work collaboratively with all city partners involved in permitting and our customers,” Golich said in the press release.

Johnston’s office reduced some city permit processes by about a third between 2023 and 2024, according to the release.

Event permits will still be processed separately.

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But state Insurance Commissioner Michael Conway and Democratic lawmakers believe adding a 1% fee to policies sold statewide could, in the long run, make premiums less expensive. That fee likely would add an additional $32 a year to the price of an average homeowner’s policy.

“This is a little bit of investment upfront for a long-term gain,” Rep. Kyle Brown, D-Louisville, said last week during a House Finance Committee meeting. “This small fee we are putting in place will help lower insurance costs by funding more resilient communities and more fortified roofs.”

Those fees would go toward two state-funded programs — one to address hail damage, the other wildfire risk —  that they believe would prevent more insurance companies from fleeing the state. More competition would help lower premiums, Conway said. And they also believe the more people do to protect their homes from wildfires and hail, the less their rates will rise and maybe even drop.

Two bills winding their way through the legislature are aimed at addressing the increasing difficulty Coloradans are having in finding and affording insurance for their houses.

The first bill, House Bill 1302, would create two enterprise boards: One that would levy a 0.5% fee on insurance policy premiums to pay for a reinsurance program to help offset insurers’ wildfire losses, and one that would add a second 0.5% fee on premiums to manage a grant program to help homeowners buy hail-resistant roofs.

The other bill, House Bill 1182, would regulate how property insurance companies use computer models to predict risk and then use that information to set rates. Consumer advocates say those models inflate costs and do not take into consideration any mitigation work done by property owners or communities. If the bill becomes law, insurance companies would be required to inform customers of their wildfire risk score and explain steps they could take to improve that score and potentially lower their costs.

“People feel the urgency to mitigate the risk. They see their rates going up,” said Rep. Brianna Titone, D-Arvada, one of the bill’s sponsors. “They want to do something, and they’re just kind of left wondering what they can do and how they can actually help protect their homes and reduce their rates.”

One of the issues with that bill is the question of who would determine what types of mitigation work — such as installing new roofs or trimming vegetation — would be acceptable and how that would be verified, said Carole Walker, executive director of the Rocky Mountain Insurance Association, which represents 85% of the insurance companies doing business in Colorado.

Insurance companies also are concerned about how those consumer notifications would work and what actions insurers would need to take to comply with the law, she said.

“There were concerns this was so onerous that there’s compliance issues. Third-party modelers might say, ‘We can’t do business in Colorado,’ ” Walker said. “A tipping point is pretty close and we need to make sure that, with stakes as high as they are, we get it right.”

Tackling the state’s insurance crisis

The two bills are the latest attempt by Gov. Jared Polis’s administration and state lawmakers to solve Colorado’s property insurance crisis. Rates have skyrocketed in the past five years because of increasingly severe weather and wildfires, which are growing more destructive because of the impact of climate change in the state.

The issue became a priority after 2020 and 2021 when wildfires in Boulder, Grand and Larimer counties incinerated billions of dollars worth of property.

The 2021 Marshall fire, which destroyed more than $2 billion in houses, condos, apartments and commercial buildings in Boulder County, hastened the crisis, and people began calling the Colorado Division of Insurance asking for help after their insurance carriers began dropping them or raising rates.

But the efforts to rein in insurance affordability are stymied by the insurance industry itself, which experts say was not profitable in Colorado for eight of the last 11 years.

The bill that would increase fees for homeowners already has been drastically changed after the Rocky Mountain Insurance Association and other trade associations vowed to oppose it, saying the legislation would drive more businesses out of the Colorado market.

Those groups now are taking a neutral position at the legislature after lawmakers changed the proposed fee structure and removed a provision that would have impacted insurance company profits.

The legislation also is being proposed as Colorado launches its new last-resort homeowners insurance program called the FAIR Plan. That program is designed to provide bare-bones coverage to those who cannot find a company willing to write a policy for their property.

But the FAIR Plan also will cause rates to rise statewide because insurance carriers have paid $51 million so far to fund the program, and those costs will be passed down to consumers.

Biggest problem by far is hail

While wildfires get the headlines. another weather catastrophe drives up costs, too — hail.

“Our biggest affordability issue in the state from a homeowners perspective by far is hail,” Conway said in an interview.

So HB-1302 would create a “strengthen Colorado homes” enterprise board that would distribute grants to homeowners so they could buy hail-fortified roofs. Homes that already have fortified roofs would be exempt and the fee would be eliminated from a homeowner’s policy upon replacing an old roof with a hail-resistant one, according to the bill.

A second enterprise board would serve as a reinsurance program for wildfire recovery.

“We want to put together a reinsurance program that could offset $200 (million) to $300 million of wildfire risk in the state for a single event,” Conway said.

Within the industry, frontline insurance companies like AllState and Geico buy backup insurance policies in case they are forced to pay out massive claims after a major disaster. That market is growing increasingly tight, which is discouraging some companies that write those backup policies — or reinsurance — from doing business in Colorado.

The state hopes that by offering money to offset losses in the reinsurance sector, it can lure business back, Conway said.

“For this purpose, we would be absorbing a potential risk for these companies and it would reduce their premiums,” he said.

Colorado established a state-funded reinsurance program for health insurance in 2019, and Polis last fall announced it would save Coloradans $493 million next year, compared to how much premiums would have risen without it.

Both bills are supported by United Policyholders, a consumer advocacy group, as well as local governments and fire departments.

The reinsurance market is unregulated and that sector of the industry’s withdrawal from Colorado is driving up prices, Amy Bach, executive director of United Policyholders, said during last week’s House Finance Committee meeting. By creating a state-funded reinsurance program, more companies should return to the market and, with the guarantee of the state helping cover losses, they should sell their policies at more reasonable rates, she said.

“This seems to get at the core of what is making it so hard for homeowners,” Bach said. “It makes a lot of sense and is the future of what we need to do.”

Some Republican legislators on the committee opposed the enterprise board bill, saying they did not want to raise out-of-pocket costs for homeowners, although one Republican on the committee voted in favor of it.

“People in my district are concerned with the nickel and diming when it comes to fees,” said Rep. Ryan Gonzalez, R-Weld County, who voted against the bill.

“Fragility of the homeowner insurance market”

The structure of both boards and how they would operate remains in question. For example, the hail enterprise board would have to decide how much it would distribute to individual homeowners and who would qualify for the grants.

The general idea, Conway told the legislators, was that the grants would cover the gap between the cost to replace a normal roof and the additional expense of buying a hail-fortified roof. The board might administer a lottery system to decide who would get the money.

Conway estimated a fortified roof costs an extra $3,000 to $4,000 for a 2,000-square-foot home. By funding that amount, the enterprise would be able to stretch its dollars further, increasing the overall number of homes with roofs that can better withstand hailstorms, he said. A similar program in Alabama has proven to help lower insurance premiums, he said.

That should lower premiums for everyone because insurance companies have less liability. And homeowners with hail-fortified roofs should see up to $400 in reduced premiums, Conway said.

Walker, of the Rocky Mountain Insurance Association, warned that the legislature needs to be careful in its attempts to address the affordability and availability of homeowners insurance.

If insurance is unaffordable, people won’t be able to buy or sell homes, since banks require mortgage holders to have insurance policies. But insurance companies also cannot afford to continue losing money in the state, she said.

“As a Colorado homeowner, I’ve never been more worried about the fragility of the homeowner insurance market and the ability of decisions at the Colorado State Capitol to disrupt the availability,” she said.

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About halfway through his search, he said, he thought he had landed a place near downtown. At the last minute, an out-of-state buyer came in with fistfuls of cash and dropped $50,000 above his offer. His dream home — so tantalizingly within reach — now belonged to someone else.

“I almost moved out of Littleton,” said the Greeley native, who went back to renting in the city.

Hanks, 32, and his wife did finally buy a house in Littleton a year ago, landing a mortgage — albeit one that’s “definitely a stretch” — to cover the $600,000 price tag of the modest 1,700-square-foot home near Sterne Park. But he knows of so many other young families in his generation who feel “fatalistic” about breaking into the metro Denver housing market.

Colorado’s housing challenge is clearly not a Littleton-only problem. But in recent months, the city of 45,000 has become a reluctant microcosm of the larger battle playing out, in which a shortage of 70,000 houses, apartments and condos in metro Denver has kept home prices high.

The situation has prompted state lawmakers in recent years to pass legislation aimed at boosting density in cities across the state. That, in turn, has led some municipalities to resist such efforts as an infringement of their local control over land-use decisions. Pressure has also come from below, as in Englewood — where an attempt to encourage more density in the city abutting Denver prompted recall elections in 2023.

In Littleton, things came to a boil in January. City leaders, after facing significant resistance, tabled a proposed zoning ordinance dubbed the Neighborhood Housing Opportunities initiative. It would have permitted denser types of housing throughout the city, like duplexes, triplexes and attached townhomes.

Many homeowners saw the measure as an assault on the character of their suburban haven, which is largely made up of tidy single-family homes tucked into leafy neighborhoods.

But the building of more detached homes likely won’t lead Colorado out of its housing woes, advocates of greater density argue. In metro Denver, the median sales price of a home last month was $599,000 — just 3.9% below the April 2022 price peak.

“They feel they’re never going to own,” Hanks said of friends struggling to afford a place of their own.

Shortly after the showdown at city hall, a newly constituted citizen advocacy group that preaches caution on densification sprung up, called Rooted in Littleton (formerly known as Save Old Littleton). The group commissioned a survey from Magellan Strategies, a polling form that last month asked nearly 1,200 residents questions about Littleton’s residential portfolio.

The survey, the results of which were released in late March, found a strong lean toward supporting less housing density in Littleton. One notable result from the survey was a strong preference (among more than 3 in 4 respondents) for a direct voter voice in any future major zoning decisions in the city, rather than leaving it up to the City Council.

That sentiment alone told Joe Whitney, a nearly 30-year resident of the city who helped start Rooted in Littleton, that his fellow denizens felt they weren’t being listened to enough.

“Blanket zoning and blanket density is not the answer,” said Whitney, 64. “It’s like setting a wildfire to do a controlled burn.”

Resistance to state laws

Littleton isn’t just seeing recalcitrance on changes to its land-use code from its residents. Like the rest of Colorado’s municipalities, it is also negotiating directives on housing policy coming down from the state — some of which have triggered a forceful local-control defense instinct.

Littleton’s council recently passed two resolutions staking out positions on housing bills moving through the state legislature this session. It urged a “no” vote on House Bill 1169, the so-called YIGBY — or “Yes in God’s Backyard” — bill that would generally allow religious groups and educational institutions to build housing on their properties, regardless of how the land is zoned.

The Colorado Municipal League has called the bill an “unconstitutional” assault on cities’ and towns’ home-rule authority — and a measure that rejects “sound long-range community planning.”

Conversely, the Littleton council urged a yes vote by the legislature on a construction-defects reform bill that lawmakers are pitching as a way to encourage more condominium construction in a state that has seen little of it in the last few decades.

On April 24, the city will host an open house to discuss how it should comply with upcoming state mandates on housing and related matters that passed in the 2024 session, affecting Front Range communities. Those include laws dealing with allowing accessory dwelling units — including garage and backyard units — as well as parking requirements in neighborhoods near transit stops and residential occupancy limits.

Final votes by the Littleton council on implementing those mandates are expected in June.

At the height of the debate over the city’s proposed zoning measure in January, Councilwoman Pam Grove — who’s co-hosting the upcoming open house — said that during her half-dozen years in office, “never has an issue hit such a hot button.”

“We’re getting pressure from the state, and we have citizens in our city that feel strongly one way or another,” she said. “We can only do so much to fix this.”

A housing study commissioned by Littleton in 2017 projected 15,000 more people would move to the city over the next two decades. That would translate into 6,500 more housing units needed in the city by the 2040s.

So far, Littleton hasn’t joined the growing list of cities that have pledged to push back on state housing laws they see as overreaching. Westminster, Arvada and Northglenn are three metro cities that have indicated they may not fully comply with the laws, Colorado Public Radio reported in February.

The resistance goes beyond metro Denver. Colorado Springs officials said recently that they would take a stand against the accessory dwelling unit mandate passed by state lawmakers last year. Last month, the Lafayette City Council mulled taking legal action against the state over House Bill 24-1313, a law that required cities to allow denser developments around transit stations.

The Colorado Municipal League has mounted challenges against a number of housing bills over the last few years. Kevin Bommer, the organization’s executive director, said some of his member cities haven’t always felt included in the process of crafting those laws.

“When you have a bunch of people sitting in the room thinking about what local communities should do — but when you don’t have feedback or input from local governments — the outcomes aren’t necessarily things local governments can live with,” he said.

And cities, Bommer said, don’t build — “cities plan.”

“That’s what Littleton is doing. That’s what Arvada is doing, and Westminster,” he said. “What they need is the state to be a partner, instead of telling them what to do.”

What do Littleton’s residents think?

At the same time, Littleton’s city officials are facing pushback from residents exercised about potential changes to their neighborhoods. The Magellan survey, which was sent to 1,197 registered voters by text March 6-11, showed a strong lean among respondents toward prohibiting — or tightly controlling — density in the city.

The survey, conducted by a well-regarded Colorado polling firm, had a margin of error of plus or minus 2.79 percentage points.

A majority of respondents felt that denser housing in Littleton would not lower home prices, would not alleviate traffic congestion, would not reduce wildfire risk and would not reduce homelessness. When asked if they supported or opposed policies that would increase the housing density of some city neighborhoods, 54% came out in opposition, versus 44% in favor.

But there was a notable difference between age groups. Among respondents 18 to 44, support for more density outpaced the opposition, 53% to 45%. In the 45 to 64 cohort, however, increased density in the city lost by a wider 61%-to-34% margin.

And renters, who tend to skew younger, urged more density in Littleton by a nearly 2-to-1 margin, according to the poll.

Councilman Stephen Barr said he’s not surprised by the numbers, especially when it comes to the age breakdown. Barr, 38, moved to Littleton in 2018 and rented before buying a unit in a quadplex three years ago — the very kind of “missing middle” housing that Littleton’s 2017 housing survey said was needed to absorb the city’s projected population increase.

Having lived in a 400-square-foot accessory dwelling unit over a detached garage in California before moving to Colorado, Barr was the only person on the council in favor of adopting the Neighborhood Housing Opportunities initiative. He called the measure a “reasonably equitable step in starting to tackle this question.”

“If you’ve had economic security for 30 or 40 years, then we’re coming from different places,” said Barr, who graduated college just as the economy was cratering in 2009 amid the Great Recession. “As a renter, as someone who has lived in an ADU, as someone who lives in a quadplex — it’s hard to hear that the ways in which I’ve lived are unwanted.”

Whitney, with the Rooted in Littleton group, conceded that the high barrier to entry for younger people looking for a starter home in the metro area is something to pay attention to.

“It’s a valid claim,” he said.

But when it comes to making sometimes-drastic changes to someone’s neighborhood, most people see the largest investment they will ever make — their home — as sacrosanct, he said. It becomes “such an emotionally charged issue for people” — and one that is much bigger than one city alone.

“It’s a nationwide problem we have in terms of affordability,” Whitney said. “I don’t think it’s Littleton’s job to solve it for America or for Colorado.”

“It was a good policy,” mayor says

Littleton Mayor Kyle Schlachter has reservations about how the Magellan survey was conducted and how the questions were worded. He took the survey and determined that the results should be “taken with a grain of salt.”

He feels there is more sympathy for the city’s efforts than the survey results revealed, he said.

“I think it was a good policy. It was a good ordinance,” Schlachter said of the Neighborhood Housing Opportunities initiative. “But there were threats of lawsuits, threats of referenda and threats of recalls.”

Approving it, he said, would have been “one step forward and two steps backward” in the effort to make Littleton more affordable. City officials need look no further than next door to Englewood, where two years ago a similar focus on density led to recall efforts and lots of consternation in the community.

Four of seven council positions were subject to a recall election in the fall of 2023, an effort that ultimately failed.

While Littleton has tabled its rezoning ordinance indefinitely, that doesn’t mean residents are a hard no for any type of effort to bolster density in the city. Where that type of housing is located seems to matter a great deal.

A question on the survey that asked respondents whether they supported increased housing density within two blocks of busy Santa Fe Drive, Broadway, Mineral Avenue or Littleton Boulevard lost 52% to 44%. But when that distance was reduced to one block, respondents came down 48% to 47% in favor of higher density — though that’s within the margin of error.

South Metro Housing Options, Littleton’s housing authority, has been busy building several projects geared toward offering more affordable options in recent years. In 2024, a project called Overlook at Powers Park opened with 51 income-qualified apartment homes for seniors 62 and older.

And this summer, groundbreaking is expected on the 50-unit Montview Flats project near downtown Littleton.

Another crack at a citywide zoning ordinance is not expected again this year, said Littleton deputy city manager Kathleen Osher.

Hanks, the 32-year-old new Littleton homeowner, said curtailing and limiting efforts to improve the chances of securing affordable housing in the city could mean it never happens.

“My fear is that the scope would be so narrow that it would be easy to shrink it to where it is ineffective,” he said. “At some point, you’re going to have to pass that torch.”

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Jefferson County Public Health requested the restraining order close to a year after an inspector hired by Phyllis Phillips found traces of meth in the kitchen, living room, two bedrooms and elsewhere in her rental property.

“(Phillips) continues to rent out units on the property to vulnerable tenants who face grave public health consequences from methamphetamine contamination,” the department wrote in its April 3 request for the order. “Continued access to a methamphetamine-affected property creates a hazardous threat to public safety and a very real and direct threat to the health of the individuals currently residing there.”

The property near Colfax Avenue and Kipling Street is one of at least four used to accommodate clients of the nonprofit Ange De La Mer Alternative Medicine Foundation, where Phillips serves as board president and whose programs include affordable and emergency housing.

Jefferson County has also asked District Court Judge Meegan Miloud to order Phillips to pay a $100 fine and either finish cleaning up the house at her own expense or demolish it.

Phillips on Friday said the inspection and cleanup process has already cost her about $60,000, and she has been trying to pull together more money to complete the additional testing demanded by regulators.

The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment referred to a meth lab having been on the property in a letter shared with the court by the county. But Phillips said previous occupants of the house only used the drug indoors and did not manufacture it.

She also said the one person still residing at the home is squatting there without her permission.

“I’m just stuck here. I’m trying to get this done,” she said. “I have tried very hard to get everything put back to normal for my property. They act like I haven’t done a thing.”

Phillips said she first hired an inspector to test for meth residue at the property in May following a homicide. Amounts found were dozens of times higher than what would require cleanup by a licensed contractor under state law, according to court documents.

Phillips paid for the decontamination of the property. However, in January, the county wrote in a letter that more testing, and possibly more decontamination work, needed to be done before tenants could return.

The state health department wrote in March that a previously unreported bedroom and RV, both occupied, also required inspection, as did other parts of the property, since the home was found to be permitted as single-family rather than a multi-family dwelling during the cleanup process.

At least three people were said to be living on the property at the time, according to the state.

The Jefferson County Board of Health ordered the immediate testing and cleanup of the property along with the removal of tenants March 18. But the county wrote in its request for a court order that a new occupant had been reported on the property April 1.

Phillips said she plans to pay for the additional testing, though she suspects occupants were not using methamphetamine in the areas that have yet to be tested or cleaned. She also said she does not plan to rent the property as a multi-family dwelling moving forward.

“This place is putting me in debt, big time,” Phillips said.

The next hearing in the case is scheduled for Wednesday.

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The Colorado Springs council on Tuesday voted 6-3 to send the question regarding the annexation of the Karman Line development to a special municipal election on June 17. The council also could have nixed its Jan. 28 decision to approve the annexation.

Several council members said letting voters decide the future of the annexation made the most sense of the two options, though they expressed hesitation about spending more than $500,000 to run the election.

The citywide vote provides an opportunity to start a conversation about what the future growth of Colorado Springs should look like — and how the city could remain vibrant while considering limited water resources, several council members said.

“I think there really is a central tension that we’re facing right now as a community, as a city on the Front Range,” said Councilwoman Nancy Henjum, who previously voted against annexing the development. “We’re a canary in the coal mine. We need more housing, but we have a finite amount of water.”

Opposition to the development included Colorado Springs and El Paso County residents concerned about growth and the risk of spreading city resources too thin. Much of the 1,900-acre development east of the city would not touch current city boundaries and would be concentrated nearly four miles from the city border.

Farmers downstream on the Arkansas River also told the council that they worried the annexation would increase pressure on Colorado Springs Utilities to source more water from the region’s farms. The loss of water would shrink even further the agriculture industry that is the backbone of the valley, resulting in far-reaching consequences, farmers said.

The Denver Post reported Sunday on the tension over limited water supplies in the valley and Colorado Springs’ growth.

Already, Colorado Springs Utilities estimates that annually, it will need 34,000 more acre-feet of water than it currently has — or 11 billion gallons — to meet population growth for when the city fully develops inside its current boundaries, estimated to occur around 2070. Every annexation of land into the state’s second-largest city adds to that future gap.

Karman Line would need approximately 1,672 acre-feet of water a year, or 645 million gallons. An acre foot is the amount of water it takes to cover an acre in a foot of water and is generally enough to provide for two Colorado families’ yearly needs.

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The proposed budget for the 2025-26 fiscal year, which starts in July, cleared the state Senate in perfunctory fashion last week. Now it begins what will likely be a more tense journey through the House. That means there will be few committee meetings on this side of the Capitol as House members spend most of the week debating the budget — known as the “long bill” — and its cluster of 60-some related measures, known as “orbitals.”

The long bill is, well, long, and the orbitals revolve around it. The legislature is a clever place.

If all goes to plan, the budget will be on the House floor Wednesday, Thursday and — if need be — Friday for a parade of amendment proposals from Democrats and Republicans alike. It’ll then likely go to a conference committee of House and Senate legislators to resolve amendments made in each chamber before going to Gov. Jared Polis for passage into law.

The reason the budget’s visit to the House may be more tense is because there are rumors, just as happens every year now, that House Republicans may request that the long bill be read aloud. It’s a constitutionally protected procedural move that would essentially halt all other business while the budget — all of its many, many pages of mumbo-jumbo numbers and line items — is read out in monotone by a computer.

Doing so would take the better part of an entire calendar day.

House Republicans spokeswoman Laurel Boyle said Monday morning that the caucus was still sorting out its budget plans but added that its members would generally advance amendments challenging what Republican lawmakers consider “waste, fraud and abuse” in the budget.

The budget debate comes after a tense few days in the House. On Friday and Sunday, House Democrats limited and, for some measures, completely ended debate on four bills related to abortion and transgender rights. Limiting or ending debate are tools rarely deployed against filibusters or — in this case — heated debates.

We’ll see if that has consequences for the budget in a few days. Speaking of the budget: The school funding bill is also moving this week. After negotiations with nervous school districts, House Speaker Julie McCluskie unveiled her proposal last week, and it will be in the House’s Education Committee on Monday.

Here’s what else is happening in the Capitol this week, with votes subject to change:

Labor bill inches closer to finish line

Senate Bill 5 — Democrats’ and labor unions’ marquee bill of the year — passed a final committee vote last week and is now scheduled for House floor work this week. That might happen Tuesday or Friday.

We say “might” for two reasons: One, the budget is a floor-work blackhole from which no other bills can escape. And two — and more critically — is that negotiations around the bill are ongoing. The bill would eliminate a provision of labor law that requires a second union election before organized workers can fully negotiate a part of their contracts dealing with dues and fees. It’s backed by legislative Democrats and opposed by businesses and Polis, who has gestured at vetoing the bill should it pass without successful negotiations with businesses.

Such a deal hasn’t happened yet, though McCluskie is pushing. But time is running out: The bill now needs two votes in the House before moving to Polis, and there’s just one month left in the session.

Vacancy committee bonanza

Before the budget crunch begins, the House’s State, Civic, Military & Veteran Affairs Committee will hear five — F-I-V-E — bills Monday afternoon dealing with vacancies in elected offices. Typically that means vacancy committees — the process by which a small group of party officials and volunteers select a replacement when an elected official leaves office early.

The process has drawn intense scrutiny in recent years — roughly a third of the legislature earned a vacancy appointment at one point or another, and rumblings about backroom deals marred a recent process late last year and prompted renewed calls for reform.

Two of the bills focus on replacing county commissioners, and three deal broadly with vacancy committees. There’s an intraparty kerfuffle there, too, over competing bills on the latter topic. We’ll have more on that later today.

Housing vote — and a porn bill — in the Senate

Fresh from Budget Crunch: Part I, the Senate will have little time to catch its breath. Of many votes scheduled in that chamber this week, several are for housing bills. That includes House Bill 1169 — the so-called YIGBY bill, for “Yes in God’s Backyard” — which would make it easier for houses of worship and educational institutions to build housing on their land. That’s up for a first floor vote.

House Bill 1240 is also up for a floor vote, possibly as early as Monday. The bill would, among other things, give tenants more time to pay back-rent before their landlords can try to evict them.

House Bill 1108 will get a committee vote Thursday. That bill would block landlords from charging fees when one of their tenants dies in the middle of a lease.

Outside of the housing world, Senate Bill 201 is up for a first floor vote this week, too. That bill, which has bipartisan support, would require pornographic websites to check users’ ages before they’re allowed to access the material within. Similar policies have been adopted in other states.

Brace for more bill signings

On a final note: The tail end of the legislative session means Polis begins signing bills into law in earnest. That’s been happening for a few weeks now, of course, but as heaps of legislation crosses the line, expect to see more stories from us and others about proposals moving into state statute.

On Monday morning, Polis signed a bill eliminating anti-same sex marriage language from state law. Voters eliminated the defunct constitutional ban on same-sex marriages in November, and this bill conforms state law to the constitution — and to the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that invalidated our marriage bans.

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The opinion — sparked by a lawsuit from a tenant challenging allegations from her landlord — marked a shift, at least for the relatively small number of cases that would qualify under its parameters. Eviction proceedings are often dispatched in rapid succession, with relatively few tenants defended by lawyers and county judges typically denying requests for jury trials.

Then, in December, the court reversed itself. In a move that one housing lawyer said he’d never seen before, the court voluntarily withdrew the opinion because of its new understanding of an underlying fact in the case — how the tenant had been served her eviction notice.

The court then demurred on the deeper question about tenants’ access to jury trials. That question, the justices wrote, should actually be addressed by the legislature.

Now, Colorado lawmakers are seeking to provide an answer. House Bill 1235 would give tenants with factual disputes — like whether they violated specific parts of their lease — the ability to argue their case in front of a jury of their peers. The lawsuit that led to the withdrawn Supreme Court decision, for instance, turned on whether a tenant had violated her lease by having someone stay in her apartment for more than three months, among other allegations.

The jury option guaranteed under the bill generally would not apply to tenants facing eviction because they didn’t pay their rent, which is the basis for most eviction cases.

The bill passed an initial committee hearing in early March. Even with limited applicability, supporters argued, the ability to elevate eviction cases to jury trials was a key right for people facing the loss of their homes.

“We’re bringing this forward to support tenants’ rights in that they might have a chance to defend themselves in being able to stay in their home,” Rep. Jennifer Bacon, who’s sponsoring the bill with fellow Denver Democratic Rep. Steven Woodrow, said during a committee hearing last month. “Without the jury trial, the concern that we have is that (these cases) move very quickly and people can’t keep up.”

Opponents, meanwhile, have argued that the bill would lead to a surge of jury trials in an already overburdened court system. In interviews and in committee testimony, property owners and industry lawyers argued the tenants could abuse the jury-trial option to delay proceedings and that lawmakers have already gone too far in disrupting the balance between landlords and their renters.

“If (tenants) are going to demand one of these, county courts are not set up to instantaneously have them,” said Drew Hamrick, the general counsel for the Colorado Apartment Association. ” … It’s going to be a huge motivation to any defendant to ask for a jury trial for their own selfish perspective because it will buy them additional time.”

The debate comes at a pivotal moment in Colorado. As pandemic-era relief money has dried up, eviction filings have surged: There were nearly 16,000 such filings in Denver last year and nearly 45,000 more statewide, according to state and local data. Denver is projected to surpass that total in 2025, which would mean a third consecutive year of record-setting eviction filings in Colorado’s capital city.

Lawmakers in the Democrat-controlled legislature have pursued a multi-year agenda to slow evictions alongside efforts to set aside local and state money for rental assistance. A law passed two years ago allowed for tenants to participate in proceedings remotely, a marquee law from last year gives tenants a right of first refusal to renew their leases, and a bill advancing this year would give tenants more time to pay back-rent before they’re evicted.

Zach Neumann, the CEO of the Community Economic Defense Project, said evictions continue to climb. But policy efforts to address them have born fruit: Fewer cases in Denver have resulted in court-ordered displacement in recent years, he said, thanks to increased rental and legal assistance.

“Because of the pace of evictions and what we’ve seen in the housing market, it feels like a lot of the work of the past few years has been two steps forward, one step back,” Neumann said.

The multi-year legislative effort has prompted criticisms from property owners, landlords and Republican lawmakers that the legislature has gone too far in regulating the tenant-landlord relationship.

“I do not believe that evictions favor landlords and they haven’t for a while,” Jody Beckstead, an Arvada property manager, testified last month. “I just feel like the landlord persona is still villainized.”

Beckstead’s testimony came shortly before the bill advanced out of the House Judiciary Committee on a party-line vote. It now sits in the House Appropriations Committee — a legislative body tasked with overseeing legislative spending.

It’s a consequential stop: In a tight budget year, any amount of additional spending can be fatal, and the bill initially carried a roughly $1 million price tag over its first two years to account for more staff to handle an increased jury trial load. The bill was amended to make clear that judges can reject jury demands unless there’s a factual dispute that needs to be decided by a jury, and Bacon said she hopes that change will curb costs and fears of a rush of new trials.

Neumann, of the economic defense project, rejected the claims that a wave of filings would follow the bill’s passage.

“There’s no evidence to support these claims,” Neumann told lawmakers. “Their argument is maintaining an eviction process that moves quickly and with very little scrutiny.”

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Denverites can expect to see snow, rain, wind and below-freezing temperatures through Saturday night, according to the National Weather Service.

Starting at 1 p.m. Friday through 11 a.m. Sunday, city officials are expanding shelter capacity at the city’s regular “front door” shelter access points, including:

• Denver Rescue Mission Lawrence Street Community Center, 2222 Lawrence St., for individual men
• Samaritan House, 2301 Lawrence St., for individual women
• Urban Peak, 1630 S. Acoma St., for individuals ages 12 to 24
• Families in need may call the Connection Center at 303-295-3366

Shelter will also be available at The Aspen shelter in the former Doubletree hotel, 4040 Quebec St., and at 2601 W. 7th Ave.

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The proposal is still being drafted and has not yet been introduced in the state House; its details were described to The Denver Post by supporters and opponents Thursday. Broadly, the plan would speed up the state’s timeline to shift to renewable energy sources, such as wind and solar, and away from traditional, greenhouse gas-emitting power plants that contribute to climate change. Current state planning calls for hitting 100% clean energy by 2050.

Supporters cautioned that the legislation may not be introduced this year, given that the legislative session has roughly five weeks left and a number of significant bills still to debate. But the proposal is backed by Democratic legislators and environmental groups as a way to ratchet up Colorado’s clean energy offerings, particularly in the face of President Donald Trump’s efforts to slash environmental regulations and instill a “drill, baby, drill” mantra.

“With the federal government prioritizing fossil fuel interests over people and the environment, state climate action is more crucial than ever,” Paul Sherman, Conservation Colorado climate campaign manager, said in a statement Thursday. “Colorado has the power to lead the nation by embracing clean electricity solutions like solar and wind. We need to cut power plant pollution, invest in clean, reliable energy and protect public health, so our communities — not polluters — come first.”

Supporters said the proposal would provide a level of flexibility to utilities who couldn’t hit the new 2040 target. The proposal would also seek to limit those companies’ ability to grow their budgets — by raising rates on Colorado consumers — to adapt to the new targets.

The state has long sought to lower its greenhouse gas emissions and to improve Colorado’s air quality, with mixed results. A November report from the Colorado Energy Office and the state Department of Public Health and Environment showed that the state was not on track to meet its near-term goals of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. But the gap had narrowed from previous estimates, thanks in part to recent legislative efforts to change land-use policy and encourage denser housing development.

Legislative leadership was not immediately available to comment Thursday, and the governor’s office declined an interview request. In a statement, Polis spokeswoman Shelby Wieman said the state was already on track to “reach more than 85% emission reductions in the power sector by 2030 and on a path to nearly decarbonize the power sector by 2040.”

“As we look to expand on this successful framework to move us closer to our goals and reduce energy costs for consumers, we will continue to engage in a robust conversation with all those who have an interest in this policy, always putting consumers first,” Wieman wrote.

But the proposal has raised alarm bells among the business community and energy industry, who had been operating under the longer timeline established by the 2050 targets.

“This is moving the goal posts, no matter how you slice it,” said Meghan Dollar, the Colorado Chamber of Commerce’s senior vice president of governmental affairs.

A coalition of energy, business and some labor groups sent a joint letter to legislative leaders last week, asking them not to introduce legislation that would change the 2050 target. Because of the late hour of the legislative session, any new bills require special permission from leadership before they can be introduced, and opponents have pressed Democratic leaders in both the House and Senate to hold off on granting that permission.

The different groups have not traditionally agreed on energy transition goals, the letter states, but they united against this one because “we have to build out the framework thoughtfully, and with intention, to ensure that the energy transition doesn’t needlessly result in soaring energy costs.”

The signees included pipefitters unions, several electrical cooperatives, Xcel Energy and chambers of commerce and some county governments. It also drew condemnation from Action Colorado, which represents southern and rural parts of Colorado.

“This is a sweeping, complete 180 on energy policy in Colorado,” said Sara Blackhurst, the CEO of Action Colorado, said. She said utility providers and businesses have “poured their heart, soul and guts into” hitting the 2050 goal.

“To change that to 2040,” she said, “would be absolutely devastating.”

Matt Gerhart, a lawyer with Sierra Club, said the proposal would give more flexibility to energy providers. It would have them achieve 95% decarbonization by 2035 and 100% by 2040 — if they can do so within cost and reliability parameters.

“Everyone recognizes that affordability and reliability are the cornerstone of making the energy transition sustainable over the long run,” Gerhart said. The governor’s office echoed that sentiment, adding that the proposal would seek to cut the state’s emissions load as much as possible while seeking to balance affordability.

The proposal would serve as a vital bridge between the state’s 2030 and 2050 goals, he said, and would represent “meaningful progress” — without tying the hands of electricity producers if decarbonization efforts prove too expensive or unreliable to make the final push toward clean energy.

He said it would not be prescriptive or prioritize certain technologies, such as wind and solar energy generation, over other potential sources of clean energy. Blackhurst, however, said an early bill draft appeared to give preference to solar and wind sources.

“This bill is basically taking the clean energy framework (for 2030 emission goals) and extending it outward,” Gerhart said.

He could not predict if the bill would be introduced this year or not, however, given the ongoing discussions and ever tightening calendar before the legislature must adjourn on May 7. He also took umbrage at characterizations that the proposal would put parameters on what utilities can do.

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